να Ρ 2 ‘ ‘ 8 ‘ 4 λα oY καὶ ἐγένοντο } ἀστραπαὶ καὶ φωναὶ καὶ βρονταὶ καὶ " σεισμὸς καὶ χάλαζα µεγάλη.
the fugitive goddess was honoured on the local coinage. Coins of Hadrian’s reign associate the myth with Ephesus (EPECIQN AHTQ). At Hierapolis, ‘the story of the life of these divine person- ages formed the ritual of the Phrygian religion’’ (C. B. P. i. gt f.) ; the birth of a god is associated with Laodicea, one coin representing an infant god in the arms of a woman (Persephone) ; while in the legend of Rhea, as Ramsay points out (C. B. P. i. 34), Crete and Phrygia are closely allied (cf. also Sib. Orac. v. 130 f.). All this points decisively to the Hellenic form of the myth as the imme- diate source of the symbolic tradition (so, e.g., J. Weiss, Abbott, 99), though here as elsewhere in the Apocalypse the obscurity which surrounds the relations between Jewish or early Christian escha- tology and the ethnic environment ren- ders it difficult to determine the process of the latter’s undoubted influence on the former. Fortunately, this is a matter of subordinate importance. The essential thing is to ascertain not the soil on which such messianic conceptions grew, but the practical religious object to which the Christian prophet, as editor, has freely and naively applied them. His design is to show that the power of Satan on earth is doomed. Experience indeed witnesses (12-17) to his malice and mischief, but the present outburst of persecution is only the last campaign of a foe whose efforts have been already baffled and are soon to be crushed in the inexorable providence of God. The pro- phet dramatically uses his source or tradition to introduce Satan as a baffled opponent of the messiah (cf. on xi. 7), who is simply making the most of his time (νετ. 12). Moviturus mordet. Once this cardinal aim of the piece is grasped —and the proofs of it are overflowing— the accessory details fall into their proper place, just as in the interpretation of the parables. In all such products of the poetical and religious imagination, pic- turesque items, which were necessary to the completeness and impressiveness of the sketch, are not to be invested with primary significance. Besides, in the case of an old story or tradition which had passed through successive phases, it was inevitable that certain traits should lose much if not all of their meaning.
Ald. π.