Garments. See the same figure, Jude 23. The meaning is, have not sullied the purity of their Christian life.
In white (€v Aevxois). With iuarious garments understood. See on ch. ii. 17, and compare Zech. iii. 3, 5. ‘ White colors are suitable to the gods” (Plato, “Laws,” xii., 956). So Virgil, of the tenants of Elysium:
““ Lo, priests of holy life and chaste while they in life had part; Lo, god-loved poets, men who spake things worthy Phebus’ heart: And they who bettered life on earth by new-found mastery ; And they whose good deeds left a tale for men to name them by: And all they had their brows about with snowy fillets bound.” “* ineid,” vi., 661-665.
The same shall be clothed (odTos wepsBareitas). For obros this, or the same, read obras thus: “shall thus be arrayed.” So Rev. The verb denotes a solemn investiture, and means liter- ally to throw or put around.
5. Book of life. Lit., the book of the life. For the figure, see Exod. xxxii. 32; Ps. Ixix. 28; Dan. xii.1; Philip. iv. 3. Compare Luke x. 20; Heb. xii. 23.
I will confess (€foporoyjcoua). Openly confess (é€). See on Matt. xi. 25; Acts xix. 18; Jas. v. 16.
7. Philadelphia. Seventy-five miles southeast of Sardis. The second city in Lydia. The adjacent region was celebrated as a wine-growing district, and its coins bore the head of Bac- chus and the figure of a Bacchante. The population included Jews, Jewish Christians, and converts from heathenism. It suffered from frequent earthquakes. Of all the seven churches it had the longest duration of prosperity as a Christian city. It still exists as a Turkish town under the name of Allah Shehr, City of God. The situation is picturesque, the town being built on four or five hills, and well supplied with trees, and the clim- ate is healthful. One of the mosques is believed by the native Christians to have been the gathering-place of the church ad- dressed in the Apocalypse. “One solitary pillar of high an-