Revelations: Visions, Prophecy, and Politics in the Book of Revelation (13 page)

The Trimorphic Protennoia recalls the opening of the Gospel of John, which tells how “in the beginning,” God became manifest in
masculine form, as divine word
, and declares that God had previously become manifest in feminine form, as divine
voice
. Though
this interior voice is so often drowned out by other noise, the Trimorphic Protennoia says that it speaks “in every creature,” to all people everywhere. Whoever wrote this revelation was probably familiar with Jewish traditions that, as noted above, envision God’s immanent aspect as feminine, manifested as “spirit” (
ruah
), “wisdom” (
hokmah
), or “presence” (
shekinah)
.

What are we to make of this outpouring of books of revelation—Jewish, Christian, pagan—during those early centuries? And why was John of Patmos’ very different book the
only
“book of revelation” included in the New Testament? Some scholars who study the Nag Hammadi texts have said that such writings deserved to be excluded, because they appeal to a spiritual elite. There may be truth in this, for unlike John of Patmos’ hugely popular revelations, which he probably intended to have read, or preached, in public worship,
⁶⁷
these secret writings tend to prescribe arduous prayer, study, and spiritual discipline, like Jewish mystical texts and esoteric Buddhist teachings, for those engaged in spiritual quest.

Although it’s difficult to generalize about such diverse “other revelations,” many do differ markedly from John’s also in the way they envision the relationship between humankind and God. Most Jews, Christians, and Muslims avoid characterizing their relationship with God as do the initiates in Allogenes and the “Discourse,” who seek to discover themselves within the divine. Orthodox adherents of monotheistic traditions draw clear boundaries between themselves and God. The Jewish theologian Martin Buber could speak to God as “I
and
Thou,” as a relationship between creature and creator, but he could
not
have said, “I
am
Thou,” as a devout Hindu might say, “Thou art
that,
” collapsing the boundaries that separate human from divine.

Yet as we’ve seen, many of the sources found at Nag Hammadi do encourage spiritual seekers to seek union with God, or to identify with Christ in ways that fourth-century “orthodox” Christians would censor. In the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, for example, Mary encourages her fearful fellow disciples by saying, “The Son of Man is within you; follow him!” The author of
The Teachings of Silvanus,
alluding to images of Christ as “the way” and “the door,” suggests that one may find access to God through one’s own spiritual self:

The Gospel of Philip, too, urges believers to become “no longer a Christian, but a Christ!”
⁶⁹
And since such writings are directed toward people willing to devote themselves to spiritual practice and seek direct contact with God, they tend to bypass any need for “clergy.”

During the fourth century, bishops who followed Irenaeus, intent on establishing “orthodoxy,” would work hard to suppress writings like these. Although such bishops did not deny that Jesus was human, they tended to place Jesus on the divine side of the equation—not only divine but, in the words of the Nicene Creed,
which they would soon endorse, “God from God …
essentially the same as God
.”
⁷⁰
Orthodox theologians insisted that the rest of humankind, apart from him, are only transitory creatures, lost in sin—a view that would support what would become their dominant teaching about salvation, offered only through Christ, and, in particular, through the church they claimed to represent.

In the meantime, there was trouble. From the late second century, Christian leaders, who saw their close groups torn apart internally as Roman magistrates arrested and executed their most outspoken members, felt that John’s Book of Revelation spoke directly to these crises—and so they championed John of Patmos’ book above all others and defended it, as we shall see, against its critics, both pagan and Christian.

S
eventy years after John wrote Revelation, his visions of terror and hope inspired a revival movement called the New Prophecy—an early instance of how John’s prophecies have galvanized Christians to this day. Earthquakes, plague, and outbreaks of violence convinced the “new prophets”—as they have persuaded countless others throughout two thousand years—that they were living in the last days before God’s final judgment.

The revival began in the late 160s, when a Christian named Montanus began speaking “in the spirit” near Philadelphia, a city in Asia Minor famous for its prophets, where, Montanus liked to point out, the Son of Man first revealed to John of Patmos an “open door” into heaven. Nearby, only a few years later, a woman follower of Montanus named Quintilla received a vision of Christ descending to her—this time in the form of a woman—to reveal that the “new Jerusalem” John had foreseen was about to descend, spelling Rome’s downfall.
¹

When the African convert Tertullian heard Montanus’ followers testify how the Holy Spirit had come upon them, he was amazed to learn how this charismatic movement inspired by John’s prophecy had swept through the empire, from John’s territory in Asia Minor to Rome, and then to provinces as remote as
Gaul and Africa, where “it gained its greatest success.”
²
Everywhere Montanus traveled with the two women prophets who initiated the revival with him, Priscilla and Maximilla, they aroused enthusiastic supporters—and hostile opponents. Those who accused the “new prophets” of being inspired by Satan also attacked John’s now famous—or infamous—Book of Revelation, saying that what it “revealed” was nothing but the mad ravings of a heretic.

Since the time of John’s writing, however, much had changed. While he had addressed small groups of Jesus’ followers living precariously on the margins of the great cities of Asia Minor, Tertullian, writing more than seventy years later from the prosperous African port city of Carthage, boasted that Christians

What delighted Tertullian alarmed Roman magistrates. A movement that they had regarded as a marginal nuisance was becoming a cause for serious concern as groups now organized and headed by bishops attracted many new converts, especially among the urban poor.
⁴
Yet citizens loyal to Rome, shocked by recent disasters—huge earthquakes and a terrifying outbreak of plague—suspected that the gods were angry, most likely at the growing number of “atheists” (Christians) being tolerated within their domain. By 180
C.E.
the authorities had stepped up arrests of known leaders. Tertullian says that in Carthage, soldiers would burst into private homes
to break up meetings of Christians gathered to worship.
⁵
Even though they seized only a few people, their tactics terrified many more. News of those arrested and killed traveled fast through Christian groups worldwide and heightened the fears of those who survived.

During these desperate times, the prophet Montanus urged his fellow believers to stand with him as he echoed the prophecies of Isaiah and John of Patmos, warning that the present turmoil portended the “day of vengeance” when God would shatter and transform the world. Like the classical prophets, Montanus proclaimed what he said “the Lord has spoken”:

Because Montanus often claimed to speak in God’s name, saying, for example, “neither an angel nor a messenger, but I, the Lord God, the Father, have come,”
⁷
hostile listeners swore that he thought he was God—or at least the Holy Spirit—in person. Montanus objected that, like prophets before him, from Isaiah and Ezekiel to John of Patmos, he had been caught up “in the spirit” so that God might speak through him. He used prophetic language, he said, because a human being can become God’s instrument only when ordinary consciousness is suspended:

When the movement began, Montanus, Priscilla, and Maximilla, called the Three, had traveled from church to church in Asia Minor, echoing John of Patmos’ words as they proclaimed that the Holy Spirit had come upon them to renew devotion to Christ and to recall believers to “the love you had at first.”
⁹
Both women, testifying that they had been seized by the Holy Spirit, had left their husbands to travel with Montanus. Visits from the Three attracted huge crowds all over the province. The boldness—and, no doubt, the success—of their preaching inflamed their opponents, who called them demon-possessed and accused them of disrupting worship as they prophesied in ecstatic trance, often stirring audiences into frenzy. When angry church leaders ordered Maximilla to be silent, she said that she could not obey them, since she spoke not for herself but for Christ. “Do not listen to me—listen to Christ!”
¹⁰
she declared when church officials seized her to exorcise the devil from her. Her supporters fought them off, but soon afterward a group of Asian bishops voted to excommunicate her. Maximilla cried out that they had failed to recognize the Holy Spirit speaking among them: “I am driven away from the sheep like a wolf. I am not a wolf; I am word, and spirit, and power!”
¹¹

Heated arguments split churches throughout Asia Minor, threatening schism. A majority of bishops there voted to censor the “new prophets” and declared that their two favorite books—the Book of
Revelation and the Gospel of John
—
contained nothing but blasphemous lies. Opponents of the New Prophecy appealed for support to the Christian bishop of Rome and found an advocate among his clergy. A Roman priest named Gaius challenged the new prophets and publicly argued that the books on which they relied for support, Revelation and John, both had been written not by a disciple but by a heretic named Cerinthus. Gaius insisted that the “age of prophecy” was over, having been succeeded by the “age of the apostles,” now represented by clergy like himself.

Other Christians disagreed. In Rome, the convert Justin, called the Philosopher, seized on the Book of Revelation during a debate with the Jewish philosopher Trypho as proof that “the gifts of prophecy, which previously resided among your people, have now been transferred to us”
¹²
—that is, to Christians. Perhaps to silence critics like Gaius, Justin insisted that the Book of Revelation was not heretical but had been written when “a man among us named John, one of Christ’s disciples, received a revelation.”
¹³
Justin was the first, so far as we know, to claim that John of Patmos was none other than
John of Zebedee,
Jesus’ actual disciple.

What made the Book of Revelation especially compelling to Justin were events he was seeing before his own eyes around the years 160 to 165—events that he believed John had prophesied. Justin declared that John, like Jesus, had “predicted that we would be slaughtered and hated for the sake of his name … and this has actually happened.”
¹⁴
Justin was distressed to hear that the city prefect had arbitrarily killed a Christian philosopher named Ptolemy, and he says he knew of “similar things being done everywhere by the governors.”
¹⁵
Fearful of persecution, Justin agreed
with John of Patmos that demonic powers were inciting Rome’s rulers to hunt and kill Christians.
¹⁶
He echoed John’s warning that Satan attacks God’s people on two fronts at once: externally, through Roman authorities, and internally, through heretics who corrupt Christian groups from within.

Justin dared write an open letter to the emperor Antoninus Pius and his sons, Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus, protesting persecution and pleading with them to stop the killings. Justin addresses these rulers as fellow philosophers, asking them to listen to reason and arguing that Christians are model citizens. Then, however, he turns to threats that the emperors would have ridiculed. Invoking John’s prophecy, he warns them that “if you pay no attention to our pleas and clear explanations,” soon they will suffer “punishment in eternal fire,” when Jesus returns from heaven in glory as warrior and judge to reign over the world from Jerusalem. Justin adds that