Abstract
As impressive as is Meeks' First Urban Christians, it studies ancient cities “from above,” i.e., the perspective of elites and their retainers. He does not appreciate the meanness of cities in Asia Minor from the crowded and perilous perspective of the 85% of the population. This absence can be supplied by studies which consider “city” in cultural terms (a system, a central place, a necropolis, etc). These studies alert us to the scarcity of food, water, space, and sanitation. The use of social science models depicts a grim scene in terms of size, population density, and mortality. All of this makes us turn our gaze from the elite parts of a city to the squalid parts where those addressed in the seven letters in Revelation 1–3 dwelt. When those letters are considered in this context, certain materials concerning virtues and vices stand out. Without appreciating where the 85% of the population strove to survive, we cannot appreciate what is said to them.
Keywords
This study concerns itself with what an ancient “city” was and how this allows us to imagine life in the Seven Cities listed in Revelation 1:16. We rightly presume that the residents of each of the Seven Cities had an imaginative scenario of their own city and perhaps of other cities, which would hardly resemble the description of cities in current New Testament scholarship. We would like to know what the hearers of Revelation thought about their individual cities (more likely, their quarters or neighborhoods). Ancient cities and their inhabitants, then, comprise the topic of this study, all of which material will be used to interpret the Seven Letters in Revelation 1–3.
The aim of this study is to examine the social and cultural meaning of “city” when applied to the Seven Cities in Revelation 1:16. On the one hand, we can draw from historical and archeological studies materials that tout their elegance and honor (Jones; Ramsay; Hemer), which can be confirmed by reference to rhetorical practice on how to praise an ancient city (Menander Rhetor, Treatise I.346–51). This accurate, but exaggerated view, tells the narrative only from the population perspective of the 1–2 % of the elites and the 5% their retainers, whose domain of elegant public buildings, etc., comprises 35–50% of the area of the city. On the other hand, what was it like for the 85% of the population who were sandwiched into the remaining space of the city? The literary work we call Revelation was not addressed to the 5–10% of the elites, but to the 85% of the population of peasants and artisans who filled the city. They had different and wretched experiences of living in the “honorable” cities. And they are the true audience of the communication we call the Book of Revelation.
Alas, we have scant information about the life of these non-elites, partly because their parts of a city were made of poor materials and flimsy construction, and were easily destroyed. Stone structures like amphitheaters, temples, colonnades, and the like survive and have become the targets, necessarily, of archeology. But the peasants and artisans were generally excluded from these structures and places, as well as from the cultural events performed there. To repeat the question, what was life like for the 85%? What experiences did they have that shaped how they heard the literary work called Revelation? Surely they would hear it differently than elites.
Hasn't adequate scholarship on New Testament cities already been done by Wayne Meeks in The First Urban Christians (1983)? By no means. First of all, Meeks was concerned with the cities where Paul traveled and to whom he wrote, while here the focus is on the Seven Cities of Asia addressed in Revelation 1–3. Only Ephesus appears in both lists.
Meeks's first urban Christians are found in cities either rebuilt, colonized, or established by Rome. Except for Colossae and Ephesus, other Pauline cities are located in Greece and Italy. Not so the cities in Revelation, which are all old, established cities in Asia Minor, with different geographies, different histories, different ethnic populations, different politics. What Meeks said about Pauline cities does not necessarily apply to other urban centers of early Christianity.
Also, Meeks reported a consensus that “a Pauline congregation generally reflected a fair cross-section of urban society,” but this is challenged by those who use other models based on studies of pre-industrial cities (Rohrbaugh 2008: 145–53), which argue for a radically different urban social structure.
Rohrbaugh offers the following summary of this pattern of pre-industrialized cities:
As center of control, the city gathered to itself non-elite necessary to serve its needs as it carried out the specialized functions it had collected. It was a system characterized by the dominance of a small center, by sharp social stratification, and by a physical and social distancing of component populations that were linked by carefully controlled hierarchical relations. The city was a ready example of human territoriality in which the elite occupied a fortified center, ethnic, socio-economic and occupational groups the periphery, and outcasts immediately outside the city walls [1991: 136–37; 2007: 155–60].
Finally, the study of New Testament cities should continue because of another significant issue: Meeks never told his readers what he meant by a “city” (Meeks: 13, 15, 28–29; Malina; Elliott 1985; Rohrbaugh 2007: 149–51). Meeks proffered basically description. The differences between Pauline cities and those addressed in Revelation are more than a matter of size, population, location, and the like. Because there is no conversation with social science scholarship in First Urban Christians, we wonder why many of the cities addressed in Revelation 1–3 would be called “cities” at all. In Paul's cities, Meeks' studies tend to give special attention to elites, which is by no means the case with those addressed in Revelation. What mental image would urban audiences of Revelation 1–3 bring to their hearing? Let us consider other urban Christians, beginning where The First Urban Christians did not: what is a “city”? We need more than mere description, and so we turn to a higher level of investigation, to models and concepts developed in sociology and anthropology (Rohrbaugh 1991; 1996; Erdkamp).
Cities as Systems
City-Village/Urban-Rural Contrasts and Connections:
Even here we face a problem, namely, terminology. The ancients used three different terms, which can be easily confused: polis, village, and hamlet. But what distinguishes a polis from a koma? (Leeds 1980; Oakman 1991). Sometimes NT authors confuse the two, as in the case of Bethlehem: Luke calls it a polis (Luke 2:4), whereas John, a village (John 7:42). But in general, Gospel authors seem to distinguish the two, suggesting that they implicitly know the difference (Matt 9:35; 10:11; Mark 6:56; Luke 8:1; 13:22). The distinction between “city” and “village” has led to the important sociological “urban-rural” model, which distinguishes them by showing how cities were central places where the foods grown in satellite villages were stored and consumed. This does not mean that all in the city were adequately fed, on the contrary. The urban elites took food from the villages by means of taxes, rents, and the like, but there was never any distribution of food stuffs, only sale to the masses. They, not the 85%, were well fed and fared well; what is needed is consideration of ubiquitous food insufficiency. Thus references in the seven letters to “food” and “meals” might have immediate relevance to the non-elite members of the Seven Churches. This invites consideration of who came to and filled the cities. The most likely candidates were landless peasants seeking even a minimum of sufficiency; cities needed population because of their high mortality rates, but tolerated rustics and others. Moreover, “urban” dwellers who exited daily to work the city's adjacent fields must be taken into account:
We can safely say that a significant part of their residents were part of the agricultural sector. Even in a sizeable town such as Pompeii, whose population is estimated at roughly 15,000, a large number and a wide range of agricultural tools and farm implements have been found, which points to a significant number of Pompeians working as independent farmers or agricultural laborers in the town's immediate hinterland [Erdkamp: 246].
Society's “expendables” lived outside the city walls, beggars, prostitutes, cutpurses, very sick persons, and the like. Even when peasants and artisans dwelt in the cities, the urban-rural cultural and social distinctions remained and were even accentuated. The “urban-rural” distinction urges us to consider the social relationships it encodes.
City Described by Traits
Some theoretical perspectives of the definition of a “city” stress traits. Louis Wirth provided a minimal description of a city as “a (1) relatively large, (2) dense, and permanent settlement of (3) socially heterogeneous individuals” (Wirth; Wheatley). This invites consideration of size, population and density (i.e., “demographics”), and the importance of kinship or its absence.
Regarding size and population. We must pass over the immense size and population of Rome (and Alexandria), which is of such a magnitude that in comparison we learn very little about the size and population of each of the Seven Cities. In fact, there is considerable discussion on the size of ancient cities (Rohrbaugh 2007: 156). They varied in population from Smyrna (possibly 80,000) to Pergamum (possibly 24,000) to the low populations of Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea. We must imagine an ancient city as a small space surrounded by walls which served to limit its population and also to compress it. Yet some point of comparison is needed, even if it is Herodotus' description of Babylon to indicate what was possible:
These walls are the city's outer armor; within them there is another encircling wall, nearly as strong as the other, but narrower. In the middle of one division of the city stands the royal palace, surrounded by a high and strong wall; in the middle of the other is still to this day the sacred enclosure of Zeus Belus, a square of four hundred and forty yards each way, with gates of bronze. In the center of this sacred enclosure a solid tower has been built, two hundred and twenty yards long and broad; a second tower rises from this and from it another, until at last there are eight. In the last tower there is a great shrine [Histories 1.81.1–5, emphasis added]..
Of interest are the external wall encircling the city's exterior and subsequent interior walls, divisions of the interior of the city, and elite buildings, such as the royal palace, a temple, and 8 pyramidal layers. It requires little imagination to conjecture the parts of Babylon that excluded the ordinary residents and compressed them into tight spaces.
Recent studies of eastern cities suggest a very high density of population within them. Antioch, with a large population confined into a small space, had a density of 117 persons per acre. Compare this with Chicago (21 people per acre), San Francisco (23 persons per acre) and New York (37 per acre). This urges us to imagine how small individual residential space was for the peasant-artisans, the 85%. Our Christians of the Seven Cities, therefore, lived in very crowded conditions (Frier; Scheidel). Students of the stratification of ancient cities have the benefit of a model that displays the approximate size of the various components of population. We benefit greatly by consideration of the model by Rohrbaugh (1991: 135):
Regarding Space in Cities. Besides being very crowded, cities purposely restricted freedom of movement and assembly, such as we enjoy in modern cities. It is estimated that as much as 35% to 50% of the space within an ancient city was reserved for elite use, that is, the area where the temples, theaters, colonnades, and gymnasia were located, and other places where the city's nobles gathered. While we are tempted to call this “public” space, it was actually “private,” because it was not open to the general population (Neyrey 2002). Moreover, ancient cities were a hodge-podge of neighborhoods and quarters. If the elite lived in great houses and palaces —generally in the higher part of the city—the peasant artisans were squeezed into discrete quarters, which often were divided by intra-city walls whose gates were closed at night. Who tended to live in these quarters? People tended to gather according to some kinship connection, ethic grouping (same language), and craft association (tent makers, silversmiths). One easily imagines a Greek-speaking Israelite section in an eastern city with a synagogue, an ethnic group which had some contact with Christians, friendly or otherwise. But it raises the question of the character and size of a Christian group, and where it assembled. And when.
Regarding Urban Transit: A Street, Mostly Alleys, and Many Byways. Rome's broad avenues facilitated its display of military propaganda. Roman colonies, which developed out of military camps, had two major thoroughfares: cardo maximus (N-S) and decumanus maximus (E-W). Transit within most other cities, however, was complex and difficult. Perhaps there was a main avenue (probably paved), simply because all food and trade goods had to be brought to the elites and because their soldiers and police had to move quickly to manage the crowds. But otherwise, “streets were narrow, winding, and un-paved and lacked adequate drainage. They became the chief repositories of refuse [including human and animal waste] thrown from the houses” (Sjoberg: 35). Luke 14:21 illustrates this when the king sends his servants into the squares and lanes/alleys to bring in “the destitute, crippled, lame and blind” (Rohrbaugh 1991: 135–36).
City as “Container”
A “city” might be thought of as a container of peasants and artisans, along with elites and their supporting staff. Considered as such, it was a rather static place, in that, while it grudgingly accepted rural folk to fill the ranks of deceased members, it kept its disproportionately large peasant-artisan population in check, merely tolerating and exploiting them. Furthermore, who dwelt in the city? Who was allowed even to enter a city or remain there? We are asking about population diversity, not just the distinction between elite and peasant. From what we know about the geography of a city, peoples allowed to live there tended to find like groups, who shared things such as language and ethnic identities. Artisans of this or that craft lived in proximity (silversmiths, tent makers); perhaps remnants of a kinship group would find each other. We know about ancient “neighborhoods” and quarters, that they were segmented units, separated by walls, often with their own gates. Because of the nature of some businesses, animals such as goats, cattle, oxen and the like resided in the city. Dogs, never thought of as pets, also infested the cities, feeding on garbage, excrement and even corpses. From an elite perspective, they themselves resided as the administrators and controllers of the rest. They determined who filled their container.
City as Central Place
The “city” constituted a central place (Rohrbaugh 2007: 152–55), where power was concentrated and exercised over its residents and the villages dependent upon it. It enforced its power with soldiers and police. The bulk of a city was the property of the elite, who resided there, the 2% who occupied 35–50% of its space. Whatever economic activity took place was dominated by the interests of the elite—less a market center than a vacuum which sucked in wealth (mostly agricultural products) for its elites through taxes, rents, and the like. Wealth was in land, because of the fundamental nature of an agrarian society. We know that urban elites bought up land and created rural estates, which provided them with stuff with which to live well in their urban houses and palaces. Even if they did not own the lands in the neighboring villages, they controlled them by extracting taxes from them. Thus, many cities functioned as granaries in which wealth (agricultural products) was stored. One New Testament scholar in particular, Richard L. Rohrbaugh (1991: 132), provides a visual model of the city as “central” place, which displays its relationship to the satellite villages which it controlled and exploited:
Rohrbaugh's interpretation of this model is necessary to appreciate its utility. [P]re-industrial cities existed in a system which required a socially and geographically fixed labor force. Specialists in the city primarily produced the goods and services needed by the urban elite, who were the only existing consumer market. Since that market was small, the labor force needed to supply it was correspondingly small. … In fact most agrarian societies established legal restrictions on city residence that kept the peasants out. Pre-industrial city and agricultural hinterlands were thus linked neither through the flow of labor and capital, not by their mutual participation in a common marketplace, but through centralized land control and the religious/political systems of taxation. The need for a socially or geographically detached labor force was small and sporadic. Contact between persons in the two areas was minimized and usually mediated by a politically or religiously defined group of persons [Rohrbaugh 1991: 132].
The demands of the controlling groups gradually shaped the composition of the social product, and their purposes governed the allocation and utilization of the crucial space. The profound tension noted above about urban-rural relationships colors this as well.
City as Necropolis
Ancient historians and modern archeologists describe a city of elegant stone structures, but their scenarios never tell of the living conditions of its 85% peasant inhabitants. From Roman satirists we know that urban life in Rome was ugly, dirty, mean and brief (Scobie). Furthermore, since urban living in the eastern cities was always more wretched than in Rome, archeologists and anthropologists have extrapolated on the Roman satirists' remarks to describe how and why urban life for the cities we are considering could be so grim and bleak.
Take water, for example. Rome had aqueducts and so fountains and baths, all of which were rare in the Seven Cities. Only from occasional fountains could women fill their vessels to carry water home for cooking and drinking; water for bathing and washing clothes was not available. Expanding on this, sanitation was wretched. Elites may have sat on marble toilets, whose product was washed away, but everyone else used a convenient latrine (who emptied them?) or slop, which they emptied out of the window or poured into the street, only at night. We should not imagine wide streets with sewers to drain human and animal waste and to carry away refuse. Horrid in good weather, the many alleys and byways became swamps of sewage in the rainy season. Those with noses would know that stink served as the most characteristic feature of the ancient city.
Take food, as another example. Food was never sufficient; no fat people lived in the cities. The diet was mostly cereals and legumes. Because storage of food or clothing was difficult, peasants lived from hand to mouth (“bread” and circuses only in Rome). It is difficult to imagine how dwellers cooked anything, for we should not presume that they had ready access to any supply of fuel; their crowded residences, in fact, had no chimneys. We presume the presence of common ovens to bake bread.
Take clothing. Rural peasants had wool and flax with which to weave their own clothing; but none of this was to be found in a city. True, cloth could be purchased, but then one must imagine that resident peasants and artisans, who barely had income sufficient to feed themselves, could clothe themselves. We mentioned above the lack of water to bathe, much less wash clothing. One more problem: how did peasants purchase anything: with barter or money?
Take kinship relations. When villages could support families and extended kin networks, peasants stayed there. In that context, the “city” was their enemy, syphoning off significant percentages of their crops as taxes. But landless peasants and non-inheriting sons could not live in villages and so grudgingly approached a city as a last resort. Village kinship networks supported their members with the essentials of life (food, clothing, health care and meaningful relationships), which basically evaporated when migrants entered a city. One wonders how spouses married, begat families and raised children. But if life in the village was difficult, life in the city would be horrendous. Families eschewed moving to a city; as hard as life was out “on the farm,” it was never better in the city. The disease-ridden and crowded cities tended to have high mortality rates of females and children. Growth in population rarely occurred; cities tended to destroy kinship networks. Probably individual newcomers sought out acquaintances and even kin, but they lacked the solid network of family that supported those who remained in the countryside. New residents made up for this by joining guilds or cults or other networks, if they were accepted and if they could contribute to the group. These ties always remained tenuous and were by no means sure and reliable. In addition, we have ample evidence of pervasive conflict between quarters, ethnic and language groups, and craft groups. It is indeed difficult to imagine a quiet, safe place in which to reside (not “live”). It is impossible to overemphasize how mean life was for the ordinary resident of any eastern city.
Take morbidity and mortality. As regards mortality, it is argued that 30% of babies born in a given year died before they were six years old; another third died by puberty, and the rest lived unhealthy lives plagued by infectious diseases. The average life span of surviving females was 22 years and that of men 26 years. Morbidity: Not for nothing do the ancients glorify youth and shrink with repulsion from aging. The surviving population was known to be in atrocious physical shape. Infectious diseases (malaria, tuberculosis, parasites, plagues, etc.) were particularly devastating to the dirty and hungry poor.
Dentistry was at a rudimentary level of development, as was dietetics. Even minor bodily mishaps like ruptures could not be dealt with. Neither could many a minor infirmity: internal parasites, for instance. Unknown too, were eyeglasses. Even the elite, whose health and medical welfare were well looked after, suffered grievously from disabilities and infirmities. Few poor men lived out their thirties, in all probability [Carney: 88].
For a grim inventory of common illnesses and diseases in the ancient cities, see Walter Scheidel, “Age and Health in Ancient Egypt,” online at https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1551069. Occasionally an ancient city was justifiably called a “necropolis.”
What do we know if we know all this? It is difficult for modern people to imagine a city without careful urban layout, civic services provided to all parts of the city (garbage collection; water, gas, and sewerage services), zoning laws, public safety systems (police, precincts, jails), public health (hospitals and clinics), cemeteries, public facilities open to all, and the like. The Seven Cities of Revelation have no points of comparison with our urban centers! Nevertheless, all of this goes to shape our imagining how the native populations of each of the Seven Cities heard the letters addressed to them and to other cities. Did the praise and blame in the letter correspond to anything in their urban experiences? Were their politics all local? Even friendly?
Elite Views of Honorable Cities (the 2%)
In contrast to the picture of the lives of peasant and artisans in ancient cities, we have reports about the cities from elite perspectives. Readers of Revelation need to know this, simply because it is the prevailing description found in scholarly literature. The data used by these authors are in general accurate, since they depend on historical and archeological scholarship. Yet, they invariably investigate monumental architecture that survives earthquakes, wars, and fires, but have nothing to say about the wretched living conditions of the majority of the population. Nevertheless, students of the Seven Cities should know this, if only to juxtapose it with what was said earlier in this study.
Native Informants about Elite Cities
Richard Rohrbaugh (1991: 108–09) quotes Pausanias on what the ancients considered a “city.” At first Pausanias calls Panopaeus a “city,” but upon reflection, he changes his mind:
… if indeed one can give the name of city to those who possess no public buildings, no gymnasium, no theatre, no market-place, no water descending to a fountain, but live in bare shelters just like mountain huts on the edges of ravines [Description of Greece, 10.4.1].
Pausanias itemizes only public arenas where the elite, honorable males speak, act, see and are seen. Such places serve as the stage for a vibrant civic life and a sophisticated cultural ambiance, at least for the 2% of the population. Elites built their homes and palaces adjacent to these elegant civic structures; after all, these structures were built by them and for them. One should doubt whether the peasant population ever frequented these elegant “civic” places. As we saw, these public buildings, which are the natural haunts of the urban elites, might take up a third to a half of the area within a walled city. Apart from death, the worst punishment that could be meted out to a Greek or Roman citizen was banishment from Athens or Rome to some obscure island or region, where all such facilities are absent. Therefore, we must constantly remember that descriptions of a “city” in ancient literature reflect the perspective only of elites; smelly and dirty peasants would never be allowed in elite public spaces.
Rhetoric: How to Praise a City
Besides the miscellaneous remarks about cities in classical literature, we know of a rhetorical form that taught writers-in-training how to praise a city. Students of rhetoric learned from the progymnasmata the rules for an encomium, which place high value on the origins of a person in terms of place of birth and nobility of lineage. These same guidelines were applied to praise a city, stressing the same points: place of birth and noble ancestors (Menander Rhetor, Treatise I.347.1–351.19).
Origins: Founders, Ancestors, and Noble Cities
Table 1 puts in synoptic form the initial questions about the sources of honor, first for a person, and by extension, for a city. The texts themselves are all taken from various rules for praise found in the Greco-Roman rhetoric (Kennedy).
Thus it matters if the foundations of a city date back to Homeric times or to the expansion of cities under Alexander and his heirs, the Seleucids and Ptolemies. It matters if the cities were residences of kings and rulers. The city reflects the honor of both founders and restorers.
Nurture and Training: seat of learning, home of authors, gymnasia, and the like. Individual ancient cities were renowned as centers of learning (and teaching).
Noble Behavior: “deeds,” deeds either of beauty, of soul, or of fortune. We have examples of encomia written in praise of certain cities (Aelius Aristides) as well as a fulsome set of instructions by the progymnastic writer, Menander Rhetor. His capsule of the ways in which honor is awarded cities serves only to heighten our appreciation of the role and status of each of the seven letters of Revelation. Table 2 is a synopsis of the categories for praise of individuals and for cities. This synopsis contains commonplace directives, and the accompanying list shows how a writer might use the same categories also for the praise of a city.
This synopsis of an encomium for an individual city conveys important social information about the residents of each of them. These commonplace categories, however, represent only the viewpoint and values of the elite.
Names, Titles, and Honors of Cities
While each city might be praised for its origins, only three of the Seven Cities were serious rivals for imperial favors, which served to elevate their honor over other cities. Since the titles of the cities, either awarded, recognized, or merely claimed, played a significant role in the honor rating of each city, we begin with a list of the common honorific appellations used:
“Metropolis” (mēterpolis). The title “mother-city” constituted a claim to be the central place of power, wealth and prestige in the region, but was bitterly contested by nearby poleis (Magie: 1.636). “First and Greatest” (prōtē kai megistē). “Warden of the (Imperial) Temple” (neōkorē) (Friesen 1993). “Independent” (autonomē). “Inviolable” (asulē). “Friend of Rome” (symmachos Romae). “Primacy” (prōtē).
This catalogue alone suggests how important such a title was and how contested it might be between two cities (Nicea and Nicomedia; Ephesus and Smyrna). This further suggests how sensitive a city might be to public criticism by a person of stature. Even the Scriptures record how much the honor of a city meant to certain individuals (John 1:46; Acts 21:39).
Some cities claimed supreme honor because they proclaimed themselves as the “navel of the world,” which scholars call “geocentrism” (Malina & Neyrey 1996: 120–24). To the Greeks, Delphi was the navel of the universe (Agathemerrus 1.2), a tradition celebrated by Pindar (Pyth. 4.72; 6.3), Aeschylus (Cho. 40, 166; Eum. 1036), and Plato (Resp. 4.427bc), followed later by Strabo (Geo. 9.3.6) and Pausanias (Descr. Gr. 10.16.3). We also know of a claim by Israelites that Jerusalem was the center of the universe:
Just as the navel is found at the center of a human being, so the land of Israel is found at the center of the world … and it is the foundation of the world. Jerusalem is at the center of the land of Israel, the Temple at the center of Jerusalem, the Holy of Holies at the center of the Temple, the Ark at the center of the Holy of Holies and the Foundation Stone in front of the Ark, which spot is the foundation of the world (Tanhuma, Kedoshim 10; see also Philo, Gaius 281 and Flaccus 46).
This type of thinking has a bearing on how we understand the claims made by some of the Seven Cities in Revelation 2–3, such as claiming to be a “metropolis,” that is, a “mother polis.” While this sort of honor claim would be of interest to elites, it is doubtful that it meant anything to the other residents
Spatial organization
Rohrbaugh himself provides an excellent exposition of his second model (Figure 2, above):
Few readers of the NT today understand the social significance of the spatial organization of ancient cities. In the modern city the elite live at the outskirts and the poor live in the ghetto in the center. In the ancient city it was the opposite. The elite, usually no more than 2 or 3 percent of the population, lived at the center near the temple and palace, while the poor lived on the periphery. Outcasts lived outside the city along with others whose presence in the city during the day was necessary or tolerated (tanners, prostitutes, beggars, traders), but who were unneeded and unwelcome at night. Internal city walls separated ethnic or occupational groups, and doors between these population areas were usually locked at night…Unlike the modern city in which capital attracts labor and thereby promotes urban growth, with few exceptions urban populations in antiquity were limited to those serving the needs of the elite. It became a major interest to keep others out of the cities; indeed, most agrarian societies enacted restrictions on city residence to keep peasants away [1991: 134–35].
Elite Views of Cities: Literature and Archeology
Ephesus: Let us first hear the celebration of Ephesus by Strabo.
Ephesus was thus inhabited until the time of Croesus … the people came down from the mountainside and abode round the present temple … Lysimachus built a wall round the present city and named the city Arsino?. … As for the temple of Artemis, its first architect was Chersiphron … but when it burned down, the citizens erected another and better one, having collected the ornaments of the women and their own belongings, and having sold the pillars of the former temple. … They exacted means for the restoration of the temple from the treasures deposited in their care by the Persians. … After the completion of the temple, the great number of dedications was secured by means of the high honor they paid to their artists; the whole of the altar was filled with the works of Praxiteles. They showed me some of the works of Thrason … The city has an arsenal and a harbor, deep enough for large merchant vessels … and is the largest emporium in Asia this side of the Taurus. Notable men have been born in this city: in ancient times, Heracleitus the Obscure; and Hermodorus, who is reputed to have written certain laws for the Romans. And Hipponax the poet was from Ephesus; and so were Parrhasius the painter, and Apelles, and more recently Alexander the orator, surnamed Lychnus, who was a statesman and who wrote history [Strabo, Geo.14.1.21–25].
Informed by the categories of an encomium for a city, we note origins (Chroesus, Lysimachus), nurture/learning (Heracleitus, Hermodorus, Hipponax), achievements (magnificent temple, harbor and commerce), culture (Praxiteles, Thrason, Parrhasius and Apelles), and deeds of the soul: wisdom (Alexander, orator and historian).
From archeological investigation, we know that Ephesus had extensive public buildings: the great temple of Artemis (Acts 19:24, 27–28), a splendid theater (Acts 19:29), a famous library, as well as several market-places, a number of gymnasia, and many fountains. Since Augustus, it enjoyed the honor of being the capital of the Roman province of Asia, and was acclaimed as “First and Greatest Metropolis of Asia.” But Ephesus was by no means typical of Roman cities in Asia. While scholars exhaustively examine each individual verse in Rev 2:1–8, they offer no hints about the real situation of hearers of the letter.
Smyrna: We begin by listening to Strabo's celebration of this city.
After Smyrna had been razed by the Laotians … they were reassembled into a city by Antigens, and afterwards by Lysimachus, and their city is the most beautiful of all; a part of it is on a mountain and walled, but the greater part of it is in the plain near the harbor and near the Metröum and near the gymnasium. The division into streets is exceptionally good, in straight lines as far as possible; and the streets are paved with stone; and there are large quadrangular porticoes, with both lower and higher stories. There is also a library; and the Homereium, a quadrangular portico containing a shrine and wooden statue of Homer [Strabo, Geo. 14.1.37; Tacitus, An. 4.56].
Encomastic features include origins (Homer, Antigens, Lysimachus), achievements (walls and fortress, gymnasium, porticoes), deeds of the soul: wisdom (library, Metröum), and noble features (regular division of streets, many paved).
Claims for its nobility include titles (first in greatness, metropolis, thrice neōkoros), deeds of the soul (goodwill toward Rome), and deeds of the body (beauty). Its history includes destruction by Alexander, and then re-founding and peace and prosperity under Roman rule. Smyrna was renowned for its faithfulness to Rome. Yet neither Ramsay, Magie, nor Hemer have anything to say about the conditions of the bulk of Smyrna's inhabitants. They celebrate the places where the elite lived and recreated, but seem deaf to how its wretched citizens would hear the letter addressed to them.
Pergamum: Again we being by listening to what our native informant, Strabo, says about Pergamum.
Eumenes fought on the side of the Romans against Antiochus … and received from the Romans all the country this side of the Taurus. … He built up the city, and planted the Nicephorium with a grove, and his elder brother, from love of splendor, added sacred buildings and libraries and raised the settlement of Pergamum to what it now is. … Attalus left the Romans as his heirs. The Romans proclaimed the country a province, calling it Asia. The Caïus flows past Pergamum, traversing land that is very fertile and about the best in Mysia. Pergmenians have become famous in my time: Mithridates the son of Mendotus … became a “friend” to the deified Caesar and reached so great a preferment with him that he was appointed tetrarch from his mother's family and king both of the Bosporos and other territories. … The “friendship” of Caesar Augustus has most of all exalted Apollodorus [the rhetorician], who was his teacher in the art of speech. And Apollodorus had a notable pupil in Dionysius, an able sophist and historian and speech-writer [Strabo, Geo. 13.4.2–3].
Following Pausanius' qualifications for a true “city,” Pergamum was gradually built into a grand city. As regards encomiastic categories, it had old and new libraries, as well as impressive sculptures by the best artists of the time, all of which grounded its reputation as a great artistic and intellectual center. It boasted seven gymnasia, elegant agorae, theaters, royal palaces, and, of course, the great altar of Zeus. Always a populous city, it was financially significant because of its encouragement of silver coinage, which facilitated trade and brought great wealth to the city. Restored, new roads connected it to coastal cities and to trade and military avenues. Pergamum, deeded to Rome, with its status as symmachos Romae, became, as Pliny said, “by far the most renowned of Asia” (H.N. 5.126). A special temple built for Trajan was inscribed with “High priest of divine Rome and Autokratoros of Caesar son of divine Augustus.” Despite its glorious history, wealth and significance, the non-elite hearers of Revelation 2:12–17 would probably not recognize the city according to honorific descriptions of it and the archeological excavations in it, because they reflect and serve the interests of its local elites.
Thyatira: Neither Strabo or any other writer had much to say of this city. Hemer interprets this to mean: “The longest and most difficult of the seven letters is addressed to the least known, least important and least remarkable of the cities” (1986: 106). This ancient site eventually grew as a Seleucid colony for veterans. Its location was both favorable and unfavorable: it sat at the strategic junction of criss-crossing roads to major cities, but on a flat, indefensible plain making it a frequent victim of conquering armies. It gradually possessed many of the buildings requisite for an honorable city. Its location, moreover, aided its peacetime prosperity, which largely depended on wool, textiles and dyeing skills. It had none of the titles boasted of by neighboring cities. The artisan and peasant population living in this unremarkable city is, nevertheless, invisible to scholars.
Sardis: We possess two reports about Sardis from our native informants, Strabo and Tacitus, As usual, Strabo describes Sardis from the perspective of Hellenistic elites:
Sardis, at one time, was a great city, and though of later date than the Trojan times, is nevertheless old, and has a strong citadel. It was the royal city of the Laotians. … Above Sardis is situated Mt. Tmolus, a blest mountain, with a look-out on its summit, an arcade of white marble … [after capture] the city was restored in a notable way because of the fertility of its territory, and was inferior to none of its neighbors, though recently it has lost many of its buildings through earthquakes. However, the forethought of Tiberius, has, by his beneficence, restored not only this city but many others. Notable men of the same family were born at Sardis: the two Diodoruses, the orators, of whom the elder was called Zonas; the younger Diodorus is the author, not only of many historical treatises, but also of melic and other poems, which display full well the ancient style of writing. Xanthas, the ancient historian, is also called a Lydian [Strabo, Geo. 13.4.5–9].
Using Strabo's remarks as our filter, we interpret them via the categories of an encomium: origins (Trojan times, royal city of Lydia, Tiberius' restoration); achievements (noble buildings lost to earthquakes), deeds of the soul, wisdom (the two Diodoruses, Xanthas). The glories of Sardis, however, belong to the past, as it was ravaged by earthquakes; it is best known because of its synagogue.
Philadelphia: Strabo narrates reasons why Philadelphia is the least commented upon city of the Seven Cities of Revelation. It was a late foundation of Pergamum, and prospered because of its fertile lands and because major roads passed near and through it, namely, the trunk road from Ionia to Phrygia. But it was constantly subject to devastating earthquakes, which decimated its population and fortunes. Strabo writes of the aftermath of the quake of 17 Beyond the Laotians are the Mysians and the city of Philadelphia, full of earthquakes, for the walls never cease being cracked, and different part of the city are constantly suffering damage. That is why the actual town has few inhabitants, but the majority live as farmers in the countryside, as they have fertile land. But one is surprised even at the few, that they are so fond of a place when they have such insecure dwellings [Strabo, Geo. 13.4.10].
Philadelphia had no titles, like the other cities, but was honored by being allowed to take a new name, Neocaesarea, to honor the empress Flavia (Ramsay: 286–93; Hemer: 153–77). It was a city in constant decline, which implied massive and continuous misery for its peasant and artisan population, including its Christians.
Laodicea: Strabo's remarks highlight several aspects of an “honorable” city. Certain benefactors paid for its adornment, that is, its elite buildings and spaces, which made it “great.” It spawned noble children, such as Zeno the rhetorician.
Laodicea, though formerly small, grew large in our time, even though it had been damaged in the time of Mithridates Eupator. However, it was the fertility of its territory and the prosperity of certain of its citizens that made it great: at first Hieron, who left it more than two thousand talents and adorned the city with many dedicated offerings, and later Zeno the rhetorician and his son Polemon, the latter of whom, because of his bravery and honesty, was thought worthy even of a kingdom by Antony and later by Augustus. The country around Laodicea produces sheep that are excellent, not only for the softness of their wool, in which they surpass even the Milesian wool, but also for its raven-black color, so that the Laodiceans derive splendid revenue from it, as do the neighboring Colosseni [Strabo, Geo. 12.8.16].
Although its origins are ignored, it enjoyed a fortunate location: on the Southern Highway to central Asia and connecting roads to the coast. It boasted of the requisite elite buildings: odeon, amphitheater, stadium, elegant gates, two theaters, and a gymnasium, all the benefaction of a wealthy elite, Hieron. Called the “metropolis of Asia,” only under Caracalla was it awarded the title “Warden of the Temple.” It served as the capital of the Cibyratic conventus and took its turn as the site for the assembly of “Commonalty of Asia” (Pliny, N.H. 5.29.105). Despite its being a significant city, it was outclassed by Ephesus, Pergamum and Smyrna. It would be rash to conclude that the non-elite populations of these cities flourished because of textile production. Such commerce was sponsored by, controlled by, and served the interests of the city's elite. Manufacture of textiles might have provided regular labor for some of the population, but taxes by the elites always consumed what little monies the laborers earned. Just as agriculture was controlled and exploited by the urban elite, so too any manufacturing.
After all is said about the glorious report on the archeological excavations of many of the Seven Cities, one must remember that all of these data reflect elite understanding of the cities. Does any of this effect how the 85% non-elites thought and lived in them? Our default inquiry accepts these elite data as significant to elites, but we need constantly to remember the lives of the non-elite. Since we know that life for the overwhelming majority of city dwellers was course, mean, and full of struggle, we examine the Seven Letters for materials which might express these elementary concerns. Do the letters contain any materials that might pertain to urban life at the social and political margins of their cities?
Non-Elite View: Conflict, Meanness, and Survival (85%)
We rely on previous discussion of the honor and shame (Moxnes 1996; Rohrbaugh 2010; Neyrey 2019) directed to each of seven churches to whom the seven letters were addressed in Revelation 2–3. “Honor and shame” are code words for the “virtue” and “vice” revealed in each city which received a letter. From this study we extract a precis of its discussion of “virtue” and “vice” to see what behaviors were praised and which censored (Neyrey 2019: 123–83). We know that by Revelation 5, the focus of that document turns to a cosmic war between God, the Lamb, and his minions against Rome and Babylon. But one should ask if and how much such a conflict affected the lives of urban dwellers, especially those of no civic status, wealth, or power. A more fruitful area of investigation might be the particular trials and tribulations that daily confronted the 85% of the inhabitants of a city, namely: conflict (within churches, between church and synagogue), and subsistence (food insufficiency, wretched hygiene, and lack of safety).
From our examination of the virtues and vices of the Seven Cities, we found extensive and continuous praise for the virtues of “courage” and “justice.”
Courage
By courage we refer to one of the four canonical virtues (wisdom, justice, courage, and self-control). Although some ancient authors embroidered the commonly accepted definition of this virtue, it was basically defined as this:
To courage it belongs to be undismayed by fears of death and confident in alarms and brave in face of dangers, and to prefer a fine death to base security, and to be a cause of victory. It also belongs to courage to labor and endure and play a manly part. Courage is accompanied by confidence and bravery and daring, and also by perseverance and endurance [Aristotle, Virtues and Vices 4.4, emphasis added].
Although Antipas was killed (2:13) for reasons not stated, we find no other reference of death threats to the members of any of the other churches. We do find, however, constant and explicit mention of “endurance” and “perseverance.”
2:2 patient endurance
2:9 affliction
2:13 hold fast (to my name)
2: 19 faith (faithfulness) and endurance
2:25 hold fast
3:10 kept my word with patient endurance
The critical term “perseverance” (hypomon?) basically means resistance to offensive pressure, which in this case refers to all attempts to weaken or abandon the original gospel. Of course “patient endurance” might theoretically refer to resistance to Roman imposition of worship of its emperor; but a close reading of the letters shows that it has more to do with local conflicts, either with other members of the ekklēsia or with the synagogue.
It remains for commentaries to describe fully the identity of the various divisions in the ekklēsiai (Mitchell: 180–82), but an index of the contentious parties includes:
2:6 you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. 2:14 those who hold the teachings of Balaam 2:15 some who hold to the teaching of the Nicolaitans 2:20 Jezebel, false prophet and teacher 2:24 this teaching … “the deep things of Satan” In addition, there are many references to the synagogue, which express conflict: 2:9 the slander on the part of those who say that they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan 3:9 I will make those of the synagogue of Satan who say that they are Jews and are not, but are lying—I will make them come and bow down before your feet.
Even this cursory itemizing of the expressed conflicts within the ekklēsiai and between them and the synagogue indicates that the focus of the author is on the current domestic tensions of the churches. In these letters, moreover, we find no reference to civic or Roman aggression toward them (if only we could expand on the reference to Antipas in 2:13). Christians, therefore, seem to be in constant conflict both within and without, and conflict affects the basic well being of every Christian group, for which courage is needed.
Justice
We are referring here to another of the four canonical virtues. When we seek to know the meaning of such a word, our default is to depend on ancient definitions of it, such as that of Aristotle:
To righteousness it belongs to be ready to distribute according to desert, to preserve ancestral customs and institutions and the established laws, and to keep agreements. First among the claims of righteousness are our duties to the gods, then our duties to the spirits, then those to country and parents, then those to the departed. Among these claims is piety (eusebeia), accompanied by holiness (hosiotēs) and truth and loyalty (pistis) and hatred of wickedness [Virtues and Vices, 5.2–3, emphasis added].
We are focusing, then, on who owes what to whom. The objects of this “owing” are God, city/country and family. Also of importance is the emphasis on “preserving ancestral customs and institutions.” We accept that “justice” is expressed in synonyms such as “faithful” and “true.”
To begin with, the large tapestry of Revelation puts great emphasis on the “justice” of both God and Jesus. Those victorious over the beast sing the song of Moses, which acclaims that “just and true are your ways” (15:3; 16:7), because God himself is “just” (15:5). Jesus is introduced as a “faithful witness,” that is, faithful to God (1:5). This same sobriquet is repeated in his ethos which begins the letter to Laodicea: “The words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness” (3:14). As God's chief warrior, he is tattooed with an appropriate name and function: “Its rider is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war” (19:11). The one who claims “I know” functions as a just judge in the immediate context of the seven letters: “I am the one who searches minds and hearts, and I will give to each of you as your works deserve” (2:24). Thus God and Jesus are just and true, and so they fulfil their dues to those whom they chose and who are loyal to them.
“Justice,” moreover, is both demanded and praised among the members of the seven churches. We see this in the loyalty Christians display in “keeping” the word and “holding to” the name of Jesus (Crook):
2:13 you are holding fast to my name, and you did not deny your faith in me. 3:8 you have kept my word and have not denied my name.
One pays one's dues to him to whom one is indebted; thus holding fast to his “words” and keeping his “name” indicate duty fulfilled. This just fidelity might be expressed as hating what Jesus hates: “You hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate” (2:6). Duty is denied Jesus when one holds a teaching at variance with the gospel of Jesus (2:14–15). We remember that “justice” is achieved when one “preserves ancestral customs and institutions,” that is loyal membership in the local ekklēsia.
“Love” is often cited as a part of justice, in which case it means to treat others as though they were kin—there being an existing duty so to treat kin. Again, we need an native informant to tell us what they meant by this word:
Let loving, then, be defined as wishing for anyone the things which we believe to be good, for his sake but not our own, and procuring them for him as far as lies in our power … he is a friend who shares our joy in good fortune and our sorrow in affliction, for our own sake and not for any other reason. … And they are friends who have the same ideas of good and bad, and love and hate the same persons, since they necessarily wish the same things; wherefore one who wishes for another what he wishes for himself seems to be the other's friend [Aristotle, Rhet. 2.4].
We argue that “love” as defined above means that each party has duties to the other; so “love,” as is often said, is an expression of the virtue of justice.
Hence, when Jesus praises Thyatira “‘I know your works—your love, faith, service, and patient endurance” (2:19), we understand this to have something to do with “love your neighbor as yourself.” The members of Thyatira are constant in this: “I know that your last works are greater than the first” (2:19), which distinguishes them from the Ephesians, who fall short of their practice of love/justice: “You have abandoned the love you had at first” (2:4). The chief vice of Laodicea is the seeming absence of concern for anyone else; they boast of self-sufficiency, which implies that their “wealth” serves only themselves and they are unmoved by the needs of others.
Although the words related to justice, judgment and just actions are scarce in the letters—although found elsewhere in Revelation—the fulfilment of duties to God, to Jesus, and to neighbors is very much in view. The duties to one another in the ekklēsia, moreover, are nerves and sinews of how the groups cohere and perhaps attract others. These are duties and obligations on a scale not found among the elites, either among themselves or in their relation to the rest of the 85%.
Needs Met or Ignored
We have seen above that daily living for the 85% was precarious and perilous. One paramount need was a regular supply of food. Close behind are basic necessities (water, sanitation, dwelling space), “power” (protection, advancement), and “meaning” (status, social location, identity). Illustrating all of these requires a large amount of space not found in this small study. But there are many suggestive remarks in the letters, which, when viewed through the lens of the 85%, might have significance.
Take food. We begin our consideration with the knowledge that the general population suffered from food insecurity, if not from downright hunger. We accept, moreover, that the basic diet of these people was vegetarian (vegetables, nuts, beans, lentils and fruit). Given the fact of food insufficiency among the peasant-artisans of a city, it is unlikely that fellow Christians could consistently feed themselves, much less any neighbors. The very mention of eating “meat sacrificed to idols” (2:14, 20) suggests membership in a guild of some sort, implying a form of commensality other than the typical domestic meal, but which was afforded by membership dues in a local guild. In contrast, Jesus invites those at Laodicea to admit him so that “I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me” (3:20). My default imagination sees something immediately concrete. This promise of food sufficiency seems currently improbable. The same might be said of “hidden manna” in 2:17. Only Jesus, then, provides food, but to disciples now subsisting in the cities?
Take power. Because of what we know about the social location of the 85%, we know that they had difficulty simply in defending themselves from theft, assault and other forms of urban violence. This is acknowledged: “I know that you have but little power, and yet you have kept my word” (3:8). Proof of this is expressed in the warning: “Beware, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison so that you may be tested, and for ten days you will have affliction” (2:10). Yet Jesus promises “power” to one church: “I will make those of the synagogue of Satan who say that they are Jews and are not, but are lying—I will make them come and bow down before your feet, and they will learn that I have loved you” (3:9). But this is unimaginable in the current social context. Power is currently concentrated in the hands of the elite. How might the powerless hear the promise, “To you who conquer”? Although we favor interpreting remarks about aggression toward the churches as realistic, the same cannot be said of “conquer” or of the rewards promised to the victors. This seems particularly true of the reward promised the victors of Thyatira: “To everyone who conquers …I will give authority over the nations; to rule them with an iron rod, as when clay pots are shattered—even as I also received authority from my Father” (2:26–28). At the very least, this will not happen soon.
Take status and identity. Sometimes disciples of Jesus are called “adopted” children, signalling their new standing in God's household (Moxnes 2003: 108–24). Sometimes churches are considered as collectivities, designated “body” of Christ, “household” of God, “people” of God, and “temple” of God. While the Pauline letter to the Ephesians initially declares disciples as xenoi and paroikoi, it then elevates their status to that of “citizens” (Eph 2:19). Each of the Seven Churches, while called ekklēsiai, do not have any broader meaning than the individual assembly in each city. Their place in God's household is never explained.
Traces of identity, status and social location, however, may be found in the phenomena of “names” in Revelation. It mattered greatly if one kept loyalty to the name “Christ” (2:13; 3:8) or denied it; identity and status—at least in Christ's eyes—was recognized by this. Those who kept that name were reciprocated when Jesus said “I will confess your name before my Father and before his angels” (3:5). In the course of Revelation, it greatly matters which name was tattooed on one's forehead. On the one hand, “One hundred and forty-four thousand had his name and his Father's name written on their foreheads” (14:1; 22:4). When identity, membership and citizenship issues are finally settled, the faithful and true disciples will be before the throne of God, where “his servants will worship him.” True disciples “will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads” (22:4).
On the other hand, for enemies of the Lamb and his God “there is no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and … who receive the mark of its name.” (14:1). The beast with seven heads, moreover, had on each of them “blasphemous names” (13:1). One could, therefore, tell the teams by this program. At Pergamum, “To everyone who conquers I will give … on the white stone is written a new name that no one knows except the one who receives it” (2:17; see 19:12–13). These names, old and new, indicate that a person named with one of the names effectively belongs on the citizen list of the New Jerusalem: “I will write on you the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem that comes down from my God out of heaven, and my own new name” (3:12). We note that the foundations and the gates of the new City are named according to the encomiastic value put on “origins” (ancestors and the like): gates: “ high wall with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and on the gates are inscribed the names of the twelve tribes of the Israelites” (21:12) and foundations: “The wall of the city has twelve foundations, and on them are the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb” (21:14, italics added).
What Do We Know if We Know This?
Meek's first urban Christians live in a world which in many ways conflict with social science understandings of an ancient city. He stresses certain items (mobility to and within the city) in ways that seem implausible for the 85% of the non-elite population, as indicated in urban systems examined systematically. He does not see the other urban Christians.
Knowing only the elite descriptions of the Seven Cities, while important, does not tell us much about the typical and ordinary lives of the 85%. This matters because the letters to the Seven Cities are addressed to them, not to the elites. Scholarship on elite aspects of the eastern cities tends to ignore and/or prevent consideration of their meanness and poverty.
Knowledge of a “city” must be more than a scholar's description, no matter how informed. Models from sociology and anthropology are needed to situate a “city” in regard to its surroundings and to consider the levels of organization within it. The models used here are formally noted, and their pedigree is recognized.
When we know how mean, disease-ridden, and wretched life was for the 85% of each city, we begin to construct an appropriate imaginative scenario to understand daily living there. It is to this part of the urban population that the Seven Letters are addressed.
We presume that the praise and blame contained in the letters to the Seven Cities has some relationship to the actual situation of each city, with its particular needs. The comments about courage and justice are not mere exhortation to abstract virtuous living.
The extensive knowledge that we have of Rome does not enlighten us as to the actual life lived in modest-sized cities of Asia. Knowledge of Rome may surface issues and questions which should be asked of the Seven Cities; but as capital of the world, it had resources unimaginable to eastern cities to ameliorate urban miseries.
While “honor” may describe the world of urban elites, their life-style, and their buildings, “shame” marks the life lived by the 85%. But this evaluation is an elite perspective.
Life according to the letters in Revelation 2–3 may profitably be filtered by means of ancient understandings of virtue and vice. In our discussion of the Seven Letters, two virtues in particular served to create a small-enough mesh for an investigative net to scoop up items from each letter which have relevance, because of their illustration of both “courage” and “justice.”
Knowing the meanness of the ancient city, we are alerted to specific items shared by the Seven Cities, namely, food concerns and lack of power.
Lack of collective identity surprised us for several reasons. First, its lack made it difficult to see how members of an individual ekklēsia thought of themselves and what group identity they had, beyond the name of Christ. Individual and unique “names” reinforce this impression. The “right” and “wrong” names distinguish the saints from sinners; and the wearing of the appropriate name on the forehead signals one's allegiance.