Pergamos, Roman capital of Asia Minor, was the centre for worship of the serpent god Asklepios Soter. This god’s massive shrine, the Asklepieion (left), attracted visitors from all over the known world. Such corrupt worship led John to refer to Pergamos as the city “where Satan’s throne is.” Like other major Roman cities, it erected temples for emperor worship, including the Trajaneum (right).There was also the worship of Athena and Zeus, with its magnificent altar dominating the city (now partially reconstructed in the Pergamum Museum in Berlin).
Next on the Roman mail route was Pergamos, the Roman capital of Asia Minor. This city would never reach the commercial greatness of Ephesus or Smyrna, but it was the indisputable center of religious, medical and artistic culture of the region. The city’s famous library, with 200,000 parchment rolls, was rivaled only by the library in Alexandria, Egypt. Christ tells the church at Pergamos: “I know your works, and where you dwell, where Satan’s throne is” (verse 13). Again, this prophecy had a literal fulfillment as well as serving as a description of a future time for the Church.
The mention of Satan’s throne in Pergamos likely refers to the famous worship of its most popular deity, the serpent god Asklepios Soter, whose Latin equivalent means “the man-instructing serpent.” The serpent god was none other than Satan, whom Revelation describes as “that serpent of old, called the Devil” (Revelation 12:9). Thus, pagan religion had its center in Pergamos.
So how did serpent worship begin in Pergamos?
Some historians trace it to the collapse of the Babylonian Empire, when some Chaldean priests established their religious centre in Pergamos. “The defeated Chaldeans fled to Asia Minor, and fixed their central college at Pergamos,” notes historian William Barker in his book ‘Lares and Penates of Cilicia’ p. 232, (1853).
Certainly the Old Testament identifies Satan’s chief seat of activity as being in ancient Babylon, where the doctrines of its mystery religion “made all the earth drunk” (Jeremiah 51:7). This would make its religious successor, Pergamos, the temporary new “Satan’s seat” of the Babylonian mystery religion.
“That seat,” comments Alexander Hislop, “after the death of Belshazzar (the last Babylonian king), and the expulsion of the Chaldean priesthood from Babylon by the Medo-Persian kings, was at Pergamos, where afterwards was one of the seven churches of Asia.
There, in consequence, for many centuries was ‘Satan’s seat.’ “There, under favor of the deified kings of Pergamos, was his favorite abode and was the worship of Asklepios, under the form of the serpent . . . Pergamos itself became part and parcel of the Roman Empire, when Attalus III, the last of its kings, at his death, left by will all his dominions to the Roman people in 133 BC” (The Two Babylons, 1959, p. 240). In this way, the Roman emperors had become the heirs of “Satan’s seat” during John’s day.
Later, when the Roman Empire collapsed, its successor, the Holy Roman Empire, would inherit the role. The Pope’s crowning of Justinian as ‘Holy Roman Emperor’ after he defeated the Ostrogoths introduced this phase in prophetic church history. Periodically, new rulers of the Holy Roman Empire emerged: Charlemagne (800 A.D.), Otto ‘the Great’ (962 A.D.). Rome succeeded Babylon as the new spiritual centre of Western Europe and the world.
Then Pope Julius came into the scene in the middle ages. He found the Catholic Church already great, with the Roman barons destroyed, and as a result of the vigour of Pope Alexander VI (his immediate predecessor), he found ready at hand a means of accumulating wealth by force of arms which had not been exploited before by the Church. He succeeded in winning over Bologna for himself and also chased the French out of Italy, and earned all the credit in as much as he did everything for the aggrandizement of the Church and not for any individual.
Pope Julius was equally succeeded by Pope Leo who followed the footprints of his predecessors, and made the Catholic Church very great and wealthy –indeed – following the “doctrine of Balaam”. Thus Christ’ warning, “But I have a few things against you because you have there those who hold the doctrine of Balaam” (Rev. 2:14)
It is noteworthy that Revelation 17:4-5; & verse 18, reveals that in the end of time, at the fulfilment of all Bible prophesies, a powerful religious system – ‘Rejuvenated Roman Empire’ – from the ancient past will again reign over the nations and be identified as “Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of harlots and of the Abominations of the Earth.”
The mention of Satan’s throne in Pergamos likely refers to the famous worship of its most popular deity, the serpent god Asklepios Soter, whose Latin equivalent means “the man-instructing serpent.” The serpent god was none other than Satan, whom Revelation describes as “that serpent of old, called the Devil” (Revelation 12:9). Thus, pagan religion had its center in Pergamos.
So how did serpent worship begin in Pergamos?
Some historians trace it to the collapse of the Babylonian Empire, when some Chaldean priests established their religious centre in Pergamos. “The defeated Chaldeans fled to Asia Minor, and fixed their central college at Pergamos,” notes historian William Barker in his book ‘Lares and Penates of Cilicia’ p. 232, (1853).
Certainly the Old Testament identifies Satan’s chief seat of activity as being in ancient Babylon, where the doctrines of its mystery religion “made all the earth drunk” (Jeremiah 51:7). This would make its religious successor, Pergamos, the temporary new “Satan’s seat” of the Babylonian mystery religion.
“That seat,” comments Alexander Hislop, “after the death of Belshazzar (the last Babylonian king), and the expulsion of the Chaldean priesthood from Babylon by the Medo-Persian kings, was at Pergamos, where afterwards was one of the seven churches of Asia.
There, in consequence, for many centuries was ‘Satan’s seat.’ “There, under favor of the deified kings of Pergamos, was his favorite abode and was the worship of Asklepios, under the form of the serpent . . . Pergamos itself became part and parcel of the Roman Empire, when Attalus III, the last of its kings, at his death, left by will all his dominions to the Roman people in 133 BC” (The Two Babylons, 1959, p. 240). In this way, the Roman emperors had become the heirs of “Satan’s seat” during John’s day.
Later, when the Roman Empire collapsed, its successor, the Holy Roman Empire, would inherit the role. The Pope’s crowning of Justinian as ‘Holy Roman Emperor’ after he defeated the Ostrogoths introduced this phase in prophetic church history. Periodically, new rulers of the Holy Roman Empire emerged: Charlemagne (800 A.D.), Otto ‘the Great’ (962 A.D.). Rome succeeded Babylon as the new spiritual centre of Western Europe and the world.
Then Pope Julius came into the scene in the middle ages. He found the Catholic Church already great, with the Roman barons destroyed, and as a result of the vigour of Pope Alexander VI (his immediate predecessor), he found ready at hand a means of accumulating wealth by force of arms which had not been exploited before by the Church. He succeeded in winning over Bologna for himself and also chased the French out of Italy, and earned all the credit in as much as he did everything for the aggrandizement of the Church and not for any individual.
Pope Julius was equally succeeded by Pope Leo who followed the footprints of his predecessors, and made the Catholic Church very great and wealthy –indeed – following the “doctrine of Balaam”. Thus Christ’ warning, “But I have a few things against you because you have there those who hold the doctrine of Balaam” (Rev. 2:14)
It is noteworthy that Revelation 17:4-5; & verse 18, reveals that in the end of time, at the fulfilment of all Bible prophesies, a powerful religious system – ‘Rejuvenated Roman Empire’ – from the ancient past will again reign over the nations and be identified as “Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of harlots and of the Abominations of the Earth.”
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