Abstract

The system for the publication of edicts in epistolary form under the Roman principate seems to shed new light on the age-old enigma of the angels in Rev 1,4–3,22. The angels in this section are not human beings but divine and have been sent as symbolic epistolary couriers or postmen to the churches gathered in the principal legal districts of Asia. The symbolical secretary (John of Patmos) is ordered to write the edicts dictated by the prince of the kings and to consign them to the angelic couriers who can deliver them to the churches. Without the symbolical couriers, the prince/chief of kings could not have governed his churches "in absentia" and the secretary would have performed a useless service. The hyperbaton, the associative dative and the genitive of direction dictate a new translation of Rev 2,1a and par.: «With the courier for the church which is in Ephesus, write».