¹ Twelve years ago I gave a paper at the Chicago meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature comparing the Carmen saeculare of Horace and Revelation 18. The following essay is a revision of this yet unpublished Chicago address incorporating further research and thought. It is the enlarged form of the essay “Zwei eschatologische Perspektiven” mentioned in my essay “Die Visionen vom himmlischen Jerusalem in Apk 21 and 22,” in Lührmann, Dieter and Strecker, Georg, eds., Kirche: Festschrift für Günther Bornkamm zum 75. Geburtstag (Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1980) 351–72, esp. nn. 10 and 54. In honoring Krister I also think of our common predecessor as Frothingham Professor, and Krister's predecessor as editor of Harvard Theological Review, Arthur Darby Nock.Google Scholar

² Besides the texts of Horace mentioned below and the Fourth Eclogue of Virgil there are other texts of Virgil which have eschatological overtones, not just the Nekyia, the descent into Hades in the sixth book, or the description of the divine shield in lines 626–728 of the eighth book of the Aeneid, but many more passages of this famous epic. Among the Eclogues, the First, the Fifth, the Sixth, and the Ninth should be mentioned too, as well as certain passages of the Georgics, e.g., lines 24–42 and 498–514 of the first book, 136–76 and 458–541 of the second, 1–49 of the third, 315–558 of the fourth. The two fragmentary Eclogues of the Einsiedeln Manuscript, the Caesar Eclogues of Calpurnius Piso, and the Caesar poems of Statius are further examples of Roman eschatology in NT times.

³ The Harvard Th.D. dissertation of Scherrer, Steven, “Revelation 13 as an Historical Source for the Imperial Cult under Domitian” (1979), presents excellent material for this comparison.Google Scholar

⁴ See in particular the commentary on Horace by Kiessling, Adolf, Q. Horatius Flaccus: Werke (10th ed.; rev. by Richard Heinze; Berlin: Weidmann, 1960) 1. 466–83Google Scholar (on odes and epodes). See also the epilogue to this volume by Erich Burck with a detailed and annotated bibliography, 569–647. Important also is Fraenkel, Eduard, Horace (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1957)Google Scholar. On 467–70 Kiessling gives the text of the oracle and of the records for and of the respective games. Relevant texts are also found in Ehrenberg, Viktor and Jones, Arnold Hugh Martin, Documents Illustrating the Reigns of Augustus and Tiberius (2d ed.; Oxford: Clarendon, 1955)Google Scholar nos. 30–32 (pp. 60–61). See also below n. 11.

⁵ On the secular games see further Martin Nilsson, “Saeculares ludi,” PW 1 A 2, 1696–1720; Taylor, Lily Ross, “New Light on the History of the Secular Games,” AJP 55 (1934) 101–20Google Scholar; Syme, Ronald, The Roman Revolution (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1952) 84Google Scholar, 218, 443–44; Franz Altheim, A History of Roman Religion (New York: Dutton, 1938) 72, 287–91, 353, 382, 390, 394–407, 442, 458–60; Latte, Kurt, Römische Religionsgeschichte (Handbuch der Altertumswissenschaften; Munich: Beck, 1960) 248Google Scholar, 298–300; Palmer, Robert E. A., Roman Religion and Roman Empire: Five Essays (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1974) 102–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gagé, J., “Beobachtungen zum Carmen Saeculare des Horaz,” in Hans Oppermann, ed., Wege zu Horaz (Wege der Forschung 99; 2d ed.; Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1980) 14–36Google Scholar. These authors give more primary data and secondary literature.

⁶ The idea of a saeculum and its use as an instrument for dividing epochs cultically and institutionally seem to have come from the Etruscans. The lengths of these periods were and still are matters of debate. Prodigies played a role. On the concept and the debates see n. 4 and Gerhard Radke, “Saeculum,” Der kleine Pauly 4. 1492–94. Here also further bibliography and further evidence about the games.

⁷ Different opinions concerning age and further occurrences of these games in Taylor, “New Light,” and Latte, Römische Religionsgeschichte, 246, esp. n. 4; new considerations in Palmer, Roman Religion

⁸ This is the opinion of Latte, Römische Religionsgeschichte, 248 n. 3.

⁹ On these preparations see, e.g., ibid., 298–300.

¹⁰ So, with good arguments, Mattingly, Harold, “Virgil's Golden Age: Sixth Aeneid and Fourth Eclogue,” Classical Review 48 (1934) 161–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹¹ Latte, Römische Religionsgeschichte, 248. This official eschatological concept of the new age as political reality is presented in a fascinating way in the famous letter of the proconsul of the province of Asia, and in accompanying decrees on the new calendar. A copy was found in Priene, then also in Apamea, Eumeneia, and Dorylaeum (OGIS 458 and SEG 4. 490, reprinted in Ehrenberg-Jones, no. 98 pp. 81–83; cf. also the inscription from Halicarnassus, IBM 4. 1, no. 894; Ehrenberg-Jones, no. 98a, pp. 83–84).

¹² For the text of the official records of the Augustan games see CIL VI 32323 = ILS 5050; and Theodor Mommsen's commentary on them in Ephemeris epigraphica 8 (1891) 225–309Google Scholar. Also important is his article, “Die Akten zu dem Säkulargedicht des Horaz,” in Reden und Aufsätze (Berlin: Weidmann, 1905)Google Scholar. See also above n. 3.

¹³ Gagé, “Beobachtungen,” 33. This observation appears correct although some of Gagé's hypotheses concerning models for Horace, i.e., earlier “carmina,” may be debatable. In any case the festival song contributed to the efficacy of the rites. Hellenistic religion in general and Roman religion in particular kept the ancient conviction that the word, here the poem, is magically effective. The idea of Horace's poem as a mere melodramatic accompaniment of the festivities, intended only for aesthetic enjoyment, is a typically modern thought, foreign to the ancient mind.

¹⁴ “'Twas Phoebus lent me inspiration, Phoebus the art of song, and gave me the name of poet” (lines 29–30). All quotes of texts and translations are from LCL.

¹⁵ Also to the sister of Apollo, Diana/Artemis.

¹⁶ “I, a chary and infrequent worshipper of the gods” (1. 34).

¹⁷ “Bacchus I saw on distant crags” (2.19).

¹⁸ “Dichtung und dionysische Verzauberung in der Horazode III 25,” reprinted as “c. 3,25: Quo me Bacche,” in Viktor Pöschl, Horazische Lyrik: Interpretationen (Heidelberg: Winter, 1970) 164–78Google Scholar. The tradition about Dionysiac ecstasy of the poet, which likens him to the Maenads, is already known to Plato. In NT times this idea was still present as Philo shows. See Leisegang, Hans, Der Heilige Geist (Leipzig: Teubner, 1919) 126–231Google Scholar, 236–37; Lewy, Hans, Sobria Ebrietas (ZNW 9; Berlin: De Gruyter, 1929) 3–72Google Scholar; Jonas, Hans, Gnosis und spätantiker Geist (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1954) 2. 92–107. Philo proves that Judaism had also become acquainted with this idea.Google Scholar

¹⁹ “Dichtung,” 169 n. 2. Since the 2d century bce, a movement towards remythicizing was much stronger than the tendency towards rationalization, religious uncertainty, or even decomposition. Some of the most impressive examples were Apocalypticism, Gnosticism, and Neopythagorean philosophy. As Lucretius's poem shows, even Epicurean philosophy, so important for Horace, was not untouched by this mythicizing tendency. In Horaz und die Politik (2d ed.; Sitzungsberichte der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften, Phil.-hist. Kl; Heidelberg: Winter, 1963) Pöschl writes: “Horaz bedient sich der Formeln und Symbole der früheren Poesie—sie umgestaltend und steigernd—, um seiner Aussage grössere Würde und Monumentalität zu geben, wobei auch der römische Glaube an die Autorität des Vorbildes hineinspielt, und, was für die Entwicklung römischer Poesie und Rhetorik besonders wichtig ist und einer Untersuchung wert wäre, die römische Überzeugung von der magischen Kraft geprägter Formen” (16).Google Scholar

²⁰ In Ode 4.6.44 and frequently elsewhere.

²¹ See on this esp. Dahlmann, Hellfried, “Vates,” Philologus 97 (1948) 337–53; further Dietrich Wachsmuth, “Vates,” Der kleine Paufy, 5. 1146–47.Google Scholar

²² In the Augustus Epistle (Ep. 2.1.18–49[89]) Horace scolds those who would like to admit and appreciate only the old poets and show contempt for the modern ones.

²³ “On no common or feeble opinion shall I soar in double form through the liquid air” (2.20).

²⁴ “Let dirges be absent from what you falsely deem my death, and unseemly show of grief and lamentation! Restrain all clamour and forgo the idle tribute of a tomb” (lines 21–24). Of the miraculous inspiration of the poet I have spoken before. Horace also narrates a wondrous preservation during his early youth (Ode 3.4; see below) as well as a rescue from the attack of a wolf (Ode 1.22). On these and other miraculous events, and on the idea of the miraculous in Horace, see E. Zinn, “Erlebnis und Dichtung bei Horaz,” in Oppermann, Wege, 369–88, and esp. the enumeration of Horace's accounts of wondrous events in his life, 377. Zinn says of the poet (based on Ode 1.22): “So kann er aus Faktum und Deutung die Konsequenz einer entschlossenen Bereitschaft ziehn: immer und überall dem Beklemmenden und Drohenden standzuhalten und liebender Dichter, dichtend Liebender zu bleiben” (383). Zinn writes (based on the research of Otto Weinreich): “Bei Horaz erscheint keine Religiosität einer reinen Innerlichkeit, sondern die Fülle einzelner sacra als Konkretionen des Göttlichen, das eben an den konkreten, faktischen Rettungen und Gaben, die man ihm verdankt, als übermenschlich, als göttlich erfahren wird” (686). I agree with Zinn (here and in his study “Aporos Soteria,” in Oppermann, Wege, 220–57 esp. 247 n. 37) against Pöschl that Horace does not want to express himself merely figuratively, but that he has concrete experiences in view. I would, however, like to stay away from using the term “Faktizität.”

²⁵ Ep. 2.1.126–38.

²⁶ “Their chorus [that of the boys and girls at the centenary] asks for aid and feels the presence of the gods, calls for showers from heaven, winning favour with the prayers he [the vates mentioned before] has taught, averts disease, drives away the dreaded dangers, gains peace and a season rich in fruit” (Ep. 2.1.134–37). Here the poet gives a more general description of his function as vates.

²⁷ Cf. the presentia numina sentit in the passage just quoted, and then the following lines: “Song wins grace (carmine placantur) with the gods above, song wins it with the gods below” (137–38).

²⁸ “Vatem ni Musa dedisset” (Ep. 2.1.133).

²⁹ See on this association, Altheim, Roman Religion, 381–93.

³⁰ Ode 3.25: “Whither, O Bacchus, dost thou hurry me, o'erflowing with thy power? Into what groves or grottoes am I swiftly driven in fresh inspiration (velox mente nova)? In what caves shall I be heard planning to set amid the stars, and in Jove's council, peerless Caesar's immortal glory? I will sing of a noble exploit, recent, as yet untold by other lips” (25.1–8).

³¹ In Ode 1.2 Horace speaks of Augustus as a savior who has come down from heaven. See Doblhofer, Ernst, Die Augustuspanegyrik des Horaz in formalhistorischer Sicht (Heidelberg: Winter, 1966) 113–14. On the deification of Augustus in this song see also Pöschl, “Lyrik,” 165–67.Google Scholar

³² Descende caelo (“Descend from heaven”).

³³ Ode 3.29, Tyrrhena regum progenies (“Scion of Tuscan kings”).

³⁴ See Zinn, “Aporos Soteria,” 246, about the miraculous aspect of the protection of the poet in the last two stanzas of the poem. Zinn says, “Es ist derselbe Mensch, der seinen Besitz—wenn das Schicksal es will—gelassen preisgibt, und dessen innerer Unanfechtbarkeit auch von aussen, von Natur und Gottheit her, Schutz und Rettung erwidert. Indem Horaz dies Geschehen für sich selbst im Indikativ fester Zuversicht prophezeien kann, verbindet sich in den Schlussversen des Gedichtes eine äusserste Selbstbescheidung mit äusserster Selbsterhöhung—das schlichte Abtun aller ‘indifferentia’ mit der ‘Anmassung’ eines Bewusstseins der Auserwähltheit.” On the interpretation of the ode see also Pöschl, Lyrik, 198–245.

³⁵ In his interpretation of Ode 1.37 (Nunc et bibendum) Pöschl (Lyrik, 78) rightly says: “Wieder klingt die für Rom so charakteristische Verflechtung des politischen und des religiösen, des privaten und des öffentlichen Bereiches an.”

³⁶ Extensive discussion of this Epistle and its date can be found in Becker, Carl, Das Spatwerk des Horaz (1963) 64–112Google Scholar, 232–37; cf. also ibid., 246–47 on its relationship to the Carmen saeculare.

³⁷ Future research will have to study further the relationship between the various forms of interest in wisdom in the Hellenistic world. The connection between Jewish and Hellenistic eschatology discussed in this essay seems to be but one part of the connection.

³⁸ On the Setos θεῖος νήρ see Georgi, Dieter, The Opponents of Paul in 2 Corinthians (Philadelphia: Fortress; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1986)Google Scholar esp. the Epilogue with reference to further literature. On the socio-economic dimensions see idem, “Socioeconomic Reasons for the ‘Divine Man’ as a Propagandistic Pattern,” in Fiorenza, Elisabeth Schüssler, ed., Aspects of Religious Propaganda in Judaism and Early Christianity (Notre Dame/London: University of Notre Dame Press, 1976) 27–42Google Scholar. The development of the Hellenistic θεῖος νήρ concept in Jewish missionary theology and its successful integration into worldwide missionary practice added to the attraction of the concept for Roman theologians and practitioners of the first century bce. The Jewish missionaries proved the potential of the concept. Its interplay of tradition, law/morality, plurality, purpose, competition, and merit showed success, provided motivation, and promised control. Any radical democracy (grass roots oriented and participatory) was feared as anarchy. But a consensus structure was needed which transcended the capital, Rome, and was able to stimulate local activities and loyalties beyond the confines of Roman citizenship, military force, and administration. Caesar's attitude towards the Jews had ingratiated them and set the pattern for the future. Collaboration was the consequence. Even the Jewish Sibylline Oracles did not propagate fundamental opposition. Hellenistic-Jewish missionary theology on the whole appreciated the Augustan reform, thus providing a trans-Italian support structure which helped to tie the provinces to Rome.

³⁹ In her study (Der junge Horaz und die Politik [Heidelberg: Winter, 1971]) Doris Ableitinger-Grünberger sees in the Sixteenth Epode a decisive turning away from political life for Horace. She emphasizes even more strongly than Pöschl a polarity between Horace's life and poetry on the one hand and the political world on the other. Even in the late Horace she sees at most an approximation towards a certain sacred synthesis which intends the propitiation of the political sphere, but never a real exchange. She claims that Augustus is praised for giving the possibility of existence to the sphere of the poet within the real world. Her ideas of reality and spirituality would seem to be foreign to Horace.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ The outline of the poem imitates the form of a speech in the people's assembly introducing a motion. So Kukula, Richard Cornelius, Römische Säkularpoesie (1911) 13–14.Google Scholar

⁴¹ On this see Latte, Römische Religionsgeschichte, 288–89.

⁴² The majority of interpreters rightly think that the Sixteenth Epode is not ironic and the projected voyage not a journey into a fool's paradise as Kukula has claimed. See, e.g., Ableitinger-Grünberger, Der junge Horaz.

⁴³ On the motif of emigration see Fuchs, Harald, Der geistige Widerstand gegen Rom in der antiken Welt (2d ed.; Berlin: De Gruyter, 1964) 9–13.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ The Essenes (at least their radical community in Qumran) are well known for an ideology of world flight and a corresponding organized isolation, as are the Therapeutae and Hermetic groups.

⁴⁵ Cf., e.g., Levy, Isidor, Horace, le Deutéronome et l'Évangile de Marc: Études horatiennes (Brussels, 1937) 147–52Google Scholar; Dornseiff, Franz, Verschmähtes zu Vergil, Horaz und Properz (Berichte über die Verhandlungen der sächsischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig, Phil.-hist. Kl. 97.6; Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1951) esp. 44–63Google Scholar (on Virgil's Fourth Eclogue), 57–60 (on the connections between Horace's Sixteenth Epode and the Sibylline Oracles), 64–72 (on Jewish elements in Horace's satires), 72–91 (on relations between Horace's odes, Virgil, and the LXX), 97–104 (on the Jewish influence on the fourth book of odes); Hanslick, Rudolf, “Die Religiosität des Horaz,” Das Altertum 1 (1955) 230–40Google Scholar, esp. 238 (on the influence of Jewish messianic ideas on Ode 1.2); Ableitinger-Grünberger, Der junge Horaz, 16–17, 67, 73–79; see also the more general discussion of analogies between Roman and Israelite-Jewish ideas in Seel, Otto, Römertum und Latinität (Stuttgart: Klett, 1964) 103–37, 167–88.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Dornseiff (Verschmähtes, 60–62) has drawn attention to the similarity of the passages in Jer 9:1–2 and 8:1–2 (not 8:17 as printed) to Epode 16.1–14, esp. 16.13 and 14. Dornseiff has argued that Horace's father was at least a proselyte, if not a born Jew, and that the son knew the LXX and the Sibylline Oracles of Jewish origin (65). The resemblances of Jewish motifs in Horace given by Dornseiff (see previous note) are often striking indeed. Although this specific biographical argument seems unwarranted, the acquaintance with Jewish missionary activity and its theology appears evident, and thus also an indirect familiarity with biblical motifs. On this Jewish propaganda see Georgi, Opponents, 41–60, 69–151, 174–217, esp. 148–51.

⁴⁷ On the Sibylline Oracles as part of that propaganda and of that eschatology see ibid. John Collins has given good arguments (The Sibylline Oracles of Egyptian Judaism [SBLDS 13; Missoula: Scholars Press, 1974) for dating and locating major portions of the third and fifth books of the Sibylline Oracles, the major Jewish parts of the whole collection. But he does not deal sufficiently with the missionary aspects of these Jewish oracles, which are, in my opinion, of primary importance even in the fifth book. The extant Jewish Sibylline Oracles, remainders of a larger corpus, thrived among many competitors. On the interest in such literature, particularly in Rome and among Romans of the late republic and the early principate, see further Gerhard Radke, “Sibyllen,” Der kleine Pauly, 5. 158–61.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ See above n. 44.

⁴⁹ Hellenistic Culture: Fusion and Diffusion (New York: Norton, 1972) 242.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Horace, Epode Sixteen. I have italicized parallels between this and the subsequent quotation.

⁵¹ Sib. Or. 3.464–69 from the translation of Bate, H. N., The Sibylline Oracles: Books III-V (New York: Macmillan, 1918).Google Scholar

⁵² Ep. 16.36–37. On exsecrata as unter Selbstverwünschung schwören (“swearing by cursing oneself” not “cursed”) see Ableitinger-Grünberger, Der junge Horaz, 37–40.

⁵³ On pius and pietas, so important for the later Augustan reform, see Latte, Römische Religionsgeschichte, 39–40, 238–39; Ulrich, Theodor, Pietas (pius) als politischer Begriff im römischen Staate bis zum Tode des Kaisers Commodus (Historische Untersuchungen 6; Breslau: Marcus, 1930)Google Scholar; Weiss, H. D., “Piety in Latin Writers in Early Christian Times” (Ph.D. diss., Duke University, 1964).Google Scholar

⁵⁴ “Let us seek the Fields, the Happy Fields, and the Islands of the Blest” (lines 41–42).

⁵⁵ On utopian literature see Hans Volkmann, “Utopia,” Der kleine Pauly, 5. 1083–84. Unfortunately Volkmann does not acknowledge the indebtedness of Roman literature of the first centuries bce and CE to Greek and Hellenistic utopian thought. See also Pöhlmann, Robert von, Die Geschichte der sozialen Frage und des Sozialismus (3d ed.; Munich: Beck, 1925)Google Scholar; Müller, Reimar, Die epikureische Gesellschaftstheorie (Schriften zur Geschichte und Kultur der Antike 5; 2d ed.; Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1974)Google Scholar; idem, “Zur sozialen Utopie im Hellenismus,” in Die Rolle der Volksmassen in der Geschichte der vorkapitalistischen Gesellschaftsformationen (Veröffentlichungen des ZIAGA der Akademie der Wissenschaften der DDR 7; Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1975) 277Google Scholar; idem, “Sozialutopien der Antike,” Das Altertum 23 (1977) 227.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ The concepts divites insulae and arva beata are found together in Pindar's Second Olympian Ode (55–83) and Hesiod's Erga (167–70).

⁵⁷ On the description of a future of bliss in missionary texts of Hellenistic Judaism see Georgi, Opponents, index under eschatology. The most extensive representations are in Philo De praemiis et poenis 79–126, 152–72.

⁵⁸ Horace shares this “teasing” approach to the symbolic-allegorical with the eschatology of Jewish missionary theology, as Philo's tractate De praemiis et poenis shows so well.

⁵⁹ Horace uses here the stylistic element of accumulating impossibilities (δύνατα) See on this esp. Dutoit, Ernest, Le thème de l'Adynaton dans la poésie antique (Paris: Budé, 1936). Ableitinger-Grünberger (Der junge Horaz, 40–42) has shown that Horace has formed the “adynata” in an original way.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ The correspondence between the Sixteenth Epode of Horace and Virgil's Fourth Eclogue is one of the more dramatic occurrences in world literature. Scholars differ as to who presupposes and criticizes whom. I follow those who take the Sixteenth Epode to be the earlier poem, with Virgil's Fourth Eclogue opposing his friend's skepticism. Virgil says that the taking to the sea can be an interlude at most (lines 31–37). The impossible, in fact, has already happened: the iron age has ended and the golden age is beginning. This interpretation stands in contradiction to that of, among others, Dornseiff (Verschmähtes, 63), Hadas (Hellenistic Culture, 243), and Becker (Das Spätwerk, 314). Dornseiff bases his argument in part on some other correspondences with Virgil in the entire work of Horace. But the two friends were in dialogue, and that dialogue was mutually influential, at least until the death of Virgil. The golden age hoped for is that of peace, the new age of the eschatological hope of Jewish missionary theology. Virgil's confidence will prove to be in line with economic, social, and political development.

⁶¹ Jewish eschatology of missionary persuasion was attractive to Romans not only because of its inherited soteriological and cosmological breadth and depth, but also because of its utopian dimension with a clear interest in using propaganda to influence present structures of social consent.

⁶² Christian theologians and scores of other critics throughout the centuries take exception to the “materialistic” interests expressed in Horace's and similar statements. Their religious integrity is doubted. But this criticism only proves that Christians have used eschatology to dematerialize and thus deconcretize the hope for change.

⁶³ Using his tribunal power Augustus had initiated in 18 bce the Lex Julia de maritandis ordinibus, legalizing marriages between freeborn citizens and people freed from slavery (senators, however, were excluded from this liberalized practice), thus rewarding marriage and childrearing, and discouraging abstention from marriage and childbirth, and the Lex Julia de adulteriis coercendis, making adultery a public crime.

⁶⁴ Existence and return of the saeculum, as such already an eschatological good, depend on this (lines 21–24).

⁶⁵ Esp. in lines 19–32, 57–60, and 65–68.

⁶⁶ Cf., besides the references to the marital legislation, the double iam (“already”) in lines 53 and 57.

⁶⁷ The Aeneid was published after Virgil's death (19 BCE) against the expressed will of the poet but by t he request of Augustus.

⁶⁸ Augustus suggested the topic of the Aeneid to Virgil.

⁶⁹ See lines 4 5–46, obviously connected with lines 3 3 - 3 6. The third recipient of the beneficial assistance of the gods, proven in history, is the entire progeny of Romulus, all of the Roman people (47–48).

⁷⁰ One is reminded of the southern panel on the eastern side of the altar of Pax Augusta, erected some four years later, where Italy is depicted as a goddess in the midst of signs of agrarian plenty and peace.

⁷¹ Or, as one might call it, paganization, using the Latin term pagani, which denotes persons living in a pagus (rural country), the hinterland from an urban, “educated,” point of view. The pagani happened to be more conservative, holding on to their inherited religion. Thus the term later became synonymous with non-Christian. But the irony of history wills that the move of the church towards power-sharing in the state coincided with the church's increasing missionary success in the countryside. The phenomenon of the massive return first of the Roman elite and then of others to the countryside is also the topic of the book by Raith, Werner, Das verlassene Imperium: Über das Aussteigen des römischen Volkes aus der Geschichte (Berlin: Wagenbach, 1982). But my perception of the character and dimension of the phenomenon and my explanation differ from Raith's.Google Scholar

⁷² E.g., brick, pottery, glass, and even metal. Agriculturally the big estates would concentrate on whatever proved to give the highest financial yield given local circumstances. In Italy this would mean wine, fruit (particularly figs), and oil. In some suitable areas space was also devoted to the large-scale raising of cattle, sheep, pigs, and poultry.

⁷³ Land routes were too expensive for long distance trading because horse power could not yet be economically “harnessed,” in the literal sense of the world. Ox power was too slow, clumsy, and costly. On sea routes much space was preempted by grain imported to Italy, especially to Rome, not just from Sicily, but from Africa, Egypt, and as far as the Black Sea. The remaining freight space could be more profitably used to transport luxuries for the well-to-do. This transportation factor is one of the reasons for the absence of interest in mass production in the city. It would have required extensive systems of distribution, particularly for long distance conveyance. The provision of inexpensive or gratuitous grain to the masses, though expensive to those responsible, was maintained because it proved to be more beneficial politically (see above, 113–14).

⁷⁴ Augustus, the Augustan religion, and all who helped them, became pacesetters of an economy and society which turned away from the city, of a flight to the countryside. The centralizing efforts of the Caesars of the first century were not really of an economic nature in this respect, but a mere passing stage in a contrary development. The Caesars themselves boycotted their centralizing measures by their own private economic activities, arrangements, and establishments.

As it turned out the development which Virgil and Horace promoted and supported did not happen for the sake of the city of Rome. It did not strengthen the situation of small and moderate farmers either, but of the rich, particularly those willing to invest. The political theology as expressed in the poems of Virgil, Horace, and those sharing their opinion in the end gave encouragement and good conscience to the leading class for leaving the cities to the masses, thus turning them into sources of cheap labor for the future heirs of the big country estates, the coming centers of economy and society.

⁷⁵ Georgi, Opponents, 129–32, 143–46, 149.

⁷⁶ De agricultura and De plantatione, 152–72.

⁷⁷ See the handbooks of Cato and Columella.

⁷⁸ It is interesting that the Gospel of Mark and the work of Luke, both pro-Roman, show growth of the idyllic element. The trend towards the development of Christianity as a separate entity from its start coincides with the interest to come to an accord with socio-economic tendencies of the leading forces of society. The fact that Mark and Luke both have certain ascetic aspects would not interfere with their acceptability in leading circles since the official Roman ideology stressed a certain degree of discipline, promoting not only social but also economic control.

⁷⁹ Bornkamm, Günther, “Die Komposition der apokalyptischen Visionen in der Offenbarung Johannis,” in Studien zu Antike und Urchristentum (3d ed.; Munich: Kaiser, 1969) 204–22Google Scholar; Collins, Adela Yarbro, The Combat Myth in the Book of Revelation (HDR 9; Missoula: Scholars Press, 1976)Google Scholar. Yarbro Collins's study has also blazed new trails for understanding the theology and religious context of the book. She has enlarged this in further stimulating studies which are contained or at least reflected in her Crisis and Catharsis: The Power of the Apocalypse (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1984)Google Scholar. She sees the views of John not as directly politically involved as I do, although she shows well the social orientation of the book's perception of reality and its message to its situation. More emphasis on the political concerns of John is found in Fiorenza, Elisabeth Schüssler, “Religion und Politik in der Offenbarung des Johannes,” in Exegetische Randbemerkungen: Schülerfestschrift Rudolf Schnackenburg (Würzburg: Echter Verlag, 1974) 261–71Google Scholar, and in “Visionary Rhetoric and Social-Political Situation,” in her The Book of Revelation: Justice and Judgment (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985) 181–203Google Scholar. All of the other essays in that volume provide further enlightenment for our understanding of John. My own views on some major aspects of the Apocalypse of John can be found in my essay “Visionen.”

⁸⁰ In Combat Myth Yarbro Collins has shown that John presents the same arrangement of the sequence of persecution, judgment, and triumph five times, namely, in chaps. 6 and 7; 8–11 (without 10:1–11:12); 12–15:4; 16:4–19:10; and 20:1–21:8. She proves that there are other, even more intricate correspondences, and that there are interludes in this complex of 6:1–22:5 as well.

⁸¹ The two key chaps, are 4 and 5; the epistolary frame is 1:4–3:22 and 22:6–21.

⁸² A few examples include macarisms (which are lacking in Apocalyptic literature with one or two exceptions; rather surprising considering the sapiential development of Apocalypticism since Daniel) which occur in Rev 1:3; 14:13; 16:15; 19:9; 20:6. Παντοκράτωρ appears as a title in 1:8; 4:8; 15:3; 16.7, 14; 19:6, 15; 21:22. The motif of the heavenly temple is found in 3:12; 7:15; 11:1–2, 19; 14:15, 17; 15:5–6, 8; 16:1, 17; 21:22; the white garments in 3:4–5, 18; 4:4; 6:11; 7:9, 13; 19:14; the book of life in 3:5; 13:8; 17:8; 20:12, 15; 21:27.

⁸³ On t he language of the Book of Revelation and its internal regularity see esp. Charles, R. H., The Revelation of St. John (ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1920) 1. cxvii–clix, under the significant heading “A short grammar of the Apocalypse.”Google Scholar

⁸⁴ Ernst Lohmeyer's commentary on the text (Die Offenbaning des Johannes [2d ed.; HNT 16; 1953] 151) misses the point: “Die Waren sind die des Transithandels einer orientalischen Stadt, aber sie passen nicht zur Kennzeichnung Roms. Zudem war Rom niemals in irgendeinem hervorragenden Masse Handels—oder gar Seestadt, sondern verdankt seinen Ruhm rein seiner politischen Bedeutung.”

⁸⁵ On the seer's concept of Jerusalem as Babylon redeemed see Georgi, “Visionen,” 370–72.

⁸⁶ The most elaborate discussion on the comparability of John's visions of the heavenly Jerusalem with biblical and Jewish tradition is found in Charles, Revelation, 2. 144–80, 200–11. Qumran material on the new Jerusalem esp. in DJD 1.134–35; 3.84–90, 184–93; 211–302.

⁸⁷ On the topography of John's heavenly Jerusalem see Georgi, “Visionen,” 361–71.

⁸⁸ Idem, Die Geschichte der Kollekte des Paulus für Jerusalem (ThF 38; Hamburg: Reich, 1965) 94–95.Google Scholar