Category Archives: History

Apocalypse Epilogue: The Tree of Life

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One of the best-known representations of the Cross as the ‘Tree of Life’ is the 12th century mosaic in the Basilica of San Clemente, Rome. 
The cross is decorated with white doves, taken to represent the Apostles who will soon fly to all corners of the world carrying the message of Christ’s victory (Psalm 19:4; Acts 1:8).
At the foot of the Cross four rivers flow out  (Genesis 2:10) and two deer drink deeply of the river of the water of life (Ezekiel 47:1-12; Revelation 22:1-2); the deer that yearns for running streams (Psalm 42:1-3) quenches its thirst  at the fountain of living water that is Christ (Zechariah 12:10; 13:1; John 4:10; 7:37-39; 19:33-37).

Blessed are those who wash their robes, so as to have the right of the tree of life, and may enter the city by the gates. Outside are the dogs, sorcerers, and fornicators, the murderers and idolators, and all who love and practice deceit. (Apocalypse 22:14-15)

This epilogue of the Apocalypse summarizes the message of the book: Christ is coming soon to judge the world and vindicate his saints. The text concludes with the usual threats against anyone who would tamper with the book as the seer has written or dictated it.

Those who wash their robes (in the blood of the lamb) and have access to the tree of life are the faithful members of the Church. They remain faithful despite the persecution described throughout the Apocalypse. The “tree of life” is both a reference to the Cross and Christ himself who transformed the Cross into the antidote for the Tree of Knowledge by which Adam and Eve sinned in Eden. Blood, which typically stains clothing, here washes clothing clean; in the Old Testament, blood both purifies (the sacrifices in the Temple, especially the Day of Atonement) and makes those who touch it unclean.

The list of those “outside the gates” of the New Jerusalem are an interesting summary of all those who personify opposition to God. “Dogs” were a common nickname for the priests of the Cybele, the “great mother” goddess; these “dogs” would castrate themselves in a fit of ecstasy and then wander the streets in groups, singing and praying and asking for alms. In many ways, they sound like the first century equivalent of the Hare Krishna groups that were so common in the 1970s (except the self-castration, of course).

Sorcerers practiced “magic,” which was the usual way to describe illicit religious practices. “Fornicators” practiced porneia (lit. “dirty living”), which included fornication but also could mean a wide variety of other behavior or activities, not all of which we would consider sexual. But it was a quick and easy way to refer to those who misbehaved sexually. Murderers and idolators clearly misapprehended the image of God inherent in each human person. All those who love or practice deceit? That sums up all evil-doing nicely, doesn’t it?

The world is neatly divided into those who have washed their robes vs. those who love and practice deceit. If only life situations and predicaments pre-apocalypse could be so clearly and easily identified!

New Heaven and New Earth

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Beatus of Liébana
Las Huelgas Apocalypse
Spain
1220

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready like a bride adorned for her husband. (Apocalypse 20:1-2)

St. John has seen Hell and Satan bound with Death. Now he sees a new world emerge, clean and free of all stain. It is all that Isaiah hoped for: “Behold, I create new heavens and new earth” (Is. 65:17 and 66:2). It is everything that Enoch described: “The first heaven shall depart and pass away; a new heaven shall appear” (1 Enoch 91:16).

Some say that “there was no more sea” because the sea is the primaeval abyss, the chaos out of which matter emerged and there is no more chaos when judgement is complete. Some readers point out that seven markers of the fallen world are “no more” in the concluding chapters of the Apocalypse: the sea, death, mourning, crying, pain, every accursed thing, night. In the City of God, St. Augustine favors the idea that “the sea” is a euphemism for Death–cold, dark, deep, where a crowd can still be a vast collection of individuals in isolation. It is this Death that is no more in the new world adorned like a bride for her bridegroom and so the sea is “no more.”

In the Old Testament, the city Jerusalem is both a mourning virgin and a glorious bride. Now the time of her mourning has passed and her final victory and beauty are revealed. The bride of the Song of Songs takes her place alongside her heavenly bridegroom; during the Middle Ages, most sermons about the Song were also sermons about the Apocalypse and most sermons about the APocalypse were also sermons about the Song. The two texts go hand-in-hand. The Old Testament dreams of her glory and her dazzling garments are commonly read in church at Epiphany and Holy Saturday: the two days that most clearly anticipate the coming End and ultimate triumph of God.

Epiphany (the revelation of God’s glory in the darkness, the baptism of Christ when he descends into the water to slay the dragons hidden there as a dress rehearsal of his Passion) and Holy Saturday (Christ’s descent into the dark land of the dead–the sea mentioned earlier–to shatter the darkness with light and break the chains of those in prison there) are reflections in time of the eternal reality that is now revealed at the conclusion of the Apocalypse.

Epiphany. Holy Saturday. The conclusion of the Apocalypse. Jerusalem is adorned like a bride for her groom, the old context and environment of death and sin being swept away as the new context and environment of God’s glory is hidden no longer but emerges clearly for all to see.

Satan Bound for 1,000 Years

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Satan chained and bound by the angel (Beatus Apocalypse illumination). Medieval illuminations often depict Satan as an African Muslim, similar to the Moors who invaded Spain; the Moors personify the Enemy, the Other.

Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven with the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hand. He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent who is Devil and the Satan, and bound him for a thousand years…. When the thousand years are ended, Satan will be let loose from his prison. (Apocalypse 20:1-2, 7)

Satan is bound in prison for 1,000 years. This period of 1,000 years is taken by most early interpreters to mean the entire period of human history from the Crucifixion to the Last Days. Satan is bound in chains by Christ but not totally incapacitated–his minions still tempt and harass the human race. St. John describes each Christian’s victory over Satan, usually by martyrdom, as the “first resurrection;” the “second resurrection” is the General Resurrection of all the dead on Judgement Day.

Satan is loosed at the end of human history not so that he can unleash his anger any more against the human race; he is loosed so that he can be finally and definitively be cast down. Many early preachers used the image of a chicken or a snake beheaded to describe Satan: slain by Christ on the Cross, yet still able to make a mess and scare humans by spewing blood from the fatal wound but seeming to still be alive, running around–“like a chicken with its head cut off!”–or wriggling about.

Satan is often described or painted as having dark or black skin; often, a devil is described as looking like “an Ethiopian” by early Christian monks. Having black skin is not necessarily a dishonor in the Old Testament; the bride in the Song of Songs is “dark and beautiful.” Neither is appearing dark always associated with evil by other cultures: Clare Rothschild points out that “the Nile received its name from the Greek word νεῖλος (‘valley’). Since the river deposits black sediment after it floods, the Egyptians called the river ‘Ar’ (‘black’)…. Black is used of Egyptian gods and goddesses as an honorific: kmwr = ‘Great Black One’ for Osiris and km as epithet used with the name of the god (e.g. Hathor, Apis, Min, Thoth, etc.) or kmt, goddess (e.g. Isis)….” But the “counter-divine” is described as black by Sophocles.

Rothschild suggests that the devils and Satan were associated with Ethiopia because Ethiopia was outside Roman-Byzantine imperial control and was therefore associated with lawlessness. Several church fathers use the illustration that all humans were once Ethiopians (lawless) but have now been brought from lawlessness to righteousness by Christ. Pamela Patton suggests that medieval Spanish interpretations of the Apocalypse–such as the Beatus Apocalypse illumination above–align Satan and Ethiopians as a way to equate Satan with the Moors who invaded the Iberian peninsula and personified the Other, the Enemy.

Rothschild points out many fascinating associations with the color black that might also have influenced the depiction of Satan.