Ver. 3. κατάθεµα, a corrupt and rare form of katavaeya=anything accursed (lit. a curse itself, Did. xvi. 8), i.e., ab- stract for concrete, here=‘‘ a cursed per- son,’’so Ps. Sol. xvii. 20 f.i—Aatpevoovor, unfettered and unspoiled devotion. The interruption of the daily service and sacrifice in Jerusalem on 17th July, 7ο A.D., had sent a painful thrill to the heart of all who cherished the ideal of Acts xxvi. 7. No fear of that in the new Jerusalem !
Ver. 4. The ancient ideal of intimate confidence is also to be realised (cf. on Matt. v. 8 and Iren. Adv. Her. v. 7). With this phrase and that of xxi. 22 compare Browning’s lines: ‘ Why,
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ο xxi. 25. 5. καὶ Ὁνὺξ οὐκ ἔσται ἔτι, P xxi. 23; : with καὶ οὐχ ἔξουσι | ” χρείαν φωτὸς λύχνου καὶ pas ἡλίου, accus. iii 17. ὅτι Κύριος 6 θεὸς φωτίσει ἐπ᾽ αὐτούς : q Dan. vii. \ Ned χ 5 ν >A ALLL ον 27, ο]. καὶ _ βασιλεύσουσιν * eis τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων. Sap. vi 2
art nearness to God).
r Not merely for 1000 years (xx. 4).
ΓΙ εξουσι (A, vg., Syr., S., gig., Tic.) Bentley, Lach., Al., Bj., is preferable to εχουσι (38, And.), and the context, with its futures and personal pronouns, tells against the ov xpeta κ.τ.λ. of Q, min., S., Pr. (Ti., Diist., Bs.).
where’s the need of temple when the walls | O’ the world are that. . . This one Face, far from vanish, rather grows | Becomes my universe that feels and knows.” The idea here is that repro- duced in the seventh and supreme degree of bliss in 4 Esd. vii. [78] where the saints ‘‘shall rejoice with confidence, have boldness undismayed, and gladness unafraid, for they shall hasten to behold the face of him whom they served in life’. By Oriental usage, no condemned or criminal person was allowed to look on the king’s face (Esther vii. 8), In the ancient ch. lxiv. of E. B. D. (papyrus of Nu) the ‘triumphant Nu saith, ‘I have come to see him that dwelleth in his divine uraeus, face to face, and eye to eye... . Thou art in me, and 1 am in thee,’”? The Apocalypse, however, shuns almost any approach to the inner union of the individual Christian and Christ which distinguished both Paul and the fourth gospel; it also eschews the identification of God and man which was often crudely affected by Egyptian eschatology. No allusion occurs to the supremacy of the saints over angels (Ap. Bar. li. 12, etc.), though John is careful elsewhere to keep the latter in their place (see on xxi. 17, xxii. 9). He also ignores the problem of different degrees in bliss,—éWowrar, In Chag.5 b there is a story of a blind rabbi who blessed some departing visitors with the words, «γε have visited a face that is seen and sees not: may ye be counted worthy to visit the Face which sees and is not seen”’. The Christian prophet has a better hope and promise. Compare, however, Plut- arch’s touching faith (Istde, 79) that the souls of men after death will ‘‘ migrate to the unseen, the good,” when God becomes their king and leader and where “ they, as it were, hang upon him and gaze without ever wearying, and yearn for that unspeakable, indescribable Beauty ’”’. Ver. 5. Philo (de ¥os. 24) had already described heaven as ἡμέραν αἰώνιον,
VUKTOS καὶ πάσης σκιᾶς ἀμέτοχον. Cf. En. vi. 6.—Such teaching on heaven, though in a less religious form, seems to have been current among the Asiatic πρεσβύτεροι. Irenzeus (v. 36, 1-2) quotes them as holding (cf. above on ii. 7) that some of the blessed τῆς τοῦ παραδείσου τρυφῆς ἀπολαύσουσιν, οἱ δὲ τὴν λαμπρότητα τῆς πόλεως καθέξ- ουσιν' πανταχοῦ γὰρ 6 Σωτὴρ ὁρασθή- σεται, καθὼς ἄξιοι ἔσονται οἱδρῶντες αὐτόν, κ.τ.λ.
The epilogue (6-21) is a series of loose ejaculations, which it is not easy to assign to the various speakers. It is moulded on the lines of the epilogue to the astronomical section of Enoch (Ixxxi. f.), where Enoch is left for one year with his children—‘“‘that thou mayest testify to them all... . Let thy heart be strong, for the good will announce tighteousness to the good, but the sin- ners will die with the sinners, and the apostates go down with the apostates’’. Two characteristic motifs, however, do- minate the entire passage: (a) the vital importance of this book as a valid and authentic revelation, and (b) the near- ness of the end. The former is heard in the definite claim of inspiration (6 f., 16) and prophetic origin (8, 9) which guar- antees its contents, in the beatitude of 7 ὃ (cf. 17), and (cf. 21) in the claim of canonical dignity (18, 19). The latter is voiced thrice in a personal (7, 12, 20) and twice in an impersonal (6, το) form. Both are bound up together (cf. 20 and i. 3). It is as a crucial revelation of the near future and a testimony to the authority and advent of the messiah (cf. 20) that this apocalypse claims to be read, and honoured in the churches. This general standpoint is clear enough, but the details are rather intricate. It is characteristic of the Apocalyse, as of ep. Barnabas, that the writer often leaves it indefinite whether God or Christ or an angel is speaking. Sometimes the divine voice is recognised to be that of Christ