Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

Revelation 12:17

The baffled adversary now widens his sphere of operations. τ. λ. an apocalyptic term = the derelicti or relicti of 4 Esdras (cf. Volz, 319). These represent to the Christian editor the scattered Christians in the Empire; by adding this verse (or at least καὶ ἐχ.… Ἰησοῦ) to the source, he paves the way for the following saga of 13. which depicts the trying situation of Christians exposed to the attack of the devil's deputies. The devil keeps himself in the background. He works subtly through the Roman power. This onset on the faith and faithfulness of Christians by the enforcement of the Imperial cultus is vividly delineated in Ep. Lugd. which incidentally mentions the experience of Biblias who, like Cranmer, repented of a recantation. “The devil, thinking he had already swallowed up [918]., one of those who had denied Christ, desired to condemn her further by means of blasphemy, and brought her to the torture [i.e., in order to force false accusations from her lips].… But she, reminded by her present anguish of the eternal punishment in Gehenna [cf. Revelation 14:9 f.], contradicted the blasphemous slanderers, confessed herself a Christian, and was added to the order of the martyrs.” Blandina, the heroic slave-girl, survived several conflicts ἵνα νικήσασα τῷ μὲν σκολιῷ ὄφει ἀπαραίτητον ποιήσῃ τὴν καταδίκην.

[918] Codex Vaticanus (sæc. iv.), published in photographic facsimile in 1889 under the care of the Abbate Cozza-Luzi.

The keynote of the situation hinted in Revelation 12:17 f. is struck in Revelation 13:2. The dragon has given his authority to the beast; what God's people have now to contend with is no longer the O.T. Satan merely (Revelation 12:9-10) but his powerful and seductive delegate on earth. In the Imperial cultus the Christian prophet could see nothing except a supreme and diabolically subtle manœuvre of Satan himself (cf. on Revelation 13:1; Revelation 13:5). The Danielic prophecy was at last on he verge of fulfilment! Mythological and cosmological elements (S. C. 360 f.) were already present in the Danielic tradition, but the prophet (or the source which he edits) readapted them to the historical situation created by the expectation of Nero's return from the under world and the enforcement of the Imperial cultus. For the hypothesis of a Caligula-source in this chapter, cf. Introd § 6.

Revelation 12:17 to Revelation 13:18 : the saga of the woman and the red dragon (a war in heaven) is followed by the saga of the two monsters from sea and land (a war on earth), who, with the dragon, form a triumvirate of evil. First (Revelation 12:17 to Revelation 13:10) the monster from the sea, i.e., the Roman Empire.

Rev 12:18. The scene is the sea-shore, ex hypothesi, of the Mediterranean (Phœdo, 109 b, 111 a, etc.), i.e., the West, the whole passage being modelled on Daniel 7:2-3; Daniel 7:7-8; Daniel 7:19-27, where the stormy sea from which the monsters emerge is the world of nations (cf. 4 Esd. 11:1: ecce ascendebat de mari aquila, also 4 Esd. 13:1)

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Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

Revelation 12:17

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