Dimensiones de la calidad de atención

As co-textual analysis has shown, the overall co-textual flow of Rev 2-3 converges into the reference to conquering. In relation to this convergence, one question should be raised here:

How does Christ’s message in theoi=da unit relate thematically to the idea of conquering? This

question is significant for understanding John’s concept of conquering and its thematic function in the seven messages. To answer this question, it is necessary to examine the key thematic

point of Christ’s message in the oi=da unit. Then we will examine the thematic relationship

which occurs between Christ’s messages and the reference to conquering.

Christ’s messages in the oi=da unit, although varied, are comprised of four thematic

components:92 (1) commendation of the disclosed realities of the churches or their opponents

(inappropriate in the case of the church in Laodicea); (2) censure of the spiritual realities of the churches or their opponents (inappropriate with regards to the churches in Smyrna and

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It is difficult to analyse theoi=da unit by stereotyped formulae or framework since such so-called formulae

asavlla. e;cw kata. sou/, ivdou, e;rcomai, soiin this unit are varied and not used consistently. Contra. Hahn, 1971, 370- 77; cf. Müller, 1975, 93ff; Aune, 1983b, 276-78.

Philadelphia); (3) command for repentance or being faithful unto death;93 (4) requital contingent upon Christians’ responses to the command of (3) – judgment and salvation. The first two parts explicitly function as grounds for part (3), which demands loyalty or repentance from the churches. The final part also functions as an incentive for the churches’ obedience to the commands of (3) since John paraenetically uses judgment or salvation as a conditional ‘threat’ in order to exhort them to repent or be faithful. This exhortative aspect is clearly seen in the introductory expressions of the requital proclamations: eiv de. mh ,... eva.n mh. metanoh,sh|j (Rev 2:5), metano,hson ou=n\ eiv de. mh,, (2:16), eva.n mh. metanoh,swsin (2:22), ... metano,hsonÅ eva.n ou=n mh.

(3:3).94 As the thematic progression shows, the command for repentance or being faithful unto

death is a key thematic part of the oi=da unit. In a broad sense, these two topics can also be

categorized into the themes of Christians’ withdrawal and witness since Christ’s reproach in part (2) and commendation in part (1) obviously denote the two themes. The churches are commanded to withdraw not only from compromise with imperial ideologies of contemporary city life (Rev 2:4-5; 3:2-3, 15-20), but also from the practices of heretical opponents – Nicolaitans, Balaam, and Jezebel (Rev 2:6, 14-16, 20-22). From a socio-historical perspective, the general idolization of Roman power was not only threatening, but also alluring to the

Christians.95 Furthermore, the practices of their heretical opponents are probably connected

with the idolatrous trade-guild feasts of that time which entailed not only cultic activity, but also

economic survival.96 In the light of these reconstructed socio-historical facts, the demand to

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The churches in Smyrna and Philadelphia are given the command to be faithful unto death. The rest of the churches are commanded to repent of their sins.

94 _{Cf.kai. dw,sw... (Rev 2:10),ivdou. didw/ ... ( 3:9),ivdou.... (3:20).} 95

Bauckham, 1997. 38. ‘John sees that the nature of Roman Power is such that, if Christians are faithful witnesses to God, then they must suffer the inevitable clash between Rome’s divine pretensions and their witness to the true God.’

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The practice of eating food sacrificed to idols does not simply reflect cultic activity (Rev 2:14, 20). This might be related directly to trade-guild feasts which were popular in the late first century in Asia Minor. La Pianna, 1927, 225; Kraybill, 1996, 111-12. This trade guild-feasts question is also found in 1 Cor 8-10. Fee states that “in the Corinth of Paul’s time, such meals were still the regular practice both at state festivals and private celebrations of various kinds.” Fee, 1987, 360. Common foods were a significant aspect of the life of trade guilds of a particular city. Members of trade guild gathered around the guild’s symbol of their patron deity and partook in the sacrifice. By

repent might mean Christians’ disengagement from the structure of Western Asian city life to some degree, which would be harsh for them. At the same time, the churches are also commanded to witness by their love, faith, service, endurance, and perseverance, even unto death under the persecution or pressure of the Jewish religious system and Roman imperialism

(Rev 2:9-10; 3:9-11).97 The churches’ role as witnesses is clearly seen in John’s use of the

expressions VAntipa/j o` ma,rtuj mou o` pisto,j mou and o` ma,rtuj o` pisto.j kai. avlhqino,j (Rev 2:13; 3:14). John presents Antipas’s death as an example of martyrdom that witnesses to the churches (cf. 2:10). The risen Christ is also depicted as ‘the faithful and true Witness’ whom

Christians should follow (cf. Rev 3:20-21). Overall Christ’s messages of the oi=da unit

thematically emphasize the Christians’ withdrawal from sinful activities and witness through martyrdom.

Recalling the co-textual flow of how Christ’s messages converge in references to conquering with the promise through the PHF as discussed earlier, it is logical to understand

that the key theme of theoi=da unit – the churches’ withdrawal and witness through martyrdom –

is encapsulated in the call to conquer. To put it another way, the conquering in Rev 2-3 entails

doing this, the solidarity of the guild was expressed and reenacted in religious form. Therefore, membership in a guild was very significant for economic activity and survival. If the trade guilds were popular in John’s time, one of the significant issues for the seven churches might have been how to live at peace in a hard situation, while that a majority of early Christians was composed of artisan and craftspersons. Desilva, 1992, 290-91; see also Kraybill, 1996, 110-17, esp. 117.

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Most scholars accept that Revelation was written at the end of Domitian’s reign, around 95 A.D (Adversus Haer. V. 30.3), contra. Sweet, 1979, 21-27. However, it is still debated whether or not Domitian persecuted Christians for seeking his divine honour. Rejecting the traditional view that Christians were subject to open persecution, Yarbro Collins suggests that John who participated in a social tension had a “perceived crisis”, see Collins, 1984, 70, 72, 84- 104. In a somewhat similar vein, Thompson argues that John does not respond to an existing conflict in the Roman Empire, but creates it by his imaginative myth-making in order to encourage his audience to see themselves in conflict with society. He rejects the notion that a particular type of social situation, even a “perceived crisis”, is a necessary cause of apocalyptic writing, see Thompson, 1990,167,174. Recently a classical historian, Peter Wiseman, countered this trend by asserting that Domitian was a cruel and terrible despot in his latter years. Wiseman suggests that we should give credence to Tacitus and Pliny, even though they wrote a “superb dramatic narrative” that was designed to make events real and vivid for their readers, see Wiseman, 1996, 24. Suetonius also informs us that

Domitian stressed his deity, ordering that he be addressed asDominus et deus(Suet. Dom. 13.), see also Desilva,

1992, 25. The majority of commentators admit that Domitian was a persecutor of Christians. The persecution under Domitian was not a full-scale Christian persecution, but “sporadic” arrests and occasional “local” executions of Christians in John’s day (Rev 2:13; 6:9-10; 16:6; 17:6), see Bauckham, 1997, 38. Examples of persecution and the cruel image of Domitian should, nevertheless, not be minimized, but emphasised as evidence of “social tensions”. It is still reasonable to understand that John wrote to early Christian readers in Asia Minor who needed to be encouraged to persevere in the midst of persecutions.

that the churches must withdraw from sin and be witnesses even unto death in their specific earthly contexts. At this point, one question should be raised: Why does John intentionally use the term ‘conquering’ to summarize the previous messages? This can be answered in the following way: John intends to alert the churches that they are involved in a messianic war by summarizing the churches’ earthly roles of withdrawal and witness through martyrdom with the term ‘conquering’ and its military overtones. The clear association of ‘conquering’ with the messianic war can be found in Rev 2:16-17, where the church in Pergamum is commanded to repent. By using the wordpoleme,w (to make war) with the wordnika,w, as noted earlier,98 John explicitly depicts Christ as a divine warrior who will intervene militarily with “the sharp two- edged sword” of His mouth against the Nicolaitans and their followers (cf. Rev 2:12, 19:15). In the closing unit of the seven messages, Christ and His followers are depicted as conquerors in the messianic war, demonstrating military unity (Rev 3:21). This unity and the command to conquer is given directly to the churches indicate that Christians are also combatants who are faced with messianic war in their specific ‘battlegrounds’.99 John exposes the paradoxical fact that the churches conquer the world through perseverance, endurance, and faithfulness unto death as Christ did (Rev 3:21), although they are persecuted, oppressed, excluded, and tormented by the world from a material viewpoint. Therefore, it may be said that John paraenetically uses the term ‘conquering’ as a key word of the messianic war which encapsulates the churches’ earthly roles in order to alert them to the military significance of their choices or actions in their ordinary earthly lives. Furthermore, the eschatological promises given to the conquerors also function to enhance the eternal significance of the churches’ earthly participation in the messianic war. In a holistic view, therefore, the call to conquer is a dominant

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Cf. Rev 2:16; 12:7; 13:4; 17:4; 19:11. Its noun form,po,lemojis also used throughout book: 11:7; 12:7, 17;

13:7; 16:14; 19:19; 20:8.

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ecclesiological motif in Rev 2-3, which functions to exhort the churches to participate in the paradoxical messianic war by articulating their ‘strategies’ – withdrawal and witness through martyrdom.

In addition, the conquering motif of the seven messages still remains an opened one.100

Although specific targets to be conquered are alluded to in their specific earthly contexts, the reason why the churches are called to participate in the messianic war through their ironic ‘conquering’, the real enemies behind the concrete world, and exactly how the messianic war must be won are not fully explained in the seven messages. These are clearly explained by the conquering-related vision in the rest of the book. In this sense, the concept of conquering in Rev 2-3 is left as an undefined or veiled one in anticipation of what is to come. Therefore, both the microcosmic function of the reference to conquering and its openness anticipate the visionary descriptions that are developed in the rest of the book.