'(On this): The city is the Church ; and these months they are to persecute her and kill, when the false Christ [St. Matth. xxiv. 24] shall come, because she worships him not. Now of this said Daniel, He shall approve the covenant for many, one week; in the half of the week shall cease the sacrifice [Dan, ix. 27]. The half of the week: that is, three years and a-half; and these make the forty and two months which are mentioned. The sacrifice he speaks of is not that of sheep, but the prayers of the upright. And the holy city he speaks of is the righteous, i. e. [those] who are oppressed and trodden under foot by the horn that sprang up in the midst [Dan. vii. 8, 20, 21, 25], which is Antichrist, as Daniel said.
Hippolytusotherwise interprets that which is said in the Gospel, When indeed ye shall see the pollution of desolation [St. Matth. |138 xxiv. 15] : for he says that it is not concerning the Jews, and the laying waste of Jerusalem, that these things are said, but concerning the end of Antichrist. The elect [ib. 22] he speaks of are the Christians who are in this conflict. And He says, Pray that ye fly not on the Sabbath or in winter [ib. 20] : i. e. He advises that we be not overtaken by those things that are coming on us, when we are unoccupied in righteousness, as the Jews [are unoccupied] on the Sabbath, or troubled with worldly cares and sins, as one that is in a winter storm. There shall be tribulation such as there was not like it since the beginning of the world, etc. [ib. 21 ; cp. Dan. xii. 1].
On this Hippolytus says, that in the siege of Vespasian this did not come to pass; for nothing new happened to the world in his days beyond the things that were before. If you speak of war, many times it has happened in former times : and if again of captives, there have not lacked massacres or blood-shedding that was more than that [of the siege]. And if of the eating of children and unclean beasts, lo also in the days of Ahab these things were [2 Kings, vi. 28]. Accordingly it is not concerning Jerusalem that the Lord said this; for when He willed to speak concerning her, He said, When ye shall see the army compassing the city, know that the desolation thereof is nigh [St. Luke, xxi. 20]. Hence the pollution of devastations He speaks of is Antichrist. And Daniel said, [ In ] the half of the week standeth the abomination in the sanctuary [Dan. ix. 27 ; cp. xi. 31]. Now "Vespasian did not set up in the temple an idol, but that Legion which Trajanus Quintus placed, a chief man of the Romans : he set up the idol there which is called Kôre. |139
Also the Apostle has written that these things are concerning Antichrist, Except if there come first a falling away, and the Man of iniquity be revealed, so that he as God shall sit in the temple, whom our Lord Jesus shall consume, etc. [2 Thess. ii. 3, 4, 8]. From these [words] it is evident that Vespasian did not call himself God, nor did he sit in the temple, nor was he killed by the Spirit of the Lord. Accordingly it is manifest that in the end tribulation arises against the Church, such as was none like it. '
VII.
[ Rev. xi. 3:
And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy, etc.]
'(On this :) There come two prophets, Enoch and Elias, and these are the two olive trees he speaks of [ib. 4], even as Zacharias spoke of them [Zech. iv. 3, 11, 14]. Now concerning Elias our Lord said, Elias must come to restore all things [St. Mark, ix. 12; cp. St. Matth. xvii. 11]. Of these he says that they work miracles and signs, and send plagues upon the unbelieving [Rev. xi. 5, 6], in order that the faithful may have some respite. These two prophets will stand up against Antichrist, even as Moses and Aaron stood up against Pharaoh and the Egyptians. These things then are to be in the half of the week, when Antichrist will scatter all men, so that there shall not be found two or three together to assemble, to offer sacrifice to God. This then is to be fulfilled, that the sacrifice shall cease. When then these are killed there [ib. 7] by the false Christ, afterwards they are to stand up, in presence of many, and are to be caught upon the clouds to meet our Lord [ib. 11, 12; 1 Thess. iv. 17]. In the half of the week, said John, Enoch and Elias are to receive power [ib. 6], and are to preach a thousand two hundred and threescore days girt with sackcloth [ib. 3], and to teach repentance to the people and the Gentiles. These days are the half of the week ; and these are the two olive-trees and the two candlesticks (ib. 4), as Zacharias said, Enoch and Elias. And the beast that |140 ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them. And their dead bodies he shall cast into the streets, that is the highways, of the city [ib. 7, 8]. (On this :) Concerning this beast Daniel said, I saw indeed a beast that came up out of the bottomless pit, that is, the sea [Dan. vii. 3], and made war with the saints [ib. 21], which [beast] that horn which sprang up designates [ib. 8J. No other kingdom is to persecute the saints, save this alone from which the horn is to spring up at the last, which is Antichrist, who is to kill Enoch and Elias. And after these things that is to come to pass which Esaias said; Behold the Lord out of His sanctuary send-eth forth His sword, great and strong, against the dragon, the crooked serpent [Isaiah, xxvi. 21 ; xxvii. 1]: and in like manner said Daniel, The beast was killed and destroyed, and his body was given to the burning fire [Dan. vii. 11]. The body he speaks of is the devil, he who worketh [2 Thess. ii. 7, 9] in the false Christ : and the city he speaks of is Jerusalem, where these things are to come to pass. For Paul said concerning him who is Antichrist, He sitteth in the temple of God as God '
The foregoing extract, though continuously written in the MS. whence I take it, divides itself into two parts, the division being marked (as is usual in this MS.) by the sign x. It will be perceived that Hippolytus is cited by name in the |141 former of these parts only----that which relates to the second verse of Rev. xi. But (as I shall presently show) it is certain that in the latter part likewise the comment on the ten following verses (3-12) is in great measure drawn from Hippolytus. Besides, the line of interpretation that runs through both parts is continuous. For these reasons I have thought it well to give the whole. The Commentary has no further note on chapter xi., but passes on immediately to chapter xii.
On the second verse Barsalibi begins by explaining the 'treading underfoot' by the Gentiles of the 'holy city ' during 'forty and two months' to mean that in the latter days of the world the Church shall suffer persecution for three years and a half, which period he identifies with the 'half-week' foretold by Daniel (ix. 27); and the 'sacrifice caused to cease in the midst of the week,' signifies accordingly the suppression of the public prayers of the Church by the tyranny of Antichrist, when she will refuse to worship him. And he is the 'little horn' of the fourth of the beasts of Daniel's vision, who is to 'prevail against the saints' (Dan. vii. 8, 21). For so far the Commentary appears to follow the teaching of Hippolytus in the treatise De Christo et Antichristo (Lagarde, pp. 1-36). In that treatise it is laid down, as in the Commentary, that the 'horn' is Antichrist (ss. 28, 47 ); that the half-week of Daniel is the same as the period defined in this eleventh chapter of the Revelation (ss. 43, 47, 61), and that its completion is to be the end of all things ( ib., & s. 64). But the discussion |142 which is subjoined, cited as from Hippolytus, of our Lord's eschatological prediction, recorded in the twenty-fourth chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel, and of St. Paul's, in the second chapter of his second Epistle to the Thessalonians, is not (so far as I know) to be found in any of his extant writings----though in the De Christo et Antichristo (ss. 62, 63) he inserts several verses of both chapters (St. Matth. xxiv. 15-19, & 21 ; 2 Thess. 11. 1-12 ], similarly connected together. It is natural to suppose that the citation is from the lost Commentary on Matthew, which St. Jerome mentions in the Prologue to his own Commentary on that Gospel. Indeed, this appears to be directly attested by the MS. of Barsalibi in the marginal note ( quantum valeat ) attached to the name of Hippolytus, which says, 'In the Commentary on the Gospel.' The words with which Barsalibi introduces this discussion ('Hippolytus otherwise interprets . . .') imply that he regarded it as in some measure inconsistent with the preceding interpretation of Rev. xi. 2, which (as I have shown) is drawn from, or at least coincides with, that contained in the De Christo et Antichristo. But it is not easy to see any real inconsistency between them; and it may be that he only means to point out that of Daniel's two representations of Antichrist----the 'little horn' and the 'abomination of desolation '----Hippolytus has fixed on the former in the Treatise, and on the latter in the Commentary (or whatever work of his is here borrowed from). It is to be noted that though the texts of Daniel and St. Matthew, which speak of the 'abomination of desolation,' are cited in the De Christo et Antichristo (s. 62), and its appearance reckoned among |143 the signs of the end (64), it is nowhere in this Treatise identified with Antichrist.
I see no reason to doubt that we have here a genuine excerpt, probably in a condensed form, from a lost work of Hippolytus; though the identification of it as belonging to the Commentary on Matthew is but conjectural. It is of value as a clear and forcible summary of the reasons why the seige and destruction of Jerusalem under Vespasian cannot be regarded as adequately fulfilling the predictions of our Lord, or those of St. Paul, as we read them in the chapters referred to. It contains, moreover, an incidental statement which, if true, is an interesting addition to our knowledge of the history of the capture of the city. Josephus makes no mention of the setting up of an idol in the Temple, which Hippolytus here relates as the act of a Roman commander named Trajanus. But he mentions a Trajanus as being prefect of the tenth legion at the time when Jotapata was besieged ( B. J., bk. III., chh. vii. 31, viii. 8), who may be presumed to be the same person. And the name of the idol, Kore, of course represents Κορή , or Persephone, whose images, set up beside watersprings, were so familiar to Justin in the second century, probably in Palestine ( Apol. 1. 64).
In the remaining part of my extract----that in which the next ten verses of the Revelation are commented on----the relation of the Commentary of Barsalibi to Hippolytus is closer. Not only is the identification of the 'two witnesses' as Enoch and Elias common to both, but in the terms in which the mission of the witnesses is expressed there is a striking coincidence. St. John has merely said, 'they shall prophesy,' which the Commentary expands |144 into, 'they are to preach . . . and to teach repentance to the people and the Gentiles.' This expansion is plainly derived from the words of the De Christo et Antichristo, 'They shall preach . . . proclaiming repentance to the people and all the Gentiles' (s. 43). There are, indeed, in the extract a few points which, so far as I am aware, are not to be found in any work of Hippolytus that has come down to us, for example, the curious explanation that the 'body of the beast' is the Devil. But that Barsalibi had the De Christo et Antichristo before him in the composition of his Commentary appears beyond question in many places. A conclusive instance is his comment on the latter verses of Rev. xiii., the greater part of which I find to be simply a translation, somewhat abridged, of the latter half of section 49 and the former half of section 50 of that treatise.
It may be well to note here that this mention of Enoch and Elias, and nearly all the other points above noted as connecting the Commentary with Hippolytus, appear also in the Homily De Consummatione mundi (Lagarde, pp. 92-123). But this Homily seems to be certainly spurious. I have inadvertently quoted it in my Paper in Hermathena xiv. (p. 418, suppl. note (1)), where I ought to have referred instead to the De Christo et Antichristo, s. 15 (Lagarde, p. 8).
I may add that a coincidence with the Hippolytean fragment V in that Paper, which I had overlooked, is to be found in the Commentary on Proverbs, printed by Mai ( Nova Patrum Biblioth., t. vii. ii. p. 74), which is not included in Lagarde's Hippolytus. It is the comment on Prov. XXX. 19: Οὐδὲ ὁ διάβολος ἐπὶ σῶμα Χριστοῦ ἀμαρτίαν ἠδυνήθη εὑρεῖν· λέγει γὰρ ὁ κύριος· ἰδοὺ ἔρχεται ὁ ἄρχων τοῦ κόσμου τούτου, καὶ ἐν ἐμοὶ εὑρήσει οὐδέν . On this remarkable reading of St. John xiv. 30, see my note, ib. p. 417.
VIII. The accompanying autotype [ omitted from the online text ] reproduces faithfully the mutilated first page of the MS. Rich 7185. The first eight lines contain the superscription (written in vermilion). Lines 1 and 2 are as follows:
'On God [relying] we delay not to write extracts from the interpretation of the Revelation of John, a small portion . . .'
Of the six following I can only decipher a word here and there. Among them, however, I find
'Dionysius [Bishop of] the city Amid.'
This identifies the author as Dionysius Barsalibi, who occupied that See from A.D. 1166 to 1171. It appears, moreover, that in the MS. we have not his Commentary on the Apocalypse in full, but only a series of excerpts from it.
The remainder of the page (twenty lines in all) is |146 written in black ink. The page is so mutilated that the opening words of every line of it are lost, except of the first four. Lines 9 and 10 appear to speak of the brevity of this Commentary as compared with the fuller one on the Gospel. Lines 11 and 12 ask the reader's prayers for Dionysius Xenaias [?]. In line 13 begins the discussion of the authorship of the book. The substance of the remaining lines (14-28), mutilated as they are, may be made out to this effect:----
'Many have denied that the Revelation is the work of John the Apostle. Eusebius of Csesarea quotes [Diony]sius of Alexandria, who argues that it is written by some other John, because the style is unlike that of the Gospel, and because the writer [not as in the Gospel] gives his name, and claims to have received his revelation from the Lord. Irenaeus and Hippolytus ascribe it to John the Evangelist, writing in the reign of Domitian : but [Eusebius] to John the Presbyter, contemporary of the Apostle.'
[See Euseb. H. E. iii. 39; vii. 25.]
[Pages 147-150 containing Syriac text omitted]
THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE MURATORIAN CANON.
[T.H. R OBINSON, in The Expositor ]