8 Sjef van Tilborg In Philadelphia: – combat between gladiator (here with a stick) and animal in which one of them has to die (zugovn ajpovtomon) (IGR IV 1632; ROBERT, 139). b) The parallel with the Apocalypse Further on in this paper still a number of other aspects come up for discussion, but to begin with, there is the most obvious phenomenon — which in the exegesis of the Apocalypse, in so far as I can see it, actually never comes up (23). More than Ezekiel, and even more than Daniel — the great sources of inspiration of the author of the Apocalypse — the book of the Apocalypse has become a book about beasts. There are 17 different beasts mentioned. A distinction in three groups seems to me appropriate. The first group involves animals which play a subordinate role within the plot of the narrative: grasshoppers (9,3.7), frogs (16,13), scorpions (9,3.5.10), the sheep of Babylon (18,13) and dogs (22,15); and a number of times when horses are mentioned (9,7.9.17.19; 14,20; 18,13; 19,18). The second group of animals takes up a middle position. They are directly in the service of the four animals (the lamb, the dragon, the beast out of the sea and the beast out of the land) which determine the plot of the story: – the four zw'/a (usually translated with ‘the living creatures’ but against the background of the kunhgesiva one can better translate with ‘wild beasts’): a combination of four animals in which the first beast looks like a lion, the second like a young bull, the third like a human being and the fourth like an eagle. They are as a unity in the service of the lamb that is a lion (4,6-9; 5,6-14; 6,1-7; 7,11; 14,3; 15,7; 19,4); – the eagle as messenger of the three-fold woe (8,13) and as help of the pregnant woman (12,14); – the horses which carry the avenging angels (6,2-8; 19,14) but (23) This has to do with the investigation of intertextuality. One assumes that once the relation with the texts of Ezekiel and Daniel has been shown, the text would have been explained. Up to a certain point that is of course true, but still I think that an intertextual relationship does not cancel or diminish the power of the word or the expression to refer to current events. Thus when in 13, 2 the beast out of the sea is described as a beast that looks like a leopard, a bear and a lion there is indeed an intertextual referrence to Dan 7, 4-6, but leopards, bears and lions continue to be naturally also the most exciting and dangerous beasts in the kunhgesiva.