Alpha and Omega

Alpha and Omega May 9, 2013

Apringius Latin Commentaries on Revelation (Ancient Christian Texts) , 25-6) offers a fascinating numerological interpretation of Jesus’ declaration that He is Alpha and Omega. The numerical value of Omega is 800, and so is the Greek word peristera , “dove.” Alpha adds a 1 to this, and thus Jesus’ self-description indicates “the deity of the Holy Spirit [dove] in the unity of the Trinity.”

The shape of the Greek Omega and the Latin “o” also bear theological weight: “In Greek, the Omega is written with three curved marks that lie along the bottom and in part are raised. In the Latin, the letter is closed in the roundness of a circle. Now, both in this enclosure of the circle and in that raising of what lies at the bottom, that divinity is declared that contains and protects all things.”

Their position in the alphabet is also significant: Omega comes at the end of the Greek alphabet, “O” in the middle of the Latin, and these together indicate that Jesus, identified with Alpha and Omega, is “himself the beginning and the end and the middle of wisdom.”


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