. and these great and never-failing
379
4 a 5. Kat %éx τοῦ θρόνου ἐκπορεύονται ἀσιραπαὶ καὶ φωναὶ καὶ α Ps. xvii. 14, Χχῖχ.,
αβρονταί * Jub. ii. 1.
καὶ " ἑπτὰ "λαμπάδες πυρὸς καιόµεναι ἐνώπιον τοῦ θρόνου σος é εἰσιν] τὰ ἑπτὰ πνεύματα τοῦ θεοῦ]. Tie
6. καὶ” ἐνώπιον τοῦ θρόνου ὡς "θάλασσα ! ὑαλίνη, ὁμοία κρυσ- αμ Sie.
τάλλῳ. eee
Καὶ ἐν µέσῳ τοῦ θρόνου καὶ κύκλῳ τοῦ θρόνου τέσσερα δα ταν τος.
Ezek. i. 22f., ἄπ. λεγ. N.T,
1Kither a εισιν (ΔΡ, 1, 36, 94, Syr., ΤΙ., WH, Sw., Bj.) or a εστιν (A, Lach., Ws., Bs.) is to be read for at εισιν (Q, etc., S., Areth.).
* Konnecke (Emendationen zu Stellen N.T., 34) and Bs. (?) om. και κνκλω του θρονου as a gloss (so min., Me., Harl., Arm., Tic.), while Bruston takes και εν
µεσω Tov θρονου as the mistranslation of Bp 57F ns) (= and the throne was
in the midst of it, {.ε., of the glassy sea). For τεσσαρα here and in ver. 8 read τεσσερα (A, edd.), as generally throughout Apoc. (a κοινή-{οτπι, possibly Ionian: Helbing, 5-6, Thumb, 72), though “the papyri would seem to supply decisive evi- dence for τεσσαρα as the first century form” (Class. Review, 1901, Ρ. 33, cf. 1904,
p. 107).
gods give unto him of the Tree of Life [Apoc. ii. 7] of which they themselves do eat, that he likewise may live.”
Ver. 5. The impression of awe is heightened by traits from the primitive Semitic theophany which, especially in judgment, was commonly associated with a thunderstorm (@wvat=the shrieks and roaring blasts of the storm). Thunder in the Apocalypse is either a sort of chorus in praise of God (as here) or punitive (e.g., xvi. 18); in Enoch lix. 1 the seer beholds the secrets of the thunder, ‘‘ how it ministers unto well-being and blessing, or serves for a curse before the Lord of Spirits”. For the ‘‘torches of fire” (seven being a sacred number=collective and manifold power, Jastrow 265, Trench 62-70) cf. Ezek. i. 13 ὡς ὄψις λαμπάδων συστρεφοµένων ἀναμέσον τῶν ζῴων καὶ Φφέγγος τοῦ πυρὸς καὶ ἐκ τοῦ πυρὸς ἐξεπορεύετο ἀστραπή, and Apoc. Bar. xxi. 6, where “holy living creatures, without number, of flame and fire”’ sur- round the throne. Fulness, intensity, energy, are implied in the figure, which reflects the traditional association (in the primitive mind) of fire and flame with the divinity, and especially with the divine purity or holiness of which they were regarded as an outward ex- pression. There may be an allusion to the ignes aeterni or sempiterni of Roman mythology, an equivalent for the heavenly bodies; but Jewish eschato- logy had for over two centuries been familiar with the seven watchers of the heavenly court and their counterparts in
Persian and Babylonian mythology. The combination of fire and crystal (ver. 6, see also xv. 2) goes back originally to Exod. xxiv. 9, 1Ο, 17, and Ezek. i. 22, 27, medi- ated by passages like En. xiv. 9, 17 f., 21-23; while the groundwork of the symbol answers to the seven Persian councillors (Ezra vii. 14, Esth. i. 14) who formed the immediate circle of the monarch, a counterpart of the divine Amshaspands, as well as to the sacred fire of Ormuzd, which (on Zoroastrian principles) was to be kept constantly burning. Seven burning altars, evidently representing a planetary symbolism, also occur in the cult of Mithra, while in the imageless temple of Melcarth at Gades fires always burned upon the altar, tended by white- robed priests.—5 c reads like an editorial comment or a liturgical gloss; the πρεσβύτεροι, ¢.g., are undefined.
Ver. 6. For a sea in heaven, cf. above (on νετ. 4). In Test. Patr. Levi. 2 the sea lies within the second (first) heaven ὕδωρ κρεµάμενον ἀνάμεσον τούτου Ka- κείνου, and in the Egyptian paradise the triumphant soul goes to ‘‘the great lake in the Fields of Peace,” where the gods dwell. The description, ‘a sea of glass, like crystal” (i.e., transparent, ancient glass being coarse and often semi-opaque,’ and ὕαλος being primarily=transparent, not vitreous) borrowed partly from archaic tradition (coloured by Egyptian and As- syrian ideas), is intended to portray the ether, clear and calm, shimmering and motionless. Rabbinic fancy compared the shining floor of the temple to crystal,