Revelation 7

   Dear Readers: This is my 8th column with excerpts from my Commentary and Bible study of St. John’s Revelation.  I strongly assert that St. John was writing this book  as an argument for Christianity and an attack against the 5 major enemies of the Cross of Jesus Christ at the end of the 1st century.  I hope you enjoy reading these portions of  Revelation.
Chapter 7: The Interlude: The Saved in Israel: 7:1 1-8
   “After this I saw four angels who were standing at the four corners of the land restraining the four winds of the land so that the wind would no longer blow upon the land neither upon the sea nor upon any tree.  And I saw another angel ascending as if from where the sun rises, holding the marking tool of a living god and he shouted (croaked) with a great voice to the four angels who were commissioned to violate (disrupt by tempest or quake) the land and the sea, saying ‘Do not violate either the land nor the sea nor any trees until we have marked the slaves of the God, our God, upon their brows.’”
   The Interlude: Here St. John seems to be recalling the first six days of creation. After six seals are opened there is an interlude, a pause for a break in the action. The angels hold back the personified four winds from the four corners of the land so that there is dead calm. The believers, not mentioned until now, become the focus.
   Γη/gê/land, earth has a double meaning to the first hearers. It is their word for any arable land, soil, ground or earth. It also is the name of a prominent fertility goddess Gaia whose peculiar renown lingers on in “Mother Earth” and in the present revival of ancient paganism. In my translation I chose the word land rather than earth only because when the word earth is used it often suggests the entire world, i.e. the planet earth. It could not have meant the whole planet earth to the first audience. The first audience also knows that the earth/soil is cursed.  Cf. Gen. 3:17ff.
   The four corners of the land is a figure of speech, not a description of a flat and square earth as some might deduce from this expression. It is the viewpoint that one has when you look away from where you are standing, i.e. the four compass points. They knew the world was not flat but round since they had determined that by the way ships appeared mast first coming over the horizon.
   The Greek goddess Gea, or Gaia was revered, worshipped and honored by the pagan culture of John’s flock. This worship is seen in a poem to her attributed to Homer the epic writer of the Iliad and Odyssey. He lived in Asia Minor about the 8th century BC.
   Gaia, mother of all, foundation of all, oldest one.
   I shall sing to Gaia (earth) She feels everything that is in the world.
   Whoever you are, whether you live upon sacred ground 
   Or whether you live along the paths of the sea or if you fly
   It is Gaia who nourishes you from her treasure store, Queen of the Earth.
   Through your beautiful children, bountiful harvests come
   The giving or life the receiving of the dead, both are yours
   Happy is the man you honor, the one who has this bounty is satisfied. (From a poem fragment)
   As Nike’s name was mentioned in the previous chapters, here another pagan divine name becomes prominent. The poem fragment shows the personification of Gaia/Earth as a sentient being. Obviously winds, storms, tornadoes, tempests, floods and earthquakes are her enemies and appear to come as punishments of the gods. So they understood the connection between the winds being restrained by the angels as the God of creation delegating His power over the winds and the destructive forces of the earth to His angels. The four winds also were thought of as gods but here the angels of the God restrain them.
   “...another angel ascending as if from the place where the sun’s rises...” The next angel comes from the place of the rising of the sun. The same expression is found in Matthew 2:2, the helical rise of the sun. “We have seen His star in its rising.” Here the angel/messenger represents the portion of the sky from which goodness comes, the east. The sun ushers in a new day and thus the east came to be associated with good omens to the pagan priests and priestesses who were the interpreters of signs and seasons. This is the opening of a new era, not the close of an old one.
“...the marking tool of a living God...”    The σφραγιδα/sphragida/marking tool, a seal is in his hand. The marking tool could be the branding iron used in branding slaves to show ownership. It could also be the signet ring or scepter of the Ruler, here a living god. The seal showed that the contents, as a letter or will, was genuine.  In this case it is certainly the sign of baptism and being marked forever by the sign of the cross. I found it interesting in reading commentaries and translations that where the definite article is present in the Greek it is often omitted in translation. Here, for the first of two occurences in the book, there is no definite article before the word god. Thus I translated “a living god” rather than “the living God.” St. John again appears to be taking pointed aim at the stone cold gods of the Greeks and Romans. A living god, even without the definite article, is better than any of their gods who cannot kill or make anyone alive.
   In the June/July 2000 issue of Civilization, the short-lived Magazine once published by the United States Library of Congress, the following appeared in an article on the Olympic games of the Greeks. It offers an excellent glimpse of the power of the pagan religion and ritual had on the people. I believe that the reference to a living god is chosen in reference to their great gods of cold stone.
   “The Greeks made competitive athletics a central part of daily life - after the temple, the gymnasium was the most important building in any city...Dedicated to Zeus, the Olympics were the ultimate expression of Hellenic unity and the meeting place of heaven and earth, a communal event during which every contour of ancient Greek society was reflected on and off the field.
   “The ancient tent city at Olympia was the scene of a round-the-clock bacchanal. In fact, religion permeated every moment of the festival, and a visit to Olympia was as spiritually profound for pagans as a Hindu’s pilgrimage to Varanasi or a Muslim’s hajj to Mecca. Processions and rituals, including the sacrifice of a hundred bulls, took up as much time as the athletics. Between events, audiences thronged to the Doric temple of Zeus, where the 40-foot-high stone cold statue of the king of the gods was hailed as one of the seven wonders of the world: Seated on an ornate throne, Zeus glowered at worshippers from the shadows, awing mortals and terrifying stray dogs.
   “Each contest was a sacred offering to Zeus, and the gods were thought to take as much interest in the results as mortals did. Under the gaze of both of priests and judges, the oiled, stark-naked athletes competed in 18 time honored events. (No women were allowed anywhere near the athletic events.) A noted spectacular and bloody chariot race started the games...One of the crowd pleasers was the πανκρατικον/pankratikon /a brutal all-in brawl, in Act 2 Scene 5 which everything from finger breaking to kicking and strangling was permitted. Inevitably, some participants did not survive the matches.”  -Tony Perrottet
   So much for their offerings to a stone cold Zeus.  St. John is having a grand time verbally demolishing the pagan mythologies. Everyone in his audience knew about the Doric Zeus and the Olympic Games.