Revelation 1:20

μυστ. (as in Daniel 2:27, LXX; see below on Revelation 10:7) = “the secret symbol”. These two symbols, drawn from the lore of contemporary apocalyptic, are chosen for explanation, partly as an obscure and important element in the foregoing vision which had to be set in a new light, partly because they afford a clue to all that follows (especially the opening section, Revelation 2:1; Revelation 2:5). The seven-branched lamp-stand was a familiar symbol, frequently carved on the lintel of a synagogue. Along with the silver trumpets and other spoils of the temple it now lay in the temple of Peace at Rome. The fanciful symbolism, by which the cressets shining on earth are represented in another aspect as heavenly bodies, corresponds to Paul's fine paradox about the Christian life of the saints lying hidden with Christ in God; even unsatisfactory churches, like those at Sardis and Laodicea, are not yet cast away. Note also that the light and presence of God now shine in the Christian churches, while the ancestral Jewish light is extinguished (4 Ezra 10:22): “The light of our lamp-stand is put out”). It is curious that in Assyrian representations the candelabrum is frequently indistinguishable from the sacred seven-branched tree crowned with a star (R. S. 488); Josephus expressly declares (Ant. iii. 6. 7, 7. 7) that the seven lamps on the stand signified the seven planets, and that the twelve loaves on the shew-bread table signified the signs of the zodiac (Bell. Revelation 1:5; Revelation 1:5), while Philo had already allegorised the lamp-stand (= seven planets) in quis haeres, § 45. This current association of the λύχνοι with the planets is bound up with the astral conception of the angels of the churches (ἀγγ. = “angels” as elsewhere in Apocalypse), who are the heavenly representatives and counterparts or patron angels of the churches, each of the latter, like the elements (e.g., water Revelation 16:5, fire Revelation 14:18; see further in Baldensperger, 106, and Gfrörer, i. 368 f.), the wind (Revelation 7:1), and the nether abyss (Revelation 9:2), having its presiding heavenly spirit. The conception (E. J. i. 593. 594) reaches back to post-exilic speculation, in which Greece, Persia and Judæa had each an influential and responsible angelic prince (Daniel 10:13; Daniel 10:20-21; Daniel 12:1), and especially to the Iranian notion of fravashis or semi-ideal prototypes of an earthly personality (here, a community), associated with reminiscences of the Babylonian idea that certain stars were assigned to certain lands, whose folk and fortunes were bound up with their heavenly representatives (cf. Rawlinson's Cuneif. Inscript. West. Asia Minor, ii. 49, iii. 54, 59, etc.). Afterwards (cf. Tobit) individuals were assigned a guardian spirit. This belief (Gfrörer, i. 374 f.) passed into early Christianity (Matthew 18:10; Acts 12:15, where see note), but naturally it never flourished, owing to Christ's direct and spiritual revelation of God's fatherly providence. The association of stars and angels is one of the earliest developments in Semitic folklore, and its poetic possibilities lent themselves effectively as here to further religious applications; e.g., Enoch (i. 18) had long ago represented seven stars, “like spirits,” in the place of fiery punishment for disobedience to God's commands. As Dr. Kohler points out (E. F. i. 582 97), the determining factors of Jewish angelology were the ideas of “the celestial throne with its ministering angels, and the cosmos with its evil forces to be subdued by superior angelic forces,” which corresponds to the punitive and protective rôles of angels in the Johannine Apocalypse. But in the latter they are neither described at length nor exalted. They are simply commissioned by God to execute his orders or instruct the seer. The supreme concern of God is with the earth and man; angels are but the middle term of this relationship, at most the fellow-servants of the saints whose interests they promote (see below on Revelation 19:9-10; Revelation 22:8-9). Christians, unlike the Iranians (e.g. Bund. xxx. 23, etc.), offer no praises to them; they reserve their adoration for God and Christ. However graphic and weird, the delineation of demons and angels in this book is not grotesque and crude in the sense that most early Jewish and Christian descriptions may be said to deserve these epithets. Here the guardian spirit who is responsible for a church's welfare, would, roughly speaking, be identified with itself; his oversight and its existence being correlative terms. Hence there is a sense in which the allied conception of ἀγγ. is true, namely, that the ἀγγ. is the personified spirit or genius or heavenly counterpart of the church, the church being regarded as an ideal individual (so Andr., Areth., Wetst., Bleek, Lücke, Erbes, Beyschlag, Swete, etc.) who possesses a sort of Egyptian Ka or double. By itself, however, this view lies open to the objection that it explains one symbol by another and hardly does justice to the naïve poetry of the conception. The notion of guardian angels was widespread in the early church (Hermas, Justin, Clem. Alex., Origen, etc.), independently of this passage. Statius (Silv. i. 241) says that Domitian “posuit sua sidera” (i.e., of his family) in the heaven, when he raised a temple to the Flavians a contemporary parallel upon a lower level of feeling, but indicating a similar view of the heavenly counterpart (cf. Ramsay, Seven Letters, 68 f.) The Apocalypse, though presupposing the exercise of discipline and the practice of reading, prayer, and praise within the Christian communities, entirely ignores officials of any kind; and the following homilies are directly concerned with the churches (Revelation 2:7, ἐκκλησίαις, not the angels), their different members (cf. Revelation 2:24) and their respective situations. Hence the poetic idealism of the ἄγγελοι soon fades, when the writer's practical sense is brought to bear. As the scene of revelation is ἐν πνεύματι and its author the heavenly Christ, the writer is instructed to address not τοῖς ἁγίοις (e.g., ἐν Εφέσῳ), but their patron spirit or guardian angel. The point of the address is that the revelation of Jesus is directly conveyed through the spoken and written words of the prophets, as the latter are controlled by his Spirit.