The Seven Bowls and the Ruin of Babylon

“Wisdom is needed here; one who understands can calculate the number of the beast, for it is a number that stands for a person. His number is six hundred and sixty-six.” Thus, at the end of chapter 13, John proposes an enigma: the number of the beast: 666. Many explanations have been given, especially for the fact that in the ancient world the Jews, the Greeks, the Romans did not have appropriate signs for numbers; they used the letters of the alphabet.

Therefore, a name written in letters can also have a number value. Adding the value of each letter gives a number. And then, trying transpositions in Hebrew, in Greek, in Latin, names were searched whose number gave the sum of 666. A loss of time!

Any of the advanced hypotheses don't work. They are wrong because there is no way of verification. The meaning is linked with the reference to 6, which is the number of man. It is the number of human impotence, of limitation. It's below seven. The beast, the one that comes out of the ground, as a corruption of religious power, it is the typical image of corrupt humanity. So 666 is not the number of the demon; it is the number of man, of human nature corrupted by evil and I need of redemption.

It is interesting to know that, in Greek, the name of Jesus, gives another number. This is a clear fact. If we assume the values of the letters that make up the name ‘iesus,’ Do you know what number we get? 888 = eight - eight - eight is the fullness, the realization of the 7 in fullness; and superseding time, the seven-day cycle that always starts again. It is the image of the eighth day, it is the day of eternity, it is the reason why in ancient times baptisteries were always octagonal in shape. Immersing yourself in the octagon means entering into communion with the newness of Jesus Christ; overcoming 6 6 6.

Inserted into Christ, we become 8 8 8. These are symbolic games to be enjoyed. It may not be to our modern poetic taste, but they were the usual way of expressing of these ancient authors of apocalyptic current, to which John and his writings also belong.

Therefore, we are in the final phase of the Book of Revelation. In chapter 16 we find the third septenary, the one with the bowls. Remember that we have already found two others: the signs - the trumpets; and now the bowls. Some translation render this word as cups, but ‘bowls’ is a better translation. These were liturgical objects that contain the victim's blood. The blood to be shed in expiation.

Therefore, in chapter 16 John contemplates a heavenly liturgy. Seven liturgical angels, "Clothed in shining pure linen" like the ancient priests; they carry 7 bowls that contain the wrath of God. The expression is strange; we do not understand it immediately. It does not mean that God is angry, that He is furious and ventures on humanity. It means God's decisive intervention against evil. And the blood represents the very life of God. God's wrath intervenes by offering himself; not killing enemies but directly offering His own life to save enemies. These images should be well clarified in the evangelical perspective and not forced as discourses contrary to those of the evangelical teachings.

The Book of Revelation does not speak of violence; does not speak of God's toughness against enemies to the point of killing them, but repeats the same gospel message, where we find that Christ loses his life to save evil humanity. It is a matter of understanding the apocalyptic language, and not making it say what it does not intend to say.

In chapter 16 the septenary of the bowls shows the great atonement, the bloodshed who redeemed the world. The Christian who read or listened this text understood it very well; is the summit event of the death and resurrection of Jesus. With his blood, says the letter to the Hebrews, Christ entered the sanctuary of heaven once and for all, earning us an eternal redemption.

With apocalyptic language, it is the same message present in chapter 16. But before this chapter we have found the triptych of signs: the woman and the snake; the conflict between humanity and the devilish power. How is this conflict resolved? With the third sign: precisely the angels who shed blood and obtain redemption. Practically, with chapter 16, the septenary ends and the Book of Revelation could also end here, instead we still have several chapters: 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22. Six more chapters where no more septenaries appear but a series of scenes to show the consequences of the redemption made by Christ.

And then in the last part of the Book of Revelation, starting in chapter 17, we have the symbolic description of the consequences of what Christ's death and resurrection have done. The effects are two and are opposite: salvation and judgment. God intervened in history to establish change. The accomplished salvation must be accepted. If it is rejected it becomes a judgment. And, therefore, this last part of the Book of Revelation is characterized by two important symbolic figures: Babylon and Jerusalem, two cities; the prostitute and the spouse, two women.

The symbols overlap: one speaks of Babylon the prostitute and the other of Jerusalem the spouse. They are two fundamental symbols: the city and the woman are two symbols of relationship. John proposes the woman as the image of humanity itself, understood in a relational way; and the qualification of the woman as a prostitute or as a spouse, reveals the love relationship. A false relationship or an authentic relationship. Where love is faked and where love is authentic.

It is not an invention of John; it is a prophetic tradition of the Old Testament. Many prophets spoke of the people of Israel saying that they prostituted themselves, that they pretended to love God, but in reality, they loved other things, other realities; they were sold to idols for interest. They did not remain faithful to the covenant with God. Israel became a prostitute. On the other hand, the prophets themselves present as an ideal image that of the faithful people who maintain their nuptial loyalty. She is the wife truly in love and faithful to the Lord. In the perspective of salvation, the prophets speak of an adulterous people who are transformed into a faithful people.

Thus, John starts from this prophetic tradition to talk about humanity with the symbols of women and the city. While the symbol for women refers more to the person, the symbol for the city alludes to the community. The woman is the individual; the city is a collective, therefore, overlapping the relationship of women and the city, and the person with the community; the individual and the people. The city may be Babylon or it may be Jerusalem; the person can be a prostitute or a spouse.

At the beginning of this last part of the Book of Revelation, John presents Babylon the prostitute. At the end, he presents Jerusalem, and the spouse. Are they two different realities, the good and the bad? In my opinion, NO. They are not two opposite figures, as if some people were identified with Babylon and others were identified with Jerusalem. It is a simplistic comparison. Remember that, at school, as children, the board was divided into two parts: good and bad. The world does not work that way. So, what? The two images must overlap; and these last chapters want to evoke rather than describing, the transition from Babylon to Jerusalem, from the prostitute to the wife.

But what do these comparisons represent? These images represent humanity; it is the same humanity that John had remembered in chapter 12. Do you remember that? The woman clothed with the sun, beautiful, in the original splendor of creation. The woman is humanity, but that woman, left in the desert, chased by the dragon, now in chapter 17 we find her again; it is the same woman; it is the same symbolic image.

John is taken to the desert and sees ... and is surprised to see the woman who made an alliance with the beast. Seeing that the devilish power persecuted her, instead of opposing trusting in God, she made an alliance with the political, with the religious power, with satanic elements.

Humanity sold herself to evil in order to have something, to do her own interests; and the city became Babylon: confusion, injustice, competition, deception. The city is full of personal images, like a prostitute, who is the person marked by the same evil that characterizes the city: false, cheating, self-centered, ready to participate in the competition to crush the other, to do what she likes. Babylon the prostitute is described in chapter 17.

For centuries, scholars have argued about the identification of this symbol and this is still discussed today. John’s intentions are not entirely clear, precisely because the writing is deeply poetic and symbolic; and this allows various interpretations. One of the most common interpretations, even today, it is the one that sees in the figure of Babylon the Roman empire, the structure of Rome, as if it were a realistic description of a concrete political structure. The deception comes from the fact that we are talking about a woman who is enthroned on seven hills.

The translator even translates seven hills, but in Greek they are ‘mountains.’ And we have in our ear the seven hills of Rome, and it is normal that we make the application. It doesn't work because the image of ‘seven’ is very common in the Book of Revelation, and the image of the mountains is generally reminiscent of power. And the whole structure does not lead to identifying it in this way, so materially.

It does not seem correct to me to say that Babylon represents Rome because at this point we lose the deep symbolic dimension, it would simply be an enigma, it would be like saying that John was very disturbed by the Roman Empire and describes it as a great corrupt woman announcing its end and destruction. In the following centuries, then, this text had to be read as the announcement of the destruction of the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire fell; Rome itself not, as a city.

Having read this text today, two thousand years later, what do I deduce from this text? The fact that John was unhappy with the Roman Empire, and expected the empire to end? Only this? It would be an archaeological fact; it would no longer be a living word for me today. It is clear that John, in the first century, had before him the Roman imperial structure and, therefore, if he criticized the corrupt society, he criticized the society of his time.

However, the symbolic discourse does not stop at the society of his time, but is a concern to every society, to every corrupt structure; that's why it seems more correct to me not to look at such an elemental identification: Babylon represents Rome. Many times in the notes of the Bibles we find this explanation ... you can check it. It is such an elementary explanation that it blocks the same explanation.

Another recent author even proposes the opposite. He sees in Babylon the corrupt Judaism; Jerusalem dominated by the Sadducees who made an alliance with the Roman Empire and was destroyed. John could say that since the structure of Jerusalem was corrupted by power and ended badly (because when he writes the Book of Revelation, Jerusalem had already been destroyed). Different authors today support these material identifications.

It seems appropriate to me to broaden the interpretation. Both can remain, but are partial because there are not only these two explanations. The corrupt power was in Jerusalem with Annas and Caiaphas, and with the Sanhedrin. And the corrupt power was in Rome with Tiberius, Caligula, Nero, Vespasian ... yes, it is true, but not only there. Today Babylon can also be identified with Nazism, with Soviet imperialism, with American consumerism. 'Babylon' is all of these ... not a single explanation. It is within the corruption of the person and of society.

In the Middle Ages, the Franciscan movement saw in Babylon the image of the corruption of the Church and it used this image of the Book of Revelation a lot, to talk about the corrupt Church that conspired with the empire, it was no longer the Roman Empire, but the Holy Roman Empire. It was always a prostitution game with political power; was the corruption of the great chiefs, of the popes and the bishops who conspired for power, and the Franciscan movement at first identified Babylon the prostitute with the corrupt Roman curia.

Dante Alighieri, in his Apocalypse, which is The Divine Comedy, often referred to the text of John. Dante, educated in the Holy Cross by Peter John Olivi, who was a Franciscan expert of the Book of Revelation. And Dante used that language to judge the corrupt situation of his time. In the nineteenth song of hell, when he visits the pit of the simoniacs and finds pope Boniface VIII, he presents himself as the one who correctly interprets the Book of Revelation in his own way, and speaking furiously to the simoniac pope and to all the other corrupt pastors, he says:

“Because your avarice afflicts the world,

Trampling the good and lifting the depraved.

The Evangelist you Pastors had in mind,

When she who sitteth upon many waters

To fornicate with kings by him was seen;

The same who with the seven heads was born,

And power and strength from the ten horns received,

So long as virtue to her spouse was pleasing.”

You corrupt pastors are the prostitute that John talks about in Revelation. Such a Catholic application later passed on to Protestant reformers. And in the 1500s, many reform movements in Germany read the Book of Revelation in an anti-Roman key. If you look at a reproduction of Dürer, you will see how the image of the prostitute on the beast it is presented with papal characteristics. He puts on the beast a cloak, the tiara and the staff of the high pontiff. It is a controversy within the Church against a structure believed to be corrupt. This is also a correct, but partial application. So, what does John mean? Not a criticism of an institution, but to highlight how corrupt humanity was: the structure of the Sanhedrin was corrupted; so was the structure of the Roman empire; and the structure of the church. It is also true for many realities of today. The revelation speaks of a Babylonian humanity who has prostituted herself to evil, but this is the starting point, the target is Jerusalem, the wife. The last part of the Book of Revelation wants to present this great transformation.