7 Churches of Revelation
3. Pergamos
Historical Background
[Pergamos is the feminine form; Pergamum is the neuter form of the name; both were used.] Pergamos was located 70 miles north of Smyrna. Smyrna was the great commercial center; Ephesus, the great political center; Pergamos, the great religious center.
Its early history is obscure; there are evidences that it was occupied during the stone and bronze ages, but prior to Alexander the Great, Pergamos was little more than a castle on top of a hill.
Its foundation is ascribed to Arcadian colonists under the Heracleid Telephus (who routed the Achaeans on their landing in Mysia to attack Troy). Its name is said to have been derived from the son of Pyrrhus and Andromache who made himself king of Teuthrania by killing the king in single combat.
After the defeat of Antigonus at Ipsus in 301 B.C., the northwest Asia Minor was united to the Thracian kingdom of Lysimachus. Its impreg- nable position lent itself to its use as a treasury. However, Philetaerus betrayed Lysimachus’ trust by allying himself with Seleucus, Lysimachus’ rival. Subsequent rulers skillfully established themselves as a dominant power in Asia Minor and one of the principal centers of Hellenistic culture.
Wisely allying with Rome, it became an extremely wealthy and prosperous city, and for two centuries it became the official capital of the Roman province of Asia. Lacking proximity to the key trade routes, it eventually yields economic advantages to its better located rival, Ephesus. Al though not the seat of imperial and judicial authority, Pergamos became the center of the official religion of emperor “Caesar” worship. Augustus inaugurated emperor worship in order to give the empire a bond of common sentiment, and the first temple of this cult was erected at Pergamos in 27 B.C. Under Vespasian and his successors, it became a test of one’s faith if one would or would not offer incense to the statue of the emperor.
Pergamos is about 18 miles from the sea, about 80 miles north of Smyrna. The present city of Bergama has a population of only 20,000 (vs. almost 200,000 of old). Zeus is said to have been born there. The great altar stood on a foundation 125 ft by 115 ft, over 50 ft high, set in a colonnaded enclosure (Satan’s throne? Rev 2:13).
Aesculapium—health institutions before the scientific medical practice begun by Hippocrates—prospered for eight centuries. Functioning mostly by psychiatry and suggestion; sleep was induced and priests used their own methods (drugs and others) to cause patients to dream, and then interpret, etc. Bathing, whispered consultations, music, plays, and other techniques were employed as therapeutic aids.
Long before the New Testament days, Aesculapius had been recognized as a god (the son of Apollo and the virgin Cornois). He was termed “Savior” and it was claimed that he had the power to avert death. He was originally represented by the Anatolians as a serpent, and the Greeks later depicted him holding Hermes’ staff (the Caduceus) with the two-headed snake (see graphic, left).
The Caduceus was the official emblem of the city. [Hermes is the god of commerce!] It originally emerged from the brazen serpent of Moses. This is an example of a “macrocode”: an anticipatory sememe, explained by Christ (John 3:14) and leading to the most famous verse of all: John 3:16. It became a fetish and was destroyed as “Nehushtan”!
And the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died. Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD, and against thee; pray unto the LORD, that he take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people. And the LORD said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live. And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived. Numbers 21:6-9
“…fiery” = “brass.” This makes no sense until Jesus explains to Nicodemus…
And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. John 3:14-16
Now it came to pass in the third year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, that Hezekiah the son of Ahaz king of Judah began to reign. Twenty and five years old was he when he began to reign; and he reigned twenty and nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name also was Abi, the daughter of Zachariah. And he did that which was right in the sight of the LORD, according to all that David his father did. He removed the high places, and brake the images, and cut down the groves, and brake in pieces the brasen serpent that Moses had made: for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it: and he called it Nehushtan. 2 Kings 18:1-4
Aesculapius
Friedlander surveyed 242 logos or insignias of American organizations relating to health or medicine in which the caduceus or staff of Aesculapius (left) formed an integral part dating from the late 1970s to early 1980s. He found that professional associations were more likely to use the staff of Aesculapius (62%) while commercial organizations were more likely to use the caduceus (76%). The exception is for hospitals, where only 37% used a staff of Aesculapius versus 63% for the caduceus (but remember that U.S. hospitals are usually commercial ventures). [Friedlander, Walter J., The Golden Wand of Medicine: A History of the Caduceus Symbol in Medicine, New York, Greenwood, 1992.]
