The dragon is flung by an angel, not by God or messiah, into the pit of the abyss which formed his original haunt (_cf._ on Revelation 9:1), and there locked up, like an Arabian jin, so as to leave the earth undisturbed for the millenium. The prophet thus welds together two traditions which were ori... [ Continue Reading ]
θρόνους, tribunal-seats for the assessors of the divine judge (as in Daniel 7:9-10; Daniel 7:22, of which this is a replica). The unnamed occupants (saints including martyrs? as in Daniel) are allowed to manage the judicial processes (so Daniel 7:22, where the Ancient of days to τὸ κρίμα ἔδωκεν ἁγίο... [ Continue Reading ]
An interpolated explanation of the preceding vision. Ἅγιος, if a continuation of μακ., must almost be taken in its archaic sense of ‘belonging to God”. The ordinary meaning reduces the phrase to a hysteron proteron, unless the idea is that the bliss consists in holiness (so Vendidad xix. 22, “happy,... [ Continue Reading ]
As Baligant, lord of the pagans, issues from the East to challenge Charlemagne and be crushed, Satan emerges from his prison for a short period (3) after the millennium, musters an enormous army of pagans to besiege the holy capital, but is decisively routed and flung into the lake of fire to share... [ Continue Reading ]
Satan's return to encounter irretrievable defeat upon the scene of his former successes (ἐπʼ ἐσχάτου ἐτῶν Ezekiel 38:8), is an obscure and curious feature, borrowed in part from earlier beliefs in Judaism (Gog and the Parthians both from the dreaded N. E., Ezekiel 38:4), but directly or indirectly f... [ Continue Reading ]
παρεμβολή, either camp (as in O.T., _e.g._, Deuteronomy 23:14) or army (Hebrews 11:34), the saints being supposed to lie in a circle or leaguer round the headquarters of the messiah in Jerusalem, which by an association common in the ancient world (_e.g._, Nineveh, “the beloved city” of her god Isht... [ Continue Reading ]
John hints where Isaiah is explicit (Revelation 6:1). Nothing is said about the uselessness of intercession; _cf._ 4 Ezra 7 :[102 115] 33: “and the Most High shall be revealed upon the judgment-seat, and compassion shall pass away, long-suffering shall be withdrawn”. Enoch xc. 20 sets up the throne... [ Continue Reading ]
The moral dignity and reticence with which this sublime vision of the last assize is drawn, show how the primitive Christian conscience could rise above its inheritance from Jewish eschatology. The latter spoke more definitely upon the beginning of the end than upon the end itself (_cf._ Harnack's _... [ Continue Reading ]
The books opened in God's court contain the deeds of men, whose fate is determined by the evidence of these “vouchers for the book of life” (Alford); the latter volume forms as it were a register of those predestinated to eternal life (_cf._ Gfrörer ii. 121 f., and below on Revelation 20:15). The fi... [ Continue Reading ]
See Pirke Aboth, iv. 32: “Let not thine imagination assure thee that the grave is an asylum” (for, like birth and life and death, judgment is appointed before the King of the kings of kings). “And the earth shall restore those that are asleep in her, and so shall the dust those that dwell therein in... [ Continue Reading ]
Death as Sin's ally must be destroyed along with Sin, while Hades, the grim receptacle of Death's prey (the intermediate rendezvous for the dead, except for martyrs, _cf._ Revelation 6:10), naturally ceases to have any function. This was the cherished hope of early Christianity as of Judaism (Isaiah... [ Continue Reading ]
In Enoch (xxxviii. 5, xlviii. 9) the wicked are handed over by God to the saints, before whom they burn like straw in fire and sink like lead in water. The milder spirit of the Christian prophet abstains from making the saints thus punish or witness the punishment of the doomed (_cf._ on Revelation... [ Continue Reading ]