The Whore of Babylon
In another tract, Hunting the Whore of Babylon,
we looked at nine arguments given by fundamentalist Dave Hunt for his claim
that the Catholic Church is the Whore of Babylon from Revelation 17–18.
His arguments are typical of those used by fundamentalist anti-Catholics
and are easily proven wrong. (See that tract for details).
But we can go beyond a mere critique of the shallow
anti-Catholic arguments like Hunt’s. There is irrefutable evidence in Revelation
17–18 (the chapters Fundamentalists love to quote against the Catholic
Church) that proves that it is impossible for the Catholic Church to be
the Whore.
A Vision in the Wilderness
When John introduces the Whore in Revelation 17,
he tells us: "Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came
and said to me, ‘Come, I will show you the judgment of the great harlot
who is seated upon many waters, with whom the kings of the earth have committed
fornication, and with the wine of whose fornication the dwellers on earth
have become drunk.’ And he carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness,
and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast which was full of blasphemous
names, and it had seven heads and ten horns. The woman was arrayed in purple
and scarlet, and bedecked with gold and jewels and pearls, holding in her
hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of her fornication;
and on her forehead was written a name of mystery: ‘Babylon the great,
mother of harlots and of earth’s abominations.’ And I saw the woman, drunk
with the blood of the saints and the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. When
I saw her I marveled greatly" (Rev. 17:1–6).
This passage tells us several things about the
Whore: (1) She is an international power, since she "sits on many waters,"
representing different peoples (17:15), and she has committed fornication
with "the kings of the earth," and she has inflamed "the dwellers on earth"
with her fornication. (2) She is connected with the seven-headed Beast
from Revelation 13:1–10. That Beast was a major pagan empire, since its
symbolism combined animal elements from four other major pagan empires
(compare Rev. 13:1–2 with Dan. 7:1–8). (3) The Woman is connected with
royalty, since she is dressed in the royal color purple. (4) The Woman
is rich, for she is "bedecked with gold and jewels and pearls, holding
in her hand a golden cup." (5) She has committed some kind of fornication,
which in Scripture is often a symbol of false religion—lack of fidelity
to the God who created heaven and earth. (6) She is symbolically known
as Babylon. (7) She is a central cause of "abominations" in the land, abominations
being a reference to practices, especially religious practices, that are
offensive to God. And (8) she persecutes Christians "the saints and . .
. martyrs of Jesus."
While the rest of her description could refer to
a number of things, the symbolic designation "Babylon" narrows it down
to two: pagan Rome and apostate Jerusalem. It is well known that the early
Church Fathers referred to pagan Rome as "Babylon"; however, there are
also indications in Revelation that the Whore might be apostate Jerusalem.
Historically, a number of commentators, both Protestant and Catholic, have
adopted this interpretation.
The Seven Heads
Continuing in Revelation, the angel begins to explain
to John the woman’s symbolism: "This calls for a mind with wisdom: the
seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman is seated; they are
also seven kings, five of whom have fallen, one is, the other has not yet
come, and when he comes he must remain only a little while" (Rev. 17:9–10).
Fundamentalists argue that these seven mountains
must be the seven hills of ancient Rome. However the Greek word here, horos,
is almost always translated "mountain" in Scripture. Mountains are
often symbols of kingdoms in Scripture (cf. Ps. 68:15; Dan. 2:35; Obad.
8–21; Amos 4:1, 6:1), which might be why the seven heads also symbolize
seven kings. The mountains could stand for a series of seven kings, five
of whom have already fallen.
This passage gives us a key rule of Bible interpretation
which is often denied by Fundamentalists: A symbol does not have to refer
to one and only one thing. Here Scripture itself tells us that the heads
refer both to seven mountains and seven kings, meaning the
symbol has multiple fulfillments. Thus there is not a one-to-one correspondence
in the Bible between symbols and their referents.
Also, the mountains could be a reference to pagan
Rome, yet the Whore could still be a reference to apostate Jerusalem. In
this case, her sitting on the Beast would not indicate a geographical location
but an alliance between the two powers. The Whore (Jerusalem) would be
allied with the Beast (Rome) in persecuting "the saints and . . . martyrs
of Jesus." (Note that the Whore also sits on many waters, which we are
told are many peoples, [cf. 17:15]. The context makes it clear that here
her "sitting" on something does not refer to a geographical location.)
This passage gives us one reason why the Catholic
Church cannot be the Whore. We are told that the heads "are also seven
kings, five of whom have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come." If
five of these kings had fallen in John’s day and one of them was still
in existence, then the Whore must have existed in John’s day. Yet Christian
Rome and Vatican City did not. However, pagan Rome did have a line
of emperors, and the majority of commentators see this as the line of kings
to which 17:10 refers. Five of these emperors are referred to as having
already fallen, one as still reigning in John’s time, and another yet to
come. Since Jerusalem had no such line of kings in the first century, this
gives us evidence that the Beast (though not the Whore) is Rome.
The Ten Horns
The angel also interprets for John the meaning
of the Beast’s ten horns: "And the ten horns that you saw are ten kings
who have not yet received royal power, but they are to receive authority
as kings for one hour, together with the beast. These are of one mind and
give over their power and authority to the beast; they will make war on
the Lamb, and the Lamb will conquer them, for he is Lord of lords and King
of kings, and those with him are called and chosen and faithful" (17:12–14).
This shows us that the Beast is allied with ten
lower rulers and with their own territories. Some Fundamentalists bent
on making this apply to modern times and the Catholic Church have argued
that the horns refer to the European Community (EC) and a revived Roman
empire with the Catholic Church at its head. The problem is that there
are ten kings, but there are now many more than ten nations
in the EC.
However, what we are told about the horns does
fit one of the other candidates we have for the Whore—apostate Jerusalem.
The angel tells John: "And the ten horns that you saw, they and the beast
will hate the harlot; they will make her desolate and naked, and devour
her flesh and burn her up with fire, for God has put it into their hearts
to carry out his purpose by being of one mind and giving over their royal
power to the beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled" (17:16–17).
If the Whore is Jerusalem and the Beast is Rome
(with the ten horns as vassal states), then the prophecy makes perfect
sense. The alliance between the two in persecuting Christians broke down
in A.D. 66–70, when Rome and its allied forces conquered Israel and then
destroyed, sacked, and burned Jerusalem, just as Jesus prophesied (Luke
21:5–24).
The Whore’s Authority
Finally the angel tells John: "And the woman that
you saw is the great city which has dominion over the kings of the earth"
(17:18). This again points to pagan Rome or apostate Jerusalem. In the
case of the former, the dominion would be political; in the case of the
latter, it could be a number of things. It could be spiritual dominion
in that Jerusalem held the religion of the true God. It could be a reference
to the manipulation by certain Jews and Jewish leaders of gentiles into
persecuting Christians.
It could even be political, since Jerusalem was
the center of political power in Canaan and, under the authority of the
Romans, it ruled a considerable amount of territory and less powerful peoples.
On this thesis "the kings of the earth" would be "the kings of the land"
(the Greek phrase can be translated either way). Such local rulers of the
land of Canaan would naturally resent Jerusalem and wish to cooperate with
the Romans in its destruction—just as history records they did. Local non-Jewish
peoples were used by the Romans in the capture of Jerusalem.
The hub of world commerce
Continuing in chapter 18, John sees the destruction
of the Whore, and a number of facts are revealed which also show that she
cannot be the Catholic Church. For one, she is depicted as a major center
of international trade and commerce. When it is destroyed in chapter 18,
we read that "the merchants of the earth [or land] weep and mourn for her,
since no one buys their cargo any more" (18:11) and "all shipmasters and
seafaring men, sailors and all whose trade is on the sea . . . wept and
mourned, crying out, ‘Alas, alas, for the great city, where all who had
ships at sea grew rich by her wealth!’" (18:17–19).
Pagan Rome was indeed the hub of world commerce
in its day, supported by its maritime trading empire around the Mediterranean,
but Christian Rome is not the hub of world commerce. After the Reformation,
the economic center of power was located in Germany, Holland, England,
and more recently, in the United States and Japan.
Persecuting apostles and prophets
When the Whore falls we read, "‘Rejoice over her,
O heaven! Rejoice, saints and apostles and prophets! God has judged her
for the way she treated you’. . . . In her was found the blood of prophets
and of the saints, and of all who have been killed on the earth" (18:20,
24). This shows that the Whore persecuted not just Christians, but apostles
and prophets. Apostles existed only in the first century, since one of
the requirements for being an apostle was seeing the risen Christ (1 Cor.
9:1). Prophets existed as a group only in the Old Testament and in the
first century (Acts 11:27–28, 13:1, 15:32, 21:10).
Since the Whore persecuted apostles and prophets,
the Whore must have existed in the first century. This totally demolishes
the claim that Christian Rome or Vatican City is the Whore. Rome was not
a Christian city at that time, and Vatican City did not even exist, so
neither of them could be the Whore. Furthermore, Fundamentalists continually
(though wrongly) claim that Catholicism itself did not exist in the first
century, meaning that based on their very own argument Catholicism
could not be the Whore!
Fundamentalists are fond of conjecturing that in
the last days there will be a "revived Roman empire," such as the one that
persecuted Christians in the first century. Yet they never draw the inference
that this empire would be headed by a revived pagan Rome, with the
bishop of Rome leading the Christian underground, just as he did in the
first century.
Still, Revelation 18:20 and 18:24 prove that the
Whore had to be a creature of the first century, which, in the Fundamentalist
view, the Catholic Church was not. Thus, on their own view, their identification
of the Catholic Church with the Whore is completely impossible! Only ancient,
pagan Rome or apostate Jerusalem could possibly be the Whore.
If Not the Whore, the Bride
The fact that the Catholic Church is singled out
by Fundamentalists as the Whore reveals that they intuit the fact it has
an important role in God’s plan. No other church gets accused of being
the Whore—only the Catholic Church. And it is understandable why: The Catholic
Church is the largest Christian body, larger than all other Christian bodies
put together, suggesting a prominent place in God’s plan. Fundamentalists
assume, without objectively looking at the evidence, that the Catholic Church
cannot be the Bride of Christ, so it must be the Whore of Babylon.
Yet the evidence for its true role is plain. The
First Vatican Council taught that "the Church itself . . . because of its
marvelous propagation, its exceptional holiness, and inexhaustible fruitfulness
in all good works; because of its Catholic unity and invincible stability,
is a very great and perpetual motive of credibility and an incontestable
witness of its own divine mission" (On the Catholic Faith 3).
So why is the Bride maligned as the Whore?
Jesus himself answered the question:
"If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household" (Matt. 10:25).
"If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.
If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world . . . the world hates you.
Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’
If they persecuted me, they will persecute you" (John 15:18–20).
NIHIL OBSTAT:
I have concluded that the materials
presented in this work are free of doctrinal or moral errors.
Bernadeane Carr, STL, Censor Librorum, August 10, 2004
IMPRIMATUR:
In accord with 1983 CIC 827
permission to publish this work is hereby granted.
+Robert H. Brom, Bishop of San Diego, August 10, 2004
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