Vv. 11-21: a second vision of doom, on the Beast and his allies (in fulfil- ment of xii. 5). Their fate (17-21) follows a procession of the angelic troops (11-16, contrast ix. 16 f.). The connexion of this and the foregoing volume (7-9) is mediated by the idea tha!
KA. τὴ.
5 In sense of Deut. Vii. 9, XXXil. 4 (LXX); tf. Ps. Sol. xvii. 4-5, and Isa. xlii. 3 (LX X). vi function of Semitic king (1 Sam. vili. 20).
καὶ 6 καθήµενος ἑάληθινός,
the marriage of the warrior-messiah (cf. En. Ix, 2° 4 Esd. xii. 32, xili. 35: Άρος, Bar. xxxix., xl., Ixx.) cannot take place till he returns from victory (so in the mes- sianic psalm xlv.). Now that the preli- minary fhovements of the enemy (xvii. 16, 17) are over, the holy war of xvil. 14 begins, which is to end in a ghastly Armageddon. This passage and the subsequent oracle of xx. 1-10 reproduce in part a messianic programme according to which the dolores Messiae (cf. Klausner : mess. Vorstellungen d. jiid. Volkes im Zeitalter der Tannaiten, 1904, 47 f, and Charles on Apoc. Bar. xxvii. 1) are fol- lowed by messiah’s royal advent on earth (here sketched in part from Sap.xviii. 4-25) to found a kingdom of the just (z,¢., Israel) who are raised for this purpose. Israel supplants Rome as the world - power (Bar. xxxix.). Her period of superiority opens with the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the temple, and closes with a crush- ing defeat of Gog and Magog, who are led by an incarnate villain (“‘dux ulti- mus,”’ xl.), but are finally vanquished by the aid of the ten tribes who return to take part in this campaign. Death and Satan then are annihilated, and eternal bliss ensues. Like Paul in τ Cor. xv. 20 f., John modifies this scheme of tradi- tion freely for his own Christian ends. He introduces a realistic expansion of the messianic age into three periods: (a) a victory of messiah (mounted, like Vishnu, on a white horse for the last battle) and his ἅγιοι (cf. xiv. 20) over the beast, the false prophet, and the kings of the world, who—as already noted—turn their attention to the saints after crushing Rome (11-21): (6) an un- disturbed reign of Christ and his martyrs (xx. 1-6), evidently in Palestine; (c) the final defeat of Gog and Magog, with Satan their instigator (xx. 7-10). There is little or nothing specifically Christian in all this section (except xx. 4-6, cf. xix. 13), but the general style betrays the author’s own hand, and there is no rea- son to suppose that a Jewish source in whole or part (so ε.ρ., Vischer, Sabatier, de Faye, Weyland, Spitta, von Soden) underlies it. The sequence of the pas-
t Cf. on xvi. 7, Dan. ii. 45,
Σ ΙΩΑΝΝΟΥ πως
‘ ἐπ᾽ αὐτὸν " καλούμενος 'πιστὸς καὶ
Su. , , ‘ a και εν δικαιοσύνη KPLVEL και πολεμεῖ ζ
12. οἱ δὲ " ὀφθαλμοὶ αὐτοῦ φλὸξ πυρός, μ ρ
ili. 71. (1 ΧΧ). u Ps, xevi. 13: twofold 8
νἩ. 1
sage with xvi. 13-16, 18-20 is due to a common cycle of tradition, rather than to any literary source (Schon). It is a homogeneous finalé written by the pro- phet, in terms of current eschatology, to round off the predictions at which he has already hinted. Moralising traits emerge amidst the realism, but it is impossible to be sure how far the whole passage (i.e., 11-21) was intended to be figurative.
Vy. 11-16. messiah and his troops or retinue: Jesus to the rescue (cf. Samson Agonistes, 1268 f.). The following de- scription of a semi-judicial, semi-military hero is painted from passages like Isa. xi. 3-5 (where messiah, instead of judg- ing by appearances, decides equitably: πατάξει γῆν τῷ λόγῳ τοῦ στόµατος αὐτοῦ: his breath slays the wicked: his loins are girt δικαιοσύνῃ and ἀληθείᾳ), the theophany of Hab. iii., and the san- guinary picture of Yahveh returning in triumph from the carnage in Idumea (cf. νετ. 13 with Isa. xiii. 1-6). On the connexion of this celestial Rider with the Rider in 2 Mace. iii., cf. Nestle in Zeits. f. alt. Wiss. 1905, pp. 2034.