2:8. And [unto] BY the angel.—The mouthpiece of the Lord to the second epoch of the Church was St. John himself. He was the one whom Jesus specially loved (John 13:23; 20:2; 21:7, 20); to him Jesus committed His choicest earthly possession (John 19:26); length of days were implied in the Lord’s statement, “If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?” (John 21:22.) He died at Ephesus at the age of 100, four years after writing the Apocalypse. Polycarp, Ignatius and Papias, his disciples, record that he was a tower of strength to the Church when the Roman Emperors Nero, Domitian and Trajan were endeavoring to destroy the hated sect. When all his capacity to work was gone, and he had no strength even to stand, he used to be carried into the Christian assemblies where he would repeat the exhortation, “Little children, love one another.” “The end of the commandment is love” (1 Tim. 1:5); and it is significant that the epoch of the Church especially under St. John’s faithful and loving care receive no reproof whatever from the Lord. Of the church in Smyrna.—Greek, _myrrh_. The word means “bitter,” and, as applied to the history of the church from A. D. 73 to 325, is peculiarly appropriate. This era comprised persecutions under Nero, when Christian women were soaked with tar and burned as torches to light the path of his chariot; under Domitian, in the year 95, when 40,000 suffered martyrdom; under Trajan in the year 100; under Antoninus; under Severus in the year 127, when beautiful and amiable young women were stripped naked before insulting mobs and gored to death by wild cattle; under Maximinus in A. D. 235; under Decius in 250, when all Christians were driven from their estates; under Valerian in 257; under Aurelian in 274; and under Diocletian in A. D. 303. Write.—St. John wrote more of the New Testament than any other except St. Paul. These things saith the First and the Last.—“In no other sense or way could He be the First and the Last than as the only direct creation of the Father, through whom all else was created. Any other view would be in conflict with the Scriptures. (Rev. 3:14; Col. 1:15; 1 Cor. 8:6; John 1:1‐3, Diaglott.)”—Z. ’16‐346; Rev. 1:11, 17. Which was dead, and is alive.—This, in itself, must have been a message of comfort and hope to the suffering martyrs.—Rev. 1:18. 2:9. I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty.—“Some of the most sublime pictures of Christian endurance that the world has ever seen were enacted during the Smyrna period of the Church.”—Z. ’16‐346. But thou art rich.—“The blessing of the Lord, it maketh rich.”—Prov. 10:22; Luke 12:21; 1 Tim. 6:18; James 2:5. And I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not.—“ ‘They are not all Israel which are of Israel.’ (Rom. 9:6, 7.) ‘He is not a Jew which is a Jew outwardly, neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew which is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart.’ ”—Z. ’99‐68.