Ver. 5. ἀνοῖξαι . . . σφραγίδας, cf. Dittenberger’s Sylloge Inscr. Graec. 790% (first century) τὰς σφ. ἀνοιξάτω. Christ’s success is due to his legitimate messianic authority as a Davidic scion (ῥίζα = shoot or sprout on main stem, cf. Sibyll. iii. 396); the Davidic descent of Jesus was a tenet of certain circles in primitive Christianity (Dalman i. § 12). Possibly there is an allusion to the origi- nal bearing of the O.T. passage :—Jesus irresistible and courageous, yet in origin humble. In 4 Esdr. xii. 31, 32 the messiah's rebuke to the Roman empire is thus described: leonem quem uidisti de silva euigilantem mugientem et loguentem ad aquilam et arguentem eam iniquitatis ... hic est unctus, quem reseruauit altissimus in finem [dierum, qui dicitur
354
© Constr. XV. ο (iii. 27,28, Sol. iv. 13 ἐνίκησε σκορτπ- ίσαι), infin. of remote purpose (Blass, § 69, 3). I Chron. xxviii. 4. 56, Apoc. xiv. 1.
α 212
ας αὐτοῦ
f Gen. xlix. 9, Heb. vii. 14. h Diminut. preferred in Apoc. to auvds of 4th gospel, etc.
Vv.
λέγει µοι, ''Μὴ κλαῖε" ἰδοὺ "ἐνίκησεν ὅ λέων & ἐκ τῆς φυλῆ» 12 , ε cf - ς αν
Ιούδα, 5 ἡ pila Δαυείδ, ᾿ ἀνοῖξαι τὸ βιβλίον καὶ τὰς ἑπτὰ σφραγῖ- 6. Καὶ εἶδον ἐν µέσῳ τοῦ θρόνου καὶ τῶν τεσσάρων
, lol ζώων καὶ ἐν µέσῳ τῶν πρεσβυτέρων " ἀρνίον ' ἑστηκὸς] ὡς ἐσφαγ-
g xxii. 16, Isa. xi. 1=Rom. xv. 12, i Acts vii.
1 For εστηκος (APQ, min., Orig., Hipp., Lach., ΑΙ., WH, Bj., Sw., Ws.) Ti., Tr., Bs. read [Win. § 14, 5] εστηκως (1, 7, 28, 32, 87), which probably arose from dittography. Except for xviii. το, this is the only use of the longer participial form (cf. Helbing, 103) in the Apocalypse (even xiv. 1—s.v.l.—reproducing the shorter
form).
ex semine David]. ῥάβδος, in sense of ‘‘shoot”” occurs with ῥίζα in Isa. xi. 1 (cf. 10 ; Ezek. xix. 11, 12, 14) ; hence the combination with the idea of “sceptre”’ (ἐνίκησεν, cf. ii. 27) in a messianic con- notation (cf. on xxii. 16). The enigma of the world’s history lies with Christ, to be solved and to be controlled. Jewish eschatology (En. xlvi. 3, xlix. 1) had al- ready proclaimed the revealing power of messiah, who is ‘‘ mighty in all the secrets of righteousness... and who reveals all the treasures of that which is hidden”. John claims that Jesus is the legitimate messiah, whose power to un- fold God’s redeeming purpose rests upon his victorious inauguration of that pur- pose. The victory of Christ in v. 5 f. follows dramatically upon the allusion in ili, 21, but it is to press the sequence too far when this scene is taken to represent his arrival in heaven “ just after the ac- complishment of his victory” (Briggs).
Ver. 6. Christ, crucified and risen, is in the centre. To him all things bow and sing. It is prosaic to attempt any local definition, as though the author had some architectural plan in his mind (ἐν p. = “half-way up the throne,” or by repe- tition = “ between,” cf. Gen. i. 7), or to wonder how so prominent a figure had hitherto escaped his notice. Plainly the ἀρνίον did not originally belong to the mtse-en-scéne of iv., though the symbol may have none the less had an astral origin (= Ram, in Persian zodiac). The prophet brilliantly suggests, what was a commonplace of early Christianity, that the royal authority of Jesus was due to his suficring for men, but the framework of the sketch is drawn from messianic dogmas which tended to make Christ here a figure rather than a personality.— apviov (like θηρίον, diminutive only in form) is not taken from Jer. xi. 19 f. (LXX) by a writer who placed it in iuxta-
>
position with “lion” owing to the re
semblance of sound between FJIAW and aries (so variously Havet and Selwyn, 204-208), nor substituted (Vischer, Rauch) for the “lion” of the original Jewish source, but probably applied (cf. Hort on 1 Peter i. 19) to Jesus from the messianic interpretation of Isa. xvi. I or lili. 7, though the allusions elsewhere to the Exodus (xv. 2 f.) and the Johannine pre- dilection for the paschal Lamb suggest that the latter was also in the prophet’s mind. The collocation of lion and lamb is not harder than that of lion and root (ver. 5), and such an editor as Vischer and others postulate would not have left “lion” in νετ. 5 unchanged, Christ is erect and living (cf. xiv. 1 and Abbott’s Foh. Vocabulary, 1725), ὡς ἐσφαγμένον (as could be seen from the wound on the throat), yet endowed with complete power (κέρατα, Oriental symbol of force, cf. reff. and the rams’ horns of the Egyptian sun-god) and knowledge. For ἀρνίον and ἀμνός, cf. Abbott, 2tof. In Enoch Ixxxix. 44 f. (Gk.) David is ἄρνα prior to his coronation and Solomon “a little sheep” (i.e., a lamb).—d8adpots κ.τελ., the function ascribed by Plutarch (de defectu ογαο. 13) to daemons as the spies and scouts of God on earth. The naive symbolism is borrowed from the organisation of an ancient realm, whose ruler had to secure constant and accurate information regarding the various pro- vinces under his control. News (as the Tel-el-Amarna correspondence vividly shows) was essential to an Oriental monarch. The representation of Osiris in Egyptian mythology consisted of an eye and a sceptre (cf. Apoc. ii. 27), denot- ing foresight and force (Plut. de Iside, 51), while the ‘‘eyes” and “ears” of a Parthian monarch were officials or officers who kept him informed of all that trans- pired throughout the country. Else-