. New Testament hours. fulwitness, the first-born of the dead, and the ruler of the kingsof the earth. As has been noticed, there were other churches inAsia when the Apocalypse was written, besides thosementioned in the Epistles, which, therefore, appear tohave been selected as representatives of the Christiancommunity as a whole: the roll or book, being,doubtless, circulated everywhere, and read in all the localassemblings of the brethren. The expression, so strange to Western minds,—The ^ Note.—Proconsular Asia embraced Phrygia, Mysia, Caria, Lydia,Ionia, and ^olis. 180 THE APOCALYPSE seven
. New Testament hours. fulwitness, the first-born of the dead, and the ruler of the kingsof the earth. As has been noticed, there were other churches inAsia when the Apocalypse was written, besides thosementioned in the Epistles, which, therefore, appear tohave been selected as representatives of the Christiancommunity as a whole: the roll or book, being,doubtless, circulated everywhere, and read in all the localassemblings of the brethren. The expression, so strange to Western minds,—The ^ Note.—Proconsular Asia embraced Phrygia, Mysia, Caria, Lydia,Ionia, and ^olis. 180 THE APOCALYPSE seven Spirits which are before the throne, seems only tobe an instance of the employment of a familiar Hebrewidiom by which, in harmony with its import in manyparts of Scripture, the number seven stands for theconception of completeness. In this case, indeed, itmight, in the sacred writers mind, be only a figurativeway for representing the varied perfections which,blended, make up our conception of the One Divine f^r^ j^. Eegion of the Seven Churches. Spirit, as one might speak of the seven rays which wecan untwine from one—the seven tints which unite toform the sacred whiteness of unbroken light. From extreme antiquity, that number had, indeed, been,in a sense, almost sacred, in Western Asia, from which theHebrews came. Thus, the nations on the Euphrates had aweek of seven days, each of which was consecrated to one of THE KEVELATION OF ST. JOHN THE DIVINE 181 the seven divinities identified with the seven believed that seven evil spirits were created inChaos: the great dragon Tiamath, in their mythology,had seven heads, and the mystical powers of this numberwere held to cure the sick, by proper magical knotstwisted seven times seven. Carrying this way of speak-ing and writing with them from Mesopotamia to Palestine,the Jews had seven days in their cosmogony ; the seventhday was the holy Sabbath; the seventh year was con-secrated as the Sabbath of the land, and the
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