^{page 162 note 1} E.g. Boring, M. E., ‘How may we identify Oracles of Christian Prophets in the Synoptic Tradition? Mark 3: 28–29 as a test case’, J.B.L. xci (1972), 502–21Google Scholar; Hill, D., ‘On the Evidence for the creative Role of Christian Prophets’, N.T.S. xx (1973–4), 262–74.Google Scholar

^{page 162 note 2} E.g. Bultmann, R., The History of the Synoptic Tradition (ET Oxford, 1963), p. 127Google Scholar: ‘We can see with complete clarity what the process of reformulation of such dominical sayings was like in sayings like Rev. 16¹⁵… or like Rev. 3²⁰…’ Cf. Jeremias, J., New Testament Theology I: The Proclamation of Jesus (ET London, 1971), p. 2.Google Scholar

^{page 162 note 3} ‘Prophecy and Prophets in the Revelation of St John’, N.T.S. XVIII (1971–2), 401–18.Google Scholar

^{page 162 note 4} Rev. i. 17–iii. 22, xvi. 15, xxii. 7, 12–16, 20.

^{page 162 note 5} According to Boring, art. cit. p. 504Google Scholar, the Apocalypse ‘contains individual sayings which could be taken from their present context and inserted into the synoptic tradition where they would fit quite well’; he does not specify.

^{page 163 note 1} Comparison of Rev. xxii. 12 with I Clem. xxxiv. 3 (cf. also Barn, . xxi. 3Google Scholar) probably indicates common dependence on a testimonia collection (evidence for John's use of which may also be found in Rev. i. 7; Matt, . xxiv. 30Google Scholar), or (as Hagner prefers to think) a prior combination of these Old Testament texts in an ‘apocalyptic writing which is no longer extant’. Cf. Grant, R. M. and Graham, H. H., The Apostolic Fathers II: First and Second Clement (New York, 1965), p. 12Google Scholar; Hagrer, D. A., The Use of the Old and New Testaments in Clement of Rome (Supplements to Novum Testamentwn XXXIV, Leiden, 1973), pp. 62Google Scholar, 93, 270 f.

^{page 163 note 2} The only obvious exception to these two categories is the repeated (ιδοú) έρχομαı ταχú: iii. II, xxii. 7, 12, 20. For Rev. iii. 21 as a ‘detachable’ logion, see Bultmann, , op. cit. p. 159Google Scholar n. 4; this absolute use of νıκάω is an idiom peculiar to the Apocalypse, however.

^{page 163 note 3} It is possible to treat almost any saying as in some way the result of interpreting the Old Testament, but Revelation's use of the Old Testament, while never straight citation, is always more clearly allusive than such free forms of ‘pesher’ as Boring, , art. cit. p. 517Google Scholar, envisages Christian prophets to have used.

^{page 163 note 4} This is shown most clearly by the form of Rev. iii. 5c (cf. Matt, . x. 32Google Scholar // Luke, xii. 8Google Scholar) and the form of the formula ó έχων οúς άκουσάτω (ii. 7, etc.): while the Synoptic versions of this are various, all have ⋯τα rather than ο⋯ς; cf. Swete, H. B., The Apocalypse of John (London, 1907), p. 29.Google Scholar The only systematic treatment of Revelation's relation to the Synoptic tradition is Vos, L. A., The Synoptic Traditions in the Apocalypse (Kampen, 1965).Google Scholar But Vos hardly engages with the question of the activity of prophets in forming the tradition (cf. pp. 223 f.), and his general conclusion that Revelation demonstrates a ‘fixed tradition’ of the sayings of Jesus, while by no means wholly unjustified, is something of an overreaction to the idea of a very fluid tradition, and precludes him from considering how the modification of Synoptic logia in the Apocalypse (which provides an identifiable Sitz im Leben for their tradition) might correspond to similar processes discernible within the Gospels.

^{page 163 note 5} For whom now see Dungan, D. L., The Sayings of Jesus in the Churches of Paul (Oxford, 1971).Google Scholar

^{page 163 note 6} Passages which are almost certain allusions to the Synoptic tradition are Rev. iii. 5c (cf. Matt, . X. 32Google Scholar // Luke, xii. 8Google Scholar), Rev. iii. 21 (cf. Matt, . xix. 28Google Scholar // Luke, xxii. 28–30Google Scholar), the sequence of woes in the seven seals (cf. the Synoptic Apocalypse, especially in its Lukan form). Also perhaps Rev. i. 3 (cf. Luke, xi. 28Google Scholar), Rev. i. 7 (cf. Matt, . xxiv. 30Google Scholar), Rev. xiv. 4 (cf. Matt, . x. 38Google Scholar etc.), Rev. xi. 2 (cf. Luke, xxi. 24Google Scholar), Rev. xix. 9 (cf. Matt, . xxiiGoogle Scholar). For xiii. 10 (cf. Matt, . xxvi. 52Google Scholar) see n. 3 below. The case for treating xix. gas an allusion to a form of the parable of the Great Supper has some support from the observation that the comparison of believers with wedding guests is characteristic of Jesus' teaching, whereas elsewhere in early Christian literature they are invariably the bride: Jeremias, J., The Parables of Jesus (ET, London, 1972 ³), p. 174Google Scholar n. 2. For a longer list of possible Synoptic allusions in Revelation, see Charles, R. H., A critical and exegetical Commentary on the Revelation of St John (Edinburgh, 1920)Google Scholar, 1, lxxxiv–lxxxvi (Charles thought Revelation dependent on Matthew and Luke); and Swete, , op. cit. pp. clvi–clviiGoogle Scholar, has a few other suggestions. All those which have any probability are discussed at length by Vos, , op. cit.Google Scholar, but I do not find others than those listed above very convincing. Boring, , art. cit. p. 503 n. 7Google Scholar, finds Synoptic sayings ‘clearly reflected’ only in iii. 5 and ii. 7 etc. This insistence on explicit quotation ignores the generally allusive character of references to the sayings of Jesus at this period (cf. Dungan, , op. cit. p. 149Google Scholar). We hope here to make a case for iii. 3, 20, xvi. 15; a finally demonstrable case for the less obvious allusions is not possible, but they become more plausible in the light of a significant number of clearer allusions.

^{page 164 note 1} For the general scholarly consensus that this saying is related to the Synoptic saying, see references in Vos, , op. cit. p. 86Google Scholar n. 128.

^{page 164 note 2} Käsemann, , New Testament Questions of Today (ET London, 1969), pp. 77, 79Google Scholar, identifies specifically both this Synoptic saying and the promises to the conquerors as sentences of eschatological divine law of the type he is concerned to illustrate, but he makes no reference to Rev. iii. 5c in particular. Perrin, N., Rediscovering the Teaching of Jesus (London, 1967), p. 186Google Scholar, adduces Rev. iii. 5c (i.e. evidence of use by a Christian prophet) in support of treating the Synoptic saying as belonging in the tradition of pronouncements which Käsemann identified.

^{page 164 note 3} Rev. xiii. 10, if we could be sure of the text, might constitute a precise instance of eschatological jus talionis, with a Synoptic parallel (source?) in Matt, . xxvi. 52.Google Scholar But the textual problem is difficult to resolve; for assessments and differing conclusions, see Charles, , op. cit. I, 355–7Google Scholar; Caird, G. B., A Commentary on the Revelation of St John the Divine (London, 1966), pp. 169 f.Google Scholar; Vos, , op. cit. pp. 104–8.Google Scholar

^{page 164 note 4} See Hill, , ‘On the Evidence for the creative Role’, pp. 271–3.Google Scholar

^{page 165 note 1} The authenticity of Luke, xii. 8Google Scholar pars. is of course hotly debated as a key ‘apocalyptic Son of Man’ saying. Rev. iii. 5C is not evidence that John knew an ‘I’ form of the saying (as in Matt, . x. 32Google Scholar) rather than a ‘Son of Man’ form (as in Luke, xii. 8Google Scholar, cf. Mark, viii. 38Google Scholar), for he would hardly have retained ‘Son of Man’ in this context (cf. Vos, , op. cit. p. 93Google Scholar). It should be noticed that when Perrin, (op. cit.Google Scholar pp. 190 f.; cf. pp. 29 f.) admits that a form of the saying which embodies precisely the stylistic peculiarities of Käsemann's ‘sentences of holy law’ could go back to Jesus, he has abandoned the use of this form as a criterion of non-authenticity; contrast Käsemann, , op. cit. p. III.Google Scholar

^{page 165 note 2} Matt, . xi. 15Google Scholar, xiii. 9, 43, Mark, iv. 9, 23Google Scholar, (vii. 16), Luke, viii. 8Google Scholar, xiv. 35. Only Matt, . xiii. 9Google Scholar, Mark, iv. 9Google Scholar, Luke, viii. 8Google Scholar are in parallel passages.

^{page 165 note 3} Jeremias, , op. cit. p. 49Google Scholar, finds ‘the application of the parable to the return of the Son of Man strange’, for the disaster of a burglary is hardly comparable to the joyful event of the parousia: but Rev. iii. 3 is sufficient evidence that, even for Christians, the parousia may be regarded as threat. Whether this parable was a parousia parable on the lips of Jesus cannot be determined here, but it undoubtedly has this significance in the earliest traceable tradition. The phraseology in I Thess. v. 2, 4 and II Pet. iii. 10 may reflect reluctance to compare Jesus himself with the thief, but the Day of the Lord is not in those passages to be thought distinct from the parousia (cf. Best, E., A Commentary on the First and Second Epistles to the Thessalonians (London, 1972), p. 205).Google Scholar The versions in Thomas, 21b, 103Google Scholar are not evidence for a tradition of the Thief which lacked the christological interpretation of Q, as Jeremias thought (loc. cit.). Rather the parousia has there disappeared because of Gnostic reinterpretation: cf. Gärtner, B., The Theology of the Gospel of Thomas (ET London, 1961), pp. 177–82.Google Scholar

^{page 166 note 1} For a full study of the use of this metaphor and related imagery, see Lövestam, E., Spiritual Wakefulness in the New Testament (Lunds Universitets Årsskrift, N.F., Avd. I, Bd. 55, Nr. 3, Lund, 1963).Google Scholar

^{page 166 note 2} It is quite unnecessary to treat it as introduced from the parable of the Talents, though this is commonly done: e.g. Dodd, C. H., The Parables of the Kingdom (London, 1961 ²), p. 122Google Scholar; Jeremias, , op. cit. p. 54Google Scholar; Beasley-Murray, G. R., A Commentary on Mark Thirteen (London, 1959), p. 112.Google Scholar

^{page 166 note 3} That it is the doorkeeper one who watches, rather than all the servants (as in Luke), is more true to life and may be more original, as Jeremias argues: op. cit. p. 54.Google ScholarLövestam, , op. cit. pp. 84–91Google Scholar, probably overinterprets the night symbolism in this parable, but it may be true that the attraction of the motif of staying awake at night involved the metaphorical significance of the night itself as well as of wakefulness. It was not only at night that doorkeepers might fall asleep (II Sam, . iv. 6Google Scholar LXX).

^{page 167 note 1} Some of those features of the tradition of these parables which we shall identify as ‘deparabolization’ have been previously noticed as ‘allegorization’. The partially allegorical nature of these parables (whether original or secondary) does facilitate but is nevertheless no more than a pre-requisite for deparabolization. A wholly allegorical story may have perfect narrative structure.

^{page 167 note 2} The term is not of course intended to imply that such sayings may not originate in ‘deparabolized’ form.

^{page 167 note 3} Because of its form it is common to treat verse 35 as ‘a piece of homiletic matter, not originally part of the parable’ ( Dodd, , op. cit. p. 121Google Scholar), but the images are entirely appropriate to the story (see Lövestam, , op. cit.Google Scholar pp. 93 f.). The lamps are not derived from the Ten Virgins, where their function is different.

^{page 168 note 1} Bultmann, , op. cit. pp. 119Google Scholar, 173 f.; cf. Taylor, V., The Gospel according to St Mark (London, 1966 ²), p. 524CrossRefGoogle Scholar: ‘a homiletical echo of several parables’.

^{page 168 note 2} Bultmann, , op. cit. p. 118.Google Scholar

^{page 168 note 3} This is the burden of the argument in Jeremias, , op. cit.Google Scholar pp. 53 f.; and cf. Dodd, , op. cit.Google Scholar pp. 120 f.

^{page 168 note 4} In Thomas 21 this becomes ‘the house of his kingdom’.

^{page 169 note 1} Note that in surrounding verses (xxiv. 37, 39, 44) Matthew speaks of the coming of the Son of Man, and uses similar language of the coming of the Lord only in xxiv. 46, 50, where the reference is to the master in the Servant in Authority.

^{page 169 note 2} Doubts are possible as to the relation of this phrase to the Q parable. Though they can hardly be independent, the possibility should not be dismissed out of hand that the latter could have been expanded from the former: cf. Best, , op. cit. p. 205.Google Scholar But a strong argument in favour of the priority (and indeed dominical authenticity) of the Q version is its surprising failure to employ the image of staying awake at night: έτοıμος is used in the New Testament of readiness for the parousia only in Luke, xii. 40Google Scholar // Matt, . xxiv. 44.Google Scholar See also Jeremias, , op. cit. pp. 48–50Google Scholar; Lövestam, , op. cit.Google Scholar pp. 96 f.; and especially Dodd, C. H., ‘The primitive catechism and the sayings of Jesus’ (in New Testament Essays, ed. Higgins, A. J. B., Manchester, 1959Google Scholar), pp. 114 f.

^{page 169 note 3} Audet, J.-P., La Didachè: Instructions des Apôtres (Paris, 1958), pp. 180–2.Google Scholar

^{page 170 note 1} We should not, however, include in this context the supposed ‘delay of the parousia’features which have sometimes been detected in these parables: see Kümmel, W. G., Promise and Fulfilment (London, 1957), p. 55 n. 114, p. 58.Google Scholar

^{page 170 note 2} See Dodd, , art. cit. pp. 112–16Google Scholar, especially pp. 115 f.

^{page 171 note 1} Cf. Farrer, A., The Revelation of St John the Divine (Oxford, 1964Google Scholar): ‘The caretaker who undresses and sleeps may have his garments stolen, to his great disgrace when he runs out crying for help.’ The suggestion that τηρ⋯ν τά Ίμάτıα means ‘keeps his garments unspotted’ (cf. iii. 4) turns the beatitude into a string of intolerably mixed metaphors (but so Hendriksen, W., More than Conquerors (London, 1962), p. 164Google Scholar; Vos, , op. cit. p. 84Google Scholar). The same consideration tells against the transposition of xvi. 15 into the letter to Sardis (so Charles, , op. cit. II, 49Google Scholar; Lohmeyer, E., Die Offenbarung des Johannes (Tübingen, 1953Google Scholar), pp. 136 f.; etc.), for the danger there is of defiling clothes, not of losing them.

^{page 171 note 2} Vos, , op. cit. p. 84Google Scholar, unconvincingly suggests it may be a paraphrase of Luke, xii. 43.Google Scholar

^{page 171 note 3} So Bruce, F. F., ‘The Spirit in the Apocalypse’ (in Christ and Spirit in the New Testament, ed. Lindars, B. and Smalley, S. S., Cambridge, 1973), p. 341.Google Scholar

^{page 171 note 4} Riesenfeld in T.D.N. T. VIII, 143.Google Scholar

^{page 171 note 5} Op. cit. p. 55Google Scholar; cf. also T.D.N.T. III, 178. AlsoGoogle ScholarVos, , op. cit. pp. 97–100Google Scholar; cf. Kiddle, M., The Revelation of St John (London, 1940), p. 60.Google Scholar

^{page 172 note 1} An eschatological reference is accepted by Bousset, W., Die Offenbarung Johannis (Göttingen, 1906 ²), p. 233CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Swete, , op. cit. p. 63Google Scholar; Lohmeyer, , op. cit. p. 39Google Scholar; Lohse, E., Die Offenbarung des Johannes (Göttingen, 1960), p. 32Google Scholar; Vos, , op. cit. p. 95.Google Scholar

^{page 172 note 2} E.g. Farrer, , op. at. p. 83Google Scholar; Bonsirven, J., L'Apocalypse de Saint Jean (Paris, 1951), p. 126.Google Scholar Such a view need not be incompatible with recognizing a reference to the Watching Servants in this verse.

^{page 172 note 3} Caird, , op. cit. p. 58Google Scholar; but cf. Minear, P. S., I Saw a New Earth (Washington, 1968Google Scholar), pp. 57 f.; Allo, E. B., L'Apocalypse (Paris, 1921 ²), p. 45.Google Scholar

^{page 172 note 4} Including, unaccountably, Jeremias, in T.D.N. T. In, 178Google Scholar; cf. Beckwith, I., The Apocalypse of John (New York, 1922), p. 491Google Scholar: ‘Here the Messiah is represented as coming to the houses of his people.’ Beckwith finds no analogous image of the parousia other than John, xiv. 23.Google Scholar

^{page 173 note 1} For a fuller discussion of this relationship see Vos, , op. cit. pp. 100–4Google Scholar, with references to previous literature.

^{page 173 note 2} In the door Vos sees an allusion to the saying in Mark, xiii. 29Google Scholar, Matt, . xxiv. 33Google Scholar, cf. James, v. 9.Google Scholar But this is both inappropriate and unnecessary.

^{page 173 note 3} IV (V) Ezra, ii. 38Google Scholar, in a passage heavily dependent on the imagery of the Apocalypse, may be evidence of an eschatological interpretation of Rev. iii. 20 in the second century.

^{page 174 note 3} Note that the Qinterpretation ( Matt, . xxiv.Google Scholar // Luke, xii. 40Google Scholar) is not strict allegory. Whereas the householder would only have been ready for the thief had he known when the thief was coming, Christians are to be ready because they do not know when the Son of Man is coming.

^{page 174 note 2} Jeremias, , op. cit.Google Scholar pp. 53 f. This does not mean that the image itself cannot derive from Jesus' teaching.

^{page 174 note 3} Ibid. p. 54 n. 18.

^{page 175 note 1} See, e.g., Dodd, , The Parables of the KingdomGoogle Scholar, pp. 115 f.

^{page 176 note 1} Even the possible allusions suggested by Moule, C. F. D., ‘The Use of Parables and Sayings as illustrative Material in early Christian Catechesis’, J.T.S. N.S. III (1952), 76–8Google Scholar, are somewhat tenuous with regard to parables. Cf. Brown, J. P., ‘Synoptic Parallels in the Epistles and Form-History’, N.T.S. x (1963–1964), 25Google Scholar: ‘Epistolary parallels to the parables are relatively few.’