And one thing interesting about Pergamon is how it seems specifically to be tied to the topic of The Beasts of Revelation 13 and 19.
Pergamon is described as being where Satan's Seat is (Thronos is the Greek word from which comes the English word Throne). Later in chapter 13 verse 2 The Dragon (who is identified with Satan in chapter 12) gives his Seat to The Beast (and it's mentioned again in chapter 16 after the 6th bowl) and in the next verse is talk of the mortal wound that was healed.
The popular view on what specific location in Pergamon was called Satan's Seat is the Altar of Zeus built by Eumenes II King of Pergamon in the second century BC. But the context is the persecution of Christians which in 1st and 2nd century Asia Minor was always for refusing to take part in the Imperial Cult, which Pergamon was the center of in the Roman Province of Asia.
I've read a lot on the theory that Pergamon is the actual site of Troy (really Ilion/Ilium more specifically which can be interpreted as a technically separate nearby city). I was ultimately unconvinced of the theory because archeologically the city wasn't built till the 8th century BC after the very date for the Fall of Troy one of these books used, 811 BC. However what I did become convinced of is that many locals of Pergamon in Classical Antiquity believed they were Troy. And a core foundation of why was the name Pergamos being used of a citadel on the highest peak of Ilium in the Illiad.
Pergamos is the spelling for Pergamon used by Xenophon in Anabasis and also by the KJV which followed Tyndale. Why Tyndale used this spelling when the Textus Receptus used Pergamon is not something I've been able to find out by Googling. Point is it is a form of the name that existed.
In some passages this Pergamos Citadel has the Seat or Thronos of Apollo the seeming Patron Deity of Ilium.
Homer, Iliad 7.17 ff :
"Now as the goddess grey-eyed Athene [on Olympos] was aware of these two [the Trojan princes Hektor (Hector) and Paris] destroying the men of Argos in the strong encounter, she went down in a flash of speed from the peaks of Olympos to sacred Ilion, where Apollon stirred forth to meet her from his seat on Pergamos, where he planned that the Trojans should conquer. These two then encountered each other beside the oak tree, and speaking first the son of Zeus, lord Apollon, addressed her : ‘What can be your desire this time, o daughter of great Zeus, that you came down from Olympos at the urge of your mighty spirit? To give the Danaans victory in battle, turning it back? .
And also Pergamos is where Apollo heals the mortal wound of Aeneas.
Homer, Iliad 5. 445 ff (trans. Lattimore) (Greek epic C8th B.C.) :
"Apollon caught [the wounded] Aineias (Aeneas) now and away from the onslaught [of the battle], and set him in the sacred keep of Pergamos (Pergamus) where was built his own temple. There Artemis of the showering arrows and Leto within the great and secret chamber healed his wound and cared for him."
Aeneas is the Trojan Hero who would later be claimed to have founded Rome, or some other Latin civilization that spawned Rome, Livy and Virgil would depict a son of Aeneas as fathering the Gens Julii specifically. So with all the other reasons for viewing The Beast as Rome or a Roman Emperor this imagery fits poetically.
Pergamon first became a center of the Imperial Cult under Augustus who was a big fan of Apollo making his Birthday September 23rd a Holiday for Apollo, Suetonius biography of Augustus records that at some point Augustus was claimed to have been the Son of Apollo. Virgil's writings also play into Augustus's desire to be associated with Apollo. So a place where Apollo was worshiped in Pergamon probably became the center of the Imperial Cult. But later Trajan and Hadrian preferred to be associated with Zeus, so I think the Trajenum was built over the same place where Augustus and Apollo were worshiped previously.
In all this context it's easy then to see in the message to Pergamon the figure of The Beast typologically represented by Balac and The False Prophet by Balaam.
But Satan's Seat isn't the only connection.
Revelation 2:16 says "Repent; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth." That sword being a reference back to verse 12 which was referencing back to Revelation 1:16 the sharp two-edged sword. The Context in 2:16 is referring to specifically those in Pergamon who followed the Doctrine of Balaam and/or the Nicolaitans from the prior verses.
So when Revelation 19:21 says referring to the Beast's armies after he and the False Prophet are cast alive into the Lake of Fire, "And the remnant were slain with the sword of him that sat upon the horse, which sword proceeded out of his mouth" it is I think meant to be a reference back to 2:16. The Beast's armies were Christians.
Even after Nicaea it took awhile for most of the actual armies of the Roman Empire to become mostly Christians, discussions of Julian The Apostate's reign frequently talk about how most of the army were still Pagans. The Edict of Thessalonica and Augustine's Just War Principal were the key turning points here.
The Greek word for Stone in the White Stone reference isn't Petros or Petras, it is Psephos a word that in the Greek mind was associated with Voting and Democracy. The only other time the New Testament uses it is Acts 26:10 where the KJV translates it "voice" the context is clearly Paul saying how he voted. Usually Psephos were used for Secret Ballots and so that's what the Name no one knows but the person who has it is probably alluding to.
On my other Blog I've already talked about why The Bible is actually Anti-Monarchy. Eric Nelson's The Hebrew Republic contains a good discussion of the history of Judeo-Christian debates about Deuteronomy 17, and he revisits the subject in Royalist Revolution in the chapter on Thomas Paine's Common Sense (despite the title he does acknowledge Paine was authentically anti-Royalist).
I further hold the view that every appearance of Moloch/Molech in The Hebrew Bible should be translated The King and Milcom as Kings.
The relevance here is that Kingship is a Human being worshiped as God whether the Christians engaging in it want to admit that or not.
I have come to agree with the common Historicist reading of II Thessalonians 2, that The Temple of God there is The Church like every other time the Paulian Epistles speak of The Temple of God. But I still don't agree with the Day=Year theory. And I also don't make it about just The Pope specifically, it's all Episcopal Polity and all Christian Monarchies.
Many (though not all) Christian Emperors also persecuted believers of The Biblical God who didn't follow the right denomination. Jews, Nazarenes, Ebionites, Montanists, Novatians, Donatists, Pelegians and Nestorians had it difficult no matter which sect had The Emperor. Until 380 it was mainly the Arian Emperors persecuting others, but after that the Nicenes became the intolerant ones. And the Chalcedonian Emperors' attitudes towards the Oriental Orthodox were complicated.
In 262 AD during the Crisis of the Third Century the City of Pergamon was hit by an Earthquake and then sacked by the Goths, this really was the end of the City of Pergamon as it was known to the Author and original Audience of Revelation, (Ephesus experienced similar disasters in the same year but they were able to recover while Pergamon was not). This is when the Library of Pergamon would have been finally destroyed if it was still operating at all, same with the Library of Celsus in Ephesus.
I have a personal hunch that I can't prove that the Church of Pergamon after this moved to Nicomedia and other cities of Bithynia (like Nicaea, Chalcedon and Byzantium) and that during Late Antiquity the Bithynian Churches were the heirs of the Pergamon of Revelation. They then became the clerical heart first of Arian Christianity, then of Chalcedonianism within Nicene Christianity and then of Greek Orthodoxy within Chalcedonian Christianity.
You do not have to think one of those sects was more Doctrinally Correct then Chalcedonian Christianity to view this interpretation of Revelation to be correct, I am writing this as a Chalcedonian. You simply have to believe it was wrong and evil for Christina to persecute other Christians.
This can apply to a number of Christian Roman Emperors from Theodosius to Justinian down though all the Greek Emperors. But once again I want to draw attention to Heraclius in the 7th Century AD who was the first Roman since 509 BC to openly call himself King. Then he and Sergius did the Monenergism/Monothelitism project which created more internal strife within The Church.
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