Wednesday, June 2, 2010

The Whore of Babylon

The Church has been identified with the Whore of Babylon since the Reformation. The charge is frequent enough in Evangelical Protestantism that no citation is really needed, but just in keeping with my own guidelines here are some references:


I think that should be sufficient to substantiate that there are some who call themselves Christian that make the claim that the Whore of Babylon is to be identified with the Catholic Church.

Before this particularly old and slanderous claim is refuted, some explanation is in order. Who or what is this "Whore of Babylon"? This imagery comes to us in the Revelation of St. John. In the seventeenth and eighteenth chapters of that work we are told of a vision of a woman, clothed in purple and scarlet who is described as being the mother of abominations. She is riding a beast with seven heads and ten horns, who later devours her. This post will go through and show that the "Whore of Babylon" is not the Catholic Church, but apostate Jerusalem.

The first piece of the puzzle is that the whore is a symbolic representation in a vision, and she represents a city. She does not represent a "one world church" or "false religious system" as purported by Chick and others. We know this because of what the scriptures say about her:

And he said to me, "The waters that you saw, where the harlot is seated, are peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues. And the ten horns that you saw, they and the beast will hate the harlot; they will make her desolate and naked, and devour her flesh and burn her up with fire, for God has put it into their hearts to carry out this purpose by being of one mind and giving over their royal power to the beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled. And the woman that you saw is the great city which has dominion over the kings of the earth. (Revelation 17:15-18)
She is a "great city." Of course, more information is needed. She could be Rome. Or Jerusalem. Or Alexandria. Or Cyprus. Or Athens. You get the idea. The idea of "dominion" does seem to point to Rome, but only in a temporal sense. In Hebrew cosmology, Jerusalem, or more specifically, the Temple, was the center of the universe. God ruled the earth form the Holy of Holies. Would this not place dominion in Jerusalem? More interestingly, if we take the Beast to be Rome, Jerusalem makes even more sense. The power that Jerusalem held was supported by the Roman Empire. But in AD 70, Jerusalem was burned to the ground by the Roman Legions. The pieces are starting to fall into place. If it also taken with the Old Testament Prophets who describe Jerusalem as a harlot, then it makes completely logical sense that the Whore of Babylon is apostate Jerusalem, who is later turned on by Rome, and has no connection with the Catholic Church whatsoever.

4 comments:

  1. Hey Carl, you probably don't remember me, but I had one or two history classes with you at the OSU branch. I was reading your blog because, oddly enough, I have kind of been having this conversation with my dad lately. I'm not a Catholic, and I'm pretty skeptical about organized religion in general, but it bugs me to no end to see people's faiths get twisted and misrepresented to the point of demonization.

    A book my dad recently lent me called, "The Two Babylons" by Alexander Hislop, is particularly troubling, because of the amount of research that went into it, and the scholarly aura that that seems to create. It basically tries to draw a direct historical connection between ancient Babylonian paganism and the traditions of the Catholic Church... ergo the Whore of Babylon. A little research and scholarly criticism makes it obvious that it is a bad work of history and its claims are unfounded. However, to any untrained reader it is going to seem authoritative as an academic source because it is littered with footnotes and "proof". Anyway I think you should at least check it out to see what you're really up against. Not all Catholic bashers are just dull-witted blowhards on the internet, some of them have some serious pseudo-intellectual heft behind them (if that makes any sense); and unfortunately they make honest, good-hearted people, who are just searching for truth like the rest of us, believe in inflammatory and unfounded claims.

    I do have a question though that I wanted to ask a serious Catholic, and you seem open enough about this stuff. How do you defend the incorporation of pagan rituals and holidays into the traditions of the church? i.e. Christmas and Easter, which are festivals that undoubtedly have pagan roots and influences.

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  2. No, Tyler, I do remember you. First, in reference to Alexander Hislop: I am familiar with his "work," as well as another anti-Catholic screed, "Roman Catholicism" by Loarine Boeettner. If one recognizes that their "facts" are either invented or taken out of context, they are fairly easily dealt with. As far as the "Pagan roots" of Easter and Christmas,which are themselves worthy of their own posts, are much more difficult questions to answer in a comment. At this point I will defer to a Catholic apologetics apostolate, Catholic Answers. They have several articles on the supposed connection between Catholicism and paganism:
    http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/quickquestions/keyword/paganism
    http://www.catholic.com/library/Is_Catholicism_Pagan.asp
    http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/1992/9207clas.asp
    http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/2000/0003chap.asp

    These should answer your questions about paganism

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  3. Hey, thanks. That does help a lot. I'll forward those sites to my dad.

    There are tons of bogus claims about paganism and Catholicism, and that site seems to do a really good job at pointing them out. But, at some point doesn't it just become cognitive dissonance to deny any traditional influence? I mean, just read any encyclopedia reference on Christmas or Easter. They were clearly pre-Christian festivals that were taken over by the church, and many of the pagan rituals lingered around. Now I don't think that deals any kind of devastating theological blow, but it is definitely and error to group that claim with all of the other ridiculous accusations, like those of Hislop.

    I'll keep an eye on your blog for a post about this. Have a goodun! :)

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  4. I have been thinking about the alleged paganism-Catholicism connection. One thing I can say is that all of creation was created as a good thing. After the Fall, some of these good things were perverted to evil ends. The reclamation and redefinition of the pagan, and redirecting it towards God is not necessarily a bad thing.

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