Ver. t7. The remarkable unanimity and obedience of the usurping vassals, which welds them into an avenging in- strument, ¢an only be explained on super- natural crounds. A divine overruling controls all political movements (cf. xi. 2, xili 5, 7), according to the determia-
13—18.
Onpiw, ἄχρι 7 τελεσθήσονται οἱ λόγοι τοῦ θεοῦ. ἣν εἶδες ἔστιν ἡ πόλις ἡ "µεγάλη, ἡ
βασιλέων τῆς γῆς.’
- ism of apocalyptic tradition (Baldens- perger, 58 f.). The irony of the situa- tion is that the tools of providence are destroyed, after they have unconsciously served their purpose (as in Isa. x. 12 f.). The Imperial power, hitherto the usual support of Rome, is to prove her deadly foe; John’s stern philosophy is that one partner in this hateful union is employed to ruin the other. Not long before this prophecy appeared, Vitellius and Ves- pasian in the person of their partisans had ravaged Rome in the near future Nero’s allies were to fight, like Corio- lanus, against their ‘“‘cankered country, with the spleen of all the under-fiends”’. —ptav κ.τ.λ. The same tradition, on a simpler scale, appears in 4 Esd. xiii. 33, 34 where, at the revelation of God’s Son, ‘‘every man shall leave his own land and their battles against one another; and a countless multitude shall assemble together, desiring to come and fight against him”. The dualism of God and Satan is not absolute; even the latter’s rianceuvres are made to subserve some providential design.
Ver. 18. The dramatic climax of the oracle: the great harlot is—Rome, domina Roma, the pride and queen of the world! Cf. Spenser’s Ruines of Rome, 360 f. (‘*Rome was th’ whole world, and al the world was Rome ”’). For the probable position of xix. g b-10 at this point in the original form of the Apocalypse, see below (ad loc.).
After a prelude on the doom of this second and western Babylon (xviii. 1-3) two sublime songs follow: one of triumph in heaven (4-8) one of wailing on earth (ο f.). Both are modelled in semi-strophic style upon the earlier taunt-songs (cf. Introd. § 4) over Tyre and Babylon (cf. also Apoc. Bar. Ixxxii. 3-9). But the severe invective against Rome reveals the shuddering impression which this marvel and mistress of the world made upon the conscience of her provincial subjects, Jewish or Christian. They were half fascinated, even as they felt repelled, by the sight of her gran- deur. This magnificent doom song (9 f.) like that of Apoc. Bar. xii. (cf. xiii.), however, celebrates her downfall, partly on grounds which might be justified from contemporary pagan authors (cf.