The Danger at Midday: Death Threats in the Apocalypse 19 slaughtered is undergoing death; winning is inflicting death on the other party and oneself staying alive. The followers of the Lamb undergo what has happened to the Lamb and do what he has done. With them too is at play this same combination of ‘being slaughtered’ and ‘conquering’. At the opening of the fifth seal it is said there: “I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain (tw'n ejsfagmevnwn) for the word of God and for the witness they had borne” (6,9) — who must wait until the number of their brothers who like them (= in the same manner as they?) will be killed is complete. These are presumably the same people as those who are spoken about in the downfall of Babylon: “And in her (= Babylon) was found the blood of prophets and saints, and of all who have been slain (tw'n ejsfagmevnwn) on earth” (18,24). The ‘victory’ which these people have achieved, is put into words in two other texts: in the ode to the heavenly victory over the red dragon, in 12,11: “And they have conquered (ejnivkhsan) by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony for they loved not their lives even unto death”; and just before the appearance of the 7 angels with the last 7 plagues: the victors, as witnesses of these plagues, are present beside the sea of glass mingled with fire to sing the victory song of Moses because they, like Moses and his people, have been saved from destruction: “Those who had conquered (touv" nikw'nta") the beast and its image and the number of its name” (15,2). In a complete reversal of values which are current within the gladiatorial fight, the death which is inflicted with violence is the victory over the killers. Still for the third time the pair sfavzomai and nikavw is used, but this time more directly in connection with what happens there in the qhriomaciva It is about the beast out of the sea that has seven heads and ten horns. “One of it heads seemed to have a mortal wound (wJ" esfagmenon eij" qavnaton), but its mortal wound was healed” (15,3.12). j v It looks just like what happens during a fight between human being and animal or between one animal and another animal. In view of 15,14 the first is more probably the case: “the beast which was wounded by the sword and yet lived”. Combat has already been engaged in, and with a sword, but the fight is not yet decided. The beast is, in spite of the wound, at first a winner: it conquers (nikhvsei) and kills the two witnesses (11,7); and it is allowed to make war on the saints and to conquer (nikh'sai) them (13,7); but in the end it goes to perdition (17,8); the lamb shall conquer the ten heads which are ten kings (nikhvsei) (17,14); and in the final combat, the beast itself shall