Revelation 17:4

τῆς πορν. αὐτῆς. B2 reads τῆς πορν. τῆς γῆς; Cyp[590] Primas[591] fornicationis totius terrae; א τῆς πορνίας αὐτῆς καὶ τῆς γῆς.

[590] St Cyprian as quoted by Haussleiter.
[591] Primasius, edited by Haussleiter.

4. περιβεβλημένη πορφυροῦν καὶ κόκκινον. Protestant interpreters have been fond of applying this description to the robes of Roman bishops and cardinals: and perhaps not altogether unjustly. See Introduction, p. lxxii.

κεχρυσωμένη χρυσῷ. Lit. “gilded with gold,” and, but for the words which follow, the literal sense might be right; the imperial harlot Messalina did the like, Juv. VI. 123. If not, it is a question whether we are to suppose a zeugma or translate κεχρυσωμένη “bejewelled.”

λίθῳ τιμίῳ. See on Revelation 15:6; of course λίθῳ is used collectively.

ποτήριον χρυσοῦν. See Jeremiah 51:7 already quoted. We can hardly say that the cup serves her to drink the blood of saints and martyrs (Revelation 17:6), but it is meant to suggest that she is drunken, and invites to drunkenness, as well as to uncleanness.

γέμον βδελυγμάτων. It is the cup of idolatry and the βδελύγματα are idols.

καὶ τὰ�. The pollutions of her whoredom are the same as the abominations of her idols: neither the revisers nor the editors of the Variorum Bible consider Düsterdieck’s suggestion, since adopted by Weiss, that the accusative may depend upon ἔχουσα as easily as on γέμον, worth notice, and probably it is condemned by the Latin translators, who all make the connexion the same as in A. V[619], though they get rid of the irregular construction.

[619] Authorised Version.