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Tyndale Bulletin 42.1 (May (1991) 158-160.

THE MARK OF THE BEAST, REVELATION 13:16

Edwin A. Judge

The mark on the right hand (=wrist?) or the forehead

gives one admission to the market (Rev. 13:16). Is this an

imaginary scene symbolic of something else, or can one envisage

an actual practice of market control based on marks?

A symbolic meaning is not hard to find. The redeemed

are sealed upon their foreheads (Rev. 7:3). Those who

conquered at Pergamum were promised a white stone with a

new name on it (Rev. 2:17). The devotee of Asclepius, Aelius

Aristides, seems to have worn a secret symbol of his god, to

which he attributed his rhetorical success, and had received a

new name.

Revelation repeatedly refers to the name of God

written on the forehead of believers (3:12, 14:1, 22:4).

This may reflect the golden rosette fixed to Aaron's

turban (Ex. 28:36-38) engraved 'Holy to the Lord'. Every

Israelite could claim to 'bear God's name' (Dn. 9:19, cf. Nu. 6:3,

Dt. 28:10, Is. 43:7; 63:8, and Jas 2:7). In Ezekiel 9:2-4 man

clothed in linen puts a mark with ink on the foreheads of those

who are to be spared. As for the combination of hand and

forehead, one may compare the literal binding on of the law

(Ex. 13:9, Dt. 6:8, Mt. 23:5). The mark of the beast may

therefore be conceived simply as the visionary counterpart to

this tradition of a public sign of commitment to God.

But the visions of Revelation keep disconcertingly

coming down to earth. The woman clothed with the sun and the

great red dragon are both explicitly 'in heaven' (12:1, 3). But

their struggle soon ends up on earth (12:16), and the beast's

arrival by sea is viewed from the beach (12:17, 13:1). The

second beast deputizes for the first, and imposes his cult on

people (13:12). It is dramatically staged, with fireworks

_______________________

Hymn to Asclepius 6.69; Sacred Tales 4.26.518.

JUDGE: The Mark of the Beast, Revelation 13:16 159

(13:13) and ventriloquism (13:15) giving the statue an

appearance of life.

It is still reasonable of course to argue that these are

imaginary details, with only symbolic force.

But that force

may have been partly derived from contemporary parallels.

Although the text does not at first say so, it is apparent that to

get the mark that lets you into the market you had to worship

the beast (13:15-16, 20:4). If you refused the test you were killed

(12:15), and a worse fate awaited the believer who took it

(14:9-11).

The practical outcome would have been to exclude

believers altogether from the trading community—an implied

apartheid policy such as was eventually put into regular

effect.

In AD 303-4 we know from a contemporary papyrus

letter that a test of sacrifice (in the form of a pinch of incense on

the altar?) was required to gain access to the courts of law.

the time of Domitian (whose emphasis on his own divinity is

commonly thought to lie behind Re velation) a large temple to

him, with colossal statue, was erected in Ephesus (Roman

capital of Asia, to which the book is addressed) to the west of

the upper market, where you would pass if coming up from the

harbour. Perhaps they required everyone to sacrifice to

Domitian before entering the market? But if so, what sort of

mark could have been used as evidence?

The term χάραγμα (Rev. 13:16) ordinarily implies an

engraved mark or a seal impression, or inscription. The Roman

government under Augustus had already been issuing

(inscribed?) tesserae (tiles) as proof of entitlement to the

periodic grain dole.

Presumably you got one when marked off

on the roll, and then gave your tile in at the granary. In the

famine at Edessa in AD 499-500 the governor 'sealed many of

____________________________

S.J. Scherrer, 'Signs and wonders in the imperial cult: a new look at a Roman

religious institution in the light of Rev.13.13-15', JBL 103/4 (1984) 599-610:

S.R.F. Price, Rituals and Power: The Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minor

(Cambridge, CUP 1984) 191-206.

So J.P.M. Sweet, Revelation (London, SCM 1979).

S. Mitchell, 'Maximinus and the Christians in AD 312: 'A new Latin

inscription', JRS 78 (1988) 105-124.

P.Oxy. 2601.

Suetonius, Aug . 40.2, 42.3.

160 TYNDALE BULLETIN 42.1 (1991)

them on their necks with leaden seals, and gave each of them a

pound of bread a day';

but how did that stop them coming back

for more? Neither of these systems fits a mark made on the

hand or forehead.

Tattooing was used by barbarian peoples as a status

mark.

Judaism and other oriental cults used it as a sign of

dedication. A devotee of Cybele and Attis is 'sealed' by

tattooing A Byzantine chariot-driver had his forehead

tattooed with a cross.

Branding on the forehead was used as a

penalty for runaway slaves, being displaced after Constantine

by a metal collar.

The Greek tradition otherwise recoiled

from the branding of slaves. 'Do not brand your servant with

marks that insult him', says pseudo-Phocylides, the sixth-

century elegist.

But a brand-mark could easily be imitated

with ink. In the first century Satyricon of Petronius, Eumolpus

proposes to fake one as a disguise:

Let him shave not just your heads, but your eyebrows too, rightaway.

Then I shall inscribe some neat lettering on your foreheads to make it

look as though you had been branded as a punishment.

We may imagine, then, those who entered the market

of Ephesus having first to make their sacrifice, and then

receiving their mark in ink on wrist or forehead, just as in

Ezekiel 9:2-6. There is no evidence that such a test was

actually applied at this time. But there is just enough

miscellaneous information on comparable practices for us to say

that this is what might have sprung to mind for those listening

to Revelation, when they heard that to enter the market you

had first to receive the mark of the beast.

_________________________

Cited in Peter Garnsey, Famine and Food Supply in the Graeco-Roman World:

Responses to Risk and Crisis (Cambridge, CUP 1988) 4.

Xenophon, Anabasis 5.4.32; Diodorus Siculus 14.30.7; Pliny, Natural History

22.1.2.

Prudentius, Peristephanon 10.1076-90.

J. Dölger, Antike und Christentum , s.v.

As with the archdeacon's slave, G.H.R. Horsley, New Docs 1, no. 91.

T. Wiedemann, Greek and Roman Slavery (London, Croom Helm 1981) no 207.

# 103 cited Wiedemann, no. 218.

Notes of a paper given to the Continuing Education Seminar of the Society for

Early Christianity, Macquarie University, 28th April, 1990. An invaluable

stock-taking of the historical background is given by C.J. Hemer, The Letters to

the Seven Churches of Asia in their Local Setting (Sheffield, JSOT Press 1986).

Stephen Mitchell

Two historical events occupy central positions in the conversion of the Roman empire to Christianity. To study them makes for a radical and intriguing contrast in historical method. One, the conversion of Constantine, can surely only be approached by examining private and personally held beliefs as they were made public by a single individual, Constantine himself. A biographical approach will be the only way to approach the truth about an individual conversion. The other, the persecution of Christians at the beginning of the fourth century, initiated by an edict of Diocletian of 24 February 303, and concluded by the so-called 'edict of Milan', issued by Licinius on 13 June 313, cannot be understood except by examining the public documents which made known the various imperial decisions which implemented persecution, or toleration, of the Christian community at large.

Peter Garnsey

Provides a full-length treatment of food supply and crisis in classical antiquity, thus demonstrating that the study of supply systems and their breakdown can lead to a fuller understanding of political behaviour, social mechanisms, and economic relationships. The author questions the causes of the food crisis, the frequency of famines, and the development and adequacy of relief measures, with details of case studies from Athens and Rome to illuminate responses in cities and rural communities in the Mediterranean between 600 BC and 500 AD. The four major parts of the book cover: the incidence and severity of food crisis; survival strategies; Athens 600 to 322 BC; and Rome 509 BC to 250 AD. -from Author

Croom Helm 1981) no 207. 13 # 103 cited Wiedemann, no. 218. 14 Notes of a paper given to the Continuing Education Seminar of the Society for Early Christianity An invaluable stock-taking of the historical background is given by C

Greek Wiedemann
Roman Slavery

Wiedemann, Greek and Roman Slavery (London, Croom Helm 1981) no 207. 13 # 103 cited Wiedemann, no. 218. 14 Notes of a paper given to the Continuing Education Seminar of the Society for Early Christianity, Macquarie University, 28th April, 1990. An invaluable stock-taking of the historical background is given by C.J. Hemer, The Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia in their Local Setting (Sheffield, JSOT Press 1986).

Antike und Christentum, s.v. 11 As with the archdeacon's slave