Vv. 18-29. Thelongest message of the seven is to a church in the least im- portant of the cities (judged from the historical standpoint) Thyatira, a town- ship of Northern Lydia, the holy city of Apollo Tyrimnaios, adjacent to the high road between Perg. and Sardis. It soon became a centre of Montanism.
Ver. 18. yadKkodtB. Some local al- lusion to the bronze-work for which Thyatira was famous. Son of God (cf. Kattenbusch ii. 563 f.) is practic- ally an equivalent for messiah (Luke iv. 41), or for the superhuman personality of Jesus as divinely commissioned (cf. Grill,
ΑΠΟΚΑΛΥΨΙΣ ΙΩΑΝΝΟΥ h
360
w Likewv. Τάδε λέγει "6 vids τοῦ θεοῦ, ὅ ἔχων τοὺς ὀφθαλμοὺς αὐτοῦ ὡς 26-27. Ay 5. from Ps. ” Φλὸξ 1 πυρός, καὶ ” οἱ πόδες αὐτοῦ ὅμοιοι χαλκολιβάνῳ: 19. Οἶδα ii. 7-9; , \ only here σου τὰ ἔργα καὶ τὴν ” ἀγάπην καὶ τὴν πίστιν καὶ τὴν διακονίαν καὶ
in Apoc. Β , A
Inine τὴν 3 ὑπομονήν σου, καὶ τὰ ἔργα σου τὰ ἔσχατα "πλείονα τῶν
script.= = A A >
dius filius, πρώτων. 20. "ANN ἔχω κατὰ σοῦ ὅτι ἀφεῖς τὴν yuvaika? °leLaBed
of Augus- a . 4
moe ἡ λέγουσα *éauTiy προφῆτιν, καὶ διδάσκει καὶ πλανᾷ τοὺς ° ἐμοὺς
(Deissm.
166-167 ; ς we ς ‘ : ;
Inscript. Maris AZ get, iii. 174, etc.). Xi. 14, cf. ἔραυν. νετ. 23. y i. 15, ος ὥς. + συντ.
νετ. 27. 211 ΛΑ isk. b Contrast ii. 4-5, Matt. xii. 45, 2 Pet. ii. 20, cf. Ruth iii. το. ς From 2 Kings ix. 22, cf. Sams. Agon. 1034-1045. d Constr. i. 5. e Possess. pron. only here:
in Apoc.
1For Φλογα (ACQP, etc., Lach., ΑΙ., WH, Ws., Sw.) read the harder Φλοξ (8 12 am., fuld., Pr:, Ti., Bs., Bj., sc. εστιν).
2The well-attested σου after Ύυναικα (AQ, min., Syr., Areth., Pr., etc., so Grot., Al., Zahn, and J. Weiss) may have arisen from the repeated σου previously or from 1 Kings xix.-xx. But any such allusion to the wife of the local bishop is untenable, and to retain it as = “ thy woman” (Ramsay, Seven Letters, 341) is harsh
in the extreme. Tert.
pp. 76-77) to carry out God’s purpose for his people (cf. John x. 36). But the ex- pression has pagan as well as Jewish colouring; and there is undoubtedly an apologetic allusion to the similar termino- logy of the Imperial cultus (cf. Introd. § 6).
Ver. 19. Instead of being retrograde like Ephesus, Thyatira has steadily pro- gressed in the works of Christianity. The sole flaw noted (see Ramsay’s dis- cussions in D. B. iv. 758 f., Seven Letters, 338 f.) is an undue laxity shown to certain members (not, as at Pergamos, a mere minority) who, under the sway (cf. Zahn, § 73, n. 7) of an influential woman, refused to separate themselves from the (ἐργασίαι) local guilds where moral interests, though not ostensibly defied, were often seriously compromised. The prophet takes up a puritan attitude, cor- roborated by that of the leading church of the district (ii. 6); he demands in the name of Christ that such inconsistent members should withdraw—a severe and costly step to take, amid the social ties and interests of an Asiatic city, where social clubs were a recognised feature of civic life and appealed forcibly to several natural instincts, especially when backed by the approval of an oracular and impres- sive leader in the local church.
Ver. 20. Women (cf. Acts xxi. 9; I Cor. xi. 5, and the later Ammia in Phil- adelphia: Eus. Η. E. v. 17. 2) occasionally prophesied in the early church, and false prophetesses were as likely to exist as false prophets. This ‘Jezebel of a woman, alleging herself to be a pro- phetess,” seems to have been some in-
It is to be omitted with $§CP, min., g., vg., Me., Arm. Aeth.,
fluential female (as the definite imagery of vv. 21-23 indicates); her lax prin- ciples or tendencies made for a connexion with foreign and compromising associa- tions which evidently exerted a dangerous. charm upon some weaker Christians in the city. The moral issue corresponds to that produced by the Nikolaitan party at Pergamos (εἰδ. dayetv, πορνεῦσαι), but the serious nature of the heresy at Thyatira appears from the fact that it was not simply propagated within the church but also notorious (ver. 23) and long-continued (τέκνα), thanks to ob- stinacy among the Ahabs and adherents of this prominent woman (ver. 21). They prided themselves on their enlightened liberalism (ver. 24). The definiteness of her personality, the fact of her situation within a Christian church which had jurisdiction over her, and the association of her practices with those of the Nikolai- tans, who were members of the church, render it impossible to identify this liber- tine influence of J. with a foreign institu- tion such as the famous shrine of the Chaldean Sibyl at Thyatira (Schiirer: Theol. Abhandlungen, pp. 39 f., a theory suggested by Blakesley, in Smith’s DB), or with the wife of the local Asiarch (Selwyn, 123). Besides it was not the cults but the trade-guilds that formed the problem at Thyatira. Jastrow points out (p. 267) that for some occult reason female sorcerers were preferred to men among the Babylonians; ‘the witch appears more frequently than the male sorcerer”. Hillel (Pirke Aboth, ii. 8: see Dr. C. Taylor’s note) had already de.