Review of Elaine Pagels, Revelations: Visions, Prophecy, & Politics in the Book of Revelation

Elaine Pagels, Revelations: Visions, Prophecy, & Politics in the Book of Revelation. New York : Viking Penguin, 2012. 246 pages. $27.95.

Elaine Pagels’s new book discusses not only the content and purpose of the Apocalypse of John, but the significance of the Apocalypse of John for the several centuries after it was written, how it came to be included in the canon, and its interpretation and use in new contexts. As with the majority of Pagels’s monographs, this book is written to be very accessible to a large audience without sacrificing scholarly integrity.[1] Pagels’s greatest contribution to the study of the Apocalypse is found in focusing less on the writing of the Apocalypse (and thereby steeping the study in Jewish Apocalyptic literature) but rather the reading of it in its own context and several centuries following its original publication.

Pagels begins, in chapter 1, describing the culture surrounding the apocalypse and what caused the original composition. She focuses on the social world of the text and places it within the context of Asia minor. After the seeming failure of the Jewish revolt, the expectation was that Christ would come soon to establish his kingdom (thereby explaining both future hope and the seeming delay).[2] The message was particularly poignant in Asia minor where the government had built lavish temples after Octavian defeated Antony (when the government in Asia minor had sided with Antony, it quickly built many temples to the benefit of Octavian to gain favor).[3] The excess of temples and Greek religion in Asia minor might well have caused John[4] to write the anti-Roman propaganda leading toward the perfect peace of messianic expectation.

The end of the first chapter presents the meaning of the text of the Apocalypse in its own context. Pagels has a relatively standard discussion of the imagery of cosmic battle with the government borrowing from the Jewish Apocalyptic tradition. Pagels focuses on Ezekiel and Daniel as helpful sources for this extrapolation.[5] Pagels does not go into all of the fine details of the borrowed imagery as her presentation of the book is not the causes and sources for writing, but the effect of the reading of the text. 

Her second chapter argues that in its context, the Apocalypse was written not as much opposed to Rome as opposed to alternate prophecies – most notably that of Paul. Pagels, seeing texts as a key to discovering distinct communities, sees this community as a community of Jews who are opposed to Paul’s openness to Gentiles.[6] She further notes that the text clearly is presented as opposed to alternate prophecies (the precise thing Paul claims in Galatians 1).[7]

In order to frame the conversation of the opponent being Paul, Pagels must prove that the opponents to the Gospel are members of the Jesus movement. While she is by no means new in this view, it does run counter to some common characterizations of the apocalyse.[8] The most striking evidence she cites is found in Rev. 2:9 (the supposed letters to the other churches): “I know your affliction and poverty, even though you are rich. I know the slander on the part of those who say they are Jews but are not, but are a synagogue of Satan.” Pagels rightly notes that the author does not contrast this with those who say they are Christians but are not. The author of this text probably does not see himself as separate from Judaism. Rather, he is writing about the Jewish messiah whom he believes he has found.[9] The opponents in 2:14 are considered to be within the group already (not external Romans persecuting them).[10]

Pagels argues that the specific challenges mentioned by the author would fit nicely with Paul’s arguments from Galatians, Romans, and 1 Corinthians. The major complaints surround sexual immorality and food laws.[11] The Apocalypse argues against a figure leading the false teaching: “I have this against you: you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophet and is teaching and beguiling my servants to practice fornication and to eat food sacrificed to idols.”[12]  Paul in 1 Corinthians explicitly permitted food sacrificed to idols (though in the right contexts).[13] The argument against sexual immorality makes it seem that Paul would not be the target of the attack as Paul does not argue for rampant sexual misconduct.[14] However, Pagels reminds the reader that the text is presenting itself as preparing readers for a cosmic battle which included a full HRM (holy war as found in books such as Joshua). In that context, sexual abstinence was a standard purity restriction.[15] Thus, Paul’s allowance for sexual activity (1 Cor. 7) would violate this principle – a practice followed by the Qumran community.[16] 

The critique of Rome then is used not as a reaction against government persecution as much as Roman cultural accommodation that the author sees occurring in his own community. The evidence for actual persecution from Rome is notoriously slight at the end of the first century. Some commentators have gone so far as to argue that there was not any persecution and that the conflict was invented by the author to show difference.[17] Pagels builds upon this concept by arguing that Rome is used only insofar as it is the symbol of the gentiles who are infiltrating their pure group.[18]

Pagels then uses her skills in Nag Hammadi and alternate cosmologies to show what an apocalypse would have meant to the readers of this text. She notes that in times of persecution, apocalypses tend to be created as found in early Christianity given the flurry that were created.[19] Apocalypses do not solve the crisis through theological argument but through personal experience – visions and life after death.[20] The reader was invited to be involved in the revelation and it was expected these would be written down (thereby encouraging the readers to have revelations themselves).[21] Citing other Apocalypses from antiquity (“secret books”), the reader is in fact encouraged to have revelations on their own in order to have a personal transformation.[22]

Pagels argues that the use of the Apocalypse changed in the second century when Christianity was persecuted by the Roman authority. Different figures used the Apocalypse in order to justify new and sometimes politically dangerous views. Montanus famously depended on the Apocalypse in order to empower himself and his prophetesses to have their own revelations.[23] Early heresiologists (particularly) further struggled with the Apocalypse as he tried to separate politics from religion.[24] However, others, such as Irenaeus – held it in an awkard position. Irenaeus both opposed the secret gospels with the dangerous conclusions, but felt that the apocalypse explained the situation he was experiencing. To tame the apocalypse, he tied it closely to the Gospel of John (claiming a shared authorship). Further, he tied the Apocalypse to the book of Daniel, introducing concepts such as the Antichrist which presents the idea that right action (the purity rules mentioned above) needed to be paired with right belief – a concept that makes sense to Daniel, but was not an original portion of the Apocalypse of John.[25] All of these innovations, according to Pagels, were due to applying the Apocalypse to attack a group it never intended – Romans who were outside the group.

The final chapter of text argues that the opponents in the apocalypse shifted to heretics after the persecution of the empire ended and that it was from this stimulus that the book became part of the canon of scripture. The apocalypse has no use when there is no tension and persecution. As such, it was beginning to be used less and less until Athanasius of Alexandria used it to argue against the new enemy – Arians and Melitians in the fourth century.[26]

Athanasius directly identified the false teachers in the Apocalypse as the false teachers of his own day. Pagels describes the difficult position of Athanasius and the politics of the fourth century, particularly focusing on the Melitian and Arian controversy. She then describes the social problem of the monastic movement in Egypt and the struggle Athanasius had winning them over (ultimately succeeding with his composition of the Life of Antony).[27] Athanasius then identified the false teachers as spiritually evil and based it upon the Apocalypse.[28] The ironic moment is Athanasius, doing violence to the text by applying to a completely new audience, is closer to the original view of making the opponents insiders than most modern readers who assume the opponents are Romans.

One of the fundamental challenges to the authority of Athanasius was the way the Bible was being used in Egypt. Monks often had diverse libraries which included many of the “secret” books that encouraged diversity in revelatory experience rather than conformity. In order to solve this problem, Athanasius wrote his Festal Letter including a closed canon list, which Pagels argues was the first time the Apocalypse was definitively included in any canon list.[29] Pagels emphasizes that a canon list is not so much written for what should be included as excluded – all the “secret” books were to be discouraged in order that the diversity of religious experience would decrease, and that heresy would therefore decrease.[30]

The Apocalypse is presented at the end of the text in order that it could become the standard work that was written in opposition to all heresies that might try to creep into the text. Further (as with most apocalypses), it does argue at the end of the text that it be sealed and not edited.[31] This then was supposed to be considered for the whole canon and strengthened Athanasius’s argument for conformity.

Pagels’s argument and discussion has much that is helpful. She argues here, much like in her other books that different texts need to be taken seriously as different groups with varying arguments. The diversity she presents continues from the text’s original composition through the fourth century (and an implied continuation throughout history). Some might argue that such a view is overly complex – it is clear that there was vast diversity in the early Jesus movements, but should readers depend that every text implies a separate group? The stronger argument would be one that shows evidence that groups exist like this text. Half of Pagels’s argument avoids this problem. She finds a correlation with a real group that is known in the New Testament who are the opposition of the text (Pauline communities). A stronger argument for her characterization of the view of John of Patmos might have argued for similar corroborating groups (strikingly lacking were discussions of Paul’s opponents at Galatia, Luke-Acts, or the Gospel of Matthew – all of which might create corollary groups, though they would not be the same).

The other problem caused by Pagels is some of her overstatement of a very good idea. She argues that Athanasius was the first to present the Apocalypse definitively on a canon list. While this is formally true, it makes it sound as if the Apocalypse was on the verge of being dismissed until Athanasius saved it in his letter (indeed she nearly states as much).[32] There definitely were canon lists that did not include the Apocalypse and some, such as Eusebius, who had a type of awkward view of it – that it was both one of the “sure books” and one of the “rejected” ones. However, the Apocalypse had been used consistently over the course of the Christian history far before there were canon lists at all.[33] The concept of canon lists (if one excludes the possible early date of the Muratorian canon) is a fourth century invention. Therefore, the fact that the Apocalypse was not included in a list might not be as significant as she intimates. This critique, however, is not to question how Athanasius used the Apocalypse – he surely did include it in a strict canon list as the capstone in order to homogenize Egyptian Christianity behind himself.

In all, this worthy book is highly recommended (with the companion volume of Paul Duff’s Who Rides the Beast?) for students of the Apocalypse and an explanation of how it shifted over time.

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[1] There are a few moments where an academic reader wishes she would go into further detail and go through the more systematic process of proving her points, but she does cite the relevant sources that do that (some of which were written by her).

[2] Pagels, Revelations, 10.

[3] Ibid., 16.

[4] Pagels, as well as I, do not see this John of Patmos as the Apostle and the connection between the Gospel of John and the Apocalypse cannot be assumed and any connection needs to be proved.

[5] Ibid., 17-32.

[6] Ibid., 45.

[7] Ibid., 43.

[8] Pagels leans upon the excellent work of Paul B. Duff, Who Rides the Beast? Prophetic Rivalry and the Rhetoric of Crisis in the Churches of the Apocalypse (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001) and David Frankfurter, “Jews or Not? Reconstructing the Other in Rev 2:9 and 3:9,” Harvard Theological Review, 94 (2001):  403-425. The idea that the opponents were Pauline, however, is an old one (which Pagels notes) that was common among the Tubingen school. However, the Apocalypse has often been seen as opposing “Gnostics” (Adolf von Harnack), Jews, and even Romans. For a common view, see Richarch Bauckham, The Theology of the Book of Revelation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).     

[9] Pagels, Revelations, 45-47.

[10] Ibid., 49.

[11] Ibid., 50.

[12] Rev. 2:20.

[13] 1 Cor. 8.

[14] Indeed, it is this context that causes Schussler-Fiorenza to think that the opponents are not Paul, but Paul’s opponents in 1 Corinthians who were accused as being sexually libertine – Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza, “Apocalyptic and Gnosis in the Book of Revelation and Paul” JBL 92:4 (Dec. 1973): 565-581.

[15] Recall that purity regulations are not moral regulations. It is unlikely that the book of Revelation actually is opposed to sexual activity morally, but purity regulations are ritual requirements before one may properly worship.

[16] Pagels, Revelations, 50.

[17] Duff, Who Rides the Beast.

[18] Pagels, Revelations, 48.

[19] Ibid., 74-77.

[20] Ibid., 81.

[21] Ibid., 77-89.

[22] Ibid., 93-95 – such as can be found in Allogenes, Thunder: Perfect Mind, Apocrphyon of John, Secret Revelation of James.

[23] Ibid., 106.

[24] Ibid., 108.

[25] Ibid., 110-114.

[26] Ibid., 134-136.

[27] Ibid., 134-158. For a thorough study of Athanasius’s argument and strategy, see David Brakke, Athanasius and Asceticism, John’s Hopkins University Press, 1998.

[28] Ibid., 141-3.

[29] Ibid., 135, 159-160. 

[30] Ibid., 165-7.

[31] Ibid., 164.

[32] Ibid., 161.

[33] For a survey, see William C. Weinrich, Revelation Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture vol. XII (Downers Grove, Illinois: Intervarsity Press, 2005) xvii-xxxii.