The Tune of Christian Apocalyptic: Paul and John in Concert

Abstract

This article puts John and Paul in conversation concerning two issues: believers’ partaking of food sacrificed to idols and the question of who were the primary actors in Jesus’ death. While many modern interpreters see discord between John’s treatment of food offered to idols and Paul’s, this article argues that both John and Paul were informed by an apocalyptic worldview that sees demonic forces behind idolatry. As such, they are in harmony in their arguments that all foods explicitly identified as idol food must be rejected by believers. Furthermore, both John and Paul share an apocalyptic worldview that saw demonic forces as the primary actors in Jesus’ crucifixion.

Keywords

apocalyptic John Paul idolatry demons Satan sexual immorality crucifixion rulers this age

In his work, On Modesty, Tertullian addresses a perceived tension between the apostle Paul and John the seer on the issue of sexual immorality. Tertullian is very emphatic that Paul’s teaching clearly states that believers should not commune with other believers who walk in sin.¹ Paul allows believers to associate with sinful unbelievers but not sinful believers, because “the repentance which the Lord prefers is that which before believing, before baptism, is esteemed better than the death of the sinner.”² God’s clemency is offered to unbelievers who act ignorantly, not to believers who, already knowing God, persist in their sin. Thus, Tertullian addresses a seeming tension between Paul and John, since Rev 2:21–22 suggests that the Son of God has given the prophetess Jezebel and her immoral followers several chances to repent. Tertullian is guided by an important principle: “I am content with the fact that, between apostles, there is a common agreement in rules of faith and of discipline. For, ‘Whether (it be) I,’ says (Paul), ‘or they, thus we preach.’”³

The purpose of this article is to put this guiding principle to the test by placing John and Paul in conversation concerning two questions: Should believers partake of food sacrificed to idols? and Who were the primary actors in Jesus’ death on the cross? My contention is that John and Paul share a similar apocalyptic worldview that informs their treatment of these issues so that John and Paul sing harmoniously on these subjects. We address first the question of food offered to idols and then proceed to address the subject of Jesus’ crucifixion.

Idol Food: A Demonic Conductor

An important feature of apocalyptic literature is that through its revelation of unseen realities it offers resistance in what it perceives as a time of crisis or to what it perceives as evil: its symbolic language communicates hope to the people of God that God will ultimately defeat the oppressors and destroy evil. While the people of God live in anticipation of God’s ultimate triumph over evil, apocalyptic literature calls believers to a certain way of being while they wait for God’s intervention. Thus John’s Apocalypse calls itself a book of prophecy on several occasions (Rev 1:3; 22:7; 22:10; 22:18, 19) and explicitly identifies the seer’s activity as prophecy (10:11; 19:10; 22:6, 9). As prophet, one of John’s main activities is to challenge the people of God and warn them against an insidious assimilation into the culture of the beast. For present purposes, we highlight one focus of this prophetic challenge where scholars have often seen a clear divergence from the views of Paul: eating food sacrificed to idols. I argue that John and Paul are in harmony on the issue.

The author of the Apocalypse absolutely prohibits any eating of idol food. In the message to the angel of the church in Pergamum (2:12–17), John praises the church for enduring in faith despite living “where Satan’s throne is”⁴ and despite the martyrdom of Antipas (2:13). Yet he criticizes them too, for there are some who hold to the teaching of Balaam who taught Balak to obstruct Israel and cause them to eat food sacrificed to idols (ɛἰδωλόθυτα) and practice sexual immorality (πορνɛύω; 2:14).⁵ To these is issued a warning to repent or expect war from “him who has the two-edged sword” (2:12) in his mouth (2:16).

A similar message is issued to the church in Thyatira. This church is commended for its love, faith, service, and patient endurance (2:19) but criticized for “permitting” or “tolerating” (ἀϕίηµι) the prophetess Jezebel who also holds to the teaching of Balaam and the Nicolaitans (2:14–15).⁶ She is leading God’s servants astray (πλανάω) to practice sexual immorality (πορνɛύω) and to eat food sacrificed to idols (ɛἰδωλόθυτα) (2:20). Because Jezebel has refused to repent of her sexual immorality (πορνɛία), she, together with those who commit adultery (µοιχɛύω) with her, receive a word of judgment: they will be thrown into great distress and her children will be struck dead unless they repent (2:22–23).

It is obvious that John does not want these churches to assimilate into normative cultural patterns of the surrounding society in which feasting on food sacrificed to idols was ubiquitous. But for what reason? First, significantly both accounts that bar idol food connect the practice to porneia. The word likely carries here the general sense of “sexual immorality,” rather than the narrow sense of “prostitution” preferred by some interpreters.⁷ There is a long tradition of connecting idolatry to sexual immorality among Jews and Christians. When Israel is seen as God’s bride (Hos 2:7; Jer 3:8) then going after other gods was often castigated using metaphors of adultery and harlotry (e.g., Hos 4:12, 15; Isa 57:1–13; Jer 2:20; 3:6–8).⁸ Second, occasions to sacrifice to other gods and worship in idol temples were often seen as loci for licentious activities (see Hos 4:14; 2 Macc 6:1–6). One need look no further than the mention of the teaching of Balaam in Rev 2:14. As narrated in Numbers 22–24, Israel’s enemy, Balak king of Moab, summoned Balaam to curse Israel. And while Balaam ultimately failed to curse Israel, when the people of Israel began having sexual relations at Peor with the women of Moab, sacrificing to the gods of Moab, and eating foods sacrificed to these gods (Num 25:1–9), Balaam is blamed for this (Num 31:16). According to the Deuteronomist, God brings judgment on Balaam for leading the Israelites astray (Deut 23:3–6).

The incident at Peor is crucial for two reasons. First, it shows how ancient Jews and Christians understood idolatry to open the floodgates to all kinds of sinful behavior: “The worship of idols not to be named is the beginning and cause and end of every evil” (Wis 14:27). Of the evils caused by idolatry, sexual immorality is often singled out.⁹ Idolatry and sexual immorality go hand in glove, for just as idolatry could lead to sexual immorality, sexual immorality often leads to idolatry (see, foundationally, Exod 34:11–6). So the Testament of Solomon describes Solomon’s lust after foreign women as the cause of his participation in idolatrous acts; this in turn results in the departure of God’s spirit from him (for example, T. Sol. 26:1–8). Thus, the threat that John sees from the Nicolalaitans and Jezebel is existential, for the survival of the church is at stake: tolerating a seemingly benign act threatens a deluge of evil schemes from the Devil that will ultimately result in the departure of the Spirit from the churches (cf. Rev 2:17, 19). Second, the apostle Paul also recalls the same Baal Peor incident when he addresses the issue of eating food sacrificed to idols in 1 Corinthians 8–10.¹⁰

John does not view such feasting on food offered to idols as an inconsequential act. This is because behind such food stand powerful and hostile forces opposed to God and the Lamb. In the message to Pergamum, John identifies the city as “Satan’s throne” (2:13) and a place “where Satan lives” (2:13). This is also the case in the message to Thyatira where the teachings and practices of Jezebel are summed up as “the deep things of Satan” (2:24).¹¹ In other words, idolatry is Satan’s doing. If hostile, demonic forces stand behind idolatry then eating food sacrificed to idols is simply dangerous.

Also, the language of deception or being led astray (πλανάω; 2:20) used in connection with Jezebel’s teaching and practice of eating food sacrificed to idols is the same language used to describe the works of the dragon in 12:9 who is “the deceiver of the whole world” (ὁ πλανῶν). John’s use of the same verb to describe the work of Jezebel suggests that he sees Satan ultimately as the driving force behind idolatry; thus, Jezebel is working on Satan’s behalf.¹² Finally, the language of waging war against those who eat idol food with the sword of the mouth (2:16) seems to echo the language used to describe the defeat of the dragon in 12:11, since the sword of the mouth is nothing other than the word of God and the witness of the churches (cf. Eph 6:17). The war waged against the dragon extends into all spheres of life, for the dragon, “who is called the Devil and Satan” (12:9), is the cause of idolatry.

Scholars often claim that Paul was more lax on the issue of food offered to idols than John. As Pamela Thimmes writes,

Paul approaches food issues in a completely different way. Idol food was obviously an issue in the Corinthian community and in at least two instances Paul deals with the topic (1 Cor. 8.1, 4, 7, 10; 10.19). But Paul works carefully and cautiously to disarm food as an issue of exclusion in Corinth, whereas John explicitly uses food to divide and exclude.¹³

Mitchell G. Reddish also contrasts Paul’s views on idol food with John’s:

Paul faced this problem [eating food sacrificed to idols] in Corinth (1 Cor 8–10) where his view was that eating such meat was permissible as long as doing so did not harm the faith of those who were less mature in their understanding. Even Paul, however, acknowledged the dangers involved in this practice … John was even less accommodating than was Paul. He viewed eating of such meat as a grave violation of one’s commitment to God.¹⁴

Judgments of this sort are common in the scholarship.¹⁵ But do they hold up to scrutiny? On the surface, Paul seems inconsistent, or perhaps contradictory, in his treatment of the issue in 1 Corinthians 8–10.¹⁶ Nonetheless, close attention to Paul’s rhetorical strategy and logic reveals that his views dovetail well with those of the author of Revelation. Paul’s argument concerning idol food is governed by two important claims he makes at the outset of his argument: “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. Anyone who claims to know something does not yet know as (s)he ought to” (1 Cor 8:1–2; my trans.).¹⁷ Paul recommends love as the guiding principle for how “the knowers”¹⁸ put their knowledge into practice before showing that the knowledge that they possess concerning idols is actually partial, incomplete knowledge.

First, then love: “The knowers” are correct that “an idol is nothing in the world” (1 Cor 8:4; my trans.). But devoid of love, such knowledge has led to some in the community being “puffed up” and harming others in the community by dining in temples,¹⁹ whose dining facilities were used as venues for various kinds of events, such as wedding receptions, birthday celebrations, and other occasions.²⁰ The actions of “the knowers” are causing some who were formerly accustomed to eating such food in honor of real gods to stumble (1 Cor 8:7–13) and so is the very antithesis of the way of love. While knowledge “puffs up” and brings down some in the community, love “builds up” (8:1).²¹ While knowledge shores up “the knowers” to persist in their own (harmful) way, love “does not insist on its own way” (13:5). Such arguments shape Paul’s discussion of the food sacrificed to idols in chapters 8, 9, and 10 and culminate in the claim that love would guide his own behavior with respect to eating idol food: “If food is a cause of [a member of the family] falling, I will never eat meat, so that I may not cause one of them to fall” (8:13).

Paul goes on to reflect upon his apostolic rights. Paul has the same rights as other apostles: he could take a wife (9:5) and demand pay for his ministry work (9:6–18). But he has not insisted on any of these rights for the sake of the gospel (9:12, 15). Paul’s own example demonstrates to those who insist on their right to dine in idol temples that insisting on one’s own way is not the way of the gospel, the way of love. This is the same argument Paul makes concerning food sold in the marketplace or served in the house of an unbeliever (10:23–11:1). Remnants of food sacrificed to idols in Greco-Roman temples often found their way to the marketplace and were purchased by people for private meals. Paul wanted believers to use their discretion in these situations, for “the earth and its fullness are the Lord’s” (10:26). However, if the food is explicitly identified as idol food, believers must reject it for the sake of the informant’s conscience (10:28–29). Here again believers must primarily take care that their actions do not affect others negatively.

The Apostle’s second argument concerns the limitations of knowledge. According to Paul, those who think they know more actually know less (8:2). His aim is to show that the actions of “the knowers” are based on partial knowledge that can lead to dangerous consequences. “The knowers” hold to a view concerning idolatry commonly encountered in the OT and Second Temple period: standard Jewish polemic against idols sees them to be the lifeless creations of humans, fashioned from wood, metal, gold, or silver (Pss 115:4; 135:15; Isa 44:9–11; Ep Jer 1:4; Wis 10:11–14), and so, despite having mouths, eyes, and ears, they are mute, blind, and deaf (Ps 135:16–17; Isa 44:16–18; Ep Jer 1:8). As expressed repeatedly in the Letter of Jeremiah, “You know by these things that they are not gods” (Ep Jer 1:29; cf. 1:16, 23, 44). In short, the depiction of idols in this tradition aims to show that, as “the knowers” would say, “an idol is nothing in the world” (1 Cor 8:4).

Yet the tradition that equates pagan gods with lifeless objects merely caricatures pagan religion. The idols themselves are not ultimately the objects of worship; idols are merely instruments through which worshipers access a spiritual power. Thus, to identify pagan gods with objects of veneration is to denigrate pagan worship with the aim of showing the superiority of Jewish or Christian worship.²² Perhaps the authors of these texts themselves were well aware that their characterization of pagan worship was inadequate.²³ Significantly, alongside this tradition there existed another that regarded idolatry not as the work of ignorant and gullible worshipers, but rather as the work of demonic forces. The Deuteronomist articulates this view when he accuses Israel of making God jealous by going after foreign gods. Israel, according to the Deuteronomist, was sacrificing to demons (Deut 32:16–17; also Ps 106:36–38). This view is encountered throughout the Second Temple period, especially in apocalyptic texts, which often view idolatry as an aspect of the battle between forces of evil and forces of good (for example, 1 En. 99:7; Jub. 22:17; T. Sol. 26). An idol itself may be lifeless, but idolatry is not benign, because behind the inert objects stand evil spirits who hold worshipers in bondage.

Here we begin to see the merits of Paul’s preface to his argument: “Anyone who claims to know something does not yet know as [s]he ought to” (1 Cor 8:2). “The knowers” are only partially correct in their assertion that “an idol is nothing in the world.” Lifeless idols represent demonic powers who pose a real threat to followers of the one true and living God. This is where Paul’s argument ultimately leads to in 1 Corinthians 10, when he recalls events from Israel’s history citing Exodus 32:6—“The people sat down to eat and they rose up to play”—(1 Cor 10:7) and so invokes the Golden Calf incident when the Israelites created an image of a calf with gold and offered sacrifices to it as their god while Moses was on the mountain receiving the Law from God. Paul thus connects this event to the situation he is addressing in Corinth. What “the knowers” are doing by eating in idol temples is not different from what Israel did by eating in front of the Golden Calf—and Israel faced God’s wrath as a result. At this point we begin to see clear connections between Paul’s argument and John’s concerning Balaam, the Nicolaitans, and Jezebel. Paul, like John, connects idolatry with sexual immorality. The phrase “they rose to play” is likely a euphemism for the licentious activity that takes place during idol worship.²⁴ This is confirmed in the very next verse in which Paul recalls the same events at Shittim for which the author of Revelation (following the Deuteronomist) blames Balaam. The men of Israel had sexual relations with Moabite women and provoked God’s wrathful destruction (1 Cor 10:8; cf. Num 25:1–9).

The events at Shittim establish another point of connection with the dining practices of “the knowers” at Corinth: “[The women of Moab] invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods” (Num 25:2). The people of Israel ate before Baal of Peor. In other words, the women of Moab beguiled the Israelites to “to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols” (Rev 2:20; also 2:14). For Paul, these events happened to serve as an example for the Corinthians (1 Cor 10:11). Those who worship the God of Israel cannot sit in the presence of other gods and partake in food sacrificed to other gods. This effectively rules out any excuse for partaking in meals served in idol temples. Such food should not be taken lightly, because the gods behind the idols are real. They threaten one’s union with Christ (1 Cor 10:14–18). The idols themselves may be lifeless and mute, but the demons behind them pose real danger: “What do I imply then? That food sacrificed to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be partners with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons” (1 Cor 10:19–21). Paul affirms that an idol is “nothing in the world” and asserts that this tradition is inseparable from the parallel tradition that idolatry is the work of demonic forces. By masterfully fusing these two traditions in order to shed light on the current situation in Corinth, he has in essence showed that “the knowers” who “claim to know something do not yet know as they ought to” (1 Cor 8:2).

Paul’s argument leaves room for believers to purchase food at the marketplace and in private homes without asking questions (1 Cor 10:23–27). Nonetheless, any food explicitly identified as previously sacrificed to an idol must be rejected by believers (1 Cor 10:28).²⁵ This argument effectively rules out eating in temples, though the marketplace and private homes are different. It would be a pitiful existence that had to trace the history of all food sold or offered. This is precisely what Paul does not want believers to do and I am convinced that there is nothing in John’s Revelation that advocates for such over-scrupulous behavior. Commenting on Revelation, David Aune identifies four possible situations where a person could come into contact with food sacrificed to idols:

(1) participation in the sacral meal in a temple, (2) accepting sacrificial meat distributed during a public religious festival, (3) the practice of eating meat purchased at the marketplace that had originally been part of a pagan sacrifice … or (4) the sacral meals shared by members of a club or association.²⁶

As Aune has correctly observed, it is not clear which of these scenarios John has in mind. Paul may shed light on this matter, suggesting that the only option that leaves room for ambiguity would be the case of food purchased in the marketplace. Nonetheless, both John and Paul agree that once any such food has been explicitly identified as having been sacrificed to an idol, believers must reject it.

It may be apt to end this discussion with a test case. In the Testament of Joseph, Joseph recalls his encounters with Potiphar’s wife, whose advances he rebuffed. On one occasion Potiphar’s wife sends Joseph “food mixed with enchantments” (T. Jos. 6:1).²⁷ Joseph initially rejects the food, because God revealed to him through an angel that the woman had visited her idols to have the food enchanted, despite her denial. However, in a twist of events, when Joseph confronts her, he makes the bold decision to eat the food in front of her:

“In order for you to learn that the evil of the irreligious will not triumph over those who exercise self-control in their worship of God, I will take this and eat it in your presence. May the God of my fathers and the angel of Abraham be with me.” And I ate it. When she saw this, she fell upon her face at my feet weeping. I raised her up and warned her, and she agreed with me that she should no longer commit this impiety. (T. Jos. 6:7–8)

If my analysis of John’s and Paul’s views is correct, then both New Testament authors would condemn Joseph’s actions because both contend that believers must reject all foods that have been explicitly identified as having come from an idol’s presence. Joseph’s actions are, therefore, tantamount to putting God to the test, something not to be done (1 Cor 10:9).

The Cross: The Drumbeat for Battle

That the cross of Jesus was a battleground for opposing forces of good and evil is a message that the early Christians proclaimed. John the seer and Paul present this message in their own distinctive ways. In Revelation 12 John sees a “great portent” (Rev 12:1) in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, wearing a crown of twelve stars, and having the moon under her feet (Rev 12:1). The woman is also pregnant and in agony from her labor pains. Immediately, John also sees another sign in heaven: a terrifying red dragon with seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads (Rev 12:3). Having swept down a third of the stars with his tail, the dragon stands before the woman in labor ready to devour her child as soon as he is born. When her “male child” is born, he is “snatched away” (Rev 12:5) to God’s throne in heaven. The woman then flees into the wilderness, where God nourishes her for 1266 days.

John’s narration of these signs that take place in both heaven and earth is immediately followed by his narration of a war that breaks out in heaven between Michael and his angels and the dragon’s angels (Rev 12:7–12). Michael and his angels defeat the dragon and his angels. The great dragon, who is also identified as the ancient serpent²⁸ and the Devil and Satan (Rev 12:9), is thrown down to earth, together with his angels. John, then, hears a loud voice in heaven proclaiming the salvation and power of God and his Messiah and the defeat of the dragon, here referred to as the accuser (Rev 12:10–12).

John intends the reader to see the dragon’s encounter with the woman and the battle that ensues in heaven as one and the same event or, at the very least, as related events. The story of the woman may have been influenced by various versions of the Leto–Python–Apollo myth.²⁹ Readers of John’s Revelation will hear echoes of this myth and its various versions, including the Egyptian version concerning Isis’ birth of Horus, and Seth-Typhon’s attack on Isis.³⁰ John’s vision transforms these myths and subverts them: Jesus is the Savior, not Apollo or the emperor.³¹

The identity of the woman is a moot point.³² There has been a tradition of identifying her as a symbol for Jesus’ mother Mary.³³ However, allusions to Joseph’s dream—in which Joseph sees the sun, the moon, and eleven stars bowing down to him (Gen 37:9–11)—tilts in favor of taking the woman as Israel, for she not only wears a crown of twelve stars, but she is also clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet (Rev 12:1). The view that the woman represents Israel and the view that the woman represents the church need not be mutually exclusive, for throughout Revelation John demonstrates that the church’s story and struggles continue the story and struggles of Israel (e.g., Rev 7:1–14; 21:9–14).³⁴ She may symbolize the people of God more generally.

The woman’s son is identified by the voice from heaven as the “Messiah” (Rev 12:10). But the relationship between the woman’s encounter with the dragon and the war in heaven is a complex one. That the dragon pursues the child from his birth to his “snatching away” to God—likely a reference to Jesus’ ascension—may echo the view frequently encountered in the Gospels that Jesus’ life and ministry are a battle with demonic forces, a battle which culminates in his death. As James Robinson and Susan R. Garrett have demonstrated convincingly, human opposition to Jesus throughout his ministry in Mark’s Gospel is cast as an extension of demonic opposition.³⁵ The war that breaks out in heaven between the dragon’s forces and Michael’s angels is inaugurated by the arrival of the child. The war will continue throughout the child’s life and ministry until the child’s death and ascension to heaven. The irony in both the Gospels and Revelation is that it is precisely by the Messiah’s death on the cross that the dragon is defeated.

While the cross is not mentioned in the child’s encounter with the dragon in Rev 12:1–6, some commentators propose that Jesus’ death is assumed by the mention of the ascension in 12:5.³⁶ John does not omit the mention of the cross; rather, he delays its mention, perhaps on purpose.³⁷ But John is well aware of the fact that it is by means of the cross that Michael and his angels are able to achieve ultimate defeat of the dragon and his forces; for this is precisely what the loud voice in heaven proclaims:

Now have come the salvation and the power

and the kingdom of our God

and the authority of his Messiah,

for the accuser of our comrades has been thrown down,

who accuses them day and night before our God.³⁸

But they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb

and by the word of their testimony,

for they did not cling to life even in the face of death. (Rev 12:10–11)

The cross is the site of victory over the dragon, for it is by means of the cross that Michael and his angels are able to throw down the dragon and his angels.³⁹ The movement from heaven to earth illustrates an important characteristic of apocalyptic worldview, which is that earthly reality is often mirrored by, or parallels, a supernatural, other-worldly reality.⁴⁰ The supernatural realm is distinct from the earthly, physical realm, but the two are interconnected.⁴¹ We might say that John sets the earthly experience in dialogical relation with heavenly reality. The cross of Jesus is an event with cosmic significance.⁴² The earthly and physical crucifixion of Jesus inaugurates a heavenly and spiritual battle between Michael and his angels and the dragon and his forces, a battle whose outcome is fixed in advance, for the fate of the dragon is already sealed.

This account is affirmed by Paul’s extended discourse contrasting the wisdom of the world with the wisdom of God in 1 Corinthians 1–2. The message of the cross upends worldly wisdom, for the notion of a crucified messiah is one that, in the eyes of the world, exhibits shame, weakness, foolishness (1 Cor 1:18–25). What the world fails to realize is that it is in the very crucifixion of Jesus that God demonstrates his wisdom and power. Thus, Paul reminds a church that had become so enamored with skilled preachers⁴³ that he did not fill his preaching with “lofty” or “plausible” words or wisdom (1 Cor 2:1), but rather, with a demonstration of the Holy Spirit and of power (1 Cor 2:4). Yet Paul proclaims wisdom to the mature; it is wisdom that is not “of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are being rendered inoperative” (καταργέω) (2:6; my trans.). God ordained this wisdom before the ages for the glory of believers (2:7). God’s wisdom is hidden in mystery, so that “the rulers of this age” did not understand it; for if they had understood it, “they would not have crucified the Lord of glory” (2:8).

Here Paul presses into the same issue that John presents in apocalyptic symbolism: namely, the claim that Jesus’ death was engineered by “the rulers of this age.” That “the rulers of this age” are simply the human rulers⁴⁴ who plotted and executed Jesus (here the Romans and/or the Jews) is unlikely for several reasons.⁴⁵ First, Paul repudiates characteristic attributes of these rulers: their superior knowledge, power, and wisdom are mocked, eclipsed, and rendered inoperative by God. But such superior knowledge, power, and immortality were the defining characteristics of Greco-Roman gods, whom Paul deemed to be demons (cf. 1 Cor 10:19–22). Second, Paul employs apocalyptic concepts in his argument invoking a mystery hidden before the ages from spiritual beings that is revealed for the glory of humans, an important feature of apocalyptic thought (for example, 1 En. 16:3; 83–90; 50:1; 51:1–5; Dan. 12:3; 7–12).⁴⁶ Third, Paul employs the same verb (καταργέω) used to characterize “the rulers of this age” for the ultimate destiny of Christ’s enemies (1 Cor 15:24) at the Parousia. Paul’s use of the present passive participle of the verb in 1 Cor 2:6 describes an ongoing process, which would make little sense if he was speaking about the human authorities who put Jesus to death. As Martin Dibelius notes, Caiaphas, Herod, and Pilate cannot bear the weighty title “rulers of this age,” since at the time Paul wrote all the human rulers who played a role in Jesus’ death had already passed away.⁴⁷ Finally, an early interpreter of Paul, the author of Ephesians, locates the rulers and authorities from whom God’s wisdom has been hidden “in the heavenly places” (Eph 3:10).

That Paul attributes the death of Jesus to “the rulers of this age” rather than Rome suggests that Paul saw the death of Jesus as a moment in a spiritual, cosmic battle between Christ and supernatural forces. On the cross, Christ confronts and defeats these powers. This is why Paul can say that the cross is “the power of God” (1 Cor 1:23–24). The powers imagined they had accomplished their best work on the cross, yet it turned out to be the site of their undoing. In the words of Colossians, Jesus “disarmed the rulers and authorities [in the cross] and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in it” (Col. 2:15). In the spectacle of the cross, Christ exposes the principalities and powers. The cross, then, was at once the site of a cosmic battle and of an important revelation: namely, that the powers have been dealt a fatal blow that renders them inoperative.

We return, finally, to Tertullian. In his work, “An Answer to the Jews,” Tertullian ponders why Moses, after prohibiting any “likeness of anything” (cf. Exod 20:4), still hung a brazen serpent “on a tree,” for the healing of the Israelites, when they were being consumed by serpents (cf. Num 21:1–9). Tertullian offers a christological explanation, already hinted at by his translation of the word “pole” as “tree.” Moses was,

exhibiting the Lord’s cross on which the “serpent” the devil was “made a show of,” and, for every one hurt by such snakes—that is, his angels—on turning intently from the peccancy of sins to the sacraments of Christ’s cross, salvation was outwrought[.] For he who then gazed upon that (cross) was freed from the bite of the serpents.⁴⁸

Tertullian here combines several biblical themes and passages in this complex christological gloss. The stringing together of Satan’s titles—“the serpent, the devil”—directly echoes Rev 12:9, which lists various names of Satan. Revelation 12 also provides the background to Tertullian’s identification of the poisonous snakes in Israel’s midst with the devil’s angels: when war breaks out in heaven, we learn that the dragon—the ancient serpent, the devil—commands angels with whom he makes war against Michael and his angels (Rev. 12:7–9). When he claims that “the devil was made a show of ” Tertullian astutely fuses this vision of the defeat of the dragon and his angels with a Pauline passage from Col 2:15, a passage that locates the cross as the site of the devil’s undoing. For the church father, Moses’ raised pole, then, is more than the raised cross of Christ (cf. John 3:14–15); it is also the site at which the ancient serpent and its angelic snakes are brought down in defeat by Michael and his angelic army.

Conclusion

We have shown that Paul and John share an apocalyptic view of the cosmic battle that ensues at the cross of Jesus and that this view frames their treatment of the question concerning food sacrificed to idols. On that question the view shared by John and Paul should not be thought of as a marginalized perspective within the early Christian movement; rather, it aligns with a strongly attested position among early Christians pertaining to food sacrificed to idols.⁴⁹ It is this position that is reflected in the description of the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15 (esp. vv. 19–20, 28–29). According to Luke, the council decided not to burden the Gentile converts to the one God of Israel, but did ask them “to abstain only from things contaminated by idols and from sexual immorality and from whatever has been strangled and from blood” (Acts 15:20; my trans.). What our detailed discussion here helps us to discern is how such a ban on food sacrificed to idols was shaped by an apocalyptic worldview that sees hostile, spiritual forces at work behind idol veneration.

In addition, the notion that demonic forces were at work in bringing about Jesus’ death seems to have been a part of the early Christian message.⁵⁰ We have traced this view in Revelation and some of the Pauline corpus (1 Corinthians, Colossians, and Ephesians). But the same view is also evident in the Gospels: from Satan’s role in Judas’ betrayal (Luke 22:3–5; John 13:2, 27–30) and the disciples’ desertion (Luke 22:31–34), to the cosmic darkness that envelops the earth during Jesus’ death (Mark 27:33; Matt 27:45; Luke 22:44–45),⁵¹ the evangelists see more powerful, sinister forces at work in the death of Jesus. Thus, at least as regards these interrelated themes, Tertullian was right to claim that the apostles shared a common faith and discipline.

Footnotes

Author biography

Robert Moses is Assistant Professor of Religion at High Point University in High Point, NC. He received his Th.D. from Duke University and served as a DAAD Visiting Scholar at the University of Heidelberg. A native of Ghana, his teaching and research is in the Gospels, the Pauline letters, Second Temple Judaism, African and African-American Biblical hermeneutics, and African traditional religions. He is the author of Practices of Power: Revisiting the Principalities and Powers in the Pauline Letters (Fortress Press, 2014). His current book project examines Jesus' teachings on wealth and poverty and their relevance for modern Christianity.