April 27, 2014

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THE LETTER TO PERGAMUM

Revelation 2:12—17

And to the angel of the church in Pergamum, write:
These things says he who has the sharp two-edged sword.
I know where your home is. I know that it is where the throne of Satan is; and yet you hold fast to my name, and have not denied your loyalty to me, even in the days of Antipas, my faithful martyr, who was killed among you, where Satan has his home. But I have a few things against you. You have among you some people who hold the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling-block before the children of Israel, to eat meat offered to idols and to commit fornication. So you, too, have those who in the same way hold the teaching of the Nicolaitans. So, then, repent. If you do not, I am coming to you quickly, and I will go to war with them with the sword of my mouth.
Let him who has an ear hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches. To him who overcomes I will give a share of the hidden manna; and I will give him a white stone, and written on the stone a new name, which no one but him who receives it knows.

PERGAMUM: THE SEAT OF SATAN

Revelation 2:12—17 (contd)

THERE is a difference in the name of this city in the various translations of the New Testament. The Authorized Version calls it Pergamos, while the Revised Version, the Revised Standard Version and James Moffatt call it Pergamum. Pergamos is the feminine form of the name and Pergamum the neuter. In the ancient world, it was known by both forms; but, of the two, Pergamum was much the more commonly used, and the newer translations are right to prefer it.
Pergamum had a unique place in Asia. It was not on any of the great roads, as Ephesus and Smyrna were, but historically it was the greatest city in Asia. Strabo, the Greek geographer, called it an illustrious (epiphanÄ“s) city, and Pliny, the Governor of Bithynia, called it ‘by far the most famous city in Asia’ (longe clarissimum Asiae). The reason was that, by the time John was writing, Pergamum had been a capital city for almost 400 years. Back in 282 BC, it was made the capital of the Seleucid kingdom, one of the sections into which the empire of Alexander the Great was broken up. It remained the capital until 133 BC. In that year, Attalus III died; and, before he died, he willed his dominions into the possession of Rome. Out of the dominions of Attalus, Rome formed the province of Asia, and Pergamum still remained its capital.
Its geographical position made Pergamum even more impressive. It was built on a tall conical hill which dominated the valley of the River Caicus, from the top of which the Mediterranean could be seen, fifteen miles away. The archaeologist Sir William Ramsay describes it thus: ‘Beyond all other cities in Asia Minor, it gives the traveller the impression of a royal city, the home of authority; the rocky hill on which it stands is so huge, and dominates the broad plain of the Caicus so proudly and so boldly.’ History and honour gathered around Pergamum. Let us then set down its outstanding characteristics.
(1) Pergamum could never achieve the commercial greatness of Ephesus or of Smyrna, but it was a centre of culture which surpassed both. It was famous for its library, which contained no fewer than 200,000 parchment rolls. It was second only to the unique library of Alexandria.
It is interesting to note that the word parchment is derived from Pergamum. In the ancient world, parchment was hē pergamēnē charta, the Pergamene sheet; and there is a story about this name. For many centuries, rolls were written on papyrus, a substance made of the pith of a very large bulrush which grows beside the Nile. The pith was extracted, cut into strips, pressed into sheets and smoothed. This process produced a substance not unlike brown paper, and this was universally used for writing. In the third century BC, a Pergamene king called Eumenēs was very anxious to make the library of the city supreme. In order to do so, he persuaded Aristophanes of Byzantium, the librarian at Alexandria, to agree to leave Alexandria and come to Pergamum. Ptolemy of Egypt, enraged at this seduction of his outstanding scholar, promptly imprisoned Aristophanes and by way of retaliation put an embargo on the export of papyrus to Pergamum. Faced with this situation, the scholars of Pergamum invented parchment or vellum, which is made of the skins of animals, smoothed and polished. In fact, parchment is a much superior substance on which to write; and, although it did not do so for many centuries, in the end it ousted papyrus altogether as a writing material.
(2) Pergamum was one of the great religious centres. In particular, it had two famous shrines. In the letter of the risen Christ, Pergamum is said to be the place where ‘Satan’s seat’ is. Obviously, this must refer to something which the Christian Church regarded as particularly evil. Some have found the reference explained in Pergamum’s religious splendour.
(a) Pergamum regarded itself as the custodian of the Greek way of life and of Greek worship. About 240 BC, it had won a great victory against the savage invading Galatae, or Gauls. In memory of that victory, a great altar to Zeus was built in front of the Temple of Athene which stood 800 feet up on Pergamum’s conical hill. Forty feet high, it stood on a projecting ledge of rock and looked exactly like a great throne on the hillside. All day, it smoked with the smoke of sacrifices offered to Zeus. Around its base was carved one of the greatest achievements in the world of sculpture, the frieze which showed the Battle of the Giants, in which the gods of Greece were victorious over the giants of the barbarians. It has been suggested that this great altar was Satan’s seat. But it is unlikely that a Christian writer would call that altar Satan’s seat, for even by this time the old Greek gods were anachronisms and it would have been a waste of breath for Christians to attack them.
(b) Pergamum was particularly connected with the worship of Asclepios, so much so that Asclepios was known as ‘the Pergamene god’. When Galen was mentioning favourite oaths, he said that people commonly swore by Artemis of Ephesus, or Apollo of Delphi, or Asclepios of Pergamum. Asclepios was the god of healing, and his temples were the nearest thing to hospitals in the ancient world. From all over the world, people flocked to Pergamum for relief from their sicknesses. In his commentary, R. H. Charles has called Pergamum ‘the Lourdes of the ancient world’. The task of healing was partly the work of the priests, partly the work of doctors–Galen, second only to Hippocrates in the medical history of the ancient world, was born in Pergamum–and partly the work of Asclepios himself. Was there anything in that worship to move the Christians to call the Temple of Asclepios Satan’s seat? There may have been two things.
First, the most common and most famous title for Asclepios was Asclepios Sōtēr, Asclepios the Saviour. It might well be that the Christians felt a shudder of horror that the name Saviour should be given to anyone other than Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world.
Second, the emblem of Asclepios was the serpent, which still appears on the cap badge of the Royal Army Medical Corps. Many of the coins of Pergamum have Asclepios’ serpent as part of their design. It might well be that Jews or Christians would regard a religion which took the serpent as its emblem as a satanic cult. Again, this explanation seems unlikely. As has been pointed out, the Christians would regard the place where people went to be healed–and often were–with sympathy rather than with indignation. The worship of Asclepios surely would not give adequate grounds for calling Pergamum Satan’s seat.
It seems, then, that we must look elsewhere for the explanation of this phrase.
(3) Pergamum was the administrative centre of Asia. That meant that it was the centre of Caesar-worship for the province. We have already described Caesar-worship and the dire dilemma in which it placed Christians (pp. 17—22).
It was organized with a provincial centre and an administration like that of a presbytery or diocese. The point here is that Pergamum was the centre of that worship for the province of Asia. Undoubtedly, that is why Pergamum was Satan’s seat; it was the place where people were required on pain of death to take the name of Lord and give it to Caesar instead of to Christ; and to a Christian there could be nothing more satanic than that.
And here is the explanation of the beginning of the letter to Pergamum. The risen Christ is called the one who has the sharp two-edged sword. Roman governors were divided into two classes–those who had the ius gladii, the right of the sword, and those who did not. Those who had the right of the sword had the power of life and death; on their word a person could be executed on the spot. In terms of worldly power, the proconsul, who had his headquarters at Pergamum, had the ius gladii, the right of the sword, and at any moment he might use it against any Christian; but the letter tells Christians not to forget that the last word is still with the risen Christ, who has the sharp two-edged sword. The power of Rome might be satanically powerful; but the power of the risen Lord is even greater.

Barclay, W. (2004). The Revelation of John (3rd ed. fully rev. and updated., Vol. 1, pp. 95—100). Louisville, KY; London: Westminster John Knox Press.

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