Is the Babylon of Revelation Rome or Jerusalem? 373 Hellenistic idolatry (the “Titans”, and the sun-god called also “Titan”)(7). The three interpretations are all anti-Roman, though in different ways and measures. The anti-Roman interpretation took its classical shape in the most ancient commentary of Rev that survives, the commentary of Victorinus, Bishop of Poetovio, in ancient Pannonia, present day Slovenia (8). Victorinus in fact: (i) gives the circumlocution, «city of Rome», as the equivalent of Babylon: … ruina Babylonis, id est civitatis Romanae, (ii) identifies the seven mountains of Rev 17,9, on which the Harlot is seated, with the seven hills of Rome: Capita septem [sunt] septem montes, super quos mulier sedet: id est civitas Romana, et reges septem sunt, and (iii) interprets the mortally wounded head of the Beast, as an allusion to the legend of the Nero restored to life (redivivus) and returning from the East against Rome as his enemy (redux): Unum autem de capitibus quasi occisum in mortem et plagam mortis eius curatam, Neronem dicit. Constat enim, dum insequeretur eum equitatus missus a senatu, ipsum sibi gulam succidisse. Hunc ergo suscitatum Deus mittet… (9). —————— described at length by Josephus, (…) whose oppression brought on the fatal war, perhaps according to his deliberate intention, of whom Tacitus says ‘duravit tamen patientia Iudaeis usque ad Florum procuratorem’, must long have been a name of horror to every Jew”. J. BONSIRVEN, L’Apocalypse de Saint Jean (Paris 1951) 235-236, footnote 1, follows the same line of Colson. — According to several authors Euanqa" is a name without any meaning: H.B. SWETE, The Apocalypse of St. John (London 11906, 21907) 175 (“the impossible word Euanthas”); W. BARCLAY, “Revelation XIII”, in ExpT 70 (1959) 295 (“Euanthas is itself meaningless”); J. MASSYNGBERDE FORD, Revelation. Introduction, Translation and Commentary (AB 38; Garden City, NY 41980) 226 (“Euantas [sic] […] is meaningless”). (7) In fact Irenaeus writes: “… et divinum putatur apud multos esse hoc nomen, ut etiam sol Titan vocetur ab his qui nunc tenent”. Cf. then also the recensio Victorini: “Teitan, quem gentiles Solem Phoebumque appellant…” (PL Suppl. I, 157). (8) Poetovio, of which Victorinus was bishop, is today Ptuj, on the river Drave, in Slovenia. Ptuj was part of Austria during the Austro-Hungarian empire. From that time, when the German name of Ptuj was Pettau, remained the use (by now out of place) of writing “Victorinus ‘of Pettau’ ”. (9) PL Suppl. I, 140 (first quotation), 155 (second quotation), 155-156 (third and fourth quotation). — It is possibile that Victorinus proposes a traditional interpretation since sometimes he makes reference to interpreters of past times: cf. the “Veteres nostri tradiderunt etc.” of PL Suppl. I, 146.