Ver. 2. <A fresh wave of ecstasy catches up the seer. εὐθέως . . πνεύµατι,. repeating i. το, not because the author had forgotten his previous statement, and still less because anew source begins here (Vischer), but simply because every successive phase of this Spirit-conscious- ness, every new access of ecstasy, was. considered to be the result of a fresh in- spiration; so the O.T. prophets (e.g., Ezek. xi. I καὶ ἀγέλαβέν µε πνεῦμα κ.τ.λ. followed by νετ. 5 καὶ ἔπεσεν én” ἐμὲ πνεῦμα, ii. 2 and iii. 24; cf. Enoch xiv. Q καὶ ἄνεμοι ἐν τῇ Spdoer pov... εἰσήνεγκάν µε eis τὸν οὐρανόν followed by νετ. 14 ἐθεώρουν ἐν τ. 6. µ. καὶ ἰδοὺ κ.τελ., Ixxi. 1 ands, etc.). The primitive.
2—3.
3. καὶ 6 καθήµενος ὅμοιος " ὁράσει λίθῳ καὶ Ἶρις ' κυκλόθεν τοῦ θρόνου ™ ὅμοιος ὁράσει σµαραγδίνω.
k xxi. 20, Exod. xxviii. 20, xxxix. 13, Ezek. xxviii. 20. πι Cf. Win. § 11, 1.
also it is substituted for τόξον of LXX.
Christian conception of the Spirit was that of a\sudden and repeated trans- port rather than a continuous experience (Acts iv. 8, 31, etc.), particularly in the region of ecstasy. The royal presence is depicted in this theophany by means of similes and metaphors (partly rabbinic) which originally were suggested in part by the marvellous atmospheric colouring of an Eastern sky during storm or sunset ; several had been for long traditional and fanciful modes of expressing the divine transcendence (e.g., En. xiv. 18 f. the divine glory like crystal, etc.) which dominates the Apocalypse. God is a silent, enthroned (cf. 1 Kings xxii. I9 etc.), eternal Figure, hidden by the very excess of light, keeping ward and watch over his people, but never directly inter- fering in their affairs till the judgment, when mankind appears before his throne for doom and recompense. This reluct- ance to name or describe God, so char- acteristic of the later Judaism, was allied to the feeling which mediated his action upon the world through angels or through his Christ (see oni. 1 and xv. 8). For the tendency to describe God and heaven in priestly terms, cf. Gfrérer, i. 276 f. The whole of the present passage is illus- trated by Pirke Elieser, iv.: ‘‘majestas sancti benedicti est in medio quattuor classium angelicarum. Ipse _ insidet throno excelso eleuatus, atque solium eius sublime suspensum est sursum in aere, figura autem gloriae eius est sicut color Chasonal, juxta uerba prophetiae (Ezek. i. 27) . . . atque oculi per totum orbem discurrunt. Sagittae eius sunt ignis et grando ; a dextra eius uita est, a sinistra mors, sceptrum ignitum in manu eius. Expansum est ante eum uelum, et septem angeli qui prius creati sunt, famu- lantur ei ante uelum.. . infra thronum gloriae eius est sicuti lapis sapphiri.” Ver. 3. The sources of the general conception lie far back in passages like Isa. vi. 1 f., Ezek. i. 26 f., Dan. vii. ο f., Enoch xxxix., xl., xlvi., mediated by rab- binical interpretations. But it should be noted that in the palace-temple of Hatra, the Parthian capital, one well- known frieze contained a row of figures including the griffin, the eagle, the human face, the head of an ox, and an emblem on the cornice apparently repre-