For αγγελον J.
(cf. xi. 3) a chance to repent (implicit, ef. Mark i. 15). The sterner tone of viit. 13- ix. 21 is due to the fact that men were: there accounted as strictly responsible for- their idolatry and immorality. Here the nations are regarded in the first instance as having been seduced by Rome into the: Imperial cultus (8-9); hence they get a. warning and a last opportunity of trans- ferring their allegiance to its rightful ob- ject. The near doom of the empire, of which the prophet is convinced even in the hour of her aggrandisement (xiii. 8), is made a motive for urging her beguiled adherents to repent in time and her Christian victims to endure (xiv. 12). The substance of this proclamation is not much of a gospel, and the prophet evi- dently does not look for much result, if any. Its ‘pure, natural theism” (Sim- cox) is paralleled by that of Rom. il. 5 f. Ver. 6. πετόµενον: angels begin to fly in the Jewish heaven about the be- ginning of the first century B.c. (En. Ixi. I). er. 7. ποιήσαντι κ.τ.λ. Since he who has created has the right to judge his creatures, as well as to receive their wor- ship (cf. iv. 11 f., etc.).—@pa = the fixed (cf. 15), καιρός the fit, moment for action. Contrast with this summons Lucan’s fulsome appeal to Nero (i. 57 f,): ‘‘ lib- rati pondera cceli Orbe tene medio,” etc. The second angel of the trio an- nounces the faults and fall of (ver. 8) Rome asasecond Babylon. The prophet quotes from the postexilic oracle ap- pended to Jeremiah (Jer. li. 7-8).---θυμός has probably the double sense ee by the English term “ passion”. As history proves, the Cesar cult fairly intoxicated people, especially in the East. In Asia Minor it became a perfect passion with many communities. They will find it a different kind of passion, the prophet
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