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370 ΑΠΟΚΑΛΥΨΜΙΣ ΙΩΑΝΝΟΥ ΠΠ. κ νο οὐρανοῦ ἀπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ µου, καὶ τὸ “dvoud µου τὸ καινό. 13. Ὁ Ne oe. ἔχων ots ἀκουσάτω τί τὸ Πνεῦμα λέγει ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις. ee i ας Καὶ τῷ ἀγγέλῳ τῆς ἐν Λαοδικίᾳ ἐκκλησίας γράψον, Τάδε ο μα ο. ὁ sale : "μάρτυς 6 πιστὸς καὶ " ἀληθινός, ° ἀρχὴ πας ene κτίσεως τοῦ θεοῦ" 15. Οἶδά σου τὰ ἔργα, ὅτι οὔτε ψυχρὸς Et οὔτε n= Genu-
tne, Did., xiii. 1-2.
Jesus Christ are to him στῆλαι καὶ τάφοι νεκρῶν, ἐφ᾽ ois γέγραπται µόνον ὀνόματα ἀνθρώπων. The µόνον is emphatit. In the survival of P. during the later con- quests which left the other six towns of the Apocalypse more or less ruined, Gibbon (ch. Ixiv.) irrelevantly finds “a pleasing example that the paths of honour and safety say sometimes be the same ”.
Vv. 14-22. The message for Laodicea, where a church existed by 60 a.p. (Col. iv. 16).
Ver. 14. Jesus is the Amen because he guarantees the truth of any statement, and the execution of any promise, made by himself. He is consequently the faithful and true witness, whose counsel and rebuke (18, 19) however surprising and unwelcome, are therefore to be laid to heart as authoritative. A faithful witness is one who can be trusted never to misrepresent his message, by exag- geration or suppression, (ἀληθινός practi- cally = ἀληθής as often, since a real witness is naturally a truthful and com- petent one) his veracity extending not only to his character but to the con- tents of his message. In point of sin- cerity and unerring insight (as opposed to “false” in both senses of the term), Jesus is the supreme moral critic; the church is the supreme object of his criti- cism. He is also absolutely trustworthy, and therefore his promises are to be be- lieved (vv. 20, 21), or rather God’s pro- mise€s are assured and realised to men through him (cf. π. καὶ ἀ. in 2 Macc. ii. 11). Compare the fine Assyrian hymn of Ishtar (Jastrow, p. 343): “ Fear not! the mind which speaks to thee comes with speech from me, withholding noth- ing. . . . Is there any utterance of mine that I addressed to thee, upon which thou couldst not rely?” (also, Eurip. on 1537). The resemblance of 4 ἀρχή κ.τ.λ., to a passage in Colossians is note- worthy as occurring in an open letter to the neighbouring church of Laodicea Philonic passages in Grill, pp. 106-110). Here the phrase denotes ‘the active SOurce or principle of God’s universe or ‘Creation ” (ἀρχή, as in Greek philosophy
ο See on Col. i. 15 f., also Just. A pol. ii. 6, Diognet. vii.
and Jewish wisdom-literature,=aitia or origin), which is practically Paul’s idea and that of John i. 3 (‘tthe Logos idea without the name Logos,” Beyschlag). This title of “ incipient cause” implies a position of priority to everything created; he is the first in the sense that he is neither creator (a prerogative of God in the Apocalypse), nor created, but creative. It forms the most explicit allusion to the pre-existence of Jesus in the Apocalypse, where he is usually regarded as a divine being whose heavenly power and position are the outcome of his earthly suffering and resurrection: John ascribes to him here (not at xii. 5, as Baldensperger, 85, thinks) that pre-existence which, in more or less vital forms, had been predicated of the messiah in Jewish apocalyptic (cf. En. xlviii.). This pre-existence of mes- siah is an extension of the principle of determinism ; God foreordained the salva- tion itself as well as its historical hour. See the Egyptian hymn: “He is the primeval one, and existed when as yet nothing existed; whatever is, He made it after He was. He is the father of beginnings. . . . God is the truth, He lives by Truth, He lives upon Truth, He is the king of Truth.” The evidence for the pre-existence of messiah in Jew- ish Christian literature is examined by Dr. G. A. Barton, ¥ourn. Bibl. Lit. τοο», ΡΡ. 78-91. Cf. Introd. § 6.