Satp., either the gods of paganism
(LXX) or the evil spirits of contemporary superstition. In Enoch xix. 1, the spirits of the fallen angels “‘assuming many forms defile men and shall lead them astray to offer sacrifices to demons as to gods”; cf. xlvi. 7 (of the kings and rulers) ‘‘ their power rests on their riches, and their faith is in the gods which they have made with theirhands”. (See Clem. Strom. vi. 5. 39, 490)---ἀργυρᾶ, contracted form, as in 2 Tim. ii. 20 (Helbing, pp. 34 f.).—dapp., here in special sense of magic spells inciting to illicit lust (Arte- mid. v. 73), a prevalent Asiatic vice (cf. Greg. Naz. Orat. iv. 31). But in the imprecatory (ο. 100 B.C.) inscription of Rheneia (Dittenberger, Syll. Inscript. Graec.? pp. 676 f.), punishment is in, oked from τὸν κύριον τῶν πνευμάτων (cf. Apoc. xxii. 6) upon τοὺς δόλωι φονεύσαγ- τας ἢ φαρμακεύσαντας the hapless girl. The three vices of the decalogue occur here (as in Matt.) in the Hebrew order, not in that of the LXX (Rom. xiii. 9; Mark x. 19; Luke xviii. 20). Cf. on xxi. 8, and, for the connexion of polytheism and vice, Harnack’s Mission and Exp. of Christianity, i. (1908), pp. 290 4. Repen- tance here (as in xvi. 9. 11) is primarily a change of religion, but the prophet has evidently little hope of the pagan world. There is no polemic against the Egyptian worship of animals, and, in spite of the Jewish outlook upon the dolores Messiae, the Apocalypse ignores family disturb- ances and false messiahs as harbingers of the end.—Once more (cf. vii. τ f.) between the sixth (ix. 13-21) and the seventh (xi. 15-19) members of the series,