Alpha And Omega
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament [1]
These are the first and last letters of the Gr. alphabet; cf. Heb. ‘ Aleph to Tau ’; Eng. ‘A to Z.’ The title is applied to God the Father in Revelation 1:8; Revelation 21:5, and to Christ in Revelation 22:13 (cf. Revelation 2:8). The ancient Heb. name for God, יהוה, has been very variously derived, but its most probable meaning is the ‘Eternal’ One-‘I am that I am’ ( Exodus 3:14). This idea of the Deity, further emphasized in Isaiah 41:4; Isaiah 43:10; Isaiah 44:6, is expressed in the language of the Apocalypse by the Greek phrase ‘Α and Ω,’ which corresponds to a common Heb. expression ‘ Aleph to Tau ,’ of which the Talmud and other Rabbinic writings furnish many examples. R. H. Charles adduces similar phrases in Latin (Martial, v. 26) and Greek (Theodoret, HE [Note: E Historia Ecclesiastica (Eusebius, etc.).]iv. 8) to express completeness. To those who believe in a Jewish original for the NT Apocalypse, its presence there will cause no surprise, and its application to Christ will constitute an instance of the Christian remodelling which that book has undergone. Moreover, Jewish writers ( e.g. Kohler) have given another explanation of its use as a title for God, calling it the hellenized form of a well-known saying, ‘The Seal of God is Emeth (אֱמֶת = ‘truth’), a word containing first, middle, and last letters of the Heb, alphabet (cf. Gen. Rab . lxxxi.; Jerus. Sanh . i. 18 a ; Sanh , 64 a ; Yoma 69 b ). Josephus ( c. Apion .) probably refers to this saying (cf. also Daniel 10:21 בִּכְתִב אֱמֶח, ‘the writing of truth’). Similar is the use of Justin ( Address to Greeks , xxv.). Whatever may be the origin of the phrase, its chief significance for Christians lies in its constant application to Christ, of which this passage in the Apocalypse supplies the first of countless instances. Charles and Müller agree that Patristic commentators invariably referred all these passages to the Son, and in so doing they plainly claimed the Divine privilege of eternity for the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ, and established the claim set forth in the later creeds that the Word of God was equal with God.’
Not only was this the universal opinion of the earliest commentators, as of the Christian author or editor of the Apocalypse; it was an opinion deeply rooted in the convictions of the Christian congregations. We hear of no attempt to dispute it; and, relying on this as an established fact, the Gnostic teachers sought to deduce by various means and numerical quibbles the essential identity of all the Persona of the Trinity (cf. Iven. adv. Hœr , I. xiv. 6, xv. 1). Among others, Tertullian ( Monog . v.), Cyprian ( Testimon . ii, 1, 6), Clem. Alex. ( Strom . iv. 25, vi. 16), Ambrose ( Exp. [Note: Expositor.] in septem Vis . i. 8), emphasized this view of the matter; and, before the last persecution of Diocletian was over, many inscriptions had been put up on tombstones, walls of catacombs, etc., in which these two letters stood for the name of Christ, At a subsequent period the practice became universal all over the Christian world, and countless examples are still extant to prove the general popularity of this custom.
In most cases the letters are accompanied by other symbols and titles of the Master, e.g. ⳩; in a few examples they stand alone as a reverent way of representing the presence of the Redeemer. Most numerous in the period from a.d. 300-500, they decline in number and importance during the early Middle Ages, and are rare, at least in the West, after the 7th and 8th centuries. It is significant to note that in none of those hundreds of examples do the letters (often rudely scrawled by poor peasants) refer to any one but Jesus Christ. It is hard to conceive of any fact more suited to emphasize the deep-rooted belief of the early Christians in the true Divinity of their Lord and Master, who had created the world, existed from the beginning, and was still alive and ready to succour His faithful followers.
Literature.-R. H. Charles, articlein Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible (5 vols) ; B. W. Bacon, articleIn Dict. of Christ and the Gospels ; K. Kohler, articlein Jewish Encyclopedia ; W. Müller in Realencyklopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche 3 (full account of extant inscriptions); C. Schoettgen, Hor. Heb. , Leipzig, 1733.
L. St. Alban Wells.
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible [2]
Alpha And Omega . A title of God in Revelation 1:8; Revelation 21:6 , of Jesus in Revelation 22:13 [its presence in Revelation 1:11 AV [Note: Authorized Version.] is not Justified by the MSS]. Alpha was the first, and Omega the last letter of the Greek, as Aleph and Taw were the first and the last of the Hebrew alphabet. In the Talmud, ‘From Aleph to Taw’ meant ‘From first to last,’ including all between. Cf. Shabb . 51. 1 (on Ezekiel 9:6 ): ‘Do not read “My Sanctuary,” but “My saints,” who are the sons of men who have kept the whole Law from Aleph to Taw.’
This explains the title. In each instance St. John defines It. Revelation 1:8 ‘I am the Alpha and the Omega, saith the Lord God, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty’ (AV [Note: Authorized Version.] ‘the beginning and the ending’ is an interpolation from Revelation 21:6 , Revelation 22:13 ), i.e. the Eternal, the Contemporary of every generation. Revelation 21:6 ‘I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end’; Revelation 22:13 ‘I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last (cf. Isaiah 44:6; Isaiah 48:12 ), the beginning and the end,’ i.e. He who comprehends and embraces all things, from whom all come and to whom all return, the fons et clausula , the starting-point and the goal of history (cf. Colossians 1:17 ). The ascription of this title to Jesus as well as to God in a writing so early as the Apocalypse strikingly attests the view of our Lord’s Person which prevailed in the primitive Church.
Aurelius Prudentius makes fine use of the title in his hymn on The Lord’s Nativity (‘Corde natus ex parentis’), thus rendered by Neale:
‘Of the Father’s love begotten
Ere the worlds began to be,
He is Alpha and Omega,
He the source, the ending He,
Of the things that are, that have been,
And that future years shall see,
Evermore and evermore.’
David Smith.
Holman Bible Dictionary [3]
Revelation 1:8 1:17 Revelation 21:6 Revelation 22:13 Revelation 22:13
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia [4]
al´fa , ō´me - ga , o - mē´ga (Alpha and Omega = A and O): The first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, hence, symbolically, "beginning and end"; in Revelation "The Eternal One" in Revelation 1:8 of the Father, in Revelation 21:6 and Revelation 22:13 of the Son. Compare Theodoret, Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica , iv. 8: "We used alpha down to omega, i.e. all ." A similar expression is found in Latin (Martial, v.26). Compare Aretas (Cramer's Catenae Graecae in New Testament ) on Revelation 1:8 and Tertullian ( Monog , 5): "So also two Greek letters, the first and last, did the Lord put on Himself, symbols of the beginning and the end meeting in Him, in order that just as alpha rolls on to omega and omega returns again to alpha, so He might show that both the evolution of the beginning to the end is in Him and again the return of the end to the beginning." Cyprian, Testim , ii.1; vi.22, iii.100, Paulinus of Nola Carm. xix.645; xxx.89; Prudentius, Cathem ., ix.10-12. In Patristic and later literature the phrase is regularly applied to the Son. God blesses Israel from 'ālēph to taw ( Leviticus 26:3-13 ), but curses from waw to mem (Lev 26:14-43). So Abraham observed the whole law from 'ālēph to taw . Consequently, "Alpha and Omega" may be a Greek rendering of the Hebrew phrase, which expressed among the later Jews the whole extent of a thing.
