Ver. 4. As an agent of God, the angel is commissioned to ratify with Divine approval the petitions of the saints for the end; this involves retribution on the impenitent and hostile world. The pro- phet is sure such aspirations are in har- mony with God’s will.
Ver. 5. The censer, having offered incense to heaven, is now used to hurl fire upon the earth (adopted from Ezek. x. 2-7; cf. Lev. xvi. 12). As at the close of the trumpets (xi. το) and the bowls (xvi. 18), physical disturbances here ac- company the manifestation of God’s wrath and judgment. In answer to the prayers and longings of the saints(Renan, 393), God at last visits the impenitent pagan world with a series of catastrophes (vili., ix., cf. ix. 4), which herald the end and also give (though in vain, ix. 20, 21) an opportunity for repentance.
Note on viii. 3-5. This episode (in dumb show) of angel and incense, though apparently isolated, is an overture for the seri-s of judgments, of which the suc- cessive trumpet-blasts are precursors. The prayers of all the saints, which, like those of the martyrs in vi. 1ο, crave punishment upon God’s enemies through-
Ἄ---θ.
403
a Αα , pee \ > A ‘ A / AY ae = ψωτὸν καὶ ἐγέμισεν αὐτὸν ἐκ τοῦ πυρὸς τοῦ θυσιαστηρίου καὶ έβαλεν π vi. 13.
ο Exod. xix.
els τὴν 3 γῆν καὶ °éyevovto Bpovtai! καὶ φωναὶ καὶ ἀστραπαὶ καὶ 16, Ezek.
σεισμός»
6. Καὶ ot ἑπτὰ ἄγγελοι ἔχοντες τὰς 5 ἑπτὰ σάλπιγγας ἡτοίμασαν
χ. 3,
p Seven trumpets in Levi- tical orchestra,
Neh, xii. 41, etc.
1 Bpovrat και αστραπαι και Φωναι A, 16, 38, Me., Syr. (Lach., WH marg., ΑΙ., Ws.), text SQ, min., vg., Arm., S., Andc, Pr., etc. (Ti., Tr., WH, Bj., Sw., Bs.).
out the earth, are supported and rein- forced by the ministry ot this angel, and answered at once by the succession of incidents beginning with ver. 5. This object of Christian prayers, {.ε., the final ‘crisis, when Christ returns to crush his enemies and inaugurate his reign, per- vaded early Christianity as a whole. At special periods of intolerable persecution, it assumed under the stress of antagon- ism as herea more sensuous and plastic form than the ordinary consciousness of the church would have been usually dis- posed to cherish ; yet the common prayer of the church in any case was for the speedy end of the world (ἐλθέτω χάρις καὶ παρελθέτω 6 κόσμος οὗτος, Did. x.). In Apoc. Μος. (tr. Conybeare, Fewish Quart. Rev., 1895, 216-235) xxxiil., when the angels intercede for Adam at his ascension to heaven, they take golden censers and offer incense; whereupon smoke overshadows the very firmament. The intercession of angels on behalf of the saints, a result of their function as guardians, goes back to post-exilic Judaism with its inarticulated conception of the angels as helpful to mankind (Job v. τ. xxxiii. 23; Zech. 1. 12); subsequently the idea developed into a belief that the prayers of the pious won special efficacy as they were presented to God by angels such as Gabriel, Raphael, Michael, or the seven archangels (cf. Tobit, loc. cit. ; Slav. En. vii. 5; En. ix. 2-11, xv. 2, xl. 6, xlvii. 2, xcix. 3, 16, civ. 1). In Christi- anity this τὂ]ε was naturally absorbed by Christ, who alone ratified and inspired his people’s supplications. But the old belief evidently lingered in pious circles of Jewish Christianity (cf. Test. Lev. 3, 5), side by side with a complete accept- ance of Christ’s heavenly function. The latter did not immediately or universally wither up such survivals of the older faith; popular religion tended then as now to be wider at several points than its theoretical principles (as in Origen, Cels. ν. 4;.and Tertull. de Orat. xii.). Plato, in Sympos. 202 E., makes the
δαίµονες present men’s prayers and offer- ings to the gods, and mediate the latter’s commands and recompence to men (cf. Philo, de Somniis, i. 22, and on i. 1). See further xvii. 1, xxi. 9, for a similar state of matters in primitive Christianity with regard to the corresponding function of Jewish angels as intermediaries of revelation.