Texts in Conversation
In the Apocalypse of Zephaniah, the great angel Eremiel is confused for God and worshipped, but the angel refuses this and says he is not God. Revelation echoes this, where an angel stops John from worshiping him and directs him to worship God instead.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Apocalypse of Zephaniah 6:15
Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses
13 When I saw him, I was glad, because I thought that the Lord Almighty had come to visit me. 14 I threw myself on my face and worshipped him. 15 He said to me, "Take care! Do not worship me. I am not the Lord Almighty; I am the great angel Eremiel, who is over the abyss and the underworld below, in whose hand all the souls have been shut up since the end of the Flood that came upon the earth, until this day." 16 Then I asked the angel, "What is this place I have come to?" He said to me, "This is the underworld." 17 Then I asked him, "Who is the great angel standing there, the one I saw?" He answered, "This is the one who accuses people before the Lord."
Revelation 22:9
New Testament
8 I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things, and when I heard and saw them, I threw myself down to worship at the feet of the angel who was showing them to me. 9 But he said to me, “Do not do this! I am a fellow servant with you and with your brothers the prophets, and with those who obey the words of this book. Worship God!” 10 Then he said to me, “Do not seal up the words of the prophecy contained in this book, because the time is near.
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Notes and References
"... In the Apocalypse of Zephaniah, the angelophany of "the great angel" Eremiel constitutes the first part of the refusal tradition narrative (6:11-12). In Revelation, the vision of the "one like a son of man" stands alone; a rejection of worship by Christ would, of course, have run counter to the author's wider understanding of Christology (compare 5:9-11-the hymn to God and to the Lamb). At the same time, unlike the Apocalypse of Zephaniah (compare 6:13-15), the desire to worship an angel and its sharp rejection in Revelation 19:10 and 22:8-9 are not narrated as subsequent to an epiphanic encounter. This comparison provides sufficient grounds for asking whether the author of the Apocalypse of John was aware of and adapted a refusal tradition in a fuller form. ..."
Stuckenbruck, Loren T.
Angel Veneration and Christology A Study in Early Judaism and in the Christology of the Apocalypse of John
(pp. 256-258) Mohr Siebeck, 1995
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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