Giancarlo Biguzzi, «Is the Babylon of Revelation Rome or Jerusalem?», Vol. 87 (2006) 371-386
The Babylon of Revelation 17–18 has been interpreted as imperial Rome since
antiquity, but some twenty interpreters have rejected such a solution in recent
centuries and have held that Babylon instead should be Jerusalem. This is not a
minor question since it changes the interpretation of the whole book, because Rev
would become all of a sudden an anti-Jewish libel, after having been an anti-
Roman one. This article discusses the pros and cons of the two interpretations and
concludes that the traditional one matches both the details and the plot of the book
much more than any other.
Is the Babylon of Revelation Rome or Jerusalem? 375
interpreted for example as ITALIKH EKKLHSIA, PAPEISKOS etc.
by one side, or as LOUQERANA by the other (14).
In this same epoch, however, some interpreters went back to the
anti-Roman interpretation (Bibliander, †1564; J. de Mariana, †1624;
J.S. Semler, 1766; H. Corrodi, 1783; J.G. Eichhorn, 1791), that
became a quasi-dogma in XIX century (F. Lücke, 1832; W.M.L. de
Wette, 1848; H. Ewald, 1862; E. Renan, 1873 etc.)(15).
Other interpreters, on the contrary, inaugurated the anti-Jewish
interpretation. The Belgian Jeronimite J. Henten (scripsit 1545) spoke
of synagogae abrogatio for Rev 1–11 (and excidium gentilismi for Rev
12–22). The first to see Jerusalem in Rev’s Babylon were the French
Jesuit J. Hardouin (1646-1729) and the French Calvinist F. Abauzit
(1679-1767). According to the former the seven messages of Rev 2–3
are addressed to the Jewish-Christians of Jerusalem, and according to
the latter the Beast is the Jewish Sanhedrin, the seven mountains of
Rev 17,9 are the seven hills on which Jerusalem stands, and the fall of
Babylon is the fall of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.(16).
Some twenty scholars have held this interpretation in the last
century based on the following arguments against the anti-Roman one,
and variously configuring the new solution.
2. Anti-Jewish interpretation versus anti-Roman interpretation
a) Reasons against the anti-Roman hypothesis
The objections against the anti-Roman interpretation can be
summarised in four groups.
(14) Cf. BARCLAY, “Revelation XIIIâ€, 295-296.
(15) For the authors of this period, whose works are usually not easily
available, cf. the historical reviews in the commentaries of W. Bousset and E.-B.
Allo, from which all draw information.
(16) J. Hardouin was an encyclopaedic man but rather bizzarre, convinced for
example that, except for some works of Cicero, Virgil and Horace, all the other
writings considered old are rather XIII century falsifications. About him G.
SOMMERVOGEL, Dictionnaire de la Bible (Paris 1910) III, 427, writes: “… fut le
savant plus paradoxal, non seulement de son époque, mais peut-être de tous les
temps. Son imagination ardente lui fit concevoir en différentes branches des
sciences les systèmes les plus extravagantsâ€. — The essay of Abauzit, which was
published after his death by J.B. de Mirabau at Geneva in the year 1770, was
entitled “Essai sur l’Apocalypseâ€. — About F. Abauzit cf. BOUSSET, Die
Offenbarung Johannis, 102; E. LEVESQUE, “Abauzit, Firminâ€, Dictionnaire de la
Bible (Paris 1894) I, 17-18, and Y. DE LA BRIÈRE, “Le professeur de théologie du
‘vicaire savoyarde’ de Rousseau: Firmin Abauzit, de Genèveâ€â€œ, RechSR 14 (1924)
447-453 (“… l’Apocalypse, appliquée à la ruine de Jérusalem sous Titusâ€, p. 452).
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