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Rev 2:1. Τῷ ἀγγέλῳ, to the angel) There is a most weighty reason for these seven epistles. When the people were about to receive the law at Sinai, they were first purified: the same people, when the kingdom of God was now at hand, were prepared for it through repentance, by the ministry of John the Baptist; and now the Christian Church is furnished with these epistles, in order that they may worthily receive so great a Revelation (just as the writer himself had previously been prepared to receive it by his banishment and alarm). For the object of the writing is, that the Church, putting away from the midst of itself evil men, after due admonition, and evil things, may be prepared rightly to embrace and preserve this most precious deposit, this Revelation of such great moment, which the heavenly beings themselves honour with such profound adorations, and also to behold great events, to receive the most abundant enjoyments, and to avoid woes; the epistles themselves being interspersed with glowing sparks from the remaining part of the Revelation, and those most fitted to arouse the attention and prepare the way for the understanding of what is revealed; and the renovation of the Church by repentance, as is befitting, is placed before the sight of the rainbow, ch. Rev 4:3. Whosoever therefore wishes to be a suitable hearer of the Apocalypse, he ought to observe the admonitions of these seven epistles;[23] for then he will learn, from the pattern which they afford, how the Apocalypse is to be applied to all men and all ages. Some have attempted to show that the seven epistles, comprised in ch. 2 and 3, refer to seven periods of the Church, their historical sense being either preserved, or (which is worse) set aside. The celebrated D. Lange, in Comm. Apoc. f. 34, seq., preserving the historical sense, extends the prophetical sense from the time of John as far as to the destruction of the whore and the beast. But we have shown that the applying of the seven epistles to seven periods is the work of human subtilty. See Erkl. Offenb. pp. 285-295. The epistles then plainly had reference to the seven churches in Asia, and especially to their angels: and whether at that time, when the book was sent from Patmos to Asia, other churches were to be compared with these seven, or not, the subordination of these churches under John is here considered; and from this all hearers, of all places and times, whether good, bad, or varying in character, ought to apply to themselves the things which equally concern them. Each address to the angel of the church is concluded with a promise, which is given to him that overcometh.-τῆς) The Cod. Alex. Τῷ,[24] and that not through carelessness. For it has it three times, Τῷ ἘΝ ἘΦΈΣῼ ἘΚΚΛΗΣΊΑς· Τῷ ἘΝ ΠΕΡΓΆΜῼ ἘΚΚΛΗΣΊΑς (in Latin you might say, angelo ecclesiastico, qui est Ephesi, Pergami: to the angel of the church, who is at Ephesus, and at Pergamos); and, τῷ ἐν Θυατίροις. These are the very three angels who are partly praised and partly blamed: and the language is more directly aimed at these in the epistles, than at the other two pairs, who are without exception either praised or blamed.-ἘΝ ἘΦΈΣῼ, at Ephesus) In that city Timothy both flourished for a long time, and died shortly after the giving of the Apocalypse. Polycrates, a bishop of Ephesus, described the martyrdom of Timothy: but this writing, as many others, has been interpolated by the diligence of the later Greeks, in such a manner, however, that the principal facts remained, and were preserved from interpolation in the more simple copies. This Polycrates therefore, in Ussher de Anno Solari, f. 96, says, that the festival of the Catagogia[25] celebrated by the unbelievers at Ephesus, took place on the 22d day of January; and that on the third day afterwards Timothy was put to death by them, while Nerva was Emperor, Nerva did not see the 22d and 24th of January, as Emperor, except in the year 97, when he reigned alone, and in the year 98, when he reigned together with Trajan; and died shortly afterwards, on the 27th of January. Therefore also the Apocalypse had been sent to Ephesus, a short time only before the death of Timothy. I do not, however, think that he is the person aimed at in the address of the Apocalypse. Timothy was an Evangelist, not an angel of one church; and he also, if at the close of his life he could have declined from his first love, he would assuredly have been admonished of his approaching death, as we may believe, no less than the angel of the church at Smyrna.
[23] I remember that, just at the last hours of his pilgrimage (upwards of twenty years ago), my sainted parent earnestly recommended to his family the frequent reading and study of the Epistles contained in the Apocalypse; adding, as the reason (of his advice):-es ist nicht leicht etwas, das einen so durchdringen und durchläutern könnte.-E. B.
[24] AC have τῷ: B, τῆς.-E.
[25] A festival in honour of Aphrodite. It was supposed that during the Anagogia the goddess went over to Africa. On her return, the feast of the Catagogia was kept with great rejoicing. See Athenæus, 394, f., also Abp Ussher’s Works, vol. vii. p. 360.-T.