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‘ . 2. καὶ τὴν πόλιν τὴν " ἁγίαν ερουσαλὴμ, "καινὴν εἶδον κατα- b xi. 2, Isa.
he A aA a fel βαίνουσαν ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ ἀπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ, 3 ἡτοιμασμένην ὡς νύµφην "κεκοσμημένην τῷ ἀνδρὶ αὐτῆς. 3. καὶ ἤκουσα φωνῆς ΄ μεγάλης * ἐκ c
τοῦ θρόνου λεγούσης, > A A "1800 ἡ " σκηνὶ τοῦ θεοῦ μετὰ ‘ a καὶ σκηνώσει peT αὐτῶν "
“full of people” (Isa. xlix. 18). EXXvil. 27, Zech. ii. 10, viii. 8, cf. Isa. lvii. 15.
1 c=xx. 13 a. The absence of the sea from John’s ideal universe is due not to any Semitic horror of the ocean, nor to its association with Rome (xiii. 1), nor to the ancient idea of its dividing effect (‘mare dissociabile,” ‘‘the unplumbed, salt, estranging sea,”’), but to its mytho- logical connexion with the primitive dragon-opponent of God, the last trace of whom is now obliterated. Cf. Sib. v. 159, 160, 447 (ἔσται 8 ὑστατίῳ καιρῷ ξηρὸς πότε πόντος), Ass. Mos. x. 6, 4 Esd. vi. 24, Test. Levi 4, etc., for this religious antipathy to the treacherous, turbulent element of water. ‘ La mer est une an- nulation, une stérilization d’une partie de la terre, un reste du chaos primitif, souvent un chatiment de Dieu” (Re- ‘nan, 449). Plutarch (de Iside,7 f., 32) preserves the Egyptian sacred tradition that the sea was no part of nature (παρωρισµένην) but an alien element (ἀλλοῖον wepitTwpa), full of destruction and disease. The priests of Isis (32) shunned it as impure and unsocial for swallowing up the sacred Nile. One favourite tradition made the sea disappear in the final conflagration of the world (R. $. 289), but John ignores this view. The world is to end as it began, with creation ; only it is a new creation, with a perfect paradise, and no thwarting evil (Barn. vi. 13). His omission of the ocean is simply due to the bad associa- tions of the abyss as the abode of Tehom or Tiamat (cf. Oesterley’s “vol. of Mes- sianic Idea, 79 f., G. A. Smith’s Feru- salem, i. 71 f., and Hastings’ D. B. iv. 194, 195).
Ver. 2. ék=origin, aw6=originator. This conception of the new Jerusalem as messiah’s bride in the latter days is an original touch, added by the prophet to the traditional Jewish material (cf. Volz, 336 f.). In 4 Esd. vi. 26 (Lat. Syr.) “the bride shall appear, even the city coming forth, and she shall be seen who is now hidden from the earth’; but this precedes the 40ο years of bliss, at
lii. 1,
Heb. xi. 16, Xii 22. ill. 12, Gal. iv A > , 26. τῶν ἀνθρώπων, d xix. 7-8, Isa. 11. 1, Ixi. το, e Ezek. xvi. Ii= f xi. 12, Xvi. 1. 6 xix. 5; cf. xx. 11. h xiii. 6, Ezek. the close of which messiah dies. In En.
xc. 28 f. a new and better house is sub- stituted for the old, while in 4 Esd. ix.- xi. the mourning mother rather suddenly becomes ‘‘a city builded”? with large foundations (i.e., Zion). These partial anticipations lend some colour to Dal- man’s plea that the conception of a pre-existent heavenly Jerusalem was extremely limited in Judaism, and that John’s vision is to be isolated from the other N.T. hints (see reff.). For a fine application of the whole passage, see Ecce Homo, ch. xxiv. The vision con- veys Christian hope and comfort in terms of a current and ancient religious tradition upon the new Jerusalem (cf. Charles on Apoc. Bar. iv. 3). The primitive form of this conception, which lasted in various phases down to the opening of the second century, was that the earthly Jerusalem simply needed to be purified in order to become the fit and final centre of the messianic realm with its perfect communion between God and man (cf. Isa. Ix., liv. ττ-- Tobit xiii. 16-17, Ezek. xl.-xlviii., En. x. 16-19, xxv. Ey Ps, Sol. αν, 25, 33, Ap. Βατ. xxix χχχἰχ.-χΙ., Ixxii., Ixxiv., 4 Esd. vii. 27-39, xii. 32-34, etc.). But alongside of this, es- pecially after the religious revival under the Maccabees, ran the feeling that the earthly Jerusalem was too stained and secular to be a sacred city; its heavenly counterpart, pure and pre-existent, must descend (so here, after En. xc. 28, 29, Ap. Bar. xxxii. 3, 4, Test. Dan 5, etc.). In rabbinic theology, the vision of the heavenly Jerusalem was taken from Adam after his lapse, but shown as a special favour to Abraham, Jacob and Moses (cf. Ap. Bar. iv.). The Christian prophet John not only sees it but sees it realised among Christian people—a brave and significant word of prophecy, in view of his age and surroundings.