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Dear Father Angelo, good morning.

I have a doubt and I would like you to help me: in the book of Revelation John of Patmos (perhaps the apostle, perhaps another person) lets us know – if I have understood correctly – that the apocalyptic message was communicated to him by Jesus not directly, through an angel (Apocalypse 1,1; 17,7; 22,8-9.16).
In verses 13-18 of the first chapter, John describes his prophetic vision about this character who seems to be Jesus himself (Once I was dead, but now I am alive forever – verse 18). He also has the divine being’s attributes: (First,Last, living). Therefore this makes me think about Jesus real God and real man. It is this character who talks and reveals to John. (v 19).
But since v 1 we are told that Jesus reveals to John the apocalyptic message through his angel. Therefore that character was an angel who was lending to Jesus his mouth (to use an anthropomorphism), or was it really Jesus?

If it is first, how is that in agreement with the description of the character holding seven stars in his hand etc? If it is the latter, how is it reconciled with John’s affirmation that an angel of Jesus revealed the apocalyptic message to him? Or perhaps I haven’t understood well what I read?
Furthermore John, describing this character, harks back to the description of the character seen by Daniel 10: Daniel describes the character as a man dressed in linen, with a belt of gold from Uphaz at his waist. His body was like a topaz. His face was like lightning, his eyes were like flames of fire, his arms and legs were like shining bronze, and the sound of his words was like the clamor of a multitude.
In the presence of this person, Daniel fell to the ground without strength. Is Daniel’s character an angel or the Logos (the second divine person)?

And is the character of John of Patmos Jesus or an angel?

Thanks in advance for the reply.
Ave Maria.


Priest’s answer

Dearly beloved,


1. authors do not agree in identifying that angel. Some, like Mark Sales, claim that Jesus Christ revealed himself through an angel And he reports the classic annotation by Antonio Martini, the great biblical scholar of the 18th century, whose translation of the Bible into Italian remained almost the only one until that of the Italian Episcopal Conference arrived in the second half of the last century: “This revelation was therefore communicated by God to Christ as man, from Christ to the angel, from the angel to John, from John to the Church. From these words we understand when he says that God, or Jesus Christ, appeared to him and spoke to him, it is understood that he spoke to him through one or another angel.”

2.The Jerusalem Bible instead writes: “The angel or messenger probably represents Christ himself.” 

And it refers to Ap 14,14-15: Then I looked and there was a white cloud, and sitting on the cloud one who looked like a son of man, with a gold crown on his head and a sharp sickle in his hand. Another angel came out of the temple, crying out in a loud voice to the one sitting on the cloud,«Use your sickle and reap the harvest, for the time to reap has come, because the earth’s harvest is fully ripe»’’.

It also refers to Ap 1,13: “and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man, wearing an ankle-length robe, with a gold sash around his chest.’’

3. Marco Sales with reference to Ap 1,13 notes: “However, it was not the humiliated Messiah to appear to John, but the glorified and transfigured Messiah.

Some people think that it was not, however, Jesus Christ himself but an angel who took his place and spoke on his behalf.”.
Whilst referring to Ap 14, 14:15 he writes: “There is no doubt that we are talking about Jesus Christ here, who predicted that he would one day come on the clouds of heaven with great power”.
And since verse 15 speaks of another angel he writes: “From these words it cannot therefore be concluded that the character who appeared in the previous verse was an angel”

4.More likely seems the statement of Alfred Wikenhauser, who says that Christ communicated the revelation to John “making use of the ministry of an angel. He contemplates it in person only in 1,12-3,22; starting from 4.1 instead he sees it under symbolic representations: in the form of lamb (56ss; 14,1), of son of man on a white cloud (14,14), of a knight on a white horse (19,11). The one who communicates the visions of the actual future is manifestly this angel, who is called the angel of revelation (22,6.8), since with his appearance he is the cause”.

I wish you all good things, I bless you and remember you in my prayers.
Fr Angelo