\ (95 > x x Niet aw (he iF XXI. 1. Καὶ εἶδον οὐρανὸν καινὸν καὶ γῆν καινήν ς ‘ a = > AQ am - , ae | aO 6 γὰρ " πρῶτος οὐρανὸς καὶ ἡ πρώτη yh ἀπῆλθαν, νε 3 » ” καὶ ἡ θάλασσα οὐκ ἔστιν ἔτι.
(cf. xxii. 5), 25 ὃ (=xxii. 5 a), and 27 (=xx. 15, xxi. 8, xxl. 3 a). Another set of features (xxi. 12, 16, 24-27 α, xxii. 2 ¢, 3 a, 5) is explicable apart from the hypothesis of a Jewish source, or indeed of any source at all. Literally taken, they are incongruous. But since xxi. g- Xxli. 5 may be equivalent not so much to a Jewish ideal conceived sub specie Chris- tiana as to a Christian ideal expressed in the imaginative terms of a Jewish tradi- tion which originally depicted an earthly Jerusalem surrounded by the respectful nations of the world, a number of traits in the latter sketch would obviously be inapplicable in the new setting to which they were transferred. These are re- tained, however, not only for the sake of their archaic associations but in order to lend pictorial completeness to the descrip- tion of the eternal city. The author, in short, is a religious poet, not a theolo- gian or a historian. But while these archaic details need not involve the use of a Jewish source (so rightly Sch6n and Wellhausen), much less a reference of the whole vision to the millennial Jerusa- lem (Zahn), or the ascription of it to Cerinthus (V6lter) or a chiliastic Jewish Christian editor (Bruston), may not the repetftions and parallelisms, especially in view of xxii. 6 f., indicate a composite Christian origin, as is suggested, 6.5., by Erbes: (A=xxi. 1-4, αχ. 3-17) σο στ. B=xxi. 5-27, xxii. I, 2, 18, 19) and Sel- wyn (xxii. 16-21, the conclusion of A= AXi: ο, XKil. 3-5, κι. ο αν κα σα 6 6-8, or of B=xxi. ο-κχί. 2, xxi. 6, 8-15)? Some dislocation of the original autograph or scribal additions may be conjectured with reason in xxii. 6-21 (see below), at least. But the reiterations are intelligible enough as the work of a single writer, whose aim is to impress an audience rather than to produce a piece of literature. The likelihood is that John composed xxi. g f. as an antithesis to the description of the evil city which he had reproduced from a source in xvii., and that he repeated the incident of xxii. 8, 9: (as Xix. g, Io at the end of xvii.), adapt- ing it to its position at the close of the whole book as well as of the immediately preceding oracle.
CHapTER XXI.—Vvy. 1-8: the prelude to the last vision.
Vv. 1-2, the title:
t α σσ The.
τ---3.