The Apocalypse as a Symbolic Transformation

of the World: A Literary AnalysL*

D A V I D L. BARR
Associate Professor
Wright State University

T h e hearers of the Apocalypse of J o h n

are set in another world in which
lambs conquer and suffering rules,
where victims have become the victors

A NYONE WHO WISHES to make sense out of the Apocalypse of John must
account for one fundamental fact: It was written to give courage and comfort
to Christians in Asia Minor in a time of trouble. Whether that trouble was well
underway, just beginning, or only in prospect makes no difference to the argu-
ment here. Pliny's letter to Trajan shows that the situation in Asia Minor soon
lived up to John's worst expectations. 1 Christianity had no official sanction and
Christians had to live with at least the prospect that they would be killed for their
faith.
John was apparently successful in meeting the needs of his churches, as the
continued existence of his book testifies. In fact, the Apocalypse was not only
preserved, it continued to be useful in the lives of churches to such an extent that it
gained a place in the canonthe only Christian apocalypse to do so. How did this
strange book prove to be useful when, on the face of it, it failed rather spec-
tacularly to deliver on its promise that Jesus would come "soon" (1:1,7; 6:11; 10:6;
11:15; and esp. 22:6, 7, 10, 20)? T h e world has stubbornly refused to end, yet the

*This is a revised version of a paper originally read at the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical
Literature in San Francisco, California, on December 20, 1981 I owe a special thanks to Dr Irvin
Batdorf who spent an afternoon helping me to see widere my argument needed more thought
1 That such encouragement was John's purpose is the nearly uniform conclusion of the com-
mentators See Joseph Plescia, "On the Persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire," LATOMUS
30 120-32 (1971), or W H C Frend, Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church A Study of Conflict
from the Maccabees to Donatus (Oxford, Blackwells, 1967), also Howard Clark Kee, The Origins of
Christianity Sources and Documents (Englewood Cliffs, PrenticeHall, 1973), pp 5153

39
Apocalypse continued to be useful. A careful examination of John's use of
symbols, the shape and plot of his story, and the manner in which he uses that
story to change the way his hearers experienced life has convinced me that J o h n
succeeded precisely because of the power of his Apocalypse to found a new world.
That is to say, the world did end. But that is the conclusion, not a starting point of
this essay. We must begin with an examination of the symbolism of the
Apocalypse.
T h e first thing we must do with a piece of literature, Northrup Frye has wryly
observed, is read it.2 That is, we must begin with the actual experience of the work
of literature, accepting for the time being the world it creates. So for the next few
paragraphs the reader must remember that we move in a world of angels and
monsters, whores and virgins, Christ and Antichrist. It is a world characterized by
near-total dualism, with no consideration of a middle way. It is a world at war, as
Adela Yarbro Collins has extensively shown, 3 and wartime is no time for cooper-
ation and compromise.
John's world also has another sort of dualism: an above and a below. Most of the
book recounts what John sees and hears when he ascends into the above (4:1), the
true world of which this one is but a shadow or reflection. One journeys to this
world "en peneumati" a phrase that is used three times to reflect a change of
location (4:2; 17:3; and 21:10) 1 and once to inaugurate the visionary process
(l : 10). This world of the "above" is the world where God is (4:2), it is the world to
which the redeemed will ascend at death (11:12), and in the gospel associated with
the name John it is the world from which Jesus descended (8:23). T h e reader/
hearer is asked to believe, then, that there exists a world above this one where it is
possible to see "what must soon take place" (1:1), a world into which John has
entered by means of the spirit. Let us, too, ascend.
The remarkable melange of images we encounter in this other world is at first
quite baffling, but the writer helps us by providing explicit interpretations of
several of these images.
I count at least ten such conscious interpretations, beginning in chapter one
when he tells us the seven stars and lamps symbolize the seven churches and their
angels (1:20).5 In many other instances the meaning of the symbol is implicit in the
text (the lamb of 5:6 is surely Jesus), and most of the rest can be guessed by their
context in the book or in first century mythologies. 6
Two aspects of John's interpretation of his symbols strike me as noteworthy.
First is the rather pedestrian nature of the prosaic reality to which they refer. We

2. The Aims and Method of Scholarship in Modern Languages and Literature, James Thorpe, ed. (Modern
Language Assoc, 1970), pp. 77-78.
3. The Combat Myth in the Book of Revelation (Chico, Scholars Press, 1976).
4. Kenneth R.R. Gros Louis takes enpneumati to be a major structural device, but this is true only in a
secondary fashion (Literary Interpretation o Biblical Narratives [Nashville, Abingdon, 1974]).
5. John explicitly interprets his imagery in 1:8; l:13ff.; 8:3ff.; 10:1-11;11:7; 13:6; 13:18; 14:14-20;
17:9-15; 18:21; 19:11-16; implicit interpretations are evident at 4:111 ; 5:6; 6:1-8; 12-17; 12:landa
number of other places.
6. One of the best sources for identifying references to these symbols is J.P.M. Sweet, Revelation
(Philadelphia, Westminster, 1979).

40
 The Apocalypse as a Symbolic Transformation of the World
Interpretation

are not talking about stars but about churches (1:20). We are not really eating
books; we are prophesying (10:911). It would never have occurred to me to
picture a prayer meeting as an angel with a golden censer before the throne of
God suddenly throwing it on the earth with thunder, lightning, and earthquake
ensuing (8:35); but perhaps John's prayer meetings were more lively than those I
have seen. There is something maliciously appropriate in symbolizing the gran-
deur of Rome as a gaudy prostitute riding on a scarlet beast, at least from the
provincial perspective of John ( 17:3 14). But it is late first century Roman culture
that is being discussed, not gaudy prostitutes. T h e first point, then, is to keep our
heads in the midst of all this exotic symbolism and remember we are hearing about
quite common, everyday realities.
The first point is related to the dualistic view of the world noted earlier. On one
level, the "above," we move in a fantastic, fascinating, multifaceted world among a
profusion of images. On the other level, the "below" to which all of these images
eventually refer, it is the quite common world of ordinary Christians in first
century Asia Minor. This does not mean that the Apocalypse should be read like a
coded message: lamp equals church; angel with censer equals prayer meeting.
Premature translation would rob the book of its power; if John had intended to
write about prayer meetings, he would have. By and large John used true symbols
meant to evoke complex intellectual and psychological responses. 7 Nevertheless,
John's own interpretations refer us back to the mundane world he shared with his
audience.
The second point is the remarkable symbolic transformations that John accom-
plishes at crucial points in his narrative. He completely reverses the value of
certain symbols of power and conquest by transforming them into images of
suffering or weakness. I note three such transvaluations. T h e first and most
dramatic occurs in chapter 5. John is told that the "Lion of the Tribe of Judah, the
Root of David, has conquered," but what he sees is "a Lamb standing as though it
had been slain." A more complete reversal of value would be hard to imagine.
Now on one level this is simply the recital of history: Jesus just did not match u p to
the grand and regal messianic expectations of the Hebrew tradition. But John is
also making a bold theological assertion: the Lamb is the Lion. Jesus is the
Messiah, but he has performed his messianic office in a most extraordinary way,
by his death. Yet his death is not defeat, for it is just this that makes him worthy to
open the scroll revealing the will of God. Jesus conquered through suffering and
weakness rather than by might. John asks us to see both that Jesus rejects the role
of Lion, refuses to conquer through supernatural power, and that we must now
give a radical new valuation to lambs; the sufferer is the conquerer, the victim the
victor.
We encounter a similar reversal in chapter 12. There we are told about a dark

7. For discussion of religious symbolism see F.W. Dillistone, ed., Myth and Symbol (London, S.P.C.K.,
1966). For general theory of symbols, see the classic work of Susanne Langer, Philosophy in a New Key: A
Study in the Symbolism of Reason, Rite, and Art (Cambridge, Harvard Univ. Press, 1942), which was later
developed and applied in A Theory of Art (New York, Scribner's, 1953).

41
 war in heaven, with Michael8 and his angels driving the dragon and his hosts out of
heaven, casting him down to earth. But when heaven celebrates this triumph it is
explained thus: "They have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the
word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death" (12:11).
Again conquest is attributed to suffering, but this time it is not only the death of
the Lamb. "Their testimony" is added to his and in their deaths we are supposed to
see conquest. Here is an even more radical transvaluation of values. This is the
vision of the martyrs and may with justice be called masochism. 4 However, we
must see that it exhibits the same structure as the christological reversal and leads
to the same result: T h e victims become the victors.
A further example of symbol transformation occurs in a climatic scene of the
book which Collins labels the "theophany of the Divine warrior" 10 T h e victor on
the white horse arrives to make war on the beast (19:1121). We have here all the
traditional images of the eschatological battle, but again they are reversed. We
might first notice that no battle is ever described; the narrative jumps from battle
setting (v. 19) to victory announcement (v. 20). Second, we note that the hosts of
the wicked are all killed, but their deaths are attributed to one sword, "The sword
of him who sits upon the horse, the sword that issues from his mouth" (21). They
are undone, that is, by the word of Jesus which is on the one hand the Word of
God (his title in v. 13) but also the word of his testimony (see v. 10 and his other
titles in v. 11, the faithful and true). This is a complex symbol. T h e testimony of
Jesus is on the one hand testimony about Jesus (see 1:9), but it is also Jesus'
testimony, that is, his death. Thus, once again, it is the death of Jesus and the
martus (witness) of his followers that slays the wicked. This interpretation is
confirmed by a further observation: Jesus appears before the battle with his robe
dipped in blood, which Sweet, rightly, I think, takes to be a reference to the
"baptism of the cross"11 (see also the reference at 14:20 to treading the winepress
outside the city). Sweet is also right when he says that "the defendant is now the
judge," but not quite in the way he apparently means it. It is not that they have
killed him and now he returns to kill them; the Lamb is not transformed into a
lion. Rather, his death and the deaths of his faithful witnesses are the judgment of
the world even as it was the "blood of the saints and of the martyrs of Jesus" that
caused the fatal inebriation of the great harlot (17:6 and 16:6). Once again the
victim is the victor.
Thus while John draws his images from the traditional apocalyptic stock and a
central symbol is the myth of cosmic combat, his experience ofJesus has led him to
radically transvalue these symbols in order to express the conviction that faithful
witness brings both salvation and judgment. But this conviction is not argued, or
even stated; it is portrayed. It is enacted in a story. We must now briefly examine
8. It is somewhat surprising to see Michael performing this Messianic role, but it was a common
image in earlier apocalyptic writings. See Dan. 10:12; 12:1; Ascension of Isaiah 3:16; Testament of
Dan 6:2; II Enoch 22:4-9.
9. See Peter Berger, Sacred Canopy (New York, Doubleday, 1967), pp. 53-80.
10. Combat Myth, p. 224.
11. Revelation, p. 238.

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 The Apocalypse as a Symbolic Transformation of the World
Interpretation

how that story works by noting the sequence of the action, the structure and the
plot.
T h e r e are, unfortunately, nearly as many outlines of the Apocalypse as there
are commentators on it. T h e r e is a very technical argument about sources, 12 some
attempts at rearrangement, 1 3 and not a few improvements offered. Many com
mentators cannot resist numbering one or two other sequences of seven which
John apparently overlooked. H Before one proceeds to help J o h n in this way, the
critic ought to ask why J o h n chose not to number them. T h e n the critic ought to
try to come to terms with John's own organization. We must read his work, as we
said at the beginning of this study.
I have gleaned three basic strategies in my quest for the organizing principles of
this work. First, "we must reckon with an element of incoherence . . . (Sweet, p.
44). This is, after all, a book of ecstasyor at least pseudoecstasyand we ought to
expect a bit of untamed disorder. T h e r e is an analogy here to some of John's
grammar, where a few loose ends enhance the feeling of extraordinary experi
ence. Second, the notion of recapitulation seems valid within certain perimeters. 1 5
In its basic form the theory of recapitulation argues that the same message is
retold several times in the Apocalypse, with later cycles duplicating the meaning
of earlier cycles. This should not be taken in a mechanical fashion but seen as one
of John's techniques. Certainly any scheme that attempts to construct a unilinear
sequence from Revelation faces enormous obstacles, such as the declaration in
11:15 that the Kingdom of God has come. It rather seems to come and go, for
chapter 12 opens with a new vision of conflict, carrying us back in time to the birth
of Jesus and further back to the exodus and the Garden of Eden. Such recapit
ulation of meaningperhaps we can call it reimagingdoes not preclude the
possibility of progress within the book, but the progress will be on the level of the
images rather than their meaning.
T h e third notion that seems useful is that, whereas our concern is to divide the
16
book, John's concern was to bind it together. J o h n uses a variety of techniques to
join his diverse material together, but Fiorenza makes a convincing case that his
primary method is one of intercalationor sandwichingin which the author
interjects material related to other sections between two episodes or symbols that
clearly belong together: thus A A'. This middle material (B) anticipates some
later episode or symbol and also forces the reader/hearers to interpret the earlier

12. Summarized in I.T. Beckwith, The Apocalypse of John: Studies in Introduction (New York, Mac
millan, 1919).
13. E.g., R.H. Charles, Commentary on the Revelation of St. John, 2 Vols. (New York, Scribner's, 1920).
14. Collins even has the good humor to call them the "Unnumbered Series" of seven visions (Combat
Myth, pp. 37-40). T h e theory was formulated by Farrer in A Rebirth of Images (pp. 46-58), but later
abandoned for a more convincing scheme in The Revelation of St. John the Divine where he tried to take
John's ordering more seriously (Oxford, Clarendon, 1964) pp. 1419.
15. Collins has an excellent discussion of the history and validity of the theory of recapitulation
(Combat Myth, pp. 8-13, 33-44). Farrer is not convincing when he argues for significant progression
rather than recapitulation, for he does in fact show substantial recapitulation in his discussion
(Revelation, pp. 19-23).
16. This is a consistent theme of Elisabeth Schssler Fiorenza ("Composition and Structure of the
Book of Revelation," CBQ 39:344-66 [1977]).

43
 material in relation to the later, thus joining the text into a unity. An over-
simplified but generally convincing sketch of John's major intercalations is given
by Collins {Combat Myth, pp. 1619). Whereas recapitulation applies primarily to
the meaning, the interpretation of the symbols, intercalation applies to the use of
the symbols themselves. T h e use of these techniques has produced a complex
work, and it is no wonder that commentators seeking a simple linear development
have produced divergent results. We must expect to find symbolic material
intercalated into other sections, thus binding them together; to see recapitulations
of similar ideas under very different symbolic images, thus producing a sense of
repetition and explanation; and to find some material that seems wildly out of
place, thus suggesting the ecstatic nature of the book. Keeping these three
principles in mind and observing John's own formal patterning, we can now
sketch the sequence of action in the Apocalypse.
Again we must let J o h n be our guide and pay attention to those aspects of his
vision which he consciously designates. Space limitations prohibit a detailed
analysis; but if we apply these three principles to the action, observing John's own
conscious organization of the material, the following formal conclusions can be
drawn. First, the whole work takes place under the fiction of one vast vision which
John experienced en pneumati (1:10). Second, the first discrete action of the work
is the appearance of the risen Jesus to dictate seven letters to seven churches.
Third, both the action and the location shift at 4:12 when John is taken en
pneumati to observe a heavenly liturgy. Fourth, this worship is interrupted at 5:2
because no one is worthy "to open the scroll" but is resumed at 11:16 with the
declaration: "The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and
of his Christ." Fifth, the transition to this renewed worship is accomplished by two
series of seven events (seals and trumpets), both of which are images of the coming
divine judgment (recapitulation). T h e heavenly temple is then opened and a sign
appears in heavena woman clothed with the sun. Two further signs are re-
counted: the dragon pursues the woman, bringing judgment (12-14) and the
seven last plagues (1516). J o h n is then transported back to earth en pneumati
(17:3) where he sees the contrasting visions of the great whore and the virgin bride
(21:9), in the wilderness and the city respectively. Such are the basic units to which
John draws our attention. There is, of course, much other material to which he
does not draw our attention. This other material can be accounted for either as
subsets of these basic components or as intercalations designed to integrate
heterogeneous elements (or, as a last resort, as an element of incoherence!). I
believe this can be done, but neither space nor intent allow us to pursue it here.
Here we need to focus and refine the above conclusions.
When we notice the great prominence John gives to the contrasting visions of
the two women, we realize that a new element has been introduced. These women,
who dominate the last half of the book, played no role in the first half. T h e
feminine emerges dramatically in 12:1, however, with the woman clothed with the
sun. Chapter 12 also marks the beginning of a new action, the war that the dragon
initiates against the "rest of her offspring" (12:17). This is the first mention of the

44
 The Apocalypse as a Symbolic Transformation of the World
Interpretation

dragon, though he was foreshadowed by one reference to the beast who will attack
the two witnesses in 11:7 (an intercalation). Thus in chapters 111 we view
primarily the action of Jesus bringing salvation and judgment to the world; in
chapters 1222 we view the action of the dragon making war on the redeemed
community but being overcome by Christ.17
This conclusion is further confirmed when we ask what possible relation can
exist between the action of the end of chapter 11 (the resumption of heavenly
worship) and the action of chapter 12 (the birth of Messiah and the struggle with
evil). Surely it is not a continuation of the earlier scene. What action can possibly be
subsequent to the declaration of 11:15: T h e kingdom of the world has become the
kingdom of our Lord . . .? Rather, the new action introduced in chapter 12
represents a recapitulation of the earlier action, explaining how, historically, the
change of kingdoms has occurred.
It seems, then, that we have three acts to our drama: the risen Christ dictates 7
letters; the Lamb opens a sealed book in a heavenly throne scene; the dragon
makes war on the elect but loses, resulting in the replacement of the whore by the
bride. In each act salvation and judgment are realized, with subsequent acts being
recapitulations of earlier acts. T h e continuity between the three acts is one of
meaning. I do not see any sequence on the level of symbol, though there is a
continuity of symbols between sections. What I do not see is how the scene of
heavenly worship grows out of the letter writing scene or leads to the war scene on
the level of symbolic action. They are more like three one-act plays on the same
theme performed in succession within a common frame (more about the frame in
a moment). Within each act the continuity of symbolic action is intelligible. In act
one Jesus appears and dictates seven letters to seven churches, judging their
failures, praising their deeds, and promising salvation. In act two the heavenly
celebration of God's creation is disrupted by the failure to find anyone worthy to
open a sealed scroll, until a Lamb slain appears and unseals the scroll; then silence,
trumpets, and a proclamation of God's kingdom come, with the resumption of the
heavenly worship. In act three a woman appears in labor and is pursued by a
dragon who makes war, creating two beasts who stand in opposition to the Lamb.
T h e earth is visited by seven plagues including the gathering for the great battle,
but the gathering comes to naught. Instead we see visions of two women: the first
is the great harlot whose fall again leads to scenes of wars prepared but never
fought, culminating in the destruction of the dragon; the second is the bride who
appears with visions of a restored and ideal creation.
I conclude then that the plot of the Apocalypse is presented in three scenes,
each of which reveals the hidden dimension of life in which the Kingdom of God is
realized: Jesus comes to his churches in salvation and judgment, enables the
cosmic worship of God to persist, and overthrows the work of the evil one. These
are three dimensions of the work of Christ, not three consecutive actions. Each

17. See Fiorenza's actantial analysis (ibid., pp. 36364). This new action is intercalated with the
earlier action in 11:7 but is not portrayed until 12:3 and following.

45
reveals the meaning of Christ's death and resurrection; I am tempted to say they
portray Christ's work in relation to the church, in relation to the cosmos, and in
relation to history; but that is perhaps more clear than John would wish to be. T h e
unity of the work is achieved in several ways: by using a common set of symbols
throughout, by intercalating aspects of one scene in another, and by giving all
three within a common setting.
This common setting constitutes a frame, and in this frame John directly
addresses the reader/hearers, blesses them, and carries out the fiction of a letter
(1:45 and 22:21). This direct address to the reader is of prime literary sig-
nificance for it bridges the gap between the normal world and the fictive world (or
in Peter Berger's terms, between the paramount reality and a finite province of
meaning). 18 That is, the Apocalypse consists of a fantastic journey into another
reality, a journey that begins and ends in the real world. The implication of the
opening is that of a public assembly in which a reader presents a letter to the
congregation (1:34); the experience takes place "on the Lord's day" (1:10) and
contains extensive liturgical material (e.g. 1:56). T h e closing invites the hearer to
"come" and "take the water of life" (22:17), makes a strict separation between
insiders and outsiders (1415), gives a curse on those who tamper with the words
of the prophecy (18), and prays "Come, Lord Jesus" (20). These all seem to be
eucharistie elements. 14 In this regard Leonard Thompson reminds us that Paul
listed the apocalypsis as a basic part of public worship (I Cor. 14:26).20 It thus seems
reasonable to interpret the Apocalypse within the context of the public worship of
the church, culminating in the Eucharist. 21 T h e "real world" of the opening and
closing, then, is not the work-a-day world of daily life but already one step
removed. It is the argument of the final section of my paper that it is to this level of
reality that the action of the Apocalypse has its primary application and within
which its eschatology is realized.
John Gager offers a tantalizingly brief interpretation of the Apocalypse as
myth,22 or more specifically as mythic therapycalling attention to Claude Lvi-
Strauss' analogy between mythic and psychoanalytic processes.2* In this view the
recital of the myth transports the believer into the "ideal time," where he experi-

18. The Social Construction of Reality, with Thomas Luckmann (New York, Anchor/Doubleday, 1966),
p. 25.
19. See I Cor. 16:20-22; Didache 10:6; Justin, First Apology, p. 66; Hans Conzelmann, History of
Primitive Christianity (Nashville, Abingdon, 1973), p. 51.
20. "Cult and Eschatology in the Apocalypse of John," JR 49:344 (1969).
21. T h e cultic setting of the Apocalypse seems obvious, but the precise meaning of this observation is
disputed. See Allen Cabannis, "A Note on the Liturgy of the Apocalypse," Liturgy and Literature
(Tuscaloosa, Univ. of Alabama, 1970), pp. 4252; Massey H. Shepherd, Jr., The Pascimi Liturgy and the
Apocalypse (Atlanta, John Knox, 1960); also the Thompson article cited in n. 20.1 am inclined to think it
is a mimesis of a liturgy (a liturgical fiction?). For a remarkable parallel in the N.T. see Heb. 12:18-29,
where you find a coming to the heavenly Jerusalem (v. 22), the blood of the new covenant (v. 24),
"receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken" (v. 28), and the conclusion "Let us offer to God acceptable
worship" (v. 28).
22. Kingdom and Community (Englewood Cliffs, Prentice-Hall, 1975), pp. 49-57.
23. See "The Effectiveness of Symbols," Structural Anthropology (New York, Anchor/Doubleday,
1967), pp. 181-201.

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 The Apocalypse as a Symbolic Transformation of the World
Interpretation

enees the world as whole, real, worthwhile. Whereas for most myth this idea is in
the past, in ilio tempore in Eliade's fine phrase/ 1 for the Apocalypse the ideal is in
the future. (Or is it? T h e new Jerusalem comes down out of heaven, implying that
it already exists.) In Gager's view, the recital of the Apocalypse overcomes the
duality within the present situation, transcends the separation of the present and
the future, and provides the believer "an experience of millenial bliss as a living
2
reality." " This is, I think, both right and wrong; I would like to relate it to what I
have said above and add one or two details.
Leonard Thompson emphasizes that the Apocalypse contains two distinct kinds
of material: eschatological narrative and liturgical recital. 2b He further shows that
the Kingdom of God is realized in the liturgical material "prior to the realization
of these realities in the dramatic narrative form"(p. 342). Thus, within the story,
the Kingdom of God is shown to be fully come in the worship scene in chapter 4,
explicitly declared in 11:15, and then worked out in the narrative. We should
presume an analogous situation in the life of the community: T h e liturgical recital
of the Apocalypse becomes a real experience of the Kingdom of God. T h e liturgy
is the manifestion of God's rule. Hence the struggle in the Apocalypse is between
the worship of God and the worship of the beast. This notion lies at the heart of
Ignatius' advice to one of these churches a couple of decades later:
Seek, then, to come together more frequently to give thanks and glory to God. For when
you gather together frequently the powers of Satan are destroyed, and his mischief is
brought to nothing, by the concord of your faith. There is nothing better than peace, by
which every war in heaven and on earth is abolished.27
T o worship God is to experience his kingdom; to worship the beast is to war
against that kingdom. This is not a fleeting and transitory experience, as Gager
mistakenly says; it is a fixed and complete reality. T h e eschatological world is
realized in the cultic event. 28
David Aune has made a thorough study of The Cultic Setting of Realized Es
chatology in Early Christianity (Leiden, E. J . Brill, 1972) and demonstrated a
consistent correlation between worship experiences and eschatological beliefs in a
wide variety of Jewish (the Hymns of Qumran), Christian (the Gospel of J o h n and
the writings of Ignatius) and gnosticizing texts (the writings of Marcion). Within
worship, he concludes "past and future merge into present experience" (p. 14). It

24 Treated extensively in Cosmos and History The Myth of the Eternal Return (San Francisco, Harper &
Row, 1959), also published with this subtitle as main title
25 Kingdom and Community, 55, for a critique of Gager's view, see Fiorenza, "Composition and
Structure," p p 35455
26 "Cult and Eschatology," pp 330-50
27 Ignatius, Eph 13 1-2 Cf David Aune, The Cultic Setting of Realized Eschatology in Early Christianity
(Leiden, E J Brill, 1972), p p 141-42
28 Cf Gospel of Thomas 37 When the disciples ask Jesus, "On what day shall we see thee^Jesus said
When you unclothe yourselves and are not ashamed, and take your garments and lay them beneath
your feet like little children " T h e reference is apparently to baptism which was somehow also a
Chnstophany which functioned eschatologically Jonathan Smith discusses the baptismal context of
Gos Thos 37 in his essay " T h e Garments of Shame," HR 5 217-38 (1966), reprinted in Map Is Not
Territory (Leiden, E J Brill, 1977)

47
 is worth recalling here that the temporal setting of John's vision is "on the Lord's
day"that is, on the day of present worship which celebrates the past event of
Christ's resurrection and points ahead to that future "Day of the Lord" spoken of
by the prophets. It is the essential element of worship to blend the three together.
Aune did not separately examine the Apocalypse; but in regard to the Gospel of
John, he concluded, "This cultic 'coming' of the Son of Man to save and to judge,
to bless and to curse was a corporate worship experience which the Johannine
community conceptualized in terms of the traditional Christian expectation of the
Parousia" (p. 126). There seems to have been three major ways in which this cultic
"coming" of Jesus was experienced: in the person of a charismatic prophet, in a
visionary christophany, or in a sacramental identification with Christ.29 By the
above interpretation all three aspects are present in the Apocalypse, in the cultic
personnel, in the cultic recitation, and in the cultic celebration of the Eucharist.
Again I want to underscore the reality and givenness of the experience.
Gager's reason for regarding this experience as "ephemeral" is that "the real
world, in the form of persecution, reasserted itself with dogged persistence" (p.
56). This is, I think, wrong. It overlooks the fact that myth really does transform
reality; it is not just pretend. Let me illustrate.
In the article cited by Gager, Lvi-Strauss tells us the "Song of the Cuna
Shaman," a lengthy incantation for a woman with a difficult childbirth ("The
Effectiveness of Symbols"). Briefly, the song describes the confusion of the
midwife at the difficulty, her visit to the Shaman, his coming to the woman's hut,
his preparations, his quest for her lost power in which he engages in many feats:
overcoming various obstacles, fighting wild beasts, and finally winning a contest
with Muu, a sort of power of birth. Winning this contest restores the woman's
powers, birth takes place, and the song ends with instructions to those present (p.
187). T h e function of this myth is to provide a bridge from ordinary reality to the
mythic, taking the physical up into the cosmic by means of a reliving of the
experience. T h e Shaman's real success is to reintegrate the woman's world,
making her seemingly arbitrary pains understandable. He provides her with a
"language by means of which unexpressed and otherwise inexpressible, psychic
states can be immediately expressed" (p. 198).
If we look back now at our literary analysis of the Apocalypse, we can see an
analogous process at work. There is, first of all, the journey into another reality.
This journey begins and ends in the real world thus seducing the hearers from the
chaotic reality in which they live. They are taken on three ever-more-fantastic
cycles in which they see the risen and lordly Jesus, the heavenly liturgy, and the
cosmic struggle. In each cycle symbolic expression is given to the coming of Jesus
in salvation and judgment. But these symbols are transformed from symbols of
violence into symbols of faithful suffering. T h e reader/hearers are given a
language in which the incomprehensible becomes understood. T h e hearers are

29. Cf. the discussion on p. 12 with that on p. 131. Aune also affirms a tradition, future oriented
eschatology in John seen most clearly in 12:2 (Cultic Setting, p. 129).

48
 The Apocalypse as a Symbolic Transformation of the World
Interpretation

transformed as they comprehend that it is their suffering witness (their martus)

that brings salvation and judgment to the world, just as the suffering of Jesus was
really the overthrow of evil. This is a real experience of the community, not just a
glimpse of some future day which is supposed to give them courage to endure
present suffering. Their experience is an experience of the "coming" of Jesus,
which is first of all the cultic experience of the communitythat is, the reading/
hearing of the Apocalypse (see 1:3). This experience looks both backwards to the
"coming" of Jesus which brought salvation to the world through his "testimony"
and "faithful witness" (1:2; 1:18) and forwards to the "coming" of Jesus when
"every eye will see him" (1:7). But given the highly symbolic nature of the book, it
is not at all clear how John understood this future coming (chapter 12 is, after all, a
rather remarkable nativity narrative). It is also clear that a future coming does not
necessarily imply a theatrical production, for Jesus promises to "come" to Ephesus
(2:5), to Pergamum (2:16), and to Sardis (3:3"Like a thief!) in conditional ways
that cannot be understood in the traditional, millenarian fashion; yet it is clearly
future and, we may assume, historical/ 0
And so we return to the question with which we began: How did the Apocalypse
function to give courage and comfort to Christians in Asia Minor in a time of
trouble? Were they naive enough to stake their lives on the imminent arrival of
some oft-promised future event and credulous enough to cling to it for two
centuries of non-occurrence? Perhaps. But I think we miss the real power of this
amazing book if we see it like that.
Nor do I think we can reduce it to an emotional catharsis of their feelings of fear
and resentment toward Rome/ 1 Such emotional therapy is no doubt present, but
it is not the central function of the literature. I cannot stress too strongly that the
believing community which encountered the Apocalypse as a living performance
would be transformed, and so would the world they live in, for they would
understand that world differently.
T h e concept of catharsis as "intellectual clarification" developed by Leon
Golden^2 comes closer to revealing the power of this literature. Golden sees
catharsis as a very complex process which primarily enlightens the audience,
giving them a new understanding of their world. This is just what the Apocalypse
does. This is no ephemeral experience. T h e hearers are decisively changed. They
now live in another world. Persecution does not shock them back to reality. They

30 Paul Hanson, in the last chapter of his Dawn of Apocalyptic, spins out an allegory of the "birth" of
apocalyptic from mixed parentage prophecy (with a strong commitment to the historical process) and
the royal cult (with an essentially mythic and timeless view of God's saving acts) (Philadelphia, Fortress,
1975), pp 402-09 Yet apocalyptic in Israel always remained committed to history: "Cosmic trans-
formation does not recur seasonally in apocalyptic eschatology, locking the world in an endless cycle,
but is envisioned as a once-for-all event of the eschaton" (p 407). This is, mutatis mutandis, true of the
Apocalypse for which the essential eschatological event is the historical death of Christ and its ongoing
historical results in the churches of Asia Minor
31 Collins, "The Revelation of John An Apocalyptic Response to a Social Crisis," Currents in
Theology and Mission 8 4-12 (1981)
32 "The Clarification Theory of Katharsis," Hermes 104.437-52/Band 4 (1976)

49
live in a new reality in which lambs conquer and suffering rules. T h e victims have
become the victors.
They no longer suffer helplessly at the hands of Rome; they are now in charge
of their own destiny and by their voluntary suffering they participate in the
overthrow of evil and the establishment of God's kingdom. They now see them-
selves as actors in charge of their own destiny. And that is perhaps more of a victory
than most folks achieved in first century Asia Minor.

50
 ^ s
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