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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2009
The Letters to the Seven Churches (Rev 2–3) have been the subject of extensive study by modern scholars, partly because of the feeling that they may provide a convenient point of entry and even a key to the understanding of some of the complexities and mysteries of the Book of Revelation as a whole. There is a broad consensus today that the letters were not written separately, sent to each church and later collected (the older view championed by Spitta), but were published as a block along with the rest of the book. Each church would thus receive not only the letter addressed to it, but also the letters addressed to the other six churches.
1 Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1986.
2 CNT 14; Lausanne/Paris: Delachaux & Niestlé, 1981.
3 London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1904.
4 Ramsay, Letters, 39.
5 See Ramsay, , Letters, chap. 15. Quotation from p. 191.Google Scholar
6 Exp Tim 69 (1957–1958) 176–8.Google Scholar
7 Exp Tim 73 (1961–1962) 263–4.Google Scholar
8 Buried History 11 (1975) 4–27, 56–83, 110–35, 164–90.Google Scholar
9 Ramsay, , Letters, 251–2, 269–70.Google Scholar Cf. the cautious discussion in Hemer, Letters, 60–4, 76.
10 Cf. Strabo Geography 14.1.37: ‘After Smyrna had been rased by the Lydians, its inhabitants continued for about four hundred years to live in villages. Then they were reassembled into a city by Antigonus, and afterwards by Lysimachus and their city is now the most beautiful of all.’ (Jones, H. L., The Geography of Strabo [LCL 6; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University, 1929] 245)Google Scholar.
11 See Hemer, Letters, 62–3 for a summary of the evidence.
12 1 Clem 25, 26.
13 See Ramsay, , Letters, 397–8, 409–12.Google Scholar
14 Hemer, Letters, 60; cf. Ramsay, Letters, 256–9.
15 Philostratus, Life of Apollonius of Tyana 4.7, quoted in Hemer, Letters, 74.Google Scholar
16 Alternatively the crown may be explained in terms of the wreath awarded to victors in athletic contests, or the wreath found on many inscriptions (mainly sepulchral) as a mark of civic honour conferred on an individual by the people of a city. Games were held in Smyrna, and several fine examples of such sepulchral inscriptions from Smyrna can be seen in the British Museum, but obviously these backgrounds are not ‘local’ in the sense of being confined to Smyrna. Since the term used is στέφανος, not διάδημα, the allusion is more probably to some kind of wreath. However, a symbol may well have multiple references; this is in fact the position adopted by Hemer (Letters, 75).
17 Wood, ‘Local Knowledge’, 264.
18 Mounce, R. H., The Book of Revelation (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977) 96.Google Scholar
19 Ramsay, Letters, 292. The allusion does not depend on the debated question of when the capital was transferred from Pergamum to Ephesus (cf. Hemer, Letters, 82–4). Even if the capital had been moved by the time of Revelation (which is far from certain) Pergamum's continuing primacy in the imperial cult would make a reference to the proconsular sword most appropriate.
20 Strabo, Geography 13.4.10, quoted in Hemer, Letters, 156.Google Scholar
21 Cf. Hemer, , ‘Unto the Angels of the Churches, 4. Philadelphia and Laodicea’, Buried History 11 (1975) 171–3.Google Scholar Hemer gives an account of visiting Philadelphia (Alasehir) in 1969 after an earthquake; a photograph (p. 173) shows inhabitants living in tents outside their homes.
22 See for example the reviews by Beale, G. K. in Trinity Journal 7 (1986) 107–11;Google ScholarBlevins, J. L. in Rev Exp 83 (1986) 630–1;Google ScholarGardner, P. in Churchman 101 (1987) 279–80;Google Scholar and Maier, G. in TLZ 113 (1988) 354–5.Google Scholar
23 Cf. the reviews by Collins, A. Y. in CBQ 49 (1987) 504–5;Google ScholarCourt, J. M. in JTS 38 (1987) 513–14;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Stanley, J. E., Int 42 (1988) 210–12.Google Scholar
24 Cf. especially Hemer, Letters, 12–13.
25 Hill, D., New Testament Prophecy (Atlanta: John Knox, 1979) 70–6Google Scholar provides a balanced treatment of the issues involved. See also Muse, R. L., ‘Revelation 2–3: A Critical Analysis of Seven Prophetic Messages’, Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 29 (1986) 147–61.Google Scholar
26 In addition to the works by Hill and Muse, see Aune, D. E., ‘The Social Matrix of the Apocalypse of John’, BR 26 (1981) 17–22;Google ScholarCollins, A. Y., Crisis and Catharsis: The Power of the Apocalypse (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1984) 134–8.Google ScholarFiorenza, E. S., ‘Apocalypsis and Propheteia: The Book of Revelation in the Context of Early Christian Prophecy’, in Lambrecht, J., ed., L'Apocalypse johannique et l'Apocalyptique dans le Nouveau Testament (Gembloux: Duculot, 1980) 127,Google Scholar regards Revelation as ‘a literary product of early Christian prophecy’, but warns against viewing apocalyptic and prophecy as an either/or alternative.
27 These points are made by Rife, J. M., ‘The Literary Background of Revelation II–III’, JBL 60 (1941) 179–82.Google Scholar Cf. also Feuillet, A., The Apocalypse (Staten Island, NY: Alba House, 1964) 48–9.Google Scholar
28 Hill, D., ‘Prophecy and Prophets in the Revelation of St John’, NTS 18 (1972) 405–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
29 Hemer, Letters, 211. Cf. Aune's remarks on the ‘sociological’ and ‘social-historical’ approaches, ‘The Social Matrix of the Apocalypse of John’, 16–17; also Sweet, J. P. M. in Exp Tim 98 (1986) 55,CrossRefGoogle Scholar who welcomes Hemer's insistence on social history ‘rather than the currently popular application of modern sociological theory to fragmentary ancient evidence’.
30 Ramsay (Letters, 46) points out that Ignatius had probably visited only two of the churches to which he writes and comments on ‘the vagueness, the generality, and the lack of individual traits’ in his letters. Cf. the discussion in C. Trevett, ‘The Other Letters to the Churches of Asia: Apocalypse and Ignatius of Antioch’, JSNT 37 (1989) 121.Google Scholar (Trevett does suggest a couple of possible ‘local references' in Ignatius’ letter to the Ephesians.)
31 In Nicoll, W. R., ed., The Expositor's Greek Testament 5 (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1910) 285.Google Scholar (Cited by Hemer, ‘The Sardis Letter and the Croesus Tradition’, 94.)
32 See the review of the debate on this question in Scroggs, R., ‘The Sociological Interpretation of the New Testament: The Present State of Research’, NTS 26 (1980) 168–71.Google Scholar
33 If Acts 19.31 is to be believed the community at Ephesus, at least in Paul's day, had friends in high places.
34 These options are summarized in Hemer, Letters, 68.
35 Cf. Yamauchi, E. M., New Testament Cities in Western Asia Minor (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1980) chap. 13, ‘Rivalry among Cities’.Google Scholar
36 Cf. the assessment of Hemer in Thompson, L. L., The Book of Revelation: Apocalypse and Empire (New York: Oxford University, 1990) 202–4.Google Scholar
37 Bauer, W., Rechtgläubigkeit und Ketzerei im ältesten Christentum (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1934) 81Google Scholar (ET, Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1971], 78Google Scholar); Goguel, M., ‘Les Nicolaïtes’, RHR 115 (1937) 5–36.Google Scholar
38 Already argued by Harnack, A., ‘The Sect of the Nicolaitans and Nicolaus, the Deacon of Jerusalem’, JR 3 (1923) 413–22.Google Scholar
39 Prigent, , L'Apocalypse de Saint Jean, 37–9.Google Scholar For a fuller discussion see Prigent, P., ‘L'hérésie Asiate et l'église confessante de l'Apocalypse à Ignace’, VC 31 (1977) 1–22.Google Scholar Cf. also Dubois, J.-D., ‘L'hérésie dans les lettres aux Églises (Ap. 2–3)’, Foi et Vie 75.4 (1976) 3–11.Google Scholar
40 Prigent, , ‘L'hérésie Asiate’, 1–7.Google Scholar
41 Prigent, , ‘L'hérésie Asiate’, 21–2.Google Scholar
42 Prigent, , L'Apocalypse de Saint Jean, 25–6.Google Scholar
43 Prigent, , L'Apocalypse de Saint Jean, 36, 80.Google Scholar
44 Hemer, C. J., ‘The Sardis Letter and the Croesus Tradition’, NTS 19 (1972) 94–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
45 Prigent, , L'Apocalypse de Saint Jean, 46.Google Scholar
46 Prigent, , L'Apocalypse de Saint Jean, 50.Google Scholar
47 Hemer, , Letters., 224 n. 1.Google Scholar
48 Cf. the remarks of Aune, ‘The Social Matrix of the Apocalypse of John’, 28–9.
49 This seriously weakens Prigent's argument that John writes to these seven churches because they are the ones contaminated by the heresy. In the light of recent research it seems likely that John writes to these seven communities because (for reasons which may never be fully known to us) they constituted the ‘circuit’ worked by John as an itinerant prophet. See Aune, ‘The Social Matrix of the Apocalypse of John’, 27; Collins, Crisis and Catharsis, 134–8.
50 Herodotus History 1.84.
51 Cf. the evidence presented by C. J. Hemer in ‘The Sardis Letter and the Croesus Tradition’, 94–7.
52 Cf. Schoedel, W. R., Ignatius of Antioch: A Commentary on the Letters of Ignatius of Antioch (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985) 72–3 n. 3, who rejects a Gnostic interpretation.Google Scholar
53 Hemer, Letters, 196–9, has a careful discussion of the eyesalve passage which is rightly cautious regarding references to ‘Phrygian powder’ as an ingredient in eyesalves; the substance is not directly linked with Laodicea, though Laodicea was in Phrygia and boasted the most famous medical centre in the region.
54 Hemer actually agrees in seeing here a countering of tendencies similar to those at Colossae which persisted in the district, but goes on to contend that ‘the general tenor of this letter is little concerned with combatting heresy’ (Letters, 186).
55 Prigent, , L'Apocalypse de Saint Jean., 77.Google Scholar
56 Prigent, , L'Apocalypse de Saint Jean, 77, cf. 46–7.Google Scholar
57 See Bauckham, R., ‘Synoptic Parousia Parables and the Apocalypse’, NTS 23 (1977) 162–76,CrossRefGoogle Scholar who demonstrates that John's use of the Parousia parables is to be seen as part of a process of ‘deparabolization’.
58 Kraft, H., Die Offenbarung des Johannes (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1974) 85.Google Scholar
59 Cf. Prigent, , L'Apocalypse de Saint Jean, 36.Google Scholar
60 This is accepted by Hemer; see Letters, 187–8.
61 Rudwick and Green, ‘The Laodicean Lukewarmness’, 178.
62 Cf. Hemer, , Letters, 188–91.Google Scholar
