18—23. ΑΠΟΚΑΛΥΨΙΣ ΙΩΑΝΝΟΥ 485 22. Kal Pvadv οὐκ εἶδον ἐν αὐτῇ : Ρο x . 2, ὁ γὰρ " Κύριος 6 θεὸς 6 Ἱ παντοκράτωρ ναὸς αὐτῆς ἐστί, καὶ John, iv. 21; als τὸ ἀρνίον. Jer iii. 101. 23. "kat ἡ πόλις οὐ χρείαν ἔχει τοῦ ἡλίου οὐδὲ τῆς σελήνης ἵνα ᾳ From | mos lV. φαίνωσιν αὐτῆ " 13. A ales τ xxii. 5, ἡ γὰρ ' δόξα τοῦ θεοῦ ἐφώτισεν αὐτήν, from Isa Cys Oey aA 9 , XXiv. 23, καὶ 6 λύχνος αὐτῆς τὸ ἀρνίον. Ix. 2, Zech. xiv.
2. 5 Ver. 11; cf. 4 Esd. vii. 42. From Zech. ii. 5 (LXX), Ps. Sol. iii. 16.
phirus et aureis punctis collucet, Caeru- leae et sapphiri, raroque cum purpura, Pliny, H. N. xxxvii. 39), a blue stone prized in Egypt and in Assyria, where it was often ‘‘used to overlay the highest parts of buildings” (EZ. Bi. 2710).— xarxydov=either a variety of dioptase or emerald gathered on a mountain in Chalcedon (Pliny), or more probably an
agate (karkedra Pesh. rendering of \AW =LXX ἀχάτης Ex. xxviii. 19), {.6., a variegated stone, whose base is chalce- dony. The modern chalcedony is merely a translucent (grey) quartz, with a milky tinge. χρυσόλιθος-- α gem of some (sparkling?) golden hue (LXX=
wow), perhaps some variety of our topaz or beryl, which ranges from emerald-green to pale blue and yellow. The modern chrysolite is merely a hard greenish mineral, of no particular value. χρυσόλιθος and χρυσόπρασος (a leek- coloured gem) are probably varieties of the ancient beryl, unless the latter is the green chalcedony, and the former the modern topaz. µμαργαρῖται κ.τ.λ. (on their value in the ancient world, see Usener’s study in Theol. Abhand. 203- 213): the conception is simplified from an old Jewish fancy of R. Jochanan preserved in Baba-Bathra, f. 75, 1, ‘‘ Deus adducet gemmas et margaritas, triginta cubitos longas totidemque latas, easque excauabit in altitudinem xx cubitorum, et latitudi- nem x cubitorum, collocabitque in portis Hierosolymorum”. ἡ πλατεῖα, generic =‘‘the streets’’ (like ξύλον, xxii. 2), unless it has the sense of ‘‘ forum” or ‘‘market-place’’ (as 2 Chron. xxxii. 6, Job xxix.7 LXX). But the singular may allude to the fact that ‘the typical Eastern city had... one street which led from the void place at the entering in of the gate to the court of the king’s palace” (Simcox). Philo (quis haer. § xliv., leg. alleg. § xx.) had already made gold emblematic of the divine
νου. ν.
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nature diffused through all the world, owing to the metal’s fusible qualities.
Ver. 22-xxii. 5: the life of the city. Ver. 22. The daily prayer of Jews at this time was ‘restore thou the sacrificial service to the Holy of Holies of thy house’’. But while this may have re- presented the popular religion of Judaism (Schiirer, Hist. ii. 2, 174) which tenaci- ously clung to a restored temple as the religious centre of all future bliss, there were finer spirits who shared the Iranian repugnance to temples, possibly under a semi-Essene influence, and who seem to have partially anticipated the more spiritual outlook of the Apocalypse (c/. Baldensperger, 53 f.) ; the second temple, owing to the debasing strifes of the first century B.c. and the growing reverence for the law, never quite absorbed the religious consciousness as the first had done. The holy City is to be unlike many Chaldean cities where the temple was a dominating and distinctive feature, often indeed the original nucleus of the town. To the seer, earth suggests hea- ven not only by anticipation but by contrast.
Ver. 23. Another fulfilment of the Ο.Τ, ideal (Isa. Ix. το, 20). It is a Jewish- Christian symbol for Paul’s thought— God shall be all and in all. So in 4 Esd. vii. [42] at the last judgment there is neither sun nor moon nor any natural light, ‘‘but only the splendour of the glory of the Most High”. ‘As the sux of righteousness Christ has been able to vanquish the sol inuictus of the Roman, Cesar-cultus ’’ (Usener, Gdtternamen, p. 184). A cruder form of the idea’ occurs in the pseudo-Philonic Biblic. Antiquit. where ‘“‘non erat necessarium lumen (for the night-march), ita exsplen- debat genuinum lapidum lumen”? (i.e., of the jewels on the Amorite idols), jewels which were replaced by twelve precious stones each engraved with the name of one of the twelve tribes.