Revelation 2:10

μη. φοβοῦ, κ. τ. λ. “Thou orderest us to endure, not to love, trials. A man may love to endure, but he does not love what he endures” (Aug. Conf. x. 28). Ill-treatment, as well as misrepresentation, is traced back to a diabolic source, in the common early Christian manner (Weinel, 13 f.). The Imperial authorities (διάβολος as in 1 Peter 5:8), although often instigated by the Jews, had the sole power of inflicting imprisonment, in this case for a refusal to worship the emperor's image; the prophet here predicts an imminent persecution of this kind (compare Acts 9:16, and above Introd. § 6) lasting for a short and limited time (δέκα ἡμ. see reff., originally due to the rough Semitic division of a month into decades). The local intensity of feeling upon the Imperial cultus may be gathered from the fact that in 23 A.D. Smyrna had secured from Tiberius and the senate, after keen competition, the coveted distinction of possessing the second temple decreed by the province to the Imperial cultus. Hence the struggle anticipated here is desperate (ἄχ. θ.); martyrdom is no remote contingency. Compare Ep. Lugd., where the martyr-crisis is taken as an anticipation of the final persecution (cf. Revelation 3:10; Revelation 13:7-15): “with all his might the adversary assailed us, giving us a hint of what his unbridled advent would be like at the end”; the martyrs “endured nobly all the assaults heaped on them by the mob. They were shouted at, struck, haled about, robbed, stoned, imprisoned; in fact they suffered all that an infuriated mob likes to inflict on enemies and opponents.” Then follows a commandment with promise: γίνου (not ἴσθι), “show thyself” throughout all degrees of trial and in any emergency. It is more than doubtful if this is a subtle local allusion to the loyalty and local patriotism upon which Sardis prided herself and which she had urged as her plea to Tiberius (Tacit. Ann. iv. 56). On the honours subsequently paid to martyrs in Smyrna, cf. Mart. Polyk. xvii. τοῦτον μὲν γὰρ ὑιὸν ὄντα τοῦ θεοῦ προσκυνοῦμεν, τοὺς δὲ μάρτυρας ὡς μαθητὰς καὶ μιμητὰς τοῦ κυρίου ἀγαπῶμεν (also Euseb. H. E. iv. 15. 46, 47), with the contemporary cry of4Ezr 8 27 : “Look not at the deeds of the impious but at those who have kept Thy covenants amid affliction” (i.e., the martyrs), also the subsequent Christian honour paid by Hermas (Vis. iii. 1, 2), who reserves the right hand of God for the martyrs who have “suffered for the sake of the Name,” enduring “stripes, imprisonments, great afflictions, crosses, wild beasts”. For καὶ, with fut. after imperative, see Ephesians 5:14; James 4:7. στέφ. ζ. Life, the reward assigned in Revelation 2:7 to the triumph of faith is here bestowed upon the loyalty of faith. To hold one's ground is, under certain circumstances, as trying and creditable as it is under others to win positive successes. The metaphor of στέφ. with its royal, sacerdotal, and festal (Song of Solomon 3:11; Isaiah 28:1, Herm. Sim. viii. 2) associations, would call up civic and athletic honours to the local Christians, the latter owing to the famous games at Smyrna, the former from the fact that στ. frequently occurs also in inscriptions as = public honour for distinguished service (paid, e.g., to Demosthenes and Zeno), whilst the yearly appointment of a priest at Eumeneia to the temple of Zeno was termed παράληψις τοῦ στέφανου (C. B. P. ii. 358). Compare, with the ἄξιοι of Revelation 3:4, the sentence in Ep. Lugd. upon the martyrs: ἐχρῆν γοῦν τοὺς γενναίους ἀθλητὰς, ποικίλον ὑπομείναντας ἀγῶνα καὶ μεγάλως νικήσαντας, ἀπολαβεῖν τὸν μέγαν τῆς ἀφθαρσίας στέφανον, and the Greek phrase for noble deeds, ἄξια στεφάνων (Plut. Pericl. 28).