Alpha and Omega
Revelation 1:8: “I am Alpha and Omega.”
This utterance, the first of the utterances of God in the book, seems to be saying, not only the awesome title “I Am,” but also that “I Am the Alphabet,” since alpha and omega are the names of the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet. This is a puzzling statement unless and until we understand the significance of the alphabet as it is used in this context.[1]
Based upon the premise that the book was originally written in Hebrew, we should translate the alphabetic terms back to the Hebrew. The equivalent of alpha and omega in Hebrew is aleph and tau. The aleph and tau, being the first and last letters, represents the entire alphabet and is no doubt the Hebrew word for ‘alphabet’. The word we translate ‘and’ is represented in Hebrew by the letter vau, giving us the three letters aleph, vau, and tau. These three letters so arranged spell the word translated ‘sign’, or transliterated ’ôwth.[2]
We may readily see that as aleph-vau-tau Christ is the totality of every word that may be uttered, written, or read. He is The Word. However, there are aspects of the ancient alphabet that are difficult to translate. One of those is the fact that the oldest alphabets were not only letters, but were also numerals. As the numerals, Christ is the entire realm of all that can be measured or quantified, that is, all mathematics and science. But this is not yet all that the term aleph-vau-tau indicates, for in the earliest traceable stages, the alphabet was also the means of designating the time-telling stars and constellations in their time-telling movements as well as their function in navigation and cartography (Seiss, 177).[3] Even now there is a system for naming stars that uses the Greek alphabet – roughly in order of their brightness within a constellation: alpha, beta, gamma, … etc. To sum it up, as aleph-vau-tau, Christ is All and in All: The Word, Time, Space, Wisdom, Life.
Origen in his Commentary said that the canonical books of the Hebrew Bible were twenty-two, “like the letters of their alphabet.”[4] This was a fact noted also by Josephus and other writers of that era. It indicates that they considered the alphabet as representing a totality; that is, the complete Scriptures were contained in the twenty-two letters of the alphabet.
The Semitic alphabet has spread throughout the world to many languages and cultures. Consequently, it has been used in multitudes of ways and has followed various lines of development. Much of the original idea of the alphabet has been lost in some of its lines of transmission. Here I will try to show what the original alphabetic idea is in the canonical Scriptures and how it is used as a fit symbol of Christ in that context.
The alphabet is a fit symbol of Christ for it is both human and divine. From its earthly mother it inherits its practical, utilitarian and mathematical nature; from God the Father of it and all other Lights, it inherits its generative powers to reproduce spiritual things: Truth, Beauty, Inspiration, Faith, Hope, and Charity.
We must receive this revelation of Christ by examining the words in their context. The context must not be sought in the later speculations of Pharisaic Judaism.[5] The usage in the book of Revelation is not related to the later mystical writings of the Gnostics nor the magical writings of the Kabbalists.[6] We must rather look to the canonical Scriptures and to the historical and cultural milieu preceding and during the time of the writing of the Apocalypse of John.
THE WORD ’OTH (ALEPH–VAU-TAU):
In Genesis 1:14 we have the account of the creation of signs, (‘othoth, plural). But this plural form may be a reduplication of the form which was already intended to be a plural; that is, the original root may have simply been the single letter aleph. Adding the feminine plural morpheme -oth would make the word mean ‘plural aleph(im)’. Sometime later, however, the form came to be understood as a singular and a reduplicated plural morpheme -oth was added.’ Such reduplications are attested many times in historical linguistics.
If this be the case, the original aleph would have had the meaning ‘sign,’ and its plural would have been ‘signs.’ The original plural, then, aleph ve tau, would have indicated the ‘signs’ of the alphabet, from aleph, the first letter, to tau the last letter. The word ‘oth would therefore mean ‘the alphabet’ as signs.
Evidence that this was indeed the case comes from the form ‘au and tau both of which mean ‘a sign, mark.’ The original plural of aleph then was the feminine form ’oth and the original of tau was the masculine tam meaning ‘finished, complete.’ The aleph began the circle and the tam completed the circle at the same point, making aleph ve tau the description of a single point of the completed circle, and thus of the circle itself, the complete alphabet. This is clearly what Christ meant when He said: “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending“; that is, that the ending and the beginning were one and the same point.[7] Christ became the overlapping anchor between the “this age” and “the age to come”. 2 Esdras 6:7 shows that the “dividing of times” means “the end of the first age and the beginning of the age that follows (2 Esdras 6.7).
The letter tau is defined by Gesinius (Lexicon s.v.) as: “(1) a sign, Eze. 9:4 (Arab….a sign in the form of a cross…whence the name of the letter …, which in Phoenician, and on the coins of the Maccabees has the form of a cross. (From the Phoenicians the Greeks and Romans took both the name and form of the letter.) (2) sign (cruciform), mark subscribed instead of a name to a bill of complaint; hence, subscription, Job 31:35.”
When we understand that the aleph and tau represent one and the same point on a circle we can see that this point in time-telling is primarily that of the equinox, where the ecliptic and the celestial equator cross. This explains also the meaning of the word to’ and te’o, defined by Gesenius (Lexicon s.v.) as ‘gazelle.’ This horned creature is originally that of the aleph-ox, known to the Greeks as ‘Taurus, the bull’, which in ancient times marked the equinoctial point.
Gesenius. (Lexicon s.v.) notes that aleph and tau are sometimes interchanged. The letter shin is also sometimes interchanged with tau. Perhaps tau appears sometimes for shin because it should be the twenty-second letter of the alphabet in the older arrangement, but after the letter sin was added to the alphabet, shin became the twenty-second and tau became the twenty-third letter.
Seiss says that, due to the proclivity of the Jews to idolatrous worship of the heavenly bodies, all the figures of the zodiac were erased and the Hebrew alphabet was substituted in their place (p., 177). Seiss’ view is perhaps an anachronism, for the more likely scenario was that the “zodiac” signs were always, and originally designated by the Hebrew alphabet and only when Hebrews fell into idol worship did they use the signs of the “zodiac”.
The lights of the heavens, the sun, moon, and stars were created for “signs“, ’othoth. This plural represents the grouping, or pluralizing of the alphabetic signs. These signs were for two purposes: to mark time, designating the times and seasons, and to give light, separating the light from the darkness, (Gen. 1:14). From the creation, the “signs,” the aleph ve tau, the alphabet, was intended to be both numerals and letters witnessing to and symbolizing the Logos of the Most High God.[8]
As time markers, they fulfilled a numeric function, to mark day and night and the seasons of the year. As light givers they were to fulfill a literary and artistic function: to give Light on the earth and to separate Light from darkness physically, and wisdom from ignorance, intellectually. The original alphabet represented these two distinct rays, the numerical, which first found expression in the time-reckoning function and later in other mathematical uses, and the linguistic, expressed in writing. At this first stage it should perhaps be called the “numero/alphabet.” The original idea of the numero/alphabet represented the idea of order.
As signs, these highest of all symbols, were created as a witness of and to the Most High God, to teach and to inspire worship. We should therefore not wonder that they have been prostituted to idol worship throughout history in many cultures of the world. That is all the more reason we should appropriate them, as symbols, to the worship of Christ, their legitimate and intended use.
Some history of the alphabet will help to demonstrate its significance as a symbol of Christ. The alphabet did not originate as the phonetic system we have today which roughly represents speech sounds. It had a long history before it reached the phonetic stage of development. As the handwriting of God upon the heavens, it was universally significant to all mankind. Being able to read the signs of the heavens, to know the seasons, was a matter of life or death as well as a spiritual experience. Having already acquired this basic significance, it was ideally suited to go into the whole world when it developed into a phonetic system.
The primal idea of the alphabet was that of an immutable order, an order witnessed to by the order of the time-indicating signs of the heavens. Possibly the first use of the graphic symbols of the alphabet was as numerals for counting and naming this ordered series of the progression of time-indicators for time-reckoning.
As symbols of order, it consequently became a mnemonic device for memory units of all kinds.[9] In time the mnemonic use of these signs for oral literary and historical units developed into semasiographic writing,[10] which, at some point, produced the idea of correlating the signs with speech sounds. At this point the alphabet became phonetic as we know it today.[11]
The major steps in the history of the development of the alphabet as it progressed through a continual differentiation of usage, meaning and signs is somewhat parallel to the ever-increasing Light of Christ:
[1] See also my Commentary on Revelation 1:7, “Coming”. The Hebrew word ’ôwth, (consisting of the letters aleph–vau–tau,), is used in Dan.7:13 regarding the ‘coming’ of the Son of Man in the clouds.
[2] Targumim = ‘translations’.
The Babli is the Babylonian Talmud and the Yerushalmi is the Jerusalem Talmud.
Midrash is: (1) the haggadic or halakic exposition of the underlying significance of a Bible text. (2) A collection of Midrashim. (3) cap: the Midrashic literature written between the 4th century B.C. and 11th century AD].
Haggadah is: (1) ancient Jewish lore forming esp. the nonlegal part of the Talmud. (2) The Jewish ritual for the Seder, (Passover feast).
Halakah is the body of Jewish law supplementing the Scriptural law and forming especially the legal part of the Talmud.
[3] “In the perspective of early Christians who compiled listings of heretics, Israelites who rejected Jesus as Messiah were quintessential heretics. Among this group, the Pharisees were remembered for their devotedness to astrology: ‘Fate and astrology were quite popular notions with them,’ writes Epiphanius…. Epiphanius further recounts how they possessed a vocabulary of their own in Hebrew for the zodiac and other celestial beings,” (Malina, 74).
Quoting Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies 4.46. Anti-Nicene Fathers, 5.42, that “‘Heretics’ read constellations in terms of Israel‘s biblical tradition. They assimilate the doctrines of an Aratus, for example, to those declared by the Scriptures, thus ‘exhibiting a strange marvel, as if the assertions made by them were fixed among the stars” (ibid.).
Malina says further: “The heretics opposed by Hippolytus interpret the Scriptures allegorically. The Scriptures do not mean what they say literally, but refer to something else (this is allegory). Furthermore, these heretics likewise interpret the stars allegorically, using the fixity and regularity of the stars to give credence to their interpretations” (ibid.). These heretics thus used the stars to give credence to strange doctrines and suggest hidden meanings.
[4] As stated by Eusebius, History of the Church, 6.25; that the Apostle John wrote the book of Revelation (ibid., 6:25.10).
[5] For example among the non-canonical apocalyptic writings are the Alphabets of Rabbi Akiba:
“Apocalyptic Literature, 6. The Alphabets of R. Akiba,”( 680-1). “The chief center of thought of all of them [i.e. the Alphabets,] is the mystical signification, already mentioned in the Talmud, of the letters of the alphabet and of their written forms, and the mysteries of the names of God made up of four, twelve, and forty-two letters. In the Jerusalem Talmud (Hagigah.ii.77c) there is a dissertation on the letters by means of which the world was created, and there, as in these writings, it is stated that the present world was created with He (ה_) and the future with Yod (י_), and eschatological theories are built up out of the forms of these letters.
“In the Babylonian Talmud (Shabbath. 104a), also, all sorts of similar interpretations are given in regard to the names, forms, and combinations of the various letters, and are made to bear upon eschatological questions in the same way as in these apocalypses. In Kiddushin 71a, it is said that the mysteries of the three names of God were treated as esoteric doctrine and that whoever became thoroughly initiated into the mystery of the name consisting of forty-two letters might be sure of inheriting both the present and the future world. Similarly, R. Akiba, the reputed author of the ‘Alphabets,’ is especially commended in the Talmud as interpreter of the strokes, dots, and flourishes of the letters (compare, for example, Men. 29b; see also Akiba Ben Joseph),” (Jewish Encyclopedia, JE, see note 45 above).
Some scholars attempt to show that these “Alphabets” borrow their theosophical speculation from the writings of Islam, (“especially in ‘Monatschrift,’ viii.115 et seq.”), however:
“Later Jewish literature had the widest and deepest influence on the formation and development of the views and teachings of Islam ….From the presence of mystical speculations about the essence and being of God, etc., in the Arabic literature, similar to those in the Neo-Hebrew, it is quite impossible to conclude that they found their way from the former into the latter; rather would the opposite conclusion be justified” (ibid.).
[6] See “Kabbalah (Cabalah)” and “Zohar“, The New Jewish Encyclopedia, Revised edition, eds. David Bridger, Samuel Wolk, (Behrman House, Inc., Publisher. 1976).
[7] The KJV includes the phrase “the beginning and the ending” but this is at the translator’s privilege for it was not in the original Greek. The KJV translators felt it was necessary in order to bring out the sense of the verse.
The RSV leaves out the phrase “the beginning and the ending” here but includes it at Revelation 21:6 and 22:13 where the saying is repeated, see “First and Last” my Commentary on 1:17.
[8] It could well be argued that this heavenly Pattern is the written Name of God. Its incorporation into the Temple meant that God’s Name was there. That is, the Temple was created and designed for the purpose of an observatory of the heavenly Pattern telling the times and seasons and teaching the wisdom of God. See also my Commentary at 1:3 “Christ as Light and Time“.
[9] A mnemonic device is a system used to recall the proper order of items in a sequence; i.e. any group of items to be remembered could be arranged according to this fixed numero/alphabetic order and so be more easily recalled.
[10] Semasiographic writing is defined by Gelb as “… a stage of writing in which meaning– not words or sounds– are suggested by signs,” Ignace J. Gelb, A Study of Writing: The Foundations of Grammatology, Second Edition, (Chicago, Ill., University of Chicago Press, 1962), 15.
[11] The Behaviourist School says that language is the only medium of human communication and all human intercommunication outside of language is nothing but a secondary substitute for language, that thinking and ideas are ‘silent talk.’
Gelb says that the Behaviourist School is wrong in some instances, that there is not a complete identity of speech and writing, that in the earliest writing, the images expressed meaning without a “linguistic garment.” Only after the development of a phonetic system was writing practically identified with speech and lost its independent character (ibid.).