Richard Chenevix Trench · 3 of 13

Introduction, Rev. i. 4-20 · Part 2

“And companion in tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ.”—It has been sometimes asked, When was that prophecy and promise fulfilled concerning John, that he should drink of his Lord’s cup, and be baptized with his Lord’s baptism (Matt. xx. 22)? The fulfilment of this promise and prophecy as it regarded his brother James is plain; when the sword of Herod was dyed with his blood (Acts xii. 2). It was answered rightly by Origen long ago (In Matt. tom. xvi. § 6, in fine), Here—in this his banishment to Patmos; not thereby denying that there must have been a life-long θλῖψις for such an one as the Apostle John, but only affirming that the words found their most emphatic fulfilment now. Let us not fail to observe the connexion and the sequence—“tribulation” first, and “the kingdom” afterwards; on which Richard of St. Victor well: “Recte præmisit, in tribulatione, et post addit, in regno, quia si compatimur, et corregnabimus” (2 Tim. ii. 12; cf. Rom. viii. 17; 1 Pet. iv. 13). As yet, however, while the tribulation is present, the kingdom is only in hope; therefore he adds to these, as that which is the link between them, “and patience of Jesus Christ;” cf. Acts xiv. 22, where exactly these same three, the tribulation, the patience, and the kingdom occur. Ὑπομονή, which we have rendered “patience,” is not so much the “patientia” as the “perseverentia” of the Latin; which last word Cicero (De Invent. ii. 54) thus defines: “In ratione bene consideratâ stabilis et perpetua mansio;” and Augustine (Quæst. lxxxiii. qu. 31): “Honestatis aut utilitatis causâ rerum arduarum ac difficilium voluntaria ac diuturna perpessio.” It is indeed a beautiful word, expressing the brave patience of the Christian—βασιλὶς τῶν ἀρετῶν, Chrysostom does not fear to call it.

“I was in the isle that is called Patmos, for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ.”—Patmos, now Patmo or Palmosa, one of the Sporades, a little rocky island in the Icarian Sea, S.-W. of Ephesus, a spot in itself utterly insignificant, would have remained unknown and almost unnamed, if this mention here had not given to it a name and a fame in the Church for ever. This its entire previous insignificance is slightly, yet unmistakably, indicated in the words “that is called Patmos.” St. John does not assume his readers to be familiar with it, any more than St. Mark, writing for those living at a distance from Palestine, with the Jordan (cf. Mark i. 5 with Matt. iii. 5). It is not so that a well-known island, Crete or Cyprus, is introduced (Acts xiii. 4). The deportation of criminals, or those accounted as such, to rocky and desolate islands was, as is well known, a common punishment among the Romans. Titus, according to Suetonius, banished some delators “in asperrimas insularum” (Tit. 8; cf. Juvenal, i. 73).

The unprejudiced reader will hardly be persuaded that St. John sets himself forth here as any other than such a constrained dweller in Patmos, one who had been banished thither “for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ.” Those modern interpreters who find in these words no reference to any such suffering for the truth’s sake, but only a statement on the writer’s part that he was in the isle of Patmos for the sake of preaching the Word of God, or, as others, for the sake of receiving a communication of the Word of God, refuse the obvious meaning of the words, which moreover a comparison with vi. 9; xx. 4, seems to me to render imperative, for one which, if it also may possibly lie in them, has nothing but this bare possibility in its favour. It is difficult not to think that these interpreters have been unconsciously influenced by a desire to get rid of the strong testimony for St. John’s authorship of the Book which lies in the consent of this declaration with that which early ecclesiastical history tells us about him, namely, that for his steadfastness in the faith of Christ he was by Domitian banished to Patmos, and only released at the accession of Nerva. The Apocalypse, it is worth observing by the way, has all internal evidence of having been thus written in time of persecution and by a confessor of the truth. The whole Book breathes the very air of martyrdom. Oftentimes slighted by the Church in times of prosperity, it is made much of, and its preciousness, as it were, instinctively discovered, in times of adversity and fiery trial. This Bengel has well observed:—“In tribulatione fidelibus maxime hic liber sapit. Asiatica Ecclesia, præsertim a floridissimo Constantini tempore, minus magni æstimavit hunc librum. Africana Ecclesia, cruci magis obnoxia, semper hunc librum plurimi fecit.” Tertullian may be quoted in proof of this assertion. How often does he seek, now to strengthen the faithful with the promises, and now to terrify the fearful with the threatenings, of this Book (Scorp. 12; De Cor. 15); and compare Cyprian, De Exhort. Mart. passim.

Ver. 10. “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day.”—In one sense the faithful are always “in the Spirit;” they are “spiritual” (1 Cor. iii. 1, 15); are “led by the Spirit” (Rom. viii. 14); “walk in the Spirit” (Gal. v. 16, 25). But here, and at iv. 2; xxi. 10 (cf. Ezek. xl. 2, “in the visions of God”), the words are used in an eminent and peculiar sense; they describe not the habitual condition of faithful men, but an exceptional condition, differing from the other not in degree only, but in kind; a condition in which there is a suspension of all the motions and faculties of the natural life; that a may be called, during and through this suspension, into a preternatural activity. It is the state of trance or ecstasy, that is, of standing out of oneself (θεία ἐξαλλαγὴ τῶν εἰωθότων νομίμων Plato calls it, Phædrus, 265 A, and on its positive side, ἐνθουσιασμός, so often described in Scripture as the condition of men to whom God would speak more directly (Acts x. 10; cf. xi. 5; xxii. 17); the antithesis to it, or the return out of it, being a γενόμενος ἐν ἑαυτῷ (Acts xii. 11); ἐν τῷ νοΐ (1 Cor. xiv. 14). St. Paul exactly describes the experience of one who has passed through this state, 2 Cor. xii. 2-4. That world of spiritual realities is one from which man is comparatively estranged so long as he dwells in this house of clay; he has need to be transported out of himself, before he can find himself in the midst of and come into direct contact with it. Here we have the explanation of the fact that the Lord never was “in the Spirit,” namely, because He was always “in the Spirit,” because He always moved in that region as his proper haunt and home.

Separated in body from the fellowship of the faithful, the beloved Apostle was yet keeping with them the weekly feast of the resurrection on the day which the Lord had made for ever peculiarly his own. It was, as he is careful to declare to us, “on the Lord’s Day,” which occupied for the Church the place occupied by the for the Jews, that he thus passed out of himself, and was drawn within the veil, and heard unspeakable words, and beheld things which, unless they had been shown by God, must have remained for ever hidden from mortal gaze; Some have assumed from this passage that ἡμέρα κυριακή was a designation of Sunday already familiar among Christians. This, however, seems a mistake. The name had probably its origin here. A little later we find ἡμέρα κυριακή familiar to Ignatius, as “Dominica solemnia” to Tertullian (De Animâ, c. 9; cf. Dionysius of Corinth, quoted by Eusebins, II. E. iv. 23, 8; Clement of Alexandria, Strom. vii. 12; Origen, Con. Cels. viii. 22). But though the name, “the Lord’s Day,” will very probably have had here its rise (the actual form of the phrase may have been suggested by κυριακὸν δεῖπνον, 1 Cor. xi. 20),—the thing, the celebration of the first day of the week as that on which the Lord brake the bands of death, and became the head of a new creation, called therefore sometimes ἀναστάσιιμος ἡμέρα, this was as old as Christianity itself (John xx. 24-29; 1 Cor. xvi. 2; Acts xx. 7; Ep. of Barnabas, c. 15: ἄγομεν τὴν ἡμέραν τὴν ὀγδόην εἰς εὐφροσύνην: cf. Suicer, s. v. κυριακή). The strange fancy of some that ἡμέρα κυρ]ακή means here “the day of the Lord,” in the sense of “the day of judgment,” intended as it is to subserve a scheme of Apocalyptic interpretation which certainly needs ally support which it can any where find, has been abundantly refuted by Alford.

“And I heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet.”—The wondrous vision which the Seer shall behold does not break upon him all at once; he first hears behind him “a voice, great as of a trumpet,” summoning his attention, and preparing him for the still greater sight which he shall see. It is a “great voice,” as the voice of the Lord must ever be (Ps. xxix. 3-9; lxviii. 33; Dan. x. 6; Matt. xxiv. 31; 1 Thess. iv. 16); a voice penetrating and clear, “as of a trumpet;” in which comparison there may be allusion, as Hengstenberg is sure there is, to the divinely-instituted rule of calling together by a trumpet the congregation of the Lord, when He had any thing to impart to them (Num. x. 2; Exod. xix. 16, 19; Joel ii. 1, 15; Matt. xxiv. 31; 1 Thess. iv. 16); although this to me does not seem very probable.

“Saying, What thou seest, write in a book, and send it to the seven Churches which are in Asia; unto Ephesus, and unto Smyrna, and unto Pergamos, and unto Thyatira, and unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea.”—The words, “I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last,” which in our Version follow immediately after “Saying,” have no right whatever to stand in the text. It is disputed whether the “book” which St. John is to write, and having written, to send to the seven Churches, is this whole Book of the Apocalypse, or only the seven shorter Epistles contained in chapters ii. and iii. Hengstenberg affirms the last; but against the great body of interpreters, and, as I am persuaded, wrongly. “What thou seest” must in that case be restrained to ver. 12-16 of this present chapter. All the rest, to the end of chap. iii., he will have heard; but-will have seen nothing; and moreover ver. 19 is decisive that what he is to write of is more than that which he has then seen: “Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter.”

Doubtless it is not for nothing that seven Churches, neither more nor less, are here named. The reason of this lies deeper than some suggest, who will have these seven to include all the principal Churches of Asia; whatever others there were being merely annexed to these. But taking into account the rapid spread of the Gospel in the regions of Asia Minor as recorded in Scripture (Acts xix. 9; 1 Cor. xvi. 9), and in other historical documents of a date very little later, we cannot doubt that toward the end of the life of St. John there were flourishing and important Churches in many other cities of that region besides these seven; that if the first purpose of the great ascended Bishop of the Church had been to bring under spiritual review the whole Church of Asia, in this case Colosse, to which St. Paul addressed an Epistle, and Hierapolis, where was already the nucleus of a Church in the Apostle’s time (Col. iv. 13), and where a little later Papias was bishop, and Miletus, the scene of apostolic labours (Acts xx. 17), and Tralles, called by Cicero “gravis, ornata et locuples civitas,” to the Church in which city Ignatius wrote an epistle some twenty years later, as he did to that in Magnesia as well, these with others would scarcely have been passed by. But what we may call the mystical or symbolic interest overhears and predominates over the actual. No doubt this actual was sufficiently provided for in another way, and these seven words of warning and encouragement so penetrated to the heart of things that, meeting the needs of these seven Churches, they also met the needs of all others subsisting in similar, or nearly similar conditions. Typical and representative Churches, these embodied, one or another of them, I will not say all the great leading aspects of the Church in its faithfulness or its unfaithfulness; but they embodied a great many, the broadest and the oftenest recurring. The seven must in this point of view be regarded as constituting a complex whole, as possessing an ideal completeness. Christ, we feel sure, could not have placed Himself in the relation which He does to them, as holding in his hand the seven stars, walking among the seven golden candlesticks, these stars being the Angels of the Churches, and the candlesticks the Churches themselves, unless they ideally represented and set forth, in some way or other, the universal Church, militant here upon earth.

But this, which I have here rather assumed than proved, together with another question, namely, whether besides possessing this typical and representative character, these seven Epistles are not also historico-prophetical, do not unfold the future of the Church’s fortunes to the end of time, seven successive stages and periods of its growth and history, has been so eagerly discussed, has, strangely enough, roused so much theological passion, that I am unwilling to treat the subject with the brevity which a place in this exposition would require. I must therefore refer the reader to al Excursus at the end of the volume, in which I have traced, rapidly indeed, but with some attempt at completeness, a sketch of the controversy, and have stated, and sought to , the conclusions on the points in debate at which I have myself arrived.

“And I turned to see the voice that spake with me. And being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks.” Λυχνία is a word condemned by the Greek purists, who prefer λύχνιον (Lobeck, Phrynichus, p. 313). The “seven candlesticks”—the rendering is not a very happy one, though it is not very plain how it should be bettered—send us back, and are intended to send us back, to the seven-branched candlestick, or candelabrum, which bears ever the same name of λυχνία in the Septuagint (Exod. xxv. 31; cf. Heb. ix. 2; Philo, Quis Rer. Div. Hær. 44; Josephus, B. J. v. 5. 5); the six arms of which with the central shaft (καλαμίσκοι, Exod. xxv. 31; κλάδοι, Philo, Vit. Mos. iii. 9), made up the mystical seven, each with its several lamp (λύχνος, Zech. iv. 2). Nor is this the first occasion when that portion of the furniture of the tabernacle has had a higher mystical meaning ascribed to it. Already in the candlestick all of gold, which Zechariah saw (iv. 2), there was an anticipation of this image; being one of the many remarkable points of contact between his prophecies and the Apocalypse. Here, however, it is not one candlestick with seven branches which St. John beholds; but rather seven separate candlesticks. Nor is it without a meaning that the seven thus take the place of the one. The Jewish Church was one; for it was the Church of a single people; the Christian Church, that too is one, but it is also many; at once the “Church” and the “Churches.” These may be quite independent of one another, the only bond of union with one another which they absolutely require being that of common dependence on the same Head, and derivation of life from the same Spirit; and are fitly represented by seven, the number of mystical completeness.

In the image itself by which the Churches are symbolized there is an eminent fitness. The candlestick, or lampstand, as we must rather conceive it here, is not light, but it is the bearer of light, that which diffuses it, that which holds it forth and causes it to shine throughout the house; being the appointed instrument for this. It is thus with the Church. God’s word, God’s truth, including in this all which He has declared of Himself in revealed religion, is light (Ps. cxix. 105; Prov. vi. 23); the Church is the light-bearer, light in the Lord (Ephes. v. 8), not having light of its own, but diffusing that which it receives of Him. Each too of the faithful in particular, after he has been illuminated (Heb. vi. 4), is a bearer of the light; “ye are the light of the world” (Matt. v. 14-16); “lights in the world, holding forth the word of life” (Phil. ii. 15). In accordance with this view of the matter, in the Levitical tabernacle the seven-branched candlestick stood in the Holy Place (Exod. xxvi. 35; xl. 4), which was the pattern of the Church upon earth, as the Holy of Holies was the pattern of the Church in heaven; and the only light which the Holy Place received was derived from that candlestick; the light of common day being quite excluded from it, in sign that the Lord God was the light thereof, that the light of the Church is the light of nature, but of .

These candlesticks are of gold (cf. Exod. xxv. 31; Zech. iv. 2), as so much else in this Book; “the golden girdle” (i. 13); “golden crowns” (iv. 4); “golden vials” (v. 8); “golden censer” (viii. 3); “golden altar” (ibid.); “golden reed” (xxi. 15); “the city of pure gold” (xxi. 18); “the street of the city of pure gold” (xxi. 21). No doubt the preciousness of all belonging to the Church of God is indicated- by the predominant employment of this the costliest and most perfect metal of all. A hint no doubt we have here of this, exactly as in the Ark and furniture of the Ark so much in like manner is of pure gold, the , the cherubim, the dishes, spoons, covers, tongs, snuff-dishes (Exod. xxv. 17, 18, 29, 38), the pot which had manna (Exod. xvi. 33), every thing in short which did not by its bulk and consequent weight absolutely preclude this, and even that was for the most part overlaid with gold (Exod. xxv. 10, 11, 23, 24). But the mere costliness of gold, that it was of all metals the rarest, and therefore the dearest, this was not the only motive for the predominant employment of it. Throughout all the ancient East there was a sense of sacredness attached to this metal, which still to a great extent survives. Thus “golden” in the Zend-Avesta is throughout synonymous with heavenly or divine. So also in many Eastern lands while silver might be degraded to profane and every-day uses of common life, might as money pass from hand to hand, “the pale and common drudge ’twixt man and man,” it was not permitted to employ gold in any services except only royal and divine (see Bähr, Symbolik, vol. i. pp. 273, 282, 292).

Ver. 13. “And in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of man.”—Some translate “like unto a son of man,” that is to say, “like unto a man,” the words merely for them expressing that He who was seen was in human shape, and, so far as the appearance warranted the conclusion, the sharer of a human nature (Ezek. xxxvii. 3, 16; xxxix. 1). The absence of the articles, however, does not require this either here or at xiv. 14; any more than υἱὸς Θεοῦ (Matt. xxvii. 54) demands to be translated “a son of God,” or πνεῦμα Θεοῦ, “a Spirit of God.” The beloved Apostle by this “like unto the Son of man” would express his recognition in this sublime appearance of Him whom he had once known on earth, the born of the Virgin Mary; and who even then had claimed to be executor of all judgment, because He was the Son of man (John v. 27).

“Clothed with a garment down to the foot.”—We are again reminded of Daniel’s vision, where in like manner He whom the prophet saw was “clothed in linen” (x. 5), or, as it would be more rightly translated, “in a long linen garment.” Ποδήρης, the “poderis” of ecclesiastical Latin, is properly an adjective here, with χίτων understood; cf. Wisd. xviii. 24: ποδῆρες ἔνδυμα, and Xenophon, Cyrop. vi. 2, 10: ἄσπις ποδήρης, a shield reaching down to the feet, such as the θυρεός (Ephes. vi. 16), and covering the whole person. The long robe is every where in the East the garment of dignity and honour (Gen. xxxvii. 3; Mark xiii. 38; Luke xv. 22)—the association of dignity with it probably resting originally on the absence of the necessity of labour; and thus of loins girt up, which it implied: see, on the other hand, 2 Sam. x. 4. The word nowhere else occurs in the New Testament, but several times in the Old; and designates there sometimes the long linen garment common to all the priests, the chetoneth, “the holy linen coat” (Lev. xvi. 4; Exod. xxxix. 27), sometimes the High Priest’s “robe of the ephod” (Exod. xxviii. 31; Zech. iii. 4; Wisd. xviii. 24); στολὴ δόξης, as it is called, Ecclus. xlviii. 7. Yet these passages must not lead us, as they have led some, to regard this as a manifestation of Christ in his priestly character alone. The Rheims version indeed renders ποδήρης here “a priestly garment,” but with no warrant for so doing. Any stately garment, any “vestis talaris,” may be indicated by the word (Ecclus. xxvii. 8), as for instance, that worn by the Angel of the (Ezek. ix. 2, 3). So too in Isaiah’s magnificent vision (vi. 1), He was clothed with a ποδήρης, though the word does not there occur, whom the prophet beheld sitting as a King upon his throne, and whose train filled the temple. The ποδήρης, in fact, is quite as much a kingly garment as a priestly, even as Christ presents Himself here not only as the Priest, but the King, and, so far as there is any predominance, more the King than the Priest, ruling in the midst of his’ Church.

“And girt about the paps with a golden girdle.”—So we read of the Angels “having their breasts girded with golden girdles” (xv. 6); cf. Ovid: “cinctæque ad pectora vestes.” The ordinary girding for one actively engaged was at the loins (1 Kings ii. 5; xviii. 46; Jer. xiii. 11; cf. Luke xii. 35; Eph. vi. 14; 1 Pet. i. 13); but Josephus (Antt. iii. 7, 2) expressly tells us that the Levitical priests were girt higher up, about the breast, or as it is here, “about the paps” (ἐπιζώννυνται κατὰ στῆθος)—favouring, as this higher cincture did, a calmer, more majestic movement (see Braun, De Vest. Hebr. p. 402). The girdle, knitting up as it would do into a compact unity all the scattered forces of a man, is often contemplated as the symbol of strength and power (Isai. xxii. 21; Job xii. 18); and as nothing is so strong as and truth, therefore the prophet foretells of Messiah, “Righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins” (Isai. xi. 5; cf. Ephes. vi. 14). The girdle here is “golden;” not merely with a golden clasp or buckle, as Hengstenberg, relying on 1 Macc. x. 89; xi. 58; xiv. 44, where such appears as the ensign of royalty, would have it; but all of gold; cf. xv. 7; and Dan. x. 5: “His loins were girded with fine gold of Uphaz.” It is quite true that the curious girdle of the High Priest was not golden, but only wrought and interwoven with gold (Exod. xxviii. 8; xxxix. 5); but this with other departures in the present appearance of the Lord from the investiture of the High Priest only goes to confirm what was just asserted, namely, that we have to do with Him here not as the Priest only, but as also the King in his Church; for it is in this direction that all the variations tend.

Ver. 14. “His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow.”—Cf. Dan. vii. 9: “The hair of his head was like the pure wool;” wool and snow being joined together on the score of their common whiteness both there and at Isai. i. 18. I must needs consider those interpreters as here altogether at fault who see in this whiteness of the Lord’s hairs the symbol of age, the hoary head as of the Ancient of Days, which should inspire honour and respect. Augustine himself has not escaped this error (Exp. ad Gal. iv. 21): “Dominus non nisi ob antiquitatem veritatis in Apocalypsi albo capite apparuit;” and Vitringa gives a reference to Lev. xix. 32. That it is an error a moment’s reflection will convince. The white hairs of old age are at once the sign and the consequence of the decay of natural strength, in other words, of death commencing; the hair blanching because the blood refuses to circulate any longer in these extremities, as it will one day refuse to circulate in any part of the frame. Being then this, how can the white hairs, the hoary head which is the sign of weakness, decay, and the approach of death, be ascribed to Him who, as He is from everlasting, so also is He to everlasting? Even the Angel at the sepulchre is a νεανισκός, “a young man” (Mark xvi. 5; cf. Zech. ii. 4); what then the Angel’s Lord (cf. 2 Esdr. ii. 43, 47)?

“And his eyes were as a flame of fire.”—Cf. Dan. x. 6: “His eyes [were] as lamps of fire.” This too has been understood by some, of the clear-sightedness of Christ, that all things are open and manifest to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do. Thus Vitringa: “Significant perspicaciam divinæ et puræ mentis omnia arcana pervadentis;” but Cocceius much better: “Significat hoc iram ἀπαραίτητον in adversarios.” The other explanation is insufficient. “His eyes were as a flame of fire,” does not say merely that He knows what is in man, that nothing can escape his searching penetrative glance; it expresses much more than this—the indignation of the Holy One at the discoveries of evil which He thus makes. These “eyes of fire,” do not merely look through the hypocrite and the sinner, but consume him, him and his sins together, unless indeed he will suffer them to consume his sins, that so he may live. For indeed in the symbolism of Scripture, fire is throughout the expression of the divine anger; and seeing that nothing moves that anger but sin, of the divine anger against sin (Gen. xix. 24; Lev. x. 2; Num. xi. 1; xvi. 35; Ps. 1. 3; xcvii. 3; 2 Kings i. 10, 12; Ezek. xxxviii. 22; xxxix. 6; Dan. vii. 9, 10; Luke ix. 54; 2 Thess. i. 8; Heb. x. 27; Jude 7; Rev. xx. 9). It need hardly be observed, as confirming this interpretation, that the eyes flashing fire are evermore the utterance, the outward tokens of indignation and wrath; thus Homer (Il. xiii. 474): ὀφθαλμὼ δ᾽ ἄρα οϙ πυρὶ λάμπετον: cf. Virgil, Æn. xii. 101, 102. If any hesitation existed in ascribing this meaning to the symbol here, it must be removed by a comparison with xix. 11, 12. The whole imagery there is of Christ as a man of war coming forth in his anger to make war upon his enemies, and the “eyes as a flame of fire” are again ascribed to Him there.

Ver. 15. “And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace.”—The ποδήρης, as the name sufficiently indicates, must have reached to the feet, but permitted them to be seen. They were no doubt bare; as were the feet of the Levitical priesthood ministering in the sanctuary. We are no where indeed expressly told of these that they ministered barefoot, but every thing leads us to this conclusion. Thus while all the other parts of the priestly investiture are described with the greatest minuteness, and Moses accurately instructed how they should be made, there is no mention of any covering for the feet. Then again the analogy of such passages as Exod. iii. 5; Josh. v. 15, and the fact that the moral idea of the shoe is that of a defence against the defilements of the earth, of which defilements there could be none in the Holy Place, all this irresistibly points this way. Plutarch’s testimony to the contrary (Symp. iv. 6, 2), who ascribes, to the High Priest at least, buskins (κοθόρνους,), cannot be regarded as of the slightest weight on the other side. Uncovered at all events the feet on the present occasion were; for St. John compares them to χαλκολίβανος—there is no reason why we should assume a neuter, χαλκολίβανον, as the nominative, which has very commonly been done—a word which we have translated “fine brass.” It occurs only here and at ii. 18; being, in all probability, of St. John’s own composition; and has much perplexed, we may say has defied, interpreters to give any satisfactory explanation of it—to do more than guess at its etymology and its meaning.

It has been suggested, and the suggestion is as old as Arethas,—it is indeed older, for the Syriac and the Ethiopic versions rest upon it,—that we are to find Λίβανος, or Lebanon, in the latter part of the word, and that χαλκολίβανος means “brass of Mount Lebanon,” such as was there found; or more generally “mountain-brass,” “aurichalcum,” as it is in the Vulgate; in the first syllable of which, as need hardly be observed, we are not to find “aurum,” as though this mixed metal were of gold and brass, and the word designating it a hybrid, partly Latin, partly Greek, but ὄρος, “orichalcum” (Æn. xii. 87) = ὀρείχαλκος. So one quoted by Wolf: “Libanus pro monte quolibet, fortasse quod Libanus dederit ejusmodi genus metalli;” which it has been further sought to prove by putting together the promise to Asher, “Thy shoes shall be iron and brass” (Deut. xxxiii. 25), and the fact that Lebanon was within the borders of this tribe. It is hardly fair to urge against this etymology the objection that it violates the law which holds good in Greek composite words, namely, that the more important word should come last, and the merely qualitative first; which indeed holds good quite as much in our own language, in which “brass-mountain” would signify something very different from “mountain-brass.” I say it is hardly fair to urge this, that the word should be rather λιβανόχαλκος than χαλκολίβανος, because the same objection may be urged against every other attempted explanation of the word, including that which seems to me the most probable of all. Another suggestion, first made by Salmasius, has found favour with Ewald, to the effect that this mysterious word is a somewhat euphonic form of χαλκολίβανος, brass of the κλίβανος, or furnace; it is scarcely likely to find favour with others, and is not worthy any serious notice. As little, I confess, does the solution of the riddle of this word, which Wordsworth has allowed and adopted, commend itself to me, namely, that the second part of the word is λίβανος, frankincense, brass of the colour of frankincense, that is, brass of a dark copper hue; for, to say nothing of the extreme unlikelihood of frankincense being sought to suggest what the colour was, this part of the description is thus put in direct opposition with all the rest. Every thing else is light, fire, of a white shining brightness; the feet must be so as well.