In our last post, we unmasked the Beast from the Sea as none other than Jesus Christ himself. Although the Sea Beast has long enjoyed more of the limelight in discussions of John’s Apocalypse, we mustn’t forget that there is another demonic entity foretold by the seer—that being the “Beast from the Land,” elsewhere referred to as the False Prophet (Rev. 19:20). While the Beast from the Sea has been almost unanimously associated with the emperor Nero by modern historians (at least in Revelation’s final redaction), attempts to nail down a historical figure at the core of the False Prophet character have not produced as much certainty. Proposals have included Flavius Josephus, Antonius Polemon, and anonymous proponents of the Imperial Cult.[i]
For the keys to unlocking this mystery, we must first turn to the text itself. In Chapter 13 of the Apocalypse, John tells us that this beast, “makes the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose plague of its death had been healed” (Rev. 13:12 NRSV). Do we know of anyone who matches this description? In his Pre-Nicene New Testament, Robert M. Price suggests what may in fact be the answer to the author’s riddle, stating: “Given the Jewish-Christian character of this book, we might wonder whether the Beast is intended as Paul, who was certainly regarded by Jewish Christians as the deceiver of the nations.”[ii] Indeed, once the lenses of Christian dogma are removed, we are able to see that John’s depiction of the False Prophet (aka the Beast from the Land) is a dead ringer for Saul of Tarsus.
As far as I can tell, Price is alone amongst Biblical scholars in naming the Apostle to the Gentiles as John’s False Prophet, although other NT experts have come close. Elaine Pagels draws attention to the opening seven letters of the Apocalypse, in which the teachings condemned by the Son of Man are eerily similar to those espoused by Paul in his own letters. In fact, Pagels states, “Many now tend to agree, at least in general, with the scenario described in detail by Paul Duff: that when John indicts the three groups mentioned above, he is challenging followers of Paul who accommodate more to outside culture than this rigorist prophet would allow—in particular those who follow Pauline teaching.”[iii]
Two offenses in particular are singled out by the Jewish-Christian redactor of Revelation: the eating of meat sacrificed to idols and acts of “fornication” (whatever that meant to the writer). Special mention is also made of those “who say that they are Jews and are not, but are lying” (Rev 3:9 NRSV). This accusation sounds quite unbelievable if we are to grant the alternative position, that John is calling out traditional Jews who do not accept Jesus as the Messiah.[iv] On the contrary, such conflict is exactly what we might expect to find directed at early Gentile followers of Paul’s Christ. Paul tells his followers in the nearby Galatian churches: “Now you, my friends, are children of the promise, like Isaac” (Gal 4:28 NRSV). He is, in effect, pronouncing them Jews without the need for circumcision and Torah observance.
Scholars have noted that it is anachronistic to apply the label of “Christian” to members of the Jesus movement during the period in which Paul’s letters and the book of Revelation were composed.[v] Tellingly, neither Paul nor John of Patmos utilize the term. It is also worth mentioning that not only was Paul supposedly born in nearby Tarsus, but he was by all accounts quite active in Asia Minor, within which the seven churches of Revelation are located. And it wasn’t exactly smooth sailing for the apostle in that region either. Paul writes of the adversity he faced in Asia: “We do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia; for we were so utterly unbearably crushed that we despaired of life itself” (2 Cor 1:8 NRSV).
From these clues and others, it becomes apparent that what we find in Paul’s letters and the letters to the seven churches in Revelation are two sides of the same conflict. By Paul’s own account, the letter to the Galatians was written in response to some who apparently taught “a different gospel” in that region—one which held more strictly to Jewish tradition. The rigid exclusivism of the “gospel” we find in Revelation certainly is at odds with that preached by Saul “All things are lawful for me” of Tarsus. In fact, I posit that the textus receptus of Revelation is perhaps our only remaining written document stemming from the authentic first-century Jewish Jesus movement.
In this series of articles, we have explored a theoretical Essene core of Revelation lacking the seven letters and references to Jesus; instead painting John the Baptist as the allegorical Lamb of God. With the condemnation of Paul as a False Prophet, the original Essene author and the Jewish-Christian redactor were able to find common ground. Their beliefs diverge, however, in that while the final text accuses the False Prophet of deceiving others into worshipping Caesar, the original Essene core would maintain that this deceiver’s idolatry centered on the man who was in their eyes a false messiah—that man being Jesus Christ.
In its final redaction, the conforming, Rome-friendly version of Christianity is the chief target of Revelation’s seven letters and the primary “crisis” that the Jewish-Christian editor aims to address. As Pagels notes, “Evil as are the powers that rule the earth, ‘intimate enemies’ are even more dangerous, since some of them, like the beast from the earth, are actually undercover agents working for ‘the dragon.’”[vi] De Villiers draws a similar conclusion, writing, “Once this link with the seven letters is understood, the figure of Satan can no longer be associated merely with pagan opposition. In fact, it is to be asked whether Satan is not much closer to and part of the church than we all thought.”[vii] In the eyes of Revelation’s redactor, Paul may have been preaching Christ, but this was a mere scam with the objective of pacifying the radical nationalist messianic movement started by Judas the Galilean (the historical Jesus) and later continued by his brother, James the Just. To these “Sicarii” Jewish Christians, Paul’s Jesus was a ruse, a disguised manifestation of the imperial cult.
The peculiar physical characteristics given to the Earth Beast are also revealing in their symbolism. In chapter 13, the seer writes, “Then I saw another beast that rose out of the earth; it had two horns like a lamb and it spoke like a dragon” (Rev 13:11 NRSV). That the beast bears a lamb’s likeness must be partially explained as an ironic parallel to the Lamb character referenced throughout the Apocalypse. The lamb serves another purpose, however, in that it signifies the apparent physical weakness of the False Prophet. Drawing on Loren L. Johns, Tipvarakankoon summarized, “The term, arnion, in Revelation must signify a vulnerable lamb, rather than other possibilities, including sacrificial lamb or paschal lamb.”[viii] This Greek word for lamb is used only five times in the Septuagint, and in all of these passages, it is meant to convey a sense of vulnerability and defenselessness.[ix] The fact that it speaks as a dragon can be seen to indicate both a sense of authority and deceitfulness.[x] Tipvarakankoon concludes, “John the Seer begins by portraying the Earth-Beast as a deceitful figure, both visually and aurally, appearing as a harmless animal, ‘a lamb,’ but speaking like a harmful and aggressive animal, ‘a dragon.’”[xi] These traits immediately call to mind “Paul the Small,” who must repeatedly insist that he does not lie and also acknowledges his reputation amongst the churches: “For they say, ‘His letters are weighty and strong, but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech contemptible’” (2 Cor 10:10 NRSV). Thus, the “wolf in sheep’s clothing” depicted in Revelation is very much in line with the way some adversaries viewed the apostle.
Let us now examine the acts attributed to the False Prophet. As we are told, the Earth-Beast, “performs great signs, even making fire come down from heaven to earth in the sight of all” and “deceives the inhabitants of the earth, telling them to make an image for the beast that had received the plague of the sword and yet lived” (Rev. 13:13-14 NRSV). If this is originally a reference to the cult of Caesar, it is in a way unique, as Scherrer points out, “Contrived religious wonders…were not unusual in the ancient world, but nowhere, except in Rev 13:13-15, are they attested as part of the imperial cult as such.”[xii] On the other hand, Paul himself boasts of the miraculous deeds that he performed, going so far as to say that it was an expected benchmark of a true apostle. In one of his rants to the Corinthian church, Paul reminds his congregation that, “The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with utmost patience, signs and wonders and mighty works” (2 Cor. 12:12 NRSV). We can infer from this that “miracle-working” was quite within Paul’s repertoire.
Rationally speaking, what kind of show might Paul have been putting on here? I suggest that we might find a hint of it in Revelation with the description of “making fire come down from heaven.” This seems to suggest that Paul “summoned” a bolt of lightning. Scherrer notes the possibility and observes that lightning would surely match the description given by John.[xiii] “That John is referring to some kind of lightning sign actually used in the imperial cult becomes increasingly plausible when we consider the importance of thunder and lightning symbolism used in connection with the princeps generally.”[xiv] Thunder and lightning were famously associated with Jupiter and the Roman Emperors but also with Yahweh and Jesus. To cite but one example in the fourth gospel, God the Father speaks to Jesus and we are told, “The crowd standing there heard it and said that it was thunder” (John 12:29 NRSV).
Other apostles may also have garnered a reputation for apparent weather manipulation. James and John are called the brothers Boanerges, which translates to, “Sons of Thunder.” These same two disciples are described as asking Jesus if they should “command fire to come down from heaven and consume” an unreceptive village of Samaritans (Luke 9:51-56 NRSV). Of course, Jesus rebukes them, but why would this even be a question? This episode recalls not only the acts of the False Prophet in Revelation, but also those of the Sicarii. According to Josephus, these notorious brigands were known to set people’s livestock loose and burn their houses down if they were found to be paying taxes to Rome.[xv]
A cryptic reference to this particular sign might be found at the time of Jesus’s crucifixion in the gospels. As Christ dies, it is said, “the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom” (Mark 15:38 NRSV). Could it be that this was not meant to be a reference to the earthly temple, but the heavenly temple, of which the visible sky is a curtain? A lightning strike might be interpreted as this veil being literally ripped asunder, as onlookers catch a glimpse of the reality beyond–a realm of pure light.[xvi] Lending credence to this theory is a description of the curtain’s design found in the words of Josephus:
“It was a Babylonian curtain, embroidered with blue, and fine linen, and scarlet, and purple, and of a contexture that was truly wonderful. Nor was this mixture of colors without its mystical interpretation, but was a kind of image of the universe; for by the scarlet there seemed to be enigmatically signified fire, by the fine flax the earth, by the blue the air, and by the purple the sea; two of them having their colors the foundation of this resemblance; but the fine flax and the purple have their own origin for that foundation, the earth producing the one, and the sea the other. This curtain had also embroidered upon it all that was mystical in the heavens, excepting that of the [twelve] signs, representing living creatures.”[xvii]
Flavius Josephus – The Jewish War Book 5
While the Romans had various ways of simulating lightning and thunder in theatrical productions, none seem too convincing as to be mistaken for the genuine work of a god.[xviii] Rather, it seems not altogether inconceivable that Paul acted the ancient Ben Franklin. If the apostle somehow made an association between lightning strikes and specific high places/objects, he certainly needn’t have understood how it all worked from a scientific perspective. Perhaps taking a book out of Jewish prophetic rainmaker traditions, I reckon Paul played the odds, marching his followers up to a high place as dark clouds approached overhead. Paul would have then set up a cross, i.e. the “image” of the beast, which served to function as a ritual lightning rod. If this seems too unbelievable, let us state that all it would have taken was for such a spectacle to have happened but one time for the story of Paul’s “mighty works” to start spreading. Such an awe-inspiring display could perhaps aid us in making sense of a puzzling verse of Paul’s letter to the Galatians. Here, a frustrated apostle reminds his readers, “It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly exhibited as crucified” (Gal 3:1 NRSV). Immediately after this, Paul proceeds to reference the Galatian church’s receiving the “Spirit,” which the evangelist Luke describes as, “divided tongues, as of fire” (Acts 2:3 NRSV). Paul elsewhere writes that “Now the Lord is the Spirit” (2 Cor 3:17 NRSV). If logic prevails (and, admittedly, it may not), it seems as if there may have been an early Christian belief that Christ Jesus, now in Spirit form, sometimes assumed the modality of fire, much like Yahweh and the burning bush.
The miraculous works of the False Prophet do not end here, however. Amazingly, John goes on to claim this arch-deceiver could somehow, “give spirit to the image of the beast so that the image of the beast could even speak and cause those who would not worship the image of the beast to be killed” (Rev. 13:15 NRSV). How could this be? One possible explanation somewhat related to the previous discussion involves the ancient art of brontology. This practice involved a sort of fortune telling via the interpretation of thunderclaps (clap once for yes, twice for no?). Brontology was known to have been in use by the Qumran community with which Paul would likely have had some contact.[xix]
Other explanations for a perceived divine voice also exist, as such an act was not unknown to the Romans. Price surmises, “This was a familiar ventriloquist stunt in the ancient world.”[xx] The gimmick likely involved some type of long hidden horn with an assistant providing the supernatural proclamations while tucked away out of sight. A roughly contemporaneous account of a similar illusion is given by Lucian, who tells of a rather ingenious mechanical construction of the god, Asclepius. Astonished devotees witnessed the cultic statue suddenly attain general motor functions, even moving its mouth and tongue in the dispensing of oracles. This impressive display was accomplished by a cleverly crafted rig employing horsehairs in order to move the mouth and tongue. The head itself was a realistically sculpted artificial piece that was apparently attached to the tail and body of an actual (presumably dead) serpent. The god’s vocals were performed by an assistant stationed just outside the dimly lit room who spoke through a crane’s windpipe hidden inside the mouth of the contraption.[xxi] As ludicrous as it sounds, Lucian’s account of the talking Asclepius is not unique among ancient writers. Hippolytus recounts similar “liturgical special effects” in his work, Against All Heresies, where he describes a skull created out of wax and using a long windpipe to create the impression of its speaking.[xxii]
Could such trickery have been used by early Christians? Reports such as those mentioned above do bring to mind an infamous and flabbergasting scene from the apocryphal Gospel of Peter. The passage starts off in a fairly mundane way, with Roman soldiers guarding the tomb of the recently crucified savior, but things take a bizarre turn from here. In this version of the story, at the very moment of Christ’s resurrection, the cross itself appears and is said to actually speak!
That stone which had been laid against the entrance to the sepulchre started of itself to roll and give way to the side, and the sepulchre was opened, and both the young men entered in. When now the soldiers saw this, they awakened the centurion and the elders—for they also were there to assist at the watch. And whilst they were relating what they had seen they saw again three men come out from the sepulchre, and two of them sustaining the other and a cross following them, and the heads of the two reaching to heaven, but that of him who was led of them by the hand overpassing the heavens. And they heard a voice out of the heavens crying, “Thou has preached to them that sleep,” and from the cross there was heard the answer, “Yea.” [xxiii]
The Gospel of Peter
It is obvious from his letters that Paul was accused of employing deceptive tactics, as he is frequently on the defensive and must explicitly deny their use. In one instance, he writes, “For our appeal does not spring from deceit or impure motives or trickery” (1 Thess 2:3 NRSV). More disturbing yet is Revelation’s claim that the False Prophet caused those who would not worship the Sea Beast to be killed. Was Paul a murderer? The apostle admits his violent persecution of Christians before his supposed calling and perhaps the question must now be asked if he ever really changed. The seven genuinely Pauline letters attest to something which might be described by some as a split personality or at least an acute susceptibility to being triggered. Case in point: Our subject writes in one instance a beautiful soliloquy on the power of love. “And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing” (1 Cor. 13:2 NRSV). Yet in another instance, this same person blurts out the following in reference to his enemies: “I wish those who unsettle you would castrate themselves!” (Gal. 5:12 NRSV)
For our character portrait of the apostle to be complete, we must also acknowledge the testimony of Josephus. The historian records a period when a Herodian named Saulus was on the warpath in Jerusalem. In the 60s CE, the sacerdotal aristocracy was coming apart at the seams. Saulus and his brother gathered a band of hoodlums and resorted to extracting tithes by force on behalf of his preferred faction. It is also worth mentioning that this occurs shortly after the execution of Paul’s rival leader, James, which would have given the Apostle to the Gentiles free reign to run amuck. Josephus writes that Saulus enjoyed a fair level of support due to his royal connections, but adds the following apropos the Herodian and his cronies: “Still they used violence with the people, and were very ready to plunder those that were weaker than themselves.”[xxiv]
Revelation seems to agree with Josephus’s depiction of Saul if indeed this character is to be identified with the False Prophet. Further on in John’s text, we read, “Also it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell who does not have the mark” (Rev. 13:16-17 NRSV). Scholars have pondered if this egalitarian philosophy might be a play on Paul’s as exhibited in verses like the following: “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:28 NRSV).
As we saw in the last post, manuscript evidence exists supporting the notion of Revelation 13:17-18 being a later interpolation. If verse 17 is indeed original to the Essene text, we can reason that the agency needed to act in such a manner could only have come from someone who enjoyed some social standing (say, a Herodian) and who was acting during a time of severe anarchy and upheaval, such as the time in Jerusalem just prior to the outbreak of war described by Josephus.[xxv]
But then what of the mark? If we dismiss as a forgery the verse describing it as a number, to what does the original text refer? The Greek word used, charagma, was one which could be used to describe the imperial stamp or seal found on letters. Based on this, some scholars have asserted that the mark of the beast must refer to Roman coinage. Not all experts agree, however.[xxvi] Collins raises a valid point that the refusal to carry Roman coinage would be very much in line with the Zealots, who declared this currency and the graven images thereon to be blasphemous. Nevertheless, the explanation is unconvincing overall and arguments as to how a coin be equated to a mark on the hand or forehead come across as strained.[xxvii]
For our purposes, even if Revelation does contain an Essene core, it would follow that the Jewish Christian “Zealot” redactor could have certainly thought to assimilate the mark of the beast into his reimagined framework, adding in verses 17 and 18, so that coinage appeared to be the issue. If the text were originally written about money, however, we must deem it borderline nonsensical. Further confusing matters, the locations of the right hand and forehead seem to imply a heretical Jewish tradition rather than a pagan one, with scholars noting that the description mirrors the placement of the phylacteries worn by some Orthodox Jews.[xxviii]
While these points may cast doubt on some of the more common explantions, we are still left with the lingering question: What is the mark of the beast? Once again, Paul’s own words offer an intriguing hint. At the end of his letter to the Galatians, Paul writes, “From now on, let no one make trouble for me; for I carry the marks (stigmata) of Jesus branded on my body” (Gal. 6:17 NRSV). Reference to “branding” is cohesive with Paul’s self-designation as “a slave of Jesus Christ” (Rom 1:1, Phil. 1:1 NRSV; commonly translated as “servant”). In Imperial Rome, slaves were often branded or tattooed on the forehead as a mark of ownership or punishment.[xxix] A charagma (mark) could also mean branding, and so I suggest the mark of the beast was a devotional burning or etching of the flesh. Of what? Well, if you’ve come along this far, perhaps you will allow me a bit of foolishness. For while the mark remains mysterious, it is interesting to note that the Hebrew letter meaning “mark” used up to New Testament times was the taw, a cross.[xxx]
Notes
[i] For these suggestions, see J. Massyngberde Ford, Revelation (Garden City: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1975), 227-230. Neil Godfrey, “Revelation’s Second Beast, the False Prophet,” Vridar (blog), May 8, 2022, https://vridar.org/2022/05/08/revelations-second-beast-the-false-prophet/. Adela Yarbro Collins, Crisis and Catharsis: The Power of the Apocalypse (Philadelphia, PA: The Westminster Press, 1984), 125.
[ii] Robert M. Price, The Pre-Nicene New Testament: Fifty-four Formative Texts (Salt Lake City: Signature Book, 2006), 773.
[iii] Elaine H. Pagels, “The Social History of Satan, Part Three: John of Patmos and Ignatius of Antioch: Contrasting Visions of ‘God’s People,” The Harvard Theological Review 99, no. 4 (2006): 496, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4125268.
[iv] For a view in support of this contrary opinion, see Collins, Crisis and Catharsis, 85-87.
[v] Ibid., 498.
[vi] Ibid., 494.
[vii] Pieter G R de Villiers, “Prime Evil and Its Many Faces in the Book of Revelation,” Neotestamentica 34, no. 1 (2000): 58, http://www.jstor.org/stable/43048379.
[viii] Wiriya Tipvarakankoon, “The Earth-Beast in Revelation 13:11–18,” in The Theme of Deception in the Book of Revelation: Bringing Early Christian and Contemporary Thai Culture into Dialogue (Claremont Press, 2017), 155, http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvbcd1fj.9.
[ix] Ibid., 155.
[x] Ibid., 158.
[xi] Ibid., 158.
[xii] Steven J. Scherrer, “Signs and Wonders in the Imperial Cult: A New Look at a Roman Religious Institution in the Light of Rev 13:13-15,” Journal of Biblical Literature 103, no. 4 (1984): 600, https://doi.org/10.2307/3260470.
[xiii] Scherrer, Signs and Wonders, 605.
[xiv] Ibid., 605.
[xv] Flavius Josephus, War of the Jews, Book 7, trans. by William Whiston (London: W. Bowyer, 1737) Chapter 8 Section 1, https://www.ccel.org/ccel/josephus/works/files/works.html.
[xvi] C.f. Geza Vermes, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English Revised Edition (London: Penguin Books, 2011), 270. Hymn 12 of The Thanksgiving Hymns, perhaps written by the Teacher of Righteousness himself, contains the line, “Thou hast revealed Thyself to me in Thy power as perfect Light.” One speculates if perhaps the Teacher’s conception of God was not triggered by some sort of NDE. Modern accounts frequently contain references to an all-encompassing light, often associated with a sense of the divine.
[xvii] Josephus, War 5, Chapter 5:4.
[xviii] For a summary of the various methods, see Scherrer, Signs and Wonders, 605-609.
[xix] Price, The Pre-Nicene New Testament, 767.
[xx] Ibid., 773.
[xxi] Scherrer, Signs and Wonders, 601.
[xxii] Ibid., 602.
[xxiii] Translation taken from John Dominick Crossan, The Cross That Spoke: The Origins of the Passion Narrative (Eugene: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 1988), 411.
[xxiv] Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, Book 20, trans. by William Whiston (London: W. Bowyer, 1737), Chapter 9 Section 4, https://www.ccel.org/ccel/josephus/works/files/works.html. For Paul’s self-identification as a Herodian, cf. Romans 16:11. For an extensive discussion of this topic, see Robert Eisenman, “Paul as Herodian,” The Journal of Higher Criticism 3, no. 1 (1996): 110-122. Available online at https://depts.drew.edu/jhc/eisenman.html.
[xxv] C.f. what must certainly be a parallel account of this period in the Habakkuk Pesher: “Because you have plundered many nations, all the remnant of the peoples shall plunder you: interpreted, this concerns the last Priests of Jerusalem, who shall amass money and wealth by plundering the peoples. But in the last days, their riches and booty shall be delivered into the hands of the army of the Kittim, for it is they who shall be the remnant of the peoples.” Translation from Vermes, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls, 514.
[xxvi] Adela Yarbro Collins, “The Political Perspective of the Revelation to John,” Journal of Biblical Literature 96, no. 2 (1977): 253, https://doi.org/10.2307/3265880.
[xxvii] See, for example, Deborah Furlan Taylor, “The Monetary Crisis in Revelation 13:17 and the Provenance of the Book of Revelation,” The Catholic Biblical Quarterly 71, no. 3 (2009): 580–96, http://www.jstor.org/stable/43709814. Taylor asserts that the mark on the hand is an analogy for the holding of a coin and that a person being counted as part of a census is symbolized by the mark on the head.
[xxviii] Ford, Revelation, 225.
[xxix] For a discussion of this phenomenon, see Deborah Kamen, “A Corpos of Inscriptions: Representing Slave Marks in Antiquity,” Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome 55 (2010): 95–110, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41419689.
[xxx] “The Sign of Protection and Deliverance” in The Archeology of the New Testament: The Life of Jesus and the Beginning of the Early Church (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014), 343. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400863181.343b. Some Christian groups practice the branding or tattooing of crosses onto the foreheads or wrists to this day. See Dioscorus Boles, “A Vanished Coptic Cultural Practice from the 13th Century: The Branding of Children with Hot Iron to Make Crosses on Their Skin: Bishop Jacques de Vitry’s Evidence,” Dioscorus Boles on Coptic Nationalism (blog), August 19, 2012, https://copticliterature.wordpress.com/2012/08/19/a-vanished-coptic-cultural-practice-from-the-13th-century-the-branding-of-children-with-hot-iron-to-make-crosses-on-their-skin-bishop-jacques-de-vitrys-evidence/. Be sure to also read the accompanying article linked at the top, as it contains important corrections.