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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 September 2019
The title βασιλεὺς βασιλέων in the Apocalypse (Rev 17.14; 19.16) has generated a variety of interpretations in regard to its identification, symbolism and background. Commentators regularly note that joining a singular noun with its genitive plural is a common way to express the superlative in Hebrew. Others find special relevance of the phrase to the time of Domitian when it is said ‘he dictated the form of a letter to be used by his procurators, he began: “Our lord and god commands so and so”’ (Suetonius, Domitian, 13). The present analysis argues that inscriptions on relevant coinage confirm that the title was a clear allusion to the tradition of the Parthian kings, Rome's historic enemy. Within the context of the Apocalypse, the title is applied to Jesus Christ, presented triumphantly conquering Rome in the image of Rome's feared Parthian enemy. Included in the analysis is an extensive tabulation of relevant numismatic evidence.
1 The historical identification of the Great Whore with Rome in Rev 17.1 is strengthened by (a) the polysemy of lupa as wolf/whore and the relevant association with the myth of Rome's founding (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Ant. Rom. 1.79–87; Livy 1.4–6; Plutarch, Rom. 2–10; Ovid, Fast. 2.383–422; Cassius Dio, Roman History 1), (b) the placement of καθημένης ἐπὶ ὑδάτων πολλῶν (‘sitting on many waters’) in Rev 17.1 (cf. v. 15) and Rome's location on the Tiber (Cicero, Rep. 2.5–10; Virgil, Aen. 8.31–5, 62–5; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Ant. Rom. 9.68.2; Suetonius, Aug. 37; CIL vi.31542), (c) the reference to seven hills in Claudian, On the Sixth Consulship of Stilicho 531–36; Gellius, Attic Nights 13.14.1–4, 7). Furthermore, the description in Rev 17.9 that the ‘the seven heads [of the beast] are seven mountains on which the woman is seated’, which recalls Rome's famous location as built on seven hills (Livy 5.54.4; Virgil, Aen. 6.783; Cicero, Att. 6.5.2; Tibullus 2.5.55; Varro, Ling. 5.41, 6.24; RIC ii.69.442).
2 Beale, G. K., The Book of Revelation: A Commentary on the Greek Text (Grand Rapids: W. B. Eerdmans, 1999), 963Google Scholar.
3 Suetonius, Dom. 13.
4 Slater, T. B., ‘“King of Kings and Lord of Lords” Revisited’, NTS 39 (1993) 159–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
5 Theophilos, M. P., Numismatics and Greek Lexicography (London: Bloomsbury, 2019)Google Scholar.
6 Suetonius, Life of the Caesars, vol. i: Julius. Augustus. Tiberius. Gaius. Caligula (Rolfe, LCL 31) 410 n. a.
7 Handy, L. K., Among the Host of Heaven: The Syro-Palestinian Pantheon as Bureaucracy (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1994) 112Google Scholar. See further Weidner, E., Die Inschriften Tukulti-Ninurtas I. und seiner Nachfolger (AfO Beiheft 12; Osnabrück: Biblio, 1970) 18Google Scholar.
8 Greenberg, M., Ezekiel 21–37: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (London: Yale University Press, 2008) 532Google Scholar.
9 See Pritchard, J. B., Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969 3) 316Google Scholar for further Persian references. Cf. Josephus, Ant. 11.123: ὁ δὲ βασιλεὺς γράφει πρὸς τοὺς σατράπας ἐπιστολὴν τοιάνδε· Βασιλεὺς βασιλέων Ξέρξης Ἔσδρᾳ ἱερεῖ καὶ ἀναγνώστῃ τῶν τοῦ θεοῦ νόμων χαίρειν (‘The king, therefore, wrote the following letter, “Xerxes, king of kings, to Ezra, the priest and reader of the laws of God, greeting”’).
10 Fredricksmeyer, E., ‘Alexander the Great and the Kingship of Asia’, Alexander the Great in Fact and Fiction (ed. Bosworth, A. B. and Baynham, E. J.; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000) 136–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 162. Possibly the most famous attestation of the title is in the multilingual inscription in Old Persian, Elamite and Babylonian by Darius I (522–486 bce) on a rock relief on the cliff at Mount Behistun (western Iran): see King, L. W. and Thompson, R. C., The Sculptures and Inscription of Darius the Great on the Rock of Behistûn in Persia: A New Collation of the Persian, Susian and Babylonian Texts (London: British Museum, 1907) 84Google Scholar.
11 Hall, H. R., The Ancient History of the Near East: From the Earliest Times to the Battle of Salamis (London: Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1913) 317Google Scholar.
12 Diodorus of Sicily, The Library of History 1.4.
13 Sellwood, D., An Introduction to the Coinage of Parthia (London: Spink & Son, 1971)Google Scholar no. 27.2. References to coins included in Sellwood catalogue are given in the form of author's name followed by the relevant catalogue number, e.g. ‘Selwood 27.2’.
14 Sellwood, Parthia, 63.
15 This and the following statistics for the coins of Parthia were manually compiled and calculated from the following: Sellwood, Parthia; Sellwood, D., ‘New Parthian Coin Types’, Numismatic Chronicle 19 (1989) 162–8Google Scholar; Sellwood, D., ‘The End of the Parthian Dynasty’, Spink Numismatic Circular 98 (1990) 157Google Scholar; D. Sellwood, ‘The “Victory” Drachms of Phraates IV’, American Journal of Numismatics, Second Series 7–8 (1995–6) 75–81; Sellwood, D., ‘Parthians and Scythians’, Ex moneta: Essays on Numismatics, History and Archaeology in honour of Dr. David W. MacDowall, vol. i (ed. Jha, A. Kumar and Garg, S.; New Delhi: Harmon, 1998) 97–102Google Scholar.
16 The nodules on the faces on the coins of many of the Parthian kings have attracted much speculation. Hart, G. D., ‘Trichoepithelioma and the Kings of Ancient Parthia’, Canadian Medical Association Journal 92 (2006) 547–9Google Scholar suggests it could a trichoepithelioma, Liddel, K., ‘Skin Disease in Antiquity’, Journal of the Royal College of Physicians of London 6 (2006) 81–6Google Scholar argues that the lesion more likely resembles a basal cell carcinoma, and Todman, D., ‘Warts and the Kings of Parthia: An Ancient Representation of Hereditary Neurofibromatosis Depicted in Coins’, Journal of the History of the Neurosciences 17 (2008) 141–6CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed expresses a view with much greater specificity: ‘The round nodules … are of a size and shape that resemble the cutaneous lesions of Neurofibromatosis Type I (NF-1, von Recklinghausen's Disease)’ (141).
17 In this and the following footnote I have listed a representative sample of relevant coinage for ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΝ. Phraataces (2–4 ce), Sellwood 56.1, 57.13, 58.1; Orodes III (6 ce), Sellwood 59.2; Vonones I (8–12 ce), Sellwood 60.2, 60.4; Artabanus II (10–38 ce), Sellwood 61.1, 62.3, 62.8, 62.12; Vardanes I (40–7 ce), Sellwood 64.14, 64.20–7; Gotarzes II (40–51 ce), Sellwood 65.2, 65.4, 65.23; Vonones II (51 ce), Sellwood 67.1; Vologases I (51–78 ce), Sellwood 68.4–8, 68.11; Vologases II (77–80 ce), Sellwood 72.1–2; Pacorus II (78–105 ce), Sellwood 73.2–5, 73.9, 73.10.
18 Vardanes II (55–8 ce), Sellwood 69.1–6, 69.13; Artabanus III (80–90 ce), Sellwood 74.3, 74.6.
19 Griffiths, J. G., ‘βασιλεὺς βασιλέων: Remarks on the History of a Title’, Classical Philology 48 (1953) 145–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
20 Plutarch, Lives, vol. v: Agesilaus and Pompey. Pelopidas and Marcellus (Perrin, LCL 87) 214–15.
21 Dio Cassius, Roman History, vol. iii: Books 36–40 (Cary and Foster, LCL 53) 108–9.
22 Cf. Appian, Roman History 11: The Syrian War §47 (McGing, LCL 3, 196–7): καὶ βασιλεὺς Ἀρμενίας Τιγράνης ὁ Τιγράνους ἔθνη πολλὰ τῶν περιοίκων ἰδίοις δυνάσταις χρώμενα ἑλών, βασιλεὺς ἀπὸ τοῦδε βασιλέων ἡγεῖτο εἶναι, καὶ τοῖς Σελευκίδαις ἐπεστράτευεν οὐκ ἐθέλουσιν ὑπακούειν (‘Tigranes, the son of Tigranes, king of Armenia, who had subdued many of the neighbouring nations which had kings of their own, and from these exploits had acquired the title of king of kings, attacked the Seleucidae because they would not acknowledge his supremacy’).
23 Appian, Roman History 11: The Syrian War §48 (McGing, LCL 3, 196–7).
24 Cicero, Letters to Friends 326 (ix.14) (Shackleton Bailey, LCL 230, 94–5).
25 Velleius Paterculus, Compendium of Roman History 1.1 (Shipley, LCL 152, 2–3).
26 Quintus Curtius, History of Alexander, vol. i: Books 1–5 (Rolfe, LCL 368) 428–9.
27 Philo, On the Special Laws 214.19 (Colson, LCL 320, 108–9). See similar use in reference to God in Philo, On the Cherubim, 29; The Decalogue, 41; Questions and Answers on Genesis, 4.76.
28 Strabo, Geography 13.32 (Hamilton and Falconer, LCL 223, 62–3).
29 Dio Chrysostom, The Second Discourse on Kingship 75 (Cohoon, LCL 257, 98–9). A similar use is found in the Greek tragedian Aeschylus’ play The Suppliants (dated to 470 bce) and occurs in the context of Pelasgus’ departure from the city as the chorus desends from the mound, ἄναξ ἀνάκτων, μακάρων μακάρτατε καὶ τελέων τελειότατον κράτος, ὄλβιε Ζεῦ (‘O King of Kings, O most blest of the blest, O power most perfect of the perfect, Zeus giver of prosperity’, Aeschylus, The Suppliants 524–6 (Sommerstein, LCL 145, 358–9)).
30 Plutarch, Lives, vol. ix: Demetrius and Antony. Pyrrhus and Gaius Marius (Perrin, LCL 101, 262–3). On this incident, see R. Meyer, Studies in Classical History and Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002) 57. This use of the phrase is found in Plutarch, Lives: Lucullus §14.56 (Perrin, LCL 47, 512–13): ὀλίγων δ᾿ ἡμερῶν ὁδὸς εἰς Ἀρμενίαν ἐκ Καβείρων, καὶ ὑπὲρ Ἀρμενίας κάθηται Τιγράνης, βασιλεὺς βασιλέων, ἔχων δύναμιν, ᾗ Πάρθους τε περικόπτει τῆς Ἀσίας καὶ πόλεις Ἑλληνίδας εἰς Μηδίαν ἀνακομίζει καὶ Συρίας κρατεῖ καὶ Παλαιστίνης καὶ τοὺς ἀπὸ Σελεύκου βασιλεῖς ἀποκτιννύει, θυγατέρας δ᾿ αὐτῶν ἄγει καὶ γυναῖκας (6) ἀνασπάστους (‘And it is only a few days’ journey from Cabira into Armenia and over Armenia there sits enthroned Tigranes, King of Kings, with forces which enable him to cut the Parthians off from Asia, transplant Greek cities into Media, sway Syria and Palestine, put to death the successors of Seleucus, and carry off their wives and daughters into captivity.’
31 See further Dio Cassius 49.41 (Carey, LCL 82, 424–5): δημηγορήσας τέ τινα ἐκείνην τε βασιλίδα βασιλέων καὶ τὸν Πτολεμαῖον, ὃν Καισαρίωνα ἐπωνόμαζον, βασιλέα βασιλέων καλεῖσθαι ἐκέλευσε (‘also in the course of his address to the people he commanded that she should be called Queen of Kings, and Ptolemy, whom they named Caesarion, King of Kings’); cf. 50.3; Plutarch, Ant. 58. Strootman, R., ‘Queen of Kings: Cleopatra VII and the Donations of Alexandria’, Kingdoms and Principalities in the Roman Near East (ed. Kaizer, T. and Facella, M.; Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2010) 139–58Google Scholar.
32 Crawford, M. H., Roman Republican Coinage (2 vols.; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974)Google Scholar (= RRC).
33 Schulde, J. and Reubin, B., ‘Finding Common Ground: Roman Parthian Embassies in the Julio-Claudian Period’, Arsacids, Romans and Local Elites: Cross-Cultural Interactions of the Parthian Empire (ed. Schulde, J. and Reubin, B.; (Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2017) 65–92Google Scholar, at 75.
34 In Guillermo Galán Vioque's commentary on Martial 7.70.1 (tribadum tribas), he provides the following Latin examples: Plautus, Capt. 825: regum rex; Plautus, Trin. 309: victor victorum; Lucretius 3.816: summarum summa; Ovid, Her. 8.46: dux erat ille ducum; Petronius 37.8: nummorum nummos; Seneca, Ag. 39: rex ille regum, ductor Agamemnon ducum; Martial 1.100.2: mammarum maxima mamma; Martial 6.4.1: principumque princeps; Apuleius, Metam. 11.30: deus deum magnorum potior et potiorum summus et summorum maximus et maximorum regnator Osiris. G. G. Vioque, Martial, Book vii: A Commentary (trans. J. J. Zoltowsky; Mnemosyne Supplements 226; Leiden/Boston/Cologne: Brill, 2017).
35 Lev 16.31: σάββατα σαββάτων; Deut 10.17: ὁ γὰρ κύριος ὁ θεὸς ὑμῶν, οὗτος θεὸς τῶν θεῶν καὶ κύριος τῶν κυρίων; 1 Kgs 8.27: ὁ οὐρανὸς τοῦ οὐρανοῦ.
36 Ps 136.2–3: הוֹדוּ לֵאלׄהֵי הָאֱלׄהִים כִּי לְעוֹלָם חַסְדּוֹ הוֹדוּ לַאֲדֹנֵי הָאֲדֹנִים כִּי לְעֹלָם חַסְדּוֹ.
37 Golenko, K. V. and Karyszkowski, J. P., ‘The Gold Coinage of King Pharnaces of the Bosporus’, Numismatic Chronicle 12 (1972) 25–38Google Scholar, at 35; MacDonald, D., An Introduction to the History and Coinage of the Kingdom of the Bosporus (London: Classical Numismatic Group, 2005) 182Google Scholar; Anokhin, V., Coins of Ancient Cities of North-Western Black Sea Area (Kiev: Krajina Mriy, 1989) 177–18Google Scholar.
38 See further Allen, J., Catalogue of the Coins of Ancient India (London: British Museum, 1967)Google Scholar; Mitchiner, M., Oriental Coins and their Values: The Ancient & Classical World (London: Hawkins Publications, 1978)Google Scholar; Göbl, R., Münzprägung des Kušnreiches (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1984)Google Scholar; Gupta, P. L. and Hardaker, T. R., Indian Silver Punchmarked Coins: Magadha-Maurya Karshapana Series (Nashik: Indian Institute of Research in Numismatic Studies, 1985)Google Scholar; Rtveladze, E., The Ancient Coins of Central Asia (Tashkent: uncertain, 1987)Google Scholar; D. P. McIntyre, ‘On a Newly Discovered Hoard in India’, Oriental Numismatic Society Occasional Paper 26, August 1991; Kritt, B., Seleucid Coins of Bactria (Lancaster: Classical Numismatic Group, 1996)Google Scholar; R. C. Senior, ‘Vonones, Maues and the Early Indo-Scythic Succession’, Oriental Numismatic Studies, vol. i (ed. D. Handra; Delhi: Sundeep Prakashan, 1996); American Numismatic Society, Sylloge Nummorum Graecorum: The Collection of the American Numismatic Society, Part 9: Graeco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek Coins (New York: The American Numismatic Society, 1998); Goron, S. and Goenka, J. P., The Coins of the Indian Sultanates (New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 2001)Google Scholar; Rajgor, D., Punch-Marked Coins of Early Historic India (California: Reesha Books International, 2001)Google Scholar; Senior, R. C., Indo-Scythian Coins and History (London: Classical Numismatic Group, 2001)Google Scholar; Mitchiner, M., Ancient Trade and Early Coinage (London: Hawkins Publications, 2004)Google Scholar; Pieper, W., Ancient Indian Coins Revisited (Lancaster: Classical Numismatic Group, 2013)Google Scholar.
39 Marshall, J. H., Taxilla: An Illustrated Account of Archaeological Excavations Carried out at Taxila under the Orders of the Government of India Between the Years 1913 and 1934 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013) 49Google Scholar.
40 See the examples in Cunningham, A., Coins of the Indo-Scythians, Sakas and Kushans (Delhi: Indological Book House, 1971)Google Scholar Plates iv.1–4, 9, 11, 12, v.4, 4a; Gardner, P. and Poole, R. S., The Coins of the Greeks and Scythic Kings of Bactria and India in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1886)Google Scholar plates xxi.7, 8, 10, xxii.1, 3, xvii.9, 10.
41 Mitchiner, M., Indo-Greek and Indo-Scythian Coinage (9 vols.; London: Hawkins Publications, 1975)Google Scholar (= IGISC); also Senior, Indo-Scythian Coins and History, no. 65.1T.
42 Kleiner, F. S., Gardiner's Art through the Ages: Non-Western Perspectives (Boston: Wadsworth, 2010) 16Google Scholar; Vishnu, A., Material Like of North India: Based on an Archaeological Study, 3rd Century bc to 1st Century ad (New Delhi: Mittal Publications, 1993) 121Google Scholar.
43 IGISC vi.743–62.
44 IGISC vi.763, 766–812.
45 Cf. IGISC iv.508, local Balkh coinage of the Kushite king Soter Megas, ca. 45–50 ce, which depicts, on the obverse, a diademed bust of the king facing right, with a pronounced hooked nose. The reverse has Zeus standing facing, holding a thunderbolt and sceptre, with the inscription ΒΑΣΙΛΕΥΣ ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΝ ΣΩΤΗΡ ΜΕΓΑΣ (‘king of kings, great saviour’). The coin is a bronze reduced Attic drachm.
46 Coinage of Gondophares (25–35 ce): IGISC viii.1094, 1095; Coinage of Orthagnes (35–55 ce): IGISC viii.1073, 1074, 1075, 1096, 1097, 1098, 1099; Coinage of Otannes III (son of Orthagnes, 35–55 ce): IGISC viii.1076; Coinage of Sorpedonus (60 ce): IGISC viii.1100; Coinage of Abdagases (55–100/110 ce): IGISC viii.1077; Coinage of Pakores (100/110–135 ce): IGISC viii.1078, 1102, 1103.
47 This title for Jesus is then used in sharp contrast to and as a critique of the legitimacy of all others in a polemic fashion.
48 Rev 5.6, 8, 12–13; 6.1, 16; 7.9–10, 14, 17; 12.11; 13.8, 11; 14.1, 4, 10; 15.3; 17.14; 19.7, 9; 21.9, 14, 22–3, 27; 22.1; 22.3.
49 There is no evidence that the Roman emperors ‘claimed the title “king of kings”’ as stated by Williamson, P. S., Revelation (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2015) 281Google Scholar.
50 Regents in the provinces were sparingly permitted the title ‘king’ but this was not typical, cf. John 19.15; Matt 14.9.
51 Beale, Revelation, 880.
52 Beale, G. K. and McDonough, S. M., ‘Revelation’, Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament (ed. Beale, G. K. and Carson, D. A.; Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007) 1081–1161Google Scholar, at 1144; Beale, Revelation, 963.
53 Ford, J. Massyngberde, Revelation: Introduction, Translation, and Commentary (London: Yale University Press, 2008) 282Google Scholar.
54 Moulton, J. H., Howard, W. F. and Turner, N., A Grammar of New Testament Greek (4 vols.; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1906–76)Google Scholar ii.443.
55 Mathewson, D. L., Revelation: A Handbook on the Greek Text (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2016) 268Google Scholar. Wallace, D. B., Greek Grammar beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996) 136Google Scholar n. 84 further distinguishes between ‘genitive of subordination’ and a ‘par excellence noun’, namely ‘the class of which the head noun is the supreme member’.
56 Witherington, B. III, Revelation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003) 244CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also a similar interpretation in Giblin, C. H., The Book of Revelation: The Open Book of Prophecy (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1991) 182Google Scholar and Rissi, M., ‘Die Erscheinung Christi nach Off. 19.11–16’, TZ 21 (1965) 81–95Google Scholar.
57 Koester, C. R., Revelation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015) 754Google Scholar.
58 Thomas, D. A., Revelation 19 in Historical and Mythological Context (New York: Peter Lang, 2008) 130–2CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Thomas does however provide good evidence in regard to the διαδήματα πολλά (‘many diadems’) in Rev 19.12, which reinforces the picture which emerges from the inscriptional evidence. He states on pp. 130–1 that ‘the diadem became the permanent symbol of regal power for the Parthian monarch … [it] was an oriental symbol of authority that could not plausibly be associated with the Roman emperor’. See further Shore, F. B., Parthian Coins & History: Ten Dragons against Rome (Quarryville: Classical Numismatic Group, 1993) 141–2Google Scholar.
59 The location of the name in Rev 19.16 is ἐπὶ τὸν μηρὸν αὐτοῦ (‘on his thigh’), which may draw on the practice of inscribing one or more names on the thigh of a statue of a deity; for example, Pausanius records that, within the sacred precinct of Zeus at Olympia, he saw a statue which had ‘an elegiac couplet is written on its thigh: – To Zeus, king of the gods, as first-fruits was I placed here. By the Mendeans, who reduced Sipte by might of hand’ (Pausanius 5.27.12 (Jones and Ormerod, LCL 188, 550–1)). The inscription of a name on the rider in chapter 19 contrasts sharply with the representation of the whore riding the beast, who also has names and titles written on her body (Rev 17:3–5). Beale, Revelation, 963, notes that the location at the thigh recalls the typical location of the warrior's sword, based on passages such as Exodus 32:27, Judges 3:16, 21, and Psalm 45:3. This effectively replaces the military sword with the sword of his mouth (Rev 19:15).
60 Plutarch, Lives: Crassus 24.5 (Perrin, LCL 65, 388–9).
61 Plutarch, Lives: Crassus 24.5 (Perrin, LCL 65, 388–9).
62 Plutarch, Lives: Crassus 25.1 (Perrin, LCL 65, 390–1).
63 Plutarch, Lives: Crassus 31.7 (Perrin, LCL 65, 412–17).
64 Sicker, M., The Pre-Islamic Middle East (London: Praeger, 200) 162Google Scholar.
65 Sicker, The Pre-Islamic, 163.
66 Charles, R. H., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Revelation of St. John (2 vols.; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1920)Google Scholar; Boring, M. E., Revelation (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1989)Google Scholar; Harrington, W. J., Revelation (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1993)Google Scholar; Murphy, F. J., Fallen Is Babylon: The Revelation to John (Harrisburg: Trinity, 1998)Google Scholar; Osborne, G. R., Revelation (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2002)Google Scholar.
67 Herodotus, The Persian Wars 1.191 (Godley, LCL 117, 238–41).
68 Strabo, Geography 16.1.28 (Jones, LCL 241, 237).
69 E. Isaac, ‘1 (Ethiopic Apocalypse of) Enoch’, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, vol. i: Apocalyptic Literature and Testament (ed. J. H. Charlesworth; Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1983) 5-12, at 7.
70 Rowland, C., Revelation (Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1998) 82Google Scholar; Lupieri, E. F., A Commentary on the Apocalypse of John (trans. Johnson, M. P. and Kamesar, A.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999) 62–4Google Scholar. Sweet, J., Revelation (London: SCM, 1990) 139Google Scholar states: ‘the witness of the church is the means of Christ's reign on earth’.
71 Roloff, J., Revelation (trans. Alsup, J. E.; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993) 133Google Scholar; Mounce, R., The Book of Revelation (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998) 152–4Google Scholar.
72 Plutarch, Luc. 28.2–4; Crass. 25.8.
73 See above, discussion on Sellwood 27.2, 41.8, 42.2; cf. IGISC iii.694 (a–c), 644.
74 Suetonius, Nero 57 (Rolfe, LCL 38, 178–81). Cf. Tacitus, Hist. 1.2; 2.8f; Sib. Or. 4.119–24, 137–9; 5.137–52, 361–85.
75 Boxall, I., The Revelation of St. John (London: Continuum, 2006) 108Google Scholar.
76 Koester, Revelation, 395.