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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2020
Scholarly interpretations of the descent and description of the New Jerusalem in Revelation 21–22 have tended to evaluate the city against biblical and extra-canonical descriptions of the Jerusalem Temple, apocalyptic accounts of heaven and ancient utopian literature in general. While some have noted the ways in which the New Jerusalem parallels the description of Babylon elsewhere in the Apocalypse, no one has yet considered the ways in which the New Jerusalem mimics, mirrors and adapts the excesses of elite Roman architecture and decor. The argument of this article is that when viewed against the backdrop of literary and archaeological evidence for upper-class living space, the luxury of the New Jerusalem is domesticated and functions to democratise access to wealth in the coming epoch. The ways in which Revelation's New Jerusalem rehearses the conventions of morally problematic displays of luxury can partially explain later patristic discomfort with literalist readings of this passage.
We are grateful to Iveta Adams, Adela Yarbro Collins, Simon Gathercole, Meghan Henning, Christoph Markschies, the typesetter and producers of this article, and the anonymous reviewers for New Testament Studies for their suggestions and corrections. All remaining errors are our own.
1 Seneca, De tranquillitate animi 1.8.
2 Galen, On Affections and Errors 48, i.32 Kuhn.
3 On the language of the ‘therapy of desire’, see Nussbaum, M., The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994)Google Scholar. For the language of the ‘care of the self’, see Hadot, P., Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault (trans. Chase, M.; Oxford: Blackwell, 1995)Google Scholar.
4 On the use of the technique of ekphrasis in descriptions of the afterlife in Revelation, see Henning, M. R., Educating Early Christians through the Rhetoric of Hell: ‘Weeping and Gnashing of Teeth’ as Paideia in Matthew and the Early Church (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014)Google Scholar; Whitaker, R. J., Ekphrasis, Vision, and Persuasion in the Book of Revelation (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2015)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
5 Unless otherwise noted translations are from the NRSV.
6 The existence of paradoxes within heavenly space is a feature of Second Temple Jewish apocalyptic literature. See, for example, the presence of both fire and ice in heaven in 1 En. 14.10, 13–14, in which the temple is ‘hot as fire and cold as snow’. See discussion in G. W. E. Nickelsburg, ‘Enoch, Levi, and Peter: Recipients of Revelation in Upper Galilee’, JBL 100 (1981) 575–600; M. Himmelfarb, Ascent to Heaven in Jewish and Christian Apocalypses (Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 1993) 120 n. 31. There is, perhaps, a remnant of the description in Rev 15.2, in which God's throne is described as ‘a sea of glass mingled with fire’.
7 Like so much in the Apocalypse, the description of the heavenly city is replete with symbolic numbers. The measuring and measurements of the space, reminiscent of the prophetic and apocalyptic descriptions of the ideal temple, articulate the divine schema through the use of symbolic numbering.
8 Comparatively recent surveys of the cultural and literary sources of the New Jerusalem include P. Lee, The New Jerusalem in the Book of Revelation: A Study of Revelation 21–22 in the Light of its Background in Jewish Tradition (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001); E. J. Gilchrist, Revelation 21–22 in Light of Jewish and Greco-Roman Utopianism (Leiden: Brill, 2013).
9 There are many reasons to think that heavenly space is conceived of as a Temple. First, much apocalyptic literature is generated by concerns about the defilement or destruction of the Temple. For this view see, for example, the statement of J. J. Collins that ‘much of Jewish apocalyptic literature was inspired by three major crises that befell Jerusalem and its temple’ (J. J. Collins, ‘Jerusalem and the Temple in Jewish Apocalyptic Literature of the Second Temple Period’, International Rennert Guest Lecture Series 1 (1998) 10. For the view that Revelation was composed in reaction to the Judean war, see J. W. Marshall, Parables of War: Reading John's Jewish Apocalypse (Waterloo, ON: Wildred Laurier University Press, 2001) 88–97. Second, a number of ancient apocalyptic Jewish texts express the idea that heaven is a kind of temple and relate earthly rituals and practices to that heavenly temple. Finally, many elements of the description of the New Jerusalem overlap with descriptions of the earthly and heavenly temples and Rev 11.19 strongly implies that there is a heavenly city that contains the ark of the covenant. Interestingly, Zeno prohibited the building of temples in his description of the ideal city (SVF 1.62, frs. 264–71). See discussion in A. Erskine, The Hellenistic Stoa: Political Thought and Action (London: Duckworth, 1990), 24.
10 See Exod 25.8. For a discussion of divine dwelling places in the Hebrew Bible, see M. B. Hundley, Keeping Heaven on Earth: Safeguarding the Divine Presence in the Priestly Tabernacle (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011). For the connection of a New Jerusalem with Ezekiel's temple, see E. S. Fiorenza, Priester für Gott: Studien zum Herrschafts-und Priestermotiv in der Apokalypse (Münster: Aschendorff, 1972) 51. See Ezek 34.30; 36.28; 37.27; and Tg. Ezek. 37.26–7.
11 Ezek 40.3 and 5Q15. See discussion in F. García Martínez, ‘The “New Jerusalem” and the Future Temple of the Manuscripts from Qumran’, Qumran and Apocalyptic: Studies on the Aramaic Texts from Qumran (ed. F. García Martínez; Sudies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah; Leiden: Brill, 1994) 180–213 [131–3].
12 On numerology in apocalyptic literature in general and Revelation in particular, see A. Y. Collins, Cosmology and Eschatology in Jewish and Christian Apocalypticism (Leiden/New York: Brill, 1996) 55–137.
13 The construction of the city parallels 4Q164, a commentary on Isa 54.11–12 that describes the heavenly Jerusalem and mentions precious stones.
14 Tob 13.16–17; Pesiq. Rab Kah. 18.4–6. See discussion in García Martínez, ‘New Jerusalem’, 199.
15 R. J. Bauckham, The Climax of Prophecy: Studies on the Book of Revelation (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1995) 134. Bauckham is followed on this point by L. Pilchan, The New Jerusalem in the Book of Revelation: A Study of Revelation 21–22 in the Light of its Background in Jewish Tradition (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001) 285–6.
16 Isa 54.11–12; Tob 13.16–17; 11QTemple 36.11; 39.3; 41.15; Josephus, JW 5.201, 205, 207–8; m. Mid. 2.3.
17 Lucian, Ver. hist. 2.11–13.
18 Schol. 14 on Ver. hist. 2.11. H. Rabe, Scholia in Lucianum (Leipzig: Teubner, 1906) 21.
19 Plato, Leg. 761c; Aratus, Phaen. 107–9.; Virgil, Aen. 8.325; Ovid, Met. 1.107–8.
20 For fertile soil and easy cultivation, see descriptions of the Islands of the Blessed in Hesiod, Op. 161–73; Theog. 215–16; Pindar, Ol. 2.61–78; Elysian fields in Od. 4.561–9; Garden of Alcinous in Od. 7.112–32; Seneca, Herc. fur. 928–39. For the jewels of Platonic mythology, see Plato, Phaed. 107b–115c.
21 The tree of life is referenced in Rev 2.7 and Gen 2.9, and the river in Gen. 2.9–10.
22 On transformative eating in the ancient world, see M. J. C. Warren, Food and Transformation in Ancient Mediterranean Literature (ed. C. K. Rothschild; Writings from the Greco-Roman World Supplement Series; Atlanta: SBL, 2019).
23 For Talmudic references to the Herodian temple and its aesthetic, see discussion in T. Grossmark, ‘Shayish (Marble) in Rabbinic Literature’, Marble Studies: Roman Palestine and the Marble Trade (ed. M. L. Fischer; Konstanz: Universtätsverlag Konstanz, 1998) 274–84, at 277–8. For the view that glassy floors were intended to evoke creation imagery, see F. Barry, ‘Walking on Water: Cosmic Floors in Antiquity and the Middle Ages’, The Art Bulletin 89 (2007) 627–56, at 637.
24 For the view that the primeval garden of Revelation is not restored, see S. J. Friesen, Imperial Cults and the Apocalypse of Revelation: Reading Revelation in Ruins (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001) 161.
25 J. N. Kraybill, Apocalypse and Allegiance: Worship, Politics, and Devotion in the Book of Revelation (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2010) 164.
26 Parallels between real-world implements and architecture usually focus on the Jerusalem temple and ancient Near Eastern examples. See, for example, T. Ganzel's and Shalom Holtz's discussion of the influence of Babylonian temple architecture on Ezekiel's description of a temple in chapters 40–8 (T. Ganzel and S. E. Holtz, ‘Ezekiel's Temple in Babylonian Context’, VT 64 (2014) 211–26. See also David Aune's commentary, which discusses water flow in (real-life) Jerusalem and the golden measuring rod to an overlaid measuring stick from eighteenth-century dynastic Egypt (D. E. Aune, Revelation 17–22 (Word Biblical Commentary; Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1998) 1177, 59. The Roman elite was well known for using expensive materials for household items: according to Pliny, Mark Antony used ‘golden vessels’ as chamber pots (Nat. 33.50).
Steve Friesen comes closest to our argument when he discusses homologies in the Book of Revelation: ‘Rome/Babylon, the earthly Jerusalem, and the New Jerusalem are described in similar ways that point to “a common structure within good and evil in the Apocalypse”’ (Friesen, Imperial Cults, 164). He cites Leonard Thompson, The Book of Revelation: Apocalypse and Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990) 82. Thompson highlights the manner in which both Babylon and the New Jerusalem are dressed with gold, pearls and precious stones (Rev 18.16; 19.8; 21.18–19, 21). Both Thompson and Friesen deftly draw attention to the literary presentation of the major cities of the Book of Revelation. Our argument takes a somewhat different approach and argues that the description of the New Jerusalem resonates with descriptions of elite building projects in the Roman Empire. The descriptions thus have this-world as well as other-worldly connotations.
27 On animosity towards Rome in Revelation see A. Y. Collins, Crisis and Catharsis: The Power of the Apocalypse (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1984) 47, 111, 24; Kraybill, Apocalypse and Allegiance, 21, 50; Friesen, Imperial Cults, 172, 208–11; Thompson, Revelation, 191–2; S. D. Moore, Empire and Apocalypse: Postcolonialism and the New Testament (Bible in the Modern World 12; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2006) 97–121. Moore argues that the author of Revelation is not against empire in principle but only against the wrong people exercising imperial power.
Many of these works fall within the broader interest in ‘empire studies’ and responses to colonialisation. Key treatments of responses to empire within the field of New Testament include W. Howard-Brook and A. Gwyther, Unveiling Empire: Reading Revelation Then and Now (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2001); R. A. Horsley, Jesus and Empire: The Kingdom of God and the New World Disorder (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003); W. Carter, ‘Proclaiming (in/against) Empire Then and Now’, Word and World 25 (2005) 149–58.
28 This statement depends, of course, upon when one dates the Book of Revelation. Timothy D. Barnes argues that the book was written ‘late in Asia Minor in 68–69’, which would place the composition of the book within the latter period of the building's project. Even if Barnes's dating is correct, the Domus Aurea would have been commanding a great deal of attention. See T. D. Barnes, Early Christian Hagiography and Roman History 5 (Tria Corda; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010) 37–41 (quotation at 40).
29 Descriptions of the Golden House are preserved in the writings of a number of Nero's critics: Suetonius, Nero 31.1–2; Tacitus, Ann. 15.42; and Pliny, Nat. 34.84, 35.120, 36.111
30 Andrew Wallace-Hadrill quoted in ‘Nero's Pleasure Dome’, The Telegraph, 29 June 1999.
31 See discussion in J. W. Stamper, The Architecture of Roman Temples: The Republic to the Middle Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005) 158; R. Meneghini, A. Corsaro and B. P. Caboni, ‘Il Templum Pacis alla luce dei recenti scavi’, Divus Vespasianus: il bimelillenario del Flavi (ed. F. Coarelli; Rome: Ministero per i beni e la attivita culturali, 2009) 190–201, at 190.
32 S. V. Leatherbury, ‘Christian Wall Mosaics and the Creation of Sacred Space’, The Routledge Handbook of Early Christian Art (ed. R. M. Jensen and M. D. Ellison; New York: Routledge, 2018) 86–103. For the perspective that the influence of the Domus Aurea has been overstated see P. G. Warden, ‘The Domus Aurea Reconsidered’, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 40 (1981) 271–8.
33 E. Zanda, Fighting Hydra-Like Luxury: Sumptuary Regulation in the Roman Republic (London: Bloomsbury, 2011) 16–18.
34 Cicero, Dom. 116.
35 Cicero, who generally opposed ostentatious displays of wealth, considered it appropriate for politicians to live in spaces large enough to house large gatherings.
36 Plutarch writes that the ‘the gardens of Lucullus are considered among the most lavish of the imperial gardens’ (Luc. 39.2–3).
37 As the pioneering work of Wilhelmina Jashemski demonstrated, the remains of trees are sometimes found within houses. See W. F. Jashemski, ‘The Garden of Hercules at Pompeii (II.viii.6): The Discovery of a Commercial Flower Garden’, AJA 83 (1979) 403–22; The Gardens of Pompeii, Herculaneum and the Villa Destroyed by Vesuvius, 1 (New Rochelle: Caratzas Brothers, 1979) 290; The Gardens of Pompeii, Herculaneum and the Villa Destroyed by Vesuvius, 2 (New Rochelle: Caratzas Brothers, 1993).
38 Pliny, Nat. 19.50.
39 Pliny, Nat. 17.1. The House of the Moralist in Pompeii boasted a grove of Diana inside; on this, see P. Zanker, ‘Die Villa als Vorbild des späten pompejanischen Wohngeschmacks’, Jahrbuch des deutschen archäologischen Instituts 94 (1979) 460–523, at 488–9.
40 On the presence of lemon trees in the Villa di Poppea in Oplontis, see E. R. Ermolli, B. Menal, and M. R. B. Lumaga, ‘Pollen Morphology Reveals the Presence of Citrus Medica and Citrus X Limon in a Garden of Villa Di Poppea in Oplontis (1st Century bc)’, Agrumed: Archaeology and History of Citrus Fruit in the Mediterranea. Acclimatization, Diversifications, Uses (ed. V. Zech-Matterne and G. Fiorentino; Naples: Publications du Centre Jean Bérard, 2018) 157–84.
41 For details, see Pliny, Nat. 12.15, 15.47, 16.107, 17.64, 23.105. Pliny identifies citrus as an antidote to poison in 23.105. The motif of twelve forms of fruit is a continuation of Revelation's interest in numerology which, in this case, gestures to the tribes of Israel and the twelve disciples.
42 Dioscorides, Mat. med. 1.115.5; Pliny, Nat. 12.15; Servius, Commentary on Virgil's Georgics 2.121; Macrobius, Saturnalia 3.19.14.
43 C. Pagnaux, ‘Citrium: A Miraculous Fruit. Investigating the Uses of Citrus Fruits in the Western Mediterranean according to Ancient Greek and Latin Texts’, Agrumed: Archaeology and History of Citrus Fruit in the Mediterranean, 157–84.
44 Plutarch, Luc. 39.2–3.
45 C. Edwards, The Politics of Immorality in Ancient Rome (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993) 146. Edwards here refers to Suetonius, Cal. 37.2.
46 Cicero, Leg. 2.2.
47 Seneca, Ep. 89.21. See also his objection that ‘all vices rebel against nature’ in Ep. 122.5.
48 Tacitus, Ann. 15.42 writes that the architects ‘had the ingenuity and arrogance to try through their art what nature had forbidden and to fritter away even the resources of an emperor’. On this, see N. Purcell, ‘Town in Country and Country in Town’, Ancient Roman Villa Gardens (ed. E. B. MacDougall; Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 1987) 187–203. See also Pliny, Nat. 19.50.
49 Friesen, Imperial Cults, 164. Similarly, see Kraybill's statement that ‘[i]f Christians adapted sign and symbols from the Roman Empire and used them in exclusive worship of God and the Lamb, the borrowing was politically subversive’ (J. Nelson Kraybill, Imperial Cult and Commerce in the Book of Revelation (Sheffield: Sheffield University Press, 1996) 62).
50 For a critique of the idea that Nero persecuted Christians, see C. Moss, Myth of Persecution (San Francisco: Harper One, 2013) 138–9. B. D. Shaw, ‘The Myth of the Neronian Persecution’, JRS 105 (2015) 73–100. For criticisms of the existence of Domitianic persecution, see P. Kereszes, ‘The Jews, the Christians, and Emperor Domitian’, VC 27 (1973) 1–28; L. Thompson, ‘Social Location of the Early Christian Apocalyptic’, ANRW ii.26.3 (1996) 2615–56, at 2630–1. Adela Yarbro Collins hypothesises that rather than actually experiencing widespread persecution, the communities understood themselves to be experiencing persecution due to hostility from the local community. See Collins, Crisis and Catharsis, 97–103.
51 John Marshall argues for the slightly more specific date of 69–70. See Marshall, Parables of War, 88–97. Those who argue for a later date usually rely upon the testimony of Irenaeus, Haer. 5.50.3, which is cited with approval by Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 3.18–20, 5.8.6 and the analysis of Rome as ‘Babylon’ – a designation that seems to have arisen in a post-70 ce context. See e.g. Collins, Crisis and Catharsis, 76; G. R. Beasley-Murray, The Book of Revelation (London: Oliphants, 1974) 1027; G. Krodel, Revelation (Augsburg Commentary on the New Testament; Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1989) 62. For a date between 80 and 100 ce, see C. Koester, Revelation: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (Anchor Yale Bible Commentaries; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014) 76–7. For the view that Revelation should be dated to between 90 and 95 ce, see M. Karrer, Die Johannesoffenbarung: Ihr Text und ihre Auslegung, vol. i (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2012) 53. A date in the 60s is improbable because the city of Laodicea seems to be thriving, according to Rev 3.17, even though there was a large earthquake. See Thompson, Revelation; Friesen, Imperial Cults; A. Y. Collins, ‘Myth and History in the Book of Revelation: The Problem of its Date’, Traditions in Transformation: Turning Points in Biblical Faith (ed. B. Halpern and J. D. Levenson; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1981) 377–403, at 402.
52 While the Domus Aurea, which was constructed in the late sixties, has figured prominently in our discussions of elite and imperial building projects, it is but one, albeit exaggerated, example of the ambitions and luxury of Roman architecture.
53 There has been some discussion about whether or not Revelation is hostile to all kinds of wealth and power or just particular kinds of wealth, especially mercantile power. Bauckham argues that Revelation combats ‘Rome's collaborators in evil: the ruling class, the mercantile magnates, and the shipping industry’. See R. J. Bauckham, ‘The Economic Critique of Rome in Revelation 18’, Images of Empire (ed. L. Alexander; Sheffield: Sheffield University Press, 1991) 47–90, at 84. The difficulty with his analysis is that he conflates groups whose experience of wealth was very different. The humiliores, who worked for a living, would not have been confused with honestiores even if they possessed more wealth. See discussion in P. B. Duff, Who Rides the Beast? Prophetic Rivalry and the Rhetoric of Crisis in the Churches of the Apocalypse (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001) 63–7.
54 See, for example, T. Pippin, Death and Desire: The Rhetoric of Gender in the Apocalypse of John (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox, 1992); G. Carey, ‘Introduction: Apocalyptic Discourse, Apocalyptic Rhetoric’, Vision and Persuasion: Rhetorical Dimensions of Apocalyptic Discourse (ed. G. Carey and L. G. Bloomquist; St. Louis: Chalice, 1999) 161–79; D. A. Sánchez, From Patmos to the Barrio: Subverting Imperial Myths (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2008).
55 On the distinction between wealth, land and commerce, see R. M. Royalty, The Streets of Heaven: The Ideology of Wealth in the Apocalypse of John (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1998) 102–11.
56 Royalty, Streets of Heaven, 209.
57 Bauckham, ‘Economic Critique’.
58 Royalty, Streets of Heaven, 100.
59 Duff, Who Rides the Beast, 63.
60 G. A. Anderson, Charity: The Place of the Poor in the Biblical Tradition (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013).
61 D. Langgut, ‘The Citrus Route Revealed: From Southeast Asia into the Mediterranean’, American Society for Horticultural Science 52 (2017) 814–22.
62 On the egalitarian community of the New Jerusalem, see Kraybill, Imperial Cult, 23.
63 M. D. Mathews, Riches, Poverty, and the Faithful: Perspectives on Wealth in the Second Temple Period and the Apocalypse of John (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013) 217.
64 Edwards, Poiltics of Immorality, 24–32.
65 Clement, Paed. 3.2.12–13, 2.12.119. The example from Clement is cited by and discussed in K. Upson-Saia, Early Christian Dress: Gender, Virtue and Authority (Routledge Studies in Ancient History; New York: Routledge, 2011) 39–40.
66 See, for example, Tyconius of Carthage, Exposition of the Apocalypse 7.21.
67 Writing around 200 ce, Gaius of Rome seems to have been the first to attribute the authorship of Revelation to Cerinthus (Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 3.28.2). On the origins of Cerinthus, see C. E. Hill, ‘Cerinthus, Gnostic or Christ? A New Solution to an Old Problem’, Journal of Early Christian Studies 8 (2000) 135–72. On the association of the belly and loins in ancient thought see, for example, the writings of the first-century medical writer Rufus of Ephesus, ‘On Satyriasis and Gonorrhea 19–20’, Oeuvres de Rufus d’Éphèse: texte collationné sur les manuscripts, traduit pour la première fois en Français avec une introduction (ed. C. Daremberg; Paris: L'Imprimerie Nationale, 1879) 64–84, at 72, lines 4–21.
68 It is more common to focus on questions of authorship and attribution: ‘Revelation's universal acceptance within the early Church was based on the established tradition which attributed the book to the Apostle John’ (Constatinou, E. S., Guiding to a Blessed End: Andrew of Caesarea and his Apocalypse Commentary (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2013) 17CrossRefGoogle Scholar). See also Farmer, W. and Farkasfalvy, D., The Formation of the New Testament Canon (New York: Paulist, 1983) 156–7Google Scholar. These criteria for canonicity are isolated and discussed in McDonald, L. M., The Formation of the Christian Biblical Canon (Peabody, MA: Hendrikson, 1995) 228–49Google Scholar; ‘Identifying Scripture and Canon in the Early Church: The Criteria Question’, The Canon Debate (ed. L. M. McDonald and J. Sanders; Peabody, MA: Hendrikson, 2002) 416–39. We might note that the debate over canonisation might unhelpfully overshadow the conversation about the interpretation of the New Jerusalem here.
