Revelation 1:3

The first of the seven beatitudes in the Apocalypse (Revelation 14:13; Revelation 16:15; Revelation 19:9; Revelation 20:6; Revelation 22:7; Revelation 22:14), endorsing the book as a whole. In the worship of the Christian communities one member read aloud, originally from the O.T. as in the synagogues, and afterwards from Christian literature as well (apostolic epistles, Colossians 4:16, and sub-apostolic epistles), while the rest of the audience listened (Eus. H. E. iv. 23). In its present form the Apocalypse was composed with this object in view. Cf. Justin's description of the Christinn assemblies on Sunday, when, as the first business, τὰ ἀπομνημονεύματα τῶν ἀποστόλων ἢ τὰ συγγράμματα τῶν προφητῶν ἀναγινώσκεται (Apol. i. 67). The art of reading was not a general accomplishment in the circles from which the Christian societies were for the most part recruited, and this office of reader (ἀναγνώστης), as distinct from that of the president, soon became one of the regular minor positions in the worship of the church. Here the reader's function resembles that of Baruch (cf. Jeremiah 22:5-6). τηροῦντες τὰ, κ. τ. λ., carefully heeding the warnings of the book, observing its injunctions, and expecting the fulfilment of its predictions, instead of losing heart and faith (Luke 18:8). Cf. Hipp. De Antich. 2 and En. civ. 12, “books will be given to the righteous and the wise to become a cause of joy and uprightness and much wisdom”. The content of the Apocalypse is not merely prediction; moral counsel and religious instruction are the primary burden of its pages. The bliss of the obedient and attentive, however, is bound up with the certainty that the crisis at which the predictions of the book are to be realised is imminent; they have not to wait long for the fulfilment of their hopes. This, with the assurance of God's interest and intervention, represented the ethical content of early Christian prediction, which would have been otherwise a mere satisfaction of curiosity; see on Revelation 1:19.

[Note on Revelation 1:1-3. If this inscription (absent from no MS.) is due to the author, it must have been added (so Bruston, Jülicher, Hirscht, Holtzm., Bs.), like the προοίμιον of Thucydides, after he had finished the book as a whole. But possibly it was inserted by the later hand of an editor or redactor (Völter, Erbes, Briggs, Hilg., Forbes, Wellhausen, J. Weiss, Simcox = elders of Ephesus, John 21:24) rather than of a copyist (Spitta, Sabatier, Schön), who reproduced the Johannine style of the Apocalypse proper. At the same time, the change from the third to the first person (Revelation 1:9) is not unexampled (cf. Jeremiah 1:1-4 f.; Ezekiel 1:1-4; Enoch repeatedly), and forms no sure proof of an original text overlaid with editorial touches; nor is a certain sententious objectivity (cf. Herod, Revelation 1:1; Revelation 2:23, etc.) unnatural at the commencement of a book, when the writer has occasion to introduce himself. The real introduction begins at Revelation 1:4 (cf. Revelation 22:21).]