435
‘A XIV. 1. Καὶ εἶδον, καὶ ἰδοὺ τὸ * ἀρνίον * ἑστὸς ἐπὶ τὸ ὄρος Σιών, αν. 6.
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Vii. 4: Cf. Zech. xiv.
” > A 9 ” a a a 5. Όνομα αὐτοῦ καὶ τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ πατρὸς αὐτοῦ "γεγραμµένον ἐπὶ τῶν « iii. 12,
µετώπων αὐτῶν. 2. ἃ
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Ezek. ix. Sp : ἀπ τοι xix.
ὑδάτων πολλῶν καὶ ὡς φωνὴν βροντῆς μεγάλης: καὶ ἡ φωνὴ ἣν το
Ίκουσα ὡς “κιθαρωδῶν κιθαριζόντων ἐν ταῖς κιθάραις αὐτῶν. 3.
το Greek-speaking inhabitants of the em- pire. The Pergamos-inscriptions furnish analogous instances.
CHAPTER XIV. The prophet again breaks off to point his readers across the sombre vista opened up by this oracle of the θηρίον, not to the church as an oasis and asylum on earth but to the glad sure hope of the faithful after death. Howcan the @npiov be met? Who (ver. 8) can hold out against such seductions? By way of answer to such doubts and fears the pro- phet raises the veil of the future for a moment to reveal the heavenly (cf. xiii. I5, xiv. 3) survivors of the conflict (xiv. 1-5) ; whereupon he rapidly sketches the doom of Rome and the pagan world by way of contrast (6-20). The latter pas- Sage, in its present form and site, gives a proleptic outline of catastrophes described later on (cf. xiv. 7=xix. 1-6, xiv. 8=xviii. 2, 3, etc.). The two supreme motives for patient loyalty on the part of the saints {ver. 12) are, (a) negatively, fear of the fate reserved for the unbelieving (xiv.8- 11), and, (b) positively, the bliss in store for the loyal (ver. 13, cf. 1-5).
Vv. 1-5, introduced as a foil to what precedes and as an anticipation of xxi.- xxii., is ‘“‘a sort of Te Deum” (Well- hausen), a vision of the Lamb no longer as sldin but triumphant (militant on the mount of Olives, Zech. xiv. 3 f., against the nations=Apoc. xi. 8, 18), attended by the élite of the redeemed who had worshipped him, not the Emperor, dur- ing their life-time. The Jewish tradition underlying this oracle seems to have been cognate to that of En. i. 4 f. (Greek), teflected already in vii. 1-8; it showed the rallying of the faithful remnant at mount Zion (Joel ii. 32; Isa. xi. 9-12) after the throes of the latter days (cf. on xi. 19). In terms of this John pictures the Chris- tians who appear with Jesus their mes- siah upon earth (cf. v. 10, xx. 4-6). Verses 1-5 thus hint faintly and frag- mentarily at the belief that, before the general judgment and recompense of the saints (xi. 18, xx. 11 f.), the vanguard who had borne the brunt of the struggle would enjoy a special bliss of their own.
ε am. dey. NT. xviii. 22.
The prophet does not stop to elaborate this independent anticipation of xx. 4-6, but hurries on (6 f.) to depict the negative side, viz., the downfall of the enemy. When Caligula first attempted to enforce his worship on the Jews, the pious flung themselves on the ground, ‘stretching out their throats” in their readiness to die sooner than let their God be profaned (Jos. Bell. ii. το, 4; Ant. xviil. 8, 3). John desiderates an equally dauntless temper in Christians, though they could not hope to avert, as the Jews had done, the imperial propaganda of the false pro- phet (xiii. 16 f.; cf. 2 Thess. ii.), Martyr- dom (xiv. 13, ¢f. κ. 15) was all that the majority could expect. But loyalty would bring them ultimate triumph. The passage is not simply Christian but from the hand of the prophet himself. Ver. 1. Instead of the beast, the Lamb; instead of the beast’s followers and their mark, the Lamb’s followers with the divine name; instead of the pagan earth, mount Zion. The vision is based on an old Jewish apocalyptic tradition, copied by the Christian editor of 4 Esdras (ii. 42) but already present in the Jewish original (xiii. 35: ipse [?.e., Messias] stabit super cacumen montis Sion, 39 et quoniam uidisti eum colligen- tem ad se aliam multitudinem pacificam, hae sunt decem tribus), which apparently described (cf. Joel ii. 32) a further cycle of the tradition underlying vii. 1-8. The appearance of this manlike messiah on mount Zion was accompanied by the manifestation of the celestial Zion (post- poned here till xxi.). Thus, xiv. 1-5 is, in some respects, a companion panel to vii. ο 6, though the retinue of messiah are painted in more definitely Jewish colours. They are distinguished for their testimony borne against the Imperial cultus and the contaminations of the pagan world. Ver. 3. Who sing the new song? angels or the redeemed? In v. 9 it is chanted not before the living creatures and elders but by them; here it is not origin- ally sung by the redeemed (as in xv. 3 and 4 Esd. ii. 42) but is intelligible to them and to them alone. Their experi-