ly
καὶ τὸ ζῶῷῶον τὸ
4δο ΑΠΟΚΑΛΥΨΙΣ ΙΩΑΝΝΟΥ uErom "γέμοντα ὀφθαλμῶν ἔμπροσθεν καὶ ὄπισθεν. 7. zek.i.10, on x. 12. πρῶτον ὅμοιον λέοντι, καὶ τὸ δεύτερον ζῶον ὅμοιον ” µόσχῳ, καὶ τὸ ν Num.
xxiii. 22, Τρίτον ζῶον ἔχων τὸ πρόσωπον ὡς ἀνθρώπου, καὶ τὸ τέταρτον Loov
xxiv.8 ο ον w “apiece” ὅμοιον ἀετῷ πετοµένῳ. (distribut. ,, as John li. 6, etc.) ‘ x Isa. vi. 3, και cf. Slav. En. xi. 2, ΧΧΙ. I. y Notin Isa. vi. 3 (LXX), ef. on i. 8.
lo’ > a 8. καὶ τὰ τέσσερα Loa, ἓν Kab’ ἓν αὐτῶν ἔχων " ἀνὰ πτέρυγας ἕξ, κυκλόθεν Ἰ καὶ ἔσωθεν γέµουσιν ὀφθαλμῶν, * ἀνάπαυσιν ” οὐκ ἔχουσιν ἡμέρας καὶ νυκτὸς λέγοντες, “Ἅγιος ἅγιος ἅγιος Κύριος ὁ Θεὸς ὁ 7 παντοκράτωρ, ς 4 ρε αλ κε , ”» ὁ ἦν καὶ 6 dv καὶ ὁ ἐρχόμενος.
1Itis arbitrary to omit (Wellh.) κυκλοθεν . . . οφθαλμων, and the variant addi- tion (και εξωθεν, Q, Pr., etc.) after κνκλοθεν is an attempt to smooth out the phrase
and the hot eastern sky is likened (in Job Xxxvii. 18) to a molten mirror, dry and bur- nished. Heaven is a sort of glorified temple (x Kings vii. 23, the sea in the Solomonic temple being copied from the oblong or round tank which represented the ocean at every Babylonian temple, while the earth was symbolised by the adjoining zikkurat), and the crystal fir- mament is a sort of sea. In Slav. En. iii. 1-3 the seer observes, in the first heaven, the ether, and then ‘‘a very great sea, greater than the earthly sea”. καὶ ἐν µέσῳ, «.T.A. : “ and in the middle (of each side) of the throne and (conse- quently) round about the throne,” the
four DVT of Ezek. i. 5, 18 (of. Apoc.
Bar. li. 11). γέμοντα κ.τ.λ., a bizarre but archaic symbol for completeness of life and intelligence rather than for Argus- like vigilance. The four angels of the presence in En. xl. 2 move out, like Milton’s seven (Par. Lost, iii. 647 f.), on various errands (Ixxi. 9, cf. Ixxxviii. 2, 3). The {6a of John are stationary, except in xv. 7, where the context (cf. vi. 6) might suggest that the seer took them to repre- sent creation or the forces of the natural world (cf. the rabbinic dictum: quattuor sunt qui principatum in hoc mundo ten- ent, inter creaturas homo, inter aues aquilo, inter pecora bos, inter bestias leo). Note also that when they worship (9), the πρεσβύτεροι acknowledge God’s creative glory (11), and that the O.T. cherubim are associated with the phenomena of the storm-cloud. The seer does not define them, however, and they may be, like the πρεσβύτεροι, a traditional and poetical trait of the heavenly οουτί.-- τέσσερα, cf. Slav. En. xxx. 13,14. The posture of the {oa may be visualised from a comparison of the Alhambra Court of the Lions.
Ver, 7. µόσχῳ, ‘an ox or steer ”’ (as
LXX). The four animals are freely compounded out of the classical figures of Ezekiel’s cherubim and the seraphim in Isa, vi.; the latter supply the six wings apiece. This function of cease- less praise (8-9) is taken from Enoch Ixi. 10 f., where the cherubim and seraphim are also associated but not identified with the angelic host (though in xl. the cherubim are equivalent to the four archangels); for a possible Baby- lonian astral background, cf. Zimmern in Schrader,® 626-632, and Clemen’s Re- ligionsgeschichtliche Evkldvung des N. T. (1909), pp. 74 f. Behind them lie the signs of the zodiac (the bull, the archer, the lion and the eagle, as a constellation of the North ; so, e.g., Gunkel, ' Bruston, etc.). The analogous figures of the four funerary genii before the Egyptian throne represent the four points of the compass.
Ver. 8. A description of the sounds and songs of heaven follows the picture of its 8ἱΡΗ8.---Ὑέμουσιν, either with τὰ τ.ζ. (ἔχων for once a real participle) or an asyndeton (if ἔχων here, as elsewhere in the Apocalypse, must be supplied with a copula), κυκλ. κ. ἐ. = ‘round their bodies and on the inside” (i,e., under- neath their wings), For the ceaseless praise, which resembles that of Nin-ib, the Assyrian deity, cf. on ver. 7 and ver. 11, also Enoch xxxix, 12 (the trisagion sung by the sleepless ones, 7.e., angels), Slav, En. xvii., and Test. Levi 3 (where endless praise is the function of denizens in the fourth heaven). The first line of the hymn is Isaianic, the second (6 ἦν κ.τ.λ.) is characteristic of the Apocalypse. In En. xli. 7 the sun and moon in their orbits ‘‘ give thanks and praise and rest not; for to them their thanksgiving is rest”. In the Apocalypse, however, the phenomena of nature are generally the objects or the scourges of the divine