[In the following essay, Fiorenza concentrates on the first five verses of chapter 14, particularly in assessing the meaning of “the 144,000 followers of the Lamb on Mount Zion.”]

Our visions, stories and utopias
are not only aesthetic:
they engage us.

Amos Wilder

In his summary of the overall outline and analysis of the Apocalypse, W. Bousset stresses that Rev. 14:1-5 was not taken over from a source but that it is formulated as “contrast-image” by the author. But he concludes: “It is not quite clear what the author means by this scene.”¹ This exegetical helplessness before the passage is confirmed by I. T. Beckwith (1919) and repeated by R. H. Mounce (1977): “Verses 1-5 are often referred to as in some respects the most enigmatic in the book.”² Such an exegetical conundrum is surprising because this passage (14:1-5) has a clearly marked composition and structure: It consists of

1. Vision: 14:1 describes the 144,000 with the Lamb on Mount Zion,

2. Audition: 14:2-3 announce the voice from heaven and the choral song before the throne of God which none could learn except the 144,000 and

3. Explanation: 14:4-5 identify the 144,000 with a four-fold characterization: they are virgins, followers of the Lamb, a first fruit, and blameless.

The literary context of this segment is also clear: the 144,000 around the Lamb on Mount Zion are the anti-image of the beast and its followers which were depicted in the preceding chapter (Rev. 13). The tableau is followed by three angelic proclamations to the whole world; the first angel proclaims the gospel of God's judgment and justice to all the world. These “glad tidings” consist especially in the “fall of Babylon,” as the second angel underlines (14:8). The third angel threatens those who worship the beast with eternal punishment (14:9-11). The whole section of proclamation is concluded with two sayings addressed to Christians: 14:12 is a comment of the seer with respect to the hypomonē (“consistent resistance”) of the saints while the blessing (makarismos) in 14:13 is pronounced by a voice from heaven. It refers to those who “die in the Lord,” a traditional Christian expression.

While one might quibble over the translation of certain expressions in the angelic warnings or in the description of the two beasts and their mark or stamp (charagma), the overall interpretation of the context is not contested. The zeitgeschichtlich interpretation (history contemporary to the author) of the beast and its cult agent as referring to Rome is widely accepted, although exegetes might differ on whether the “beast” refers to Nero or Domitian. Although today we have widespread agreement on the 144,000 as the anti-image to the followers of the beast, commentators do not come to the same conclusions as to their identity. Some of the following identifications are suggested. The 144,000 are understood as Jewish Christians, elect and “saved” Christians, Christian ascetic males, the eschatologically saved and protected “holy rest” of Israel, the “perfect” victims and sacrifice, the high priestly followers of the Lamb, the military army of the Lamb gathering on Zion for the messianic battle, those who have followed the Lamb into death, or those who follow the Lamb in heaven.³

For each of these interpretations (and others could probably be added) some contextual or tradition-historical argument can be adduced. The possibility of interpretational variance would increase even more if we would hold a church- or world-historical rather than an eschatological zeitgeschichtlich interpretation, or if we would see the visions of the book as predictions of events in our times and as promises to readers of today rather than to those in the first century. Finally, a “timeless” interpretation would add a different kind of variance insofar as it sees in the 144,000 symbols of “timeless truth” about discipleship, victory, or sacrifice; structuralist charting of opposites or types in turn could endow such a synchronic interpretation with apparent scientific exactitude. No wonder many exegetes and Christians throughout the centuries have relinquished an understanding of the book in despair while others have found it to be a source not only of spiritual but also artistic inspiration.

Rather than add one more “definite” interpretation of the 144,000 followers of the Lamb on Mount Zion, I would like to explore some of the conditions and possibilities for interpreting the language of Rev. in general and of this passage in particular. I will do so in order to complement my analysis of the composition, form, and macro-structure,⁴ as well as the prophetic-apocalyptic setting of Rev.,⁵ with an analysis of its rhetorical language and symbolic universe. I have selected Rev. 14:1-5 as an example to show how the rhetorical language of a text must be explored so that its symbolic-poetic images make “sense” within its overall context and it has “meaning” and the power of “persuasion” in its own particular historical-social situation.

I will therefore argue that Rev. must be understood as a poetic-rhetorical construction of an alternative symbolic universe that “fits” its historical-rhetorical situation. An adequate interpretation of Rev. 14:1-5, therefore, must first explore the poetic-evocative character of its language and symbols; second assess its rhetorical dynamics in a “proportional” reading of its symbols to elucidate their particular interrelations and the author's persuasive goals; and third show why the construction of the symbolic universe of Rev. is a “fitting” response to its historical-rhetorical situation. It has become clear by now that I understand symbolic actions not to be just linguistic-semantic but also always social-communicative. They need to be analyzed as text as well as subtext in terms of their historical-social “world”: as subtext insofar as history is not accessible to us except in textual reconstructions although history itself is not a text. In other words, we are never able to read a text without explicitly or implicitly reconstructing its historical subtext within the process of our reading.⁶

THE MYTHOPOEIC LANGUAGE OF REVELATION

In 1972 N. Perrin insisted that literary criticism “has to include consideration of the ways in which literary types and forms of language function, and a consideration of the response they evoke from the reader or hearer.”⁷ He argues that Jesus' preaching of the kingdom of God (basileia tou theou) has been misunderstood as apocalyptic conception because its symbolic language character has been overlooked. In his understanding of symbol N. Perrin follows P. Wheelwright's distinction between steno- and tensive symbol.⁸ Whereas a steno-symbol always bears only a one-to-one relationship and is mostly used in scientific discourse, the tensive symbol can evoke a whole range of meanings and can never be exhausted or adequately expressed by one referent.

According to N. Perrin, Jewish as well as early Christian apocalyptic symbols are generally steno-symbols whereby each symbol has a one-to-one meaning relationship with the persons and events depicted or predicted. This is also the case when authors no longer refer to persons or events of the past but express their hope and vision for the future. Apocalyptic language is a secret code or sign-system depicting events that can be equated with historical persons or theological themes. Insofar as Perrin classifies apocalyptic symbols as steno-symbols or “signs” which must be decoded into a one-to-one meaning, he perpetuates the dichotomy between apocalyptic language and eschatological content or essence that has plagued scholarship in the past two hundred years.

The notion that the “essence” of theological meaning can be distilled from apocalyptic language reflects two rather prevalent but nevertheless inadequate assumptions in biblical interpretation: on the one hand the assumption that we are able to separate linguistic form and theological content and on the other hand the claim that imaginative symbolic language can be reduced to abstract philosophical language and conceptuality.⁹ As early as 1779 J. G. Herder had poked fun at such an attempt:

It [Rev.] carries, like everything else, its destiny along with itself. … The book consists of symbols; and philosophers cannot endure symbols. The truth must exhibit itself pure, naked, abstract, in a philosophical way. … No question is asked whether the symbols are pregnant with meaning, true, clear, efficient, intelligible, or whether there is in the whole book nothing but symbols. It is enough that there are symbols. We can make nothing out of symbols. At the best they are mere descriptions of the truth and we wish for demonstrations. Deductions, theorems, syllogisms we love. … Nature herself attempers different minds in various ways. She gives to one more of the power of abstraction, to another more of the power of synthesis; seldom are both found in company. In our academic education, there are unspeakably more teachers of that than of this. One is formed more for abstraction than for inspection; more for analysis than for pure comprehension, experience, and action. … Full of his systems of learning, of prejudices, and polemic hypotheses, let him indeed read anything in it, but let him not venture to condemn. … To the dumb one does not speak. The painter does not perform his work for the blind.¹⁰

The American scholar M. Stuart, who in 1845 published an excerpt from Herder's book Maran Atha as an appendix to his two-volume commentary on the Apocalypse, also underlined the aesthetic character of the work. He develops the following three hermeneutical principles: (1) The Apocalypse is a book of poetry; (2) it has to be understood in terms of Oriental poetry and therefore requires the same principles of interpretation as the parables of Jesus; and (3) generic and not specific and individual representations are to be sought in the book before us. Therefore in discussing Rev. 14:1-5 he points to the “episode” character of this passage but insists that “all which is intended by the symbols there exhibited, is merely to indicate the certainty of victory.”¹¹

This tendency to reduce the particular historical symbolic universe and literary expression of Rev. to the “generic” has prevailed among scholars who have advocated a literary analysis of Rev. in the most recent past. P. Minear has most consistently pursued a literary-critical analysis of its mythopoeic language and symbols. He objects to an understanding of Rev. as a system of signs in need of decoding, of symbols as equations with historical events and persons, and of images forecasting definite incidents and happenings.

He argues, for instance, against an interpretation of Rev. 17-18 that understands these chapters as anti-Roman polemics. To “equate Babylon with Rome would be literalism and historicism of the worst sort. The figure Babylon can convey the prophetic message and mentality without such an explicit association. We do not first require an exact knowledge of his immediate circumstances to grasp his message.”¹² According to Minear the symbol Babylon as well as “the prophetic master-image of warfare between the rival kings points to realities of a primordial and eschatological order”;¹³ it points to the archetypal conflict of the demonic and the divine. “The invisible struggle among transcendent powers is for the prophet himself a fully contemporaneous reality, yet the struggle itself could not be compressed within the bounds of specific circumstances.”¹⁴

In a similar fashion J. Ellul asserts that those exegetes who understand Babylon as the symbol of Rome and the “seven kings” as Roman emperors confuse the symbolic language of Rev. with a secret code. According to him, “Babylon is not the symbol of Rome, it is Rome, a historical reality which is transformed into a more polymorphous reality of which Babylon traditionally has been the expression. Rome is an actualized symbol, the historical presence of a permanent complex and multiple phenomenon … it is the historical actualization of the Power.”¹⁵ According to him Rome is the historical representation not just of ultimate Power but also of “the City” as the construction of all human culture and all civilization. It stands for all cities, those of the past and of the present. E. Lohmeyer and H. Schlier had already argued in a similar fashion.¹⁶

While Minear stresses that the historical references to Rome enhance our understanding of the underlying mythological, archetypal reality Babylon, Ellul maintains that the historical reality Rome is the representation of the ultimate Power and City. It seems that for both scholars the concrete historical reality and conditions of Roman power and rule along with its oppressive consequences for Christians in Asia Minor have become the symbolic manifestations of ultimate, transhistorical realities and archetypes. This interpretation, however, overlooks the fact that not Rome but the image of Babylon is the symbolic representation in Rev. To understand the symbolic representation not in historical but in archetypal or philosophical terms does not avoid its interpretation as “representation” of something which the interpreter is able to name. Archetypal, ontological interpretation reduces symbolic language to essential substance but does not explore its evocative powers in a given historical situation.

Rather than explore and highlight “the disposition of the work for openness,” essentialist interpreters assume it is like “an apricot with a hard and definite meaning at its core.”¹⁷ To understand Rev. as a poetic work and its symbolic universe and language as an asset rather than as a “scholarly confusion,” it becomes necessary for interpreters to acknowledge the ambiguity, openness, and indeterminacy of all literature. Nevertheless, an intellectually rigorous and historically careful reading of Rev. can show that

this indeterminacy of meaning has nothing in common with the conception that poetic language has no particular meaning, but is valuable only as a stimulus of feeling. Indeterminacy sees the language of poetry and fiction as at least as precise as ordinary language, but as having a different function—that of opening up rather than limiting meanings. The indeterminacy is not on the surface; we know exactly what (the writer) did and even why he [sic] did it. What is open are the full implications, the values, and the various incidents. The ‘confusion’ … is at ‘the deep level where it is required’ … because a literary experience is by nature open [emphasis and parentheses added].¹⁸

In order to explore the whole range of the symbols in Rev. 14:1-5—take, for instance, the symbol of Mount Zion, which in N. Perrin's terms is a symbol of ancestral vitality—it would be necessary to develop a lexicon of the imagery in Rev. with respect to its sources and its idioms together with a history of its traditions and interpretations as well as their influence or effective history. Although G. Herder had already demanded such a lexicon, it is still a desideratum of scholarship today.

The “range” of meaning that the symbol of “Mount Zion” evokes becomes obvious in the commentaries. Reference is made to the historical Mount Zion, its use as a short form for Jerusalem, to the heavenly Jerusalem, to eschatological expectations that the Messiah will appear on Mount Zion for eschatological warfare, as well as to the promise that the “holy rest” of the people of God will be gathered and protected there. But attempts to show that the author means the heavenly and not the historical or the eschatological and not the heavenly temple-berg are inconclusive.¹⁹ Moreover, attempts to show that the seer is influenced here by a definite prophetic²⁰ or apocalyptic text expectation²¹ are also inconclusive. Yet this indeterminacy could become a plus if we would understand apocalyptic language as poetic language, that is, as opening up rather than limiting, as evoking rather than defining meanings. Only then would we be able to perceive the strength of the image with all its possible overtones of meanings for the writer as well as for the audience.

THE RHETORICAL STRATEGY OF REVELATION

If Rev. is not to be likened to an “apricot with a hard core” but more to an “onion” consisting of layers and layers of meaning, then the question arises, how are we able to say that it is an “onion” and not a heap of apple peels? In other words, how can we delineate the “particular” meaning of Rev. without ending up in total confusion and without accepting every abstruse interpretation that is proposed for the book's often bizarre symbols? Is the book “open” to any interpretation, or does its “particularity” require that a proposed “meaning” must make “sense” with regard to the overall structure of the book as well as with respect to its “function” within a particular historical situation?

These questions can be further explored if we consider Rev. not just as a symbolic-poetic work but also as a work of visionary rhetoric. While the poetic work seeks to create or organize imaginative experience, the rhetorical seeks to “persuade” or “motivate” people “to act right.”²² Poetry works by representation and is fulfilled in creation while rhetoric seeks to teach and instigate; poetry invites imaginative participation while rhetoric instigates a change of attitudes and motivations. Or in the words of A. Wilder: “Our visions, stories, and utopias are not only aesthetic: they engage us.”²³

Since participation and persuasion, imagination and change are not exclusive of each other, poetic and rhetorical elements can be successfully intertwined in a single work. Speaker, audience, subject matter, and “rhetorical situation” are constitutive for any rhetoric utterance. In these terms Rev. is a poetic-rhetorical work. It seeks to persuade and motivate by constructing a “symbolic universe” that invites imaginative participation. The strength of its persuasion for action lies not in the theological reasoning or historical argument of Rev. but in the “evocative” power of its symbols as well as in its hortatory, imaginative, emotional language, and dramatic movement, which engage the hearer (reader) by eliciting reactions, emotions, convictions, and identifications.

In writing down “the words of prophecy” to be read in the worship assembly of the community. John seeks to motivate and encourage Christians in Asia Minor who have experienced harassment and persecution. John does not do so simply by writing a letter of exhortation but by creating a new “plausibility structure” and “symbolic universe” within the framework of a prophetic pastoral letter. Apocalyptic vision and explicit parenesis have the same function. They provide the vision of an “alternative world” in order to encourage Christians and to enhance their staying power in the face of persecution and possible execution.

Rather than “essentialize” the individual image, therefore, we must trace its position within the overall form-content configuration (Gestalt) of Rev. and see its relationships to other images and within the “strategic” positions of the composition. Images are not simply patterns or ornaments but they are “about something.” Only a “proportional” analysis of its images can determine what they are about within the structure of the work by determining the phase of action in which they are invoked. Such an analysis of symbolic relations must highlight the hortatory or persuasive functions of the multivalent images and symbols in producing cooperative or non-cooperative attitudes and actions.

Whereas the poetic image can employ a full range of meaning and often contains a complex bundle of meanings which can be contradictory if they are reduced to their ideational equivalents, rhetorical symbols are related to each other within the structure of a work in terms of the ideas, values, or goals of the author, which must be at least partially shared with the audience.²⁴ In interpreting Rev. as a rhetorical work we must therefore look first for the strategic position and textual relations of the symbols and images within the overall dramatic movement of the book. Second, we must pay attention to the explicit rhetorical “markers” that seek to “channel” the audience's understandings, emotions, and identifications in such a way that it is persuaded and moved to the desired action.

First, since I have elsewhere analyzed the overall compositional movement of Rev., I will presuppose this analysis here in order to indicate how Rev. 14:1-5 makes “sense” within the overall dramatic action. According to my interpretation, this segment belongs to the central section of Rev. 10:1-15:5, which, in ever-new episodal images interprets the present situation of the community on earth in its confrontation with Rome's power and cult.²⁵ An “episode” is thereby understood as a “brief unit of action” that is integral but distinguishable from the continuous narrative. If we assume that the “narrative” line of Rev. is indicated by the four septets then this segment is similar in function to the first septet of the messages and it is the center around which the septet of plagues is grouped.

The vision of the 144,000 with the divine name on their foreheads is clearly an antithetical vision to those of the dragon and the two beasts. It continues the motif of the measuring of the temple, the two witnesses, and the woman with the child, while anticipating the vision of the victors who sing the song of Moses and the Lamb (15:2-4). It is also interlinked with other heavenly-earthly-eschatological visions of redemption and salvation: on the one hand, it recalls the exaltation and enthronement of the Lamb in chap. 5, the “sealing” of the 144,000 elect of the tribes of Israel as well as the eschatological great multitudinous company of the Lamb in chap. 7; on the other hand it points forward to the victory of the Lamb and those with him in 17:14, to the vision and audition of the “sacred marriage of the Lamb” in 19:10, to the Messianic millennial reign in 20:4-6, and to the “liturgical” service of those with the divine name on their heads in the New Jerusalem (22:3-5). It also alludes to the promise to the victor in 3:12 and the new “Zion”/Jerusalem in 21:1-22:5.

At the same time the vision of the 144,000 followers of the Lamb is the anti-vision of the “Lamb-like” beast and its followers who have taken the beast's name on their right hands and foreheads (chap. 13), as well as the antipode to the gathering of the anti-divine forces at Har Magedon (16:17). It is a “warning” to those who are in the process of losing their share in the New Jerusalem. Similarly the audition refers the audience back to the heavenly liturgies of 5:11-12; 7:11-12; 11:15-19; 12:10-12 and points forward to the song of the eschatological victors in 15:2-4 and 19:1-5. Its antidotes are the worship of the dragon and the blasphemies of the beast from the sea (13:4-6; 16:11,21) as well as the lament of the kings, merchants, and seafarers over Babylon (18:9-20).

These auditions have the same function of commenting on the dramatic action and of guiding the perception of the audience which the choir had in the classical drama. By juxtaposing visions and auditions of salvation with those of the anti-divine powers, the seer seeks to persuade and motivate his audience to make their decision for salvation and for the world of God in the face of the destructive power represented by the beasts and Babylon as the symbols of Rome. This function is underlined by the explanatory remark that closes the vision and audition in v. 3: it underlines this eschatological tension of decision by stressing that only the 144,000 are able to “learn” the “new song” which the heavenly choir sings. They are those who are bought free, “separated out,” or liberated from the earth (apo implies their separation from the earth).²⁶

Second, the strategic function of the vision and audition of 14:1-3 is underlined by its explicit interpretation in vv. 4-5, by the following section with three angelic proclamations to all of humanity of vv. 6-11, and by the special words of blessing to the Christians in vv. 12-13. They function as rhetorical markers that appeal to the active decision of the audience and make sure that the multivalent images and symbols are understood in a certain way. They must be understood in the context of the explanatory remarks of chap. 13 and the proclamation of 14:6-13.

This interpretation of Rev. 14:1-5 understands those who are bought free from the earth as parthenoi (male virgins), as the followers of the Lamb, and as spotless first fruits. The present status of the eschatologically redeemed is a consequence and outcome of their behavior in the past. The first and last part of the interpretation stress the cultic purity of the 144,000 who are characterized in this vision as high priests, because they have the name of God and the Lamb on their foreheads. The middle section of the interpretation elaborates their “being with the Lamb” as following the Lamb.

This interpretation given by the author is grammatically difficult because the text leaves open whether they were or are followers of the Lamb. If the statement is parallel to the other two in structure, then the verb ēsan (they were) should be inserted. This, however, makes the grammatical reading of the sentence difficult. As the sentence stands now the reader can add the past and the present tense simultaneously: they have been and still are followers of the Lamb.²⁷ Whereas the beast from the abyss will “go” (hypagei) to destruction (17:18), the Lamb leads to eschatological salvation (cf. 7:17). Yet we are also reminded of the oracular pronouncement in 13:10: if anyone is to be taken captive, into captivity she or he goes (hypagei). Following the Lamb in the past included going to captivity, while now on the eschatological Zion it means salvation and fullness of life.

Whereas the statement that the 144,000 are first fruits and spotless because in their mouth was found no lie, is clear in the context of the book, the explanation that they are parthenoi (for they have not soiled or defiled themselves with women) is most difficult. Part of the difficulty, however, results from the mistaken assumption of exegetes that they must take this statement literally,²⁸ when they usually do not take either agorazein (to purchase), Mount Zion, hypagein (to go), aparchē (first fruits), or amōmoi (spotless) in a literalist sense but interpret them within the language context of the book. To assume that either the heavenly or the eschatological followers of the Lamb are a class of exclusively male ascetics²⁹ seems to be unfounded in the overall context of the book.

The expression parthenoi probably points, within the present scene, to the cultic purity of the Lamb's followers as well as to their representation of the “bride of the Lamb,” the New Jerusalem, which is qualified as “holy” in 21:9-11. The anti-image to the holiness of the bride arrayed in white linen is that of Babylon who corrupts the nations with oppressive power.³⁰ The mention of “women” could also allude to the prophetess in Thyatira called Jezebel, who in John's view “seduces” Christians to idolatry and accommodation to pagan society. This possibility is enhanced but not proven if we consider that the expression “in their mouth was found no lie” not only refers to the list of vices which excludes people from the New Jerusalem (21:7; 22:15) but also to those people who claim to be Jews but lie (3:9) and to the second beast, the false prophet (16:13; 19:20; 20:10).

Thus, the interpretation of the vision and audition is not given in less symbolic language and cannot be reduced to a one-to-one meaning. Its function is to underline the agency of the 144,000. While the vision and audition highlight the election of those who are with the Lamb on Mount Zion, an accurate interpretation stresses that their actions and lives are the preconditions for such eschatological salvation. It thus has the same rhetorical function as the angelic proclamation, which calls all of humanity—of which the 144,000 are the first fruits—to the worship of God, announces the fall of Babylon in whose abominations the 144,000 parthenoi did not share, and threatens with eternal punishment the worshipers of the beast who take its sign, while those who have the name of God on their foreheads are promised participation in the liturgy of heaven in the future.

Here, at this opposition between the worship of God and that of the beasts, the hypomonē, that is, the “consistent resistance” or “staying power” of the saints, who keep the word of God and the faith of Jesus, come to the fore. The macarism at the end of this section sums up its overall rhetorical message and thus forms a transition to the judgment visions in 14:14-20. “Blessed [makarismos] are the dead,” according to a word of the Spirit, who have died “in the Lord,” that is, as Christians. Like the souls under the heavenly altar in 6:9-11 they can rest from their labors because their deeds or what they have become in their actions follow them.

In conclusion, the vision and audition of Rev. 14:1-3 function within the context of the book to highlight the election as well as the eschatological salvation of the 144,000, while the attached interpretation (vv. 4-5) underlines that their life-practice is the condition for eschatological salvation. The tableau functions at the same time as anti-image to that of the beast and its followers as well as to the glory of Babylon. Thus the whole section 14:1-5 in its wider context underlines the fundamental decision that the audience faces: either to worship the anti-divine powers embodied by Rome and to become “followers” of the beast (cf. 13:2-4) or to worship God and to become “companions” of the Lamb on Mount Zion. This decision jeopardizes either their lives and fortunes here and now or their future lives and share in the New Jerusalem, Mount Zion.

The images of eschatological salvation and the heavenly world of God seek to mobilize the readers' emotions, to attract and persuade them to make the right decision here and now and to live accordingly in this life. At the same time these passages seek to alienate their allegiances and affects from the present symbols of Roman power by ascribing to it images of degradation, ugliness, ultimate failure, and defeat. With ever new images and symbols of redemption and salvation the visionary rhetoric of Rev. 10:1-15:4 seeks to persuade the audience to decide for the worship of God and against that of the beast, which is shown as doomed to failure and destruction. The Book of Rev. not only seeks to convince Christians that this is the right decision but also seeks to provoke them to stake their lives on it.

THE RHETORICAL SITUATION OF REVELATION

My elaboration of the rhetorical strategy of Rev. has already indicated the kind of rhetorical situation which has generated it. It now remains to elaborate why its particular rhetorical response to the social-political and religious situation of the churches in Asia Minor is a “fitting” response. In other words, the social-historical-political parameters which are the ultimate horizon of Rev. as of any other cultural artifact must be (re)constructed, in the words of F. R. Jameson, so

as to constitute not merely a scene or background, not an inert context alone but rather a structured and determinate situation, such that the text can be grasped as an active response to it. … The text's meaning then, in the larger sense of Bedeutung will be the meaningfulness of a gesture that we read back from the situation to which it is precisely a response.³¹

What is the rhetorical situation to which the particular world of vision of Rev. can be perceived as an active response? In addressing this question it must be kept in mind that it is the rhetorical situation that calls forth a particular rhetorical response and not vice versa.

A rhetorical situation is characterized by exigency and urgency. An exigency which cannot be modified through the rhetorical act is not rhetorical. Thus the controlling exigency of the situation specifies the mode of discourse to be chosen and the change to be effected. In other words, any rhetorical discourse obtains its rhetorical character from the exigency and urgency of the situation that generates it. And yet the rhetorical situation is not only marked by urgency but also constituted by two types of constraints: those which affect the audience's decision or action and those which are limitations imposed on the author.³²

The exigency of the rhetorical situation of Rev. is best characterized by the letter of Pliny to the emperor Trajan:

In the meanwhile the method I have observed towards those who have been denounced to me as Christians is this: I interrogated them whether they were Christians; if they confessed it I repeated the question twice again adding the threat of capital punishment; if they still persevered, I ordered them to be executed. … Those who denied they were, or had ever been Christians, who repeated after me an invocation to the Gods, and offered adoration with wine and frankincense to your image, which I had ordered to be brought for that purpose, together with those of the Gods, and who finally cursed Christ—none of which acts it is said, those who are really Christians can be forced into performing,—these I thought it proper to discharge. Others who were named by that informer, at first confessed themselves Christians and then denied it. … They all worshipped your statue and the images of the Gods and cursed Christ.³³

Pliny states here in plain words what Rev. tells us in images and symbols, especially in chap. 13. Yet Rev. adds another aspect when it stresses that those who do not have the mark of the beast are not able to buy or to sell.³⁴ Not only threat to life, imprisonment, and execution but also economic deprivation and destitution are to be suffered by those who refuse to take the mark of the beast, that is, to be identified as its followers. Although exegetes are not quite able to explain the mark of the beast and its number,³⁵ its economic significance is plain. In other words the beast not only threatens the followers of the Lamb with death, but also makes it impossible for them to have enough to live.

Under the Flavians, especially Domitian, the imperial cult was strongly promoted in the Roman provinces. Domitian demanded that the populace acclaim him as “Lord and God” and participate in his worship. The majority of the cities³⁶ to which the prophetic messages of Rev. are addressed were dedicated to the promotion of the emperor cult. Ephesus was the seat of the proconsul and competed with Pergamum for primacy. Like Smyrna it was a center of the emperor cult, had a great theater, and was famous for its gladiatorial games. Pergamum was the official center of the imperial cult. Already in 29 b.c.e. the city had received permission to build a temple to the “divine Augustus and the goddess Roma,” which is probably referred to in Rev. 3:13 by the expression “the throne of Satan.” In Thyatira the emperor was worshipped as Apollo incarnate and as the son of Zeus. In 26 c.e. Sardis competed with ten other Asian cities for the right of building a temple in honor of the emperor but lost out to Smyrna. Laodicea was the wealthiest city of Phrygia and had especially prospered under the Flavians.

The Asiarchs, the high priests of the Asian Koinon (assembly), presided over the imperial cult. One high priest was probably elected annually from one of the Asian cities to the most prestigious office a wealthy citizen could aspire to. “These priests wore unusually ornate crowns adorned with miniature busts of the imperial family.”³⁷ In such an environment Christians were bound to experience increasing conflicts with the imperial cult, especially since they claimed Jesus Christ and not the Roman emperor as “their Lord and God.” Rev. knows of harassment and persecutions of individual Christians in various localities. It anticipates an increase of persecutions and sufferings for the near future, not least because of the increasing totalitarianism of the reign of Domitian.

This experience of harassment, persecution, and hostility challenged Christians' faith in Christ as Lord. Their experience of hunger, deprivation, pestilence, and war undermined their belief in God's good creation and providence. Christians experienced painfully that their situation in no way substantiated their faith conviction that they already participated in Christ's kingship and power.³⁸ This tension between theological conviction and experienced reality must have provoked difficult theological questions that seemed to have been addressed differently by leading prophets in the churches of Asia Minor. The Book of Rev. implicitly informs us of such a theological dilemma by arguing against rival Christian apostles and prophets and by indicting the Jewish community as a “synagogue of Satan.” In a situation where the leader does not control the production of symbols or where there are competing voices, she or he must defend their message over and against heresies and extend its range of consensual validations.³⁹ These are the rhetorical constraints on the audience that intensify the exigency of the political situation of Rev.

First, the political situation was aggravated and the necessity to make a decision became more pressing because Jewish Christians like John could less and less claim Jewish political privileges for themselves. Jews had the privilege of practicing their religion in any part of the empire and were exempted from military service and the imperial cult. Under the Flavians, however, their situation had become more precarious. Vespasian ordered that all Jews and proselytes had to pay a special tax to the Romans in place of the tax formerly paid to the Jerusalem temple. Domitian⁴⁰ enforced the tax and singled out for payment especially the proselytes and God-fearers who were not Jews by birth. Moreover, Judaism was regarded with suspicion because of its strange customs and refusal to participate in the civil religion of its political environment. After the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple the self-interest of Jewish communities in Asia Minor demanded that they get rid of any potential political “trouble-makers” and “messianic elements” in their midst, and Christians certainly seemed to be among them.⁴¹

The messages to the churches of Smyrna and Philadelphia reflect this conflict. John's identification of the synagogue as a congregation of Satan should not be misread as anti-Judaism since he has great appreciation for the faith and the symbols of “true Judaism.” But apparently true Judaism for him is messianic apocalypticism. As a Jewish Christian John is well aware that the established Jewish communities of Asia Minor could not tolerate the deviance of Christians who seem also to have been poor and powerless in Smyrna and Philadelphia and to have experienced slander from their Jewish communities.⁴²

Second, not only among Jews but also among Christians there was a tendency to adapt and acquiesce to the political powers. John bitterly polemicizes against rival Christian prophets in Ephesus, Pergamum, and Thyatira. Ephesus is praised for rejecting “the false apostles” and for its hatred of the works of the Nicolaitans, whereas Pergamum is severely criticized for tolerating those who hold the teachings of Balaam. The community in Thyatira in turn is censured for accepting the influence and teaching of a woman prophet and her school.⁴³ It is likely that all three code names “Nicolaitans, Balaam, and Jezebel” characterize the same group of Christian prophets who allowed eating food sacrificed to idols and accepted compromise with the emperor cult. This theological stance had great political, economic, and professional advantages for Christians in Asia Minor, for the meat sacrificed to idols was served at meetings of trade guilds and business associations as well as private receptions.⁴⁴

This alternative prophetic position thus proposed a theological compromise that allowed Christian citizens to participate actively in the commercial, political, and social life of their cities. They probably justified their stance with reference to Paul (Rom. 13:1-7). Like Timothy, they might have urged their congregations to make supplications, prayers and intercessions for kings and those in “high places” in order to be able to lead a “quiet and peaceable life, godly and respectful in every way” (1 Tim. 2:2-3). Like 1 Peter⁴⁵ they could have admonished: “Fear God. Honor the emperor” (2:17). Since “honoring the image of the emperor” did not demand credal adherence but was a civil-political gesture, some might have argued it was possible to do so without compromising one's faith.

Moreover, to oppose the imperial cult and to refuse participation in socio-religious affairs would mean to take the religious claims of the imperial religion at face value. The religious claims of the emperor and state, on the one hand and the claims of God and Christ on the other hand are not in conflict because both claims belong to a radically different order as is maintained, for example, in John 18:36-38. Jesus Christ's claim to kingship and power is not of a political nature but pertains to the spiritual-religious life of the church, since Christians are taken out of this world and by virtue of their baptism already share in the kingly power of their Lord. No one, not even Satan, can harm the elect for they have insight into the very depth and mystery of the demonic and divine.⁴⁶

In responding to this theological challenge John, like Paul before him, stresses that behind idols stands the demonic power of Satan, the ultimate adversary. No compromise with the imperial cult is possible because God and Christ are the true rulers of the world. John's theological response is rooted in a different social-political experience. He himself seems to have experienced suffering and exile,⁴⁷ while the two communities that deserve Christ's praise and receive no censure are obviously poor and without power. Those communities that receive censure are rich, complacent, and do not experience any harassment.⁴⁸

It seems, therefore, that John advocates an uncompromising theological stance toward the imperial religion because, for him and his followers, the dehumanizing powers of Rome and its vassals have become so destructive and oppressive that a compromise with them would mean an affirmation of “those who destroy the earth” (11:18). Therefore Rev. stresses “Christ is alive, although he was killed.” Those who will resist the powers of death determining their life will share in the power and glory of Christ. To those who are poor, harassed, and persecuted the promises to the “victor” pledge the essentials of life for the eschatological future: food, clothing, home, citizenship, security, honor, power, glory.⁴⁹

To achieve acceptance for his alternative prophetic stance, however, John did not claim exceptional personal status and authority. He consistently calls himself doulos (slave) rather than prophētēs (prophet) and places himself emphatically on the same level with the audience (1:9). He also does not write a pseudonymous book appropriating the authority of one of the great prophets or apostles of the past for his message. Neither does he appeal to any church leaders or offices known in the communities of Asia Minor.⁵⁰ He does rely on legitimization, but it derives not from human authority but from Christ himself. Like the prophets of old he proclaims: “Thus says the Lord” (as in tade legei). Like the apocalyptic seers he creates a symbolic universe that is mythological insofar as it represents a conception of reality that points to the ongoing determination of the world by sacred forces.

A strategic legitimating function of symbolic universe for individual as well as communal life according to P. Berger and T. Luckmann is the “location” of death. It enables individuals to go on living and to anticipate their own deaths with the terror of death sufficiently mitigated. “Symbolic universe shelters the individual from ultimate terror.”⁵¹ The same is true for its social significance: it is a sheltering canopy over institutions and legitimates the political order by reference to a cosmic order of justice and power. With respect to the future it establishes a “common frame of reference” bestowing meaning on the suffering of the community and on individual death. The empirical community is transported to a cosmic plane and made majestically independent of the vicissitudes of individual existence.

Such world construction in myth is primarily occasioned by conflicting definitions of reality which are aggravated if only one party has the power to enforce its own interpretation of reality. This was the case as we have seen in the rhetorical situation of Rev. In constructing a symbolic universe John attempts to maintain the superiority of his prophetic view of reality and of God as well as to help individual Christians face the terror of death. Since the exigency of the situation is defined not just in terms of Roman power but represents political power in cultic terms, the symbolic universe of Rev. needed to appeal to common traditional cultic symbols in order to be competitive. Yet such an appeal was not possible since Christians had no cult, no temples, no priests, no sacrifices.⁵² Since John rejects all pagan cultic activity as idolatry and seeks to alienate his audience from the magnificent symbols and cultic drama of the emperor cult, he could not, as Ignatius did, appeal to the symbols and images of the mystery cults. “You are all taking part in a religious procession carrying along with you your God, shrine, Christ, and your holy objects, and decked out from tip to toes in the commandments of Jesus Christ” (Ignatius, Eph. 9:2).

Although the open and multivalent images of Rev. have many overtones derived from Greco-Roman society and religion, the dominant tenor of its symbolic language is the cult of Israel. The symbols of temple, priest, sacrifice, garments, headdress, hymns, altar, incense and cultic purity are all derived from Jewish religion. In taking over these traditional Jewish symbols John makes a plea to Jews and Jewish Christians who “own” the tradition to accept him and his vision. At the same time it must be observed that Rev. never uses cultic symbolic language to describe Christian worship and communities. The cultic-religious symbolic language of Israel serves as a “language” to construct the heavenly world and the future where no cultic mediation is necessary anymore.⁵³ By employing traditional Jewish cultic symbols John seeks not only to alienate his audience from pagan mysteries and the emperor cult, but also to project essential stability, collective coherence, and eternal bliss in order to overcome their experienced alienation.⁵⁴

I have argued that the symbolic universe and action of Rev. is a “fitting” response to its rhetorical situation. It remains to show how the dramatic action of the overall composition fulfills this rhetorical function. According to K. Burke⁵⁵ the mythic or ritual structure which follows the form of a cathartic journey moves the audience from alienation through purification to redemption. The first part, which is considered a viaticum, is “the way in.” It states the primary conditions in terms of which the journey is to be localized or specified in time. This function is fulfilled by the first section, the seven messages of Rev. (1:9-3:21).

The next part within the journey metaphor is the definite “pushing off from shore” and the certainty “of being underway.” On a particular journey one can be underway for varying periods of time. Chapters 4-9 culminating in the seventh trumpet take the audience “on the way” of the journey which opened up with the death, resurrection, and exaltation of Christ.

Eventually, according to Burke, one has to arrive at the “withinness of withinness.” Here one arrives at knowledge and perception of the tensions (e.g., pollution, psychosis, civil disorder, class conflicts), that is, at the exigency of the rhetorical situation that is symbolized and explored. Chapters 10-14 and 15:2-4 represent structurally this “withinness of withinness” of the symbolic drama of Rev.

From this point on “we are returning” and shall go back to the starting point, but with a “difference” which is constituted by an emotional or intellectual “splitting,” a “separating out” which happens in Rev. 15:1-19:10. The last part of the dramatic action completes the journey and the separating-out process. The journey is complete “when the passion (persecution and suffering) has been transformed into an assertion.” The book closes with such a “final separating out” and an assertion in 19:11-22:5. Language cannot remove or correct “the brute realities” of the social-political exigency and of religious “tensions,” but it can help us to control their destructive effects. In taking his audience on the dramatic-cathartic journey of Rev., John seeks to “move” them to control their fear and to sustain their vision.

Finally, a theological interpretation of the NT has to assess the impact of John's world of vision and dramatic symbolic action on the contemporary reader and audience. W. C. Booth has argued for a revived ethical and political criticism that would “appraise the quality of the response invited by the whole work. What will it do with or to us if we surrender our imaginations to its path?”⁵⁶ Critics of Rev. have pointed out that the book preaches vengeance and revenge but not the love of the Sermon on the Mount.⁵⁷ It is therefore sub-Christian, the Judas of the NT. I myself in turn have argued that the book is written “with a jail-house” perspective, asking for the realization of God's justice and power. It therefore can only be understood by those “who hunger and thirst for justice.”⁵⁸

This dispute can be clarified through the concept of “rhetorical situation” that I have tried to develop here. If the “rhetorical situation” generates a “fitting” response, then Rev. cannot be understood when its “rhetorical situation” no longer “persists.” Wherever it persists, however, the book will continue to evoke the same response sought by its author. In other words, wherever a social-political-religious “tension” generated by oppression and persecution persists or re-occurs, the dramatic action of Rev. will have the same cathartic effects it had in its original situation.⁵⁹

Wherever a totally different “rhetorical situation” exists, however, the book no longer elicits a “fitting” response. What I am arguing here is that we should not reduce “the reader” to a timeless, ideal reader because in so doing we essentialize and dehistoricize the book. Rather than pose an abstract reader, we must detect and articulate our own presuppositions, emotions, and reactions to the work in an explicit way, as well as sort out what kind of quality of response becomes dominant in our own reading.

What will Rev. do to us if we surrender our imagination to its dramatic action? For example, the symbols for Rev. for both the oppressive and eschatologically redemptive communities are female because cities were personified as women. Moreover, Rev. symbolizes idolatry in the prophetic and cultic language of Israel as “whoring” or as “defilement with women.” In our present rhetorical situation where we have become conscious of androcentric language and its socializing function we can detect a quite different rhetorical function and impact of these symbols. They no longer seek to persuade all Christians to persistent resistance and loyal faithfulness unto death, but they appeal to quite different emotions. Rev. engages the imagination of the contemporary reader to perceive women in terms of good or evil, pure or impure, heavenly or destructive, helpless or powerful, bride or temptress, wife or whore. Rather than instill “hunger and thirst for justice,” the symbolic action of Rev. therefore can perpetuate prejudice and injustice if it is not “translated” into a contemporary “rhetorical situation” to which it can be a “fitting” rhetorical response.

Notes

1. W. Bousset, Die Offenbarung Johannes (MeyerK 16; 6th ed.; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1906) 146.

2. R. H. Mounce, The Book of Revelation (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1977) 266; see also I. T. Beckwith, The Apocalypse of John (1919; Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1967) 653.

3. For a recent review of literature, cf. O. Böcher, Die Johannesapokalypse (Erträge der Forschung 41; Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1975) 56-63. W. Weicht's “Die dem Lamm folgen: Eine Untersuchung der Auslegungen von Offb. 14, 1-5 in den letzten 80 Jahren” (Diss.: Pont. Univ. Gregorianae, Rome, 1969) was not available to me.

4. See chap. 1 of this book [Fiorenza, Elizabeth Schüssler. The Book of Revelation: Justice and Judgment, Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985.] on “History and Eschatology in Revelation,” and chap. 6 on “Composition and Structure of Revelation.”

5. See chap. 3 of this book on “The Quest for the Johannine School,” and chap. 5 on “Apokalypsis and Propheteia.”

6. For the distinction between text and subtext, cf. F. R. Jameson, “The Symbolic Inference; or Kenneth Burke and Ideological Analysis,” in Representing Kenneth Burke (ed. H. White and M. Brose; Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1982) 68-91.

7. N. Perrin, “Eschatology and Hermeneutics,” JBL [Journal of Biblical Literature] 93 (1974) 1-15, esp. 10.

8. Cf. P. Wheelwright, Metaphor and Reality (6th ed.; Bloomington, Ind.: Univ. of Indiana Press, 1975). See also N. Perrin, Jesus and the Language of the Kingdom (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1976) 21-32.

9. See my article, “The Phenomenon of Early Christian Apocalyptic: Some Reflections on Method,” in Apocalypticism in the Mediterranean World and the Near East (ed. D. Hellholm; Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1983) 295-316, for a discussion of this problem.

10. M. Stuart, Commentary on the Apocalypse (2 vols.; New York: Van Nostrand & Terrett, 1845) 2: 502-3.

11. Ibid., 1: 202.

12. P. S. Minear, I Saw a New Earth. A Complete New Study and Translation of the Book of Revelation (Washington, D.C.: Corpus Books, 1968) 246.

13. Ibid., 233.

14. Ibid., 246.

15. J. Ellul, Apocalypse. The Book of Revelation (New York: Seabury Press, 1977), 189.

16. E. Lohmeyer, Die Offenbarung des Johannes (2d ed.; Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1953); H. Schlier, “Zum Verständnis der Geschichte nach der Offenbarung des Johannes,” in Die Zeit der Kirche (Freiburg: Herder, 1958) 265-74; “Jesus Christus und die Geschichte nach der Offenbarung des Johannes,” in Besinnung auf das Neue Testament (Freiburg: Herder, 1964) 358-75.

17. Cf. R. Barthes, Critique et Vérité (Paris: Éditions de Seuil, 1966), 50, and P. Rosenthal, “Deciphering S/Z,” College English 37 (1965) 133.

18. W. Heyman, “Indeterminacy in Literary Criticism,” Soundings 59 (1976) 352.

19. The “indeterminacy” of meaning is given in the text: On the one hand Mount Zion is clearly distinguished from “heaven,” for while the voice comes “from heaven” the 144,000 stand on Mount Zion. Nevertheless, the issue is not clear-cut, since the 144,000 are also characterized as “following the Lamb” who stands before the throne of God in “heaven” (cf. Rev. 5) or shares God's throne in the New Jerusalem.

20. Cf. 2 Kings 19:20-34; Isa. 11:9-12; 23; 24; 25:7-10; Zeph. 3:13; Mic. 4:6-8; or Joel 2:32.

21. Cf., e.g., 4 Esdras 13:25-50; 2 Apoc. Bar. 40:1-2 or 4 Esdras 2:42-47.

22. See K. Burke, The Philosophy of Literary Form: Studies in Symbolic Action (New York: Vintage Books, 1956); idem, A Grammar of Motives and a Rhetoric of Motives (Cleveland: Meridian Books, 1962). For an elaboration and discussion of Burke's work, see esp. W. H. Rueckert, Kenneth Burke and the Drama of Human Relations (Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univ. of California Press, 1982) and H. D. Duncan, Communication and Social Order (New York: Bedminster Press, 1962).

23. A. Wilder, Theopoetic: Theology and Religious Imagination (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1976) 79. I presented this paper in a much shorter and less developed form at the SBL annual meeting in 1980, and I would like to thank Professor A. Wilder for his very helpful response to the earlier form.

24. See H. D. Duncan, Language and Literature in Society (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1953) 109-10.

25. See my book Invitation to the Book of Revelation (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Co., 1981) 107-50. For different understandings of this section, see the review of L. Lambrecht, “A Structuration of Revelation 4, 1-22, 5,” in L'Apocalypse johannique et l'Apocalyptique dans le Nouveau Testament (BETL 53; Louvain: The Univ. Press, 1980) 77-104.

26. Rev. 5:9 which speaks about the redemption of Christians uses agorazein with ek. See chap. 2 of this book, “Redemption as Liberation.”

27. D. Guthrie, “The Lamb in the Structure of the Book of Revelation,” Vox Evangelica 12 (1981) 64-71.

28. For a review of interpretations given to this difficult passage, see C. H. Lindijer, “Die Jungfrauen in der Offenbarung des Johannes XIV 4,” in Studies in John: Festschrift J. N. Sevenster (NovTSup 24; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1970) 124-42.

29. A. Yarbro Collins (The Apocalypse [NTM 22; Wilmington, Del.: Michael Glazier, 1979] 100) suggests that the approval of celibacy in Rev. might have been inspired by the Israelite traditions of holy war and priesthood. John's exclusively male terminology is therefore explainable since only men were warriors and priests in Israel.

30. Rather than to see parthenoi in the context of the symbolic action in Rev., Lindijer seeks to connect the word with all the other passages in the NT, contemporary Jewish, and early Christian writings which speak about virgins/virginity/celibacy.

31. Jameson, “The Symbolic Inference,” 83.

32. See esp. L. F. Bitzer, “The Rhetorical Situation,” in Rhetoric: A Tradition in Transition (ed. W. R. Fisher, East Lansing, Mich.: Michigan State Univ. Press, 1974) 247-60.

33. Letters X.96. Pliny the Younger, Letters (Loeb Classical Library; Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1969) 2: 401-2.

34. Cf. also A. Yarbro Collins, “The Political Perspective of the Revelation to John,” JBL 96 (1966) 252-54.

35. For a review, see Böcher, Die Johannesapokalypse, 84-87; B. Reicke, “Die jüdische Apokalyptik und die johanneische Tiervision,” RSR [Recherches de science religieuse] 60 (1972) 189-91; W. G. Baines, “The Number of the Beast in Revelation 13:18,” HeyJ [Heythrop Journal] 16 (1975) 195-96.

36. See W. M. Ramsay, The Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia (New York: A. C. Armstrong & Son, 1904); E. Yamauchi, The Archeology of New Testament Cities in Western Asia Minor (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1980); C. J. Hemer, “Unto the Angels of the Churches,” BH [Bibliotheque Historique] 11 (1975) 4-27, 56-83, 110-35, 164-90.

37. Yamauchi, The Archeology, 110.

38. For the elaboration of this traditional Christian self-understanding, see my work in Priester für Gott. Studien zum Herrschafts- und Priestmotiv in der Apokalypse (NTAbh 7; Münster: Aschendorff, 1972) 168-290.

39. Cf. Duncan (Language and Literature, 87) stresses the “persuasive functions of symbols in the production of cooperative and non-cooperative attitudes.”

40. E. M. Smallwood, “Domitian's Attitude Towards the Jews and Judaism,” Classical Philology 51 (1956) 1-13; P. Keresztes, “The Jews, the Christians, and Emperor Domitian,” VC [Vigilae christiane] 27 (1973) 1-28.

41. See M. Hengel, “Messianische Hoffnung and politischer ‘Radikalismus’ in der ‘jüdisch-hellenistischen Diaspora,’” in Apocalypticism in the Mediterranean World, 655-86. For the “muted and fragmentary form” of apocalyptic elements in rabbinic literature, cf. A. J. Saldarini, “The Uses of Apocalyptic in the Mishna and Tosepta,” CBQ [Catholic Biblical Quarterly] 39 (1977) 396-409.

42. It is debated whether the author has Jewish or Jewish-Christian communities in mind. H. Kraft (Die Offenbarung des Johannes [HNT (Handbuch zum Neuen Testament) 16a; Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1974] 61) thinks of a Jewish-Christian group which seeks to avoid persecution by calling themselves “Jews.” This is not stated in the text, however.

43. For a discussion of Jezebel and the Nicolaitans, see chap. 4 of this book, “Apocalyptic and Gnosis.” Today, however, I would be more hesitant to characterize this group as “gnosticizing.”

44. See also Mounce, The Book of Revelation, 102-4.

45. See, however, N. Brox, Der erste Petrusbrief (EKKNT [Evangelisch katholischer Kommentar zum Neuen Testament] 21; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1979) 116-17. He argues that v. 17 is traditional and not formulated by the author of 1 Peter. Yet the statement fits well in the overall context of the household-code (Haustafel) admonitions as D. Balch (Let Wives Be Submissive: The Domestic Code in 1 Peter [SBLMS (SBL Monograph Series) 26; Chico, Calif.: Scholars Press, 1981]) has elaborated.

46. See chap. 4 of this book, “Apocalyptic and Gnosis.”

47. For such an understanding, see Ramsay, The Letters to the Seven Churches, 82-92. Kraft argues, however, that John went to Patmos in order to have a revelatory experience (Die Offenbarung des Johannes, 40-41). His argument is not convincing.

48. The communities in Smyrna and Philadelphia were powerless and poor. These two communities receive only praise.

49. See also D. Georgi, “Die Visionen vom himmlischen Jerusalem,” in Kirche: Festschrift für G. Bornkamm zum 75, Geburstag (ed. D. Lührmann and G. Strecker; Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1980) 351-72.

50. See chap. 5 of this book, “Apokalypsis and Propheteia.” See also D. E. Aune, “The Social Matrix of the Apocalypse of John,” BR [Biblical Research] 36 (1981) 16-32. Aune, however, misrepresents my proposal.

51. P. L. Berger and T. Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Co., Anchor Books, 1967) 102.

52. See my “Cultic Language in Qumran and in the New Testament,” CBQ 38 (1976) 159-77.

53. See my book, Priester für Gott, 397-416.

54. For the stabilizing effect of ritual and cult, see M. Douglas, Natural Symbols (New York: Vintage Books, 1973) and the review of her work by R. Isenberg and D. E. Owen, “Bodies, Natural and Contrived: The Work of Mary Douglas,” RelSRev [Religious Studies Revue] 3 (1977) 1-16.

55. K. Burke, “Othello: An Essay to Illustrate a Method,” Hudson Review 4 (1951) 165-203; cf. Rueckert, Kenneth Burke, 208-26.

56. W. C. Booth, “Freedom of Interpretation: Baktin and the Challenge of Feminist Criticism,” Critical Inquiry 9 (1982) 45-76, esp. 59.

57. See esp. A. Yarbro Collins, “Revelation 18: Taunt-Song or Dirge,” in L'Apocalypse johannique et l'Apocalyptic dans le Nouveau Testament (ed. J. Lambrecht; BETL (Bibliotheca ephemeridum theologicarum lovaniensium) 53; Louvain: The Univ. Press, 1980) 204.

58. See esp. my Invitation to the Book of Revelation for a perspective on my interpretation.

59. This explains why the political left as well as the political right can appeal to the book. It is therefore important in preaching and teaching to elaborate the original “rhetorical situation” of Rev. Since it does not address a democratic and highly technologized society, the book would be misunderstood if it were seen, e.g., as advocating political quietism and resignation in the face of the possible nuclear devastation of the world.