396
a Inanet? (like Tiamat, En. xviii. . μ S.c.411f.). TS γῆς,
b Jer. xlix.
36, Ezek. XXXVii. ϱ, Dan. vii. 2.
Porter, Wellhausen, and Hoennicke: das Fudenchristentum, 194 f.). Only, the general description of redeemed Chris- tians in v. 9 is specifically applied in vii. 14 to the candidatus martyrum exercitus. Here as elsewhere John apparently con- ceives the final trial to be so searching and extensive that Christians will all be martyrs or confessors. The wonderful beauty of 9-17, whose truth rises above its original setting, requires no comment. it moved Renan (479, 480), after criticis- ing “le contour mesquin” of the Apoca- lypse in general, to rejoice in the book’s ‘‘symbolical expression of the cardinal principle that God is, but above all that He shall be. No doubt Paul put it better when he summed up the final goal of the universe in these words, that God may be all in all, But for a long while yet men will require a God who dwelis with them, sympathises with their trials, is mindful of their struggles, and wifes away every tear from their eyes.”
CHAPTER VIi.—Ver. 1. As on the synoptic scheme (Matt. xxiv. 31), physical convulsions and human terrors are fol- lowed by a pause during which the saints are secured. It is impossible and irrelevant to determine whether the winds’ blast and the sealing were already con- joined in the fragment or oral traditions which lay before this editor, or whether their combination is due to himself. They reflect the tradition underlying the synoptic apocalypse (Mark xiii. 24-27, etc., cf. Apoc. vi. 12-vii. 3), but here the safeguarding of the elect comes before, instead of after, the advent, and the four winds are agents of destruction instead of mere geographical points; besides, the role of messiah is omitted altogether. It is assumed not merely that these angels are the spirits of the four winds (Zech. vi. 5, and repeatedly in Enoch, e.g., Ixix. 22, “the spirits of the waters and of the winds and of all zephyrs”), but that some onset of the winds is imminent (ver. 2, cf. En. xviii. 22), as part of the horrors of the last catastrophe (for puni- tive winds, see Sir. xxxix. 28). Stray hints proving the existence of such a tradition (cf. Dan. vii. 2) have been col- lected (cf. S.C. 323 f.; A.C. 246, 247) ¢.¢., from Sibyll. viii. 203 f., etc., where a