The keynote of the situation hinted in xii. 17 {6 is struck in’ xm ο. The dragon has given his authority to the beast ; what God’s people have now to contend with is no longer the O.T. Satan merely (xii. 9, 10) but his powerful and seductive delegate on earth. In the Imperial cultus the Christian prophet could see nothing except a supreme and diabolically subtle manceuvre of Satan himself (cf. on xiii. 1 and 5). The Danielic prophecy was at last on he verge of fulfilment! Mythological and cosmological elements (S. C. 360 f.) were already present in the Danielic tradition, but the prophet (or the source which he edits) readapted them to the historical situation created by the ex-
Ί6--«Ιδ---ΙΠΙ. 1—3.
18. Καὶ > ἐστάθην 1 ἐπὶ τὴν ἄμμον τῆς θαλάσσης, XIII.
429
π καὶ b On form, cf. Helb-
«εἶδον ἐκ τῆς θαλάσσης θηρίον ἀναβαῖνον, ἔχον κέρατα δέκα καὶ ing, 98-99.
κεφαλὰς ἑπτά, καὶ ἐπὶ τῶν κεράτων αὐτοῦ δέκα διαδήµατα, ἐπὶ τὰς κεφαλὰς αὐτοῦ "ὀνόματα βλασφημίας. 6 εἶδον ἦν " ὅμοιον "παρδάλει, καὶ of πόδες αὐτοῦ ὡς ἆ ἄρκου, καὶ
τὸ στόµα αὐτοῦ ὡς στόµα λέοντος.
cf. Win. § 5, 31, Helbing, 21-22.
"καὶ ἔδωκεν αὐτῷ 6 δράκων τὴν δύναμιν αὐτοῦ καὶ τὸν θρόνον αὐτοῦ καὶ ἐξουσί άλ 7 µ Ῥόνον αὐτοῦ καὶ ἐξουσίαν μεγάλην.
3. καὶ ‘play ἐκ τῶν κεφαλῶν αὐτοῦ ὡς ἐσφαγμένην cis θάνατον.
e Dan. vii. 6, cf. Matt. iii. 8, 9, etc.
, a Cf. xvii. 3. Kalb From cee Dan. vii. 2. καὶ τὸ θηρίον 4-6. «ο Hereonly, IN) Denies. Ign. Rom, ν. Acotrap: δοις, ὃ ἐστιν στρατιω» τικον τάγμα.
η d On form,
f xvii. 7-8. Sc. εἶδον.
1 For εσταθην (PQ, Me.,S., etc., Απά., Areth. so Ti., ΑΙ., S. Davidson, Ew., Ramsay,
Briggs, Gunkel, J. Weiss, Bs., Bj., etc.), Lach., Tr., Diist., Hofm., WH, Ws. (p. 5) Sw., Holtz., Hirscht, read εσταθη (SAC, 87, 92, vg., Arm., Aeth., Spec., Haym., Tic.), as if the dragon awaited the rise of the beast.
in the context.
,
But of this there is no hint
A new start is made here, and what follows is (unlike xii.) a per- senal vision of the seer who is now dealing with present-day actualities.
The
vatiant seems due to an erroneous attempt to deepen the continuity of the two oracles (which is expressed in xii. 17a and xiii. 2c).
pectation of Nero’s return from the under ~world and the enforcement of the Imperial cultus. For the hypothesis of a Caligula- “source in this chapter, cf. Introd § 6.
xii. 18-xiii. 18: the saga of the woman and the red dragon (a war in heaven) is followed by the saga of the two monsters from sea and land (a war on earth), who, with the dragon, form a triumvirate of evil. First (xii. 18-xiii. το) the monster from the sea, {.ε., the Roman Empire.
Ver. 18. The scene is the sea-shore, ex hypothesi, of the Mediterranean (Phedo; του 6, Iii a, εἴοι), 7.e., the West, the whole passage being modelled on Dan. vii. 2, 3, 7, 8, 19-27, where the stormy sea from which the monsters -emerge is the world of nations (cf. 4 Esd. xi. 1: ecce ascendebat de mari aquila, also xiii. I).
CuapTER XIII.—Ver. 1. His ten horns first become visible. The prophet has shifted the diadems from the heads to the horns (thereby altering their num- ber, of necessity), since he wishes to stamp the heads (i.e., the Roman em- perors, cf. Sib. Or. iii. 176; Tac. Amn. xv. 47) with the blasphemous names. Hence the ten horns (successive mon- archs in the Danielic oracle) are super- fluous here, except as απ archaic, ‘pictorial detail in the sketch of this polycephalous brute. Such grotesque, composite monsters were familiar figures an Persian and Babylonian mythology. The blasphemous title of divus, assumed by the emperors since Octavian (Augus- ‘tus = σεβαστός) as a semi-sacred title,