Revelation 3:12

The reward of steadfastness here is a stable relation to God and absolute (trebly verified) assurance of eternal life, permanence ἐν τῷ ναῷ (verbally inconsistent with Revelation 21:22) τοῦ θεοῦ μου (four times in this verse). From Strabo (xii. 868 [905] ἥ τε φιλαδελφία … οὐδὲ τοὺς τοίχους ἔχει πιστούς, ἀλλὰ καθʼ ἡμέραν τρόπον τινὰ σαλεύονται καὶ διΐστανται : xiii. 936 B., πόλις φιλ. σεισμῶν πλήρής · οὐ γὰρ διαλείπουσιν οἱ τοῖχοι διϊστάμενοι, καὶ ἄλλοτʼ ἄλλο μέρος τῆς πόλεως κακοπαθῶν, κ. τ. λ.) we learn that the city was liable to frequent and severe earthquakes, one of which had produced such ruin a while ago (Tac Ann. ii. 47) that the citizens had to be exempted from Imperial taxation and assisted to repair their buildings. These local circumstances (cf. Juv. vi. 411; Dio Cass. lxviii. 25; Renan, 335) lend colour to this promise, which would also appeal to citizens of a city whose numerous festivals and temples are said to have won for it the sobriquet of “a miniature Athens” (E. Bi. 3692). The promise is alluded to in Ep. Lugd., where God's grace is said to have “delivered the weak and set them up as στύλους ἑδραίους able by means of their patience to stand all angry onsets of the evil one,” and Attalus of Pergamos is termed a στύλον καὶ ἑδραίωμα of the local Christians. Permanent communion with God is further expressed in terms of the widespread ethnic belief that to be ignorant of a god's name meant inability to worship him, whereas to know that name implied the power of entering into fellowship with him. “Just as writing a name on temple-walls puts the owner of the name in continual union with the deity of the temple, so for early man the knowledge, invocation and vain repetition of the deity's name constitutes in itself an actual, if mystic, union with the deity named” (Jevons' Introd. Hist. Religion, 1896, p. 245; cf. Jastrow, p. 173). καὶ γράψω, κ. τ. λ., inscriptions upon pillars being a common feature of Oriental architecture, cf. Cooke's North Semitic Inscriptions, p. 266, names on pillars; also Reitzenstein's Poimandres, 20. The provincial priest of the Imperial cultus erected his statue in the temple at the close of his year's official reign, inscribing on it his own name and his father's, his place of birth and year of office. Hence some of the mysterious imagery of this verse, applied to Christians as priests of God in the next world. This is more probable than to suspect an allusion to what was written on the high priest's forehead (Exodus 28:36, cf. Revelation 7:3; Revelation 14:1; Revelation 17:5; Revelation 22:4). Pillars were also, of course, sculptured now and then in human shape. For the first (a) of the three names, cf. Baba Bathra, 75, 2: R. Samuel ait R. Jochanan dixisse tres appellari nomine Dei, justos (Isaiah 43:7), Messiam (Jeremiah 23:6), Hierosolyma (Ezekiel 48:35); also Targ. Jerus. on Exod. xxviii. 30, quisquis memorat illud nomen sanctum [i.e., τετραγράμματον] in hora necessitatis, eripitur, et occulta reteguntur. Where a name was equivalent in one sense to personality and character, to have a divine name conferred on one or revealed to one was equivalent to being endowed with divine power. The divine “hidden name” (Asc. Isa. i. 7 Jewish: “as the Lord liveth whose name has not been sent into this world,” cf. Revelation 8:7) was (according to En. lxix. 14f.) known to Michael, and had talismanic power over dæmons. Perhaps an allusion to this also underlies the apocalyptic promise, the talismanic metaphor implying that God grants to the victorious Christian inviolable safety against evil spirits (cf. Romans 8:38-39). The second (b) name denotes (cf. Isaiah 56:5; Ezekiel 48:35) that the bearer belongs not merely to God but to the heavenly city and society of God. Since rabbinic speculation was sure that Abraham had the privilege of knowing the mysterious new name for Jerusalem in the next world, John claims this for the average and honest Christian. On the connexion between the divine name and the temple, see Malachi 2:9; Malachi 2:9; Malachi 2:14; Malachi 2:14, Jdt 9:8, etc. The third (c) “my own new name” (Revelation 19:12) is reflected in Asc. Isa. ix. 5 (the Son of God, et nomen eius non potes audire donec de carne exibis); it denotes some esoteric, incommunicable, pre-existent (LXX of Psalms 71:17, En. lxix. 26, cf. R. J. 249, 344) title, the knowledge of which meant power to invoke and obtain help from its bearer. The whole imagery (as in Revelation 2:17; Revelation 19:12) is drawn from the primitive superstition that God's name. like a man's name, must be kept secret, lest if known it might be used to the disadvantage of the bearer (Frazer's Golden Bough, 2nd ed. i. 443 f.). The close tie between the name and the personality in ancient life lent the former a secret virtue. Especially in Egyptian and in Roman belief, to learn a god's name meant to share his power, and often “the art of the magician consisted in obtaining from the gods a revelation of their sacred names”. The point made by the prophet here is that the Christian God bestows freely upon his people the privilege of invoking his aid successfully, and of entering into his secret nature; also, perhaps, of security in the mysterious future across death. See the famous ch. 125. of E. B. D. where the successive doors will not allow Nu to pass till he tells them their names (cf. Chapter s cxli. f.). Ignatius tells the Philadelphians (obviously referring to this passage, ad Phil. 6) that people unsound upon the truth of Jesus Christ are to him στῆλαι καὶ τάφοι νεκρῶν, ἐφʼ οἶς γέγραπται μόνον ὀνόματα ἀνθρώπων. The μόνον is emphatic. In the survival of 2 Peter during the later conquests which left the other six towns of the Apocalypse more or less ruined, Gibbon (ch. 64.) irrelevantly finds “a pleasing example that the paths of honour and safety may sometimes be the same”.

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

[906]. Codex Porphyrianus (sæc. ix.), at St. Petersburg, collated by Tischendorf. Its text is deficient for chap. Revelation 2:13-16.