The Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia

The Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia Author(s): Ramsay, W. M. Publisher: Grand Rapids, MI: Christian Classics Ethereal Library Description: In the Book of Revelation, we find John©s letters to the seven churches of first century Asia Minor, written during the era of the Roman Empire. The seven churches correspond to the seven congregations found in these cities: Ephesus, City of Change; Smyrna, City of Life; Pergamum, City of Authority; Thyatira, City of Weakness Made Strong; Sardis, City of Death; Philadelphia, Missionary City; and Laodicea, City of Compromise. William Ramsay presents these letters to help readers better understand their content as well as the historical context surrounding their authorship. Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia is filled with facts regarding the general importance of letter writing in the Early Church, the mobility of letters during this time period, John©s intentions in writing the Seven Letters, and the influence of religion in the development of first century cities. John©s letters provide historical insight into Greco-Roman culture and geography. They also serve to guide Christians in their spiritual development. Ramsay©s book brings John©s letters into a useful contemporary light. Emmalon Davis CCEL Staff Writer Subjects: The Bible New Testament Special parts of the New Testament i Contents Title Page 1 Preface 2 Chapter 1. Writing, Travel, and Letters Among the Early Christians. 5 Chapter 2. Transmission of Letters in the First Century. 12 Chapter 3. The Christian Letters and Their Transmission. 17 Chapter 4. The Letters to the Seven Churches 24 Chapter 5. Relation of the Christian Books to Contemporary Thought and Literature. 33 Chapter 6. The Symbolism of the Seven Letters. 37 Chapter 7. Authority of the Writer of the Seven Letters. 47 Chapter 8. The Education of St. John in Patmos. 51 Chapter 9. The Flavian Persecution in the Province of Asia as Depicted in the 57 Apocalypse. Chapter 10. The Province of Asia and the Imperial Religion. 69 Chapter 11. The Cities of Asia as Meeting-Places of the Greek and the Asiatic Spirit. 77 Chapter 12. The Jews in the Asian Cities. 85 Chapter 13. The Pagan Converts in the Early Church. 94 Chapter 14. The Seven Churches of Asia. 101 Chapter 15. Origin of the Seven Representative Cities. 109 Chapter 16. Plan and Order of Topics in the Seven Letters. 116 Chapter 17. Ephesus: The City of Change. 123 Chapter 18. The Letter to the Church in Ephesus. 140 Chapter 19. Smyrna: The City of Life. 148 Chapter 20. The Letter to the Church in Smyrna. 158 Chapter 21. Pergamum: The Royal City: The City of Authority 166 Chapter 22. The Letter to the Church in Pergamum. 172 Chapter 23. Thyatira: Weakness Made Strong. 186 ii Chapter 24. The Letter to the Church in Thyatira. 193 Chapter 25. Sardis: The City of Death. 208 Chapter 26. The Letter to the Church in Sardis. 217 Chapter 27. Philadelphia: The Missionary City. 230 Chapter 28. The Letter to the Church in Philadelphia. 236 Chapter 29. Laodicea: The City of Compromise. 243 Chapter 30. The Letter to the Church in Laodicea. 249 Chapter 31. Epilogue. 253 Indexes 255 Index of Scripture References 256 Latin Words and Phrases 257 iii This PDF file is from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library, www.ccel.org. The mission of the CCEL is to make classic Christian books available to the world. • This book is available in PDF, HTML, ePub, Kindle, and other formats. See http://www.ccel.org/ccel/ramsay/letters.html. • Discuss this book online at http://www.ccel.org/node/3533. The CCEL makes CDs of classic Christian literature available around the world through the Web and through CDs. We have distributed thousands of such CDs free in developing countries. If you are in a developing country and would like to receive a free CD, please send a request by email to [email protected]. The Christian Classics Ethereal Library is a self supporting non-profit organization at Calvin College. If you wish to give of your time or money to support the CCEL, please visit http://www.ccel.org/give. This PDF file is copyrighted by the Christian Classics Ethereal Library. It may be freely copied for non-commercial purposes as long as it is not modified. All other rights are re- served. Written permission is required for commercial use. iv Title Page Title Page The Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia And their place in the plan of the Apocalypse W. M. Ramsay, D.C.L., Litt.D., LL.D. Professor of Humanity in the University of Aberdeen 1904 1 Preface Preface Preface In the contact of East and West originates the movement of history. The historical pos- ition of Christianity cannot be rightly understood except in its relation to this immemorial meeting and conflict. The present book is based on the view that Christianity is the religion which associates East and West in a higher range of thought than either can reach alone, and tends to substitute a peaceful union for the war into which the essential difference of Asiatic and European character too often leads the two continents. So profound is the difference, that in their meeting either war must result, or each of them must modify itself. There is no power except religion strong enough to modify both sufficiently to make a peaceful union possible; and there is no religion but Christianity which is wholly penetrated both with the European and with the Asiatic spirit—so penetrated that many are sensitive only to one or the other. Only a divine origin is competent to explain the perfect union of Eastern and Western thought in this religion. It adapted itself in the earliest stages of its growth to the great Graeco-Asiatic cities with their mixed population and social system, to Rome, not as the Latin city, but as the capital of the Greek-speaking world, and to Corinth as the halting- place between Greek Asia and its capital. Several chapters of the present book are devoted to an account of the motley peoples and manners of those cities. The adaptation of Chris- tianity to the double nationality can be best seen in the Apocalypse, because there the two elements which unite in Christianity are less perfectly reconciled than in any other book of the New Testament. The Judaic element in the Apocalypse has been hitherto studied to the entire neglect of the Greek element in it. Hence it has been the most misunderstood book in the New Testament. The collision of East and West throughout history has been a subject of special interest to the present writer from early youth; and he has watched for more than twenty-five years the recent revival of the Asiatic spirit, often from a very close point of view. In 1897, in a book entitled Impressions of Turkey, he tried to analyse and describe, as he had seen it, “the great historic movement” through which “Mohammedanism and Orientalism have gathered fresh strength to defy the feeling of Europe.” It is now becoming plain to all that the relation of Asia to Europe is in process of being profoundly changed; and very soon this will be a matter of general discussion. The long-unquestioned domination of European over Asiatic is now being put to the test, and is probably coming to an end. What is to be the issue? That depends entirely on the influence of Christianity, and on the degree to which it has affected the aims both of Christian and of non-Christian nations: there are cases in which it has affected the latter almost more than the former. The ignorant European fancies that progress for the East lies in Europeanising it. The ordinary traveller in the East can tell that it is as impossible to Europeanise the Asiatic as it is to make an Asiatic out of a European; but he 2 Preface has not learned that there is a higher plane on which Asia and Europe may “mix and meet.” That plane was once in an imperfect degree reached in the Graeco-Asiatic cities, whose creative influence in the formation of Roman and modern society is beginning to be recog- nised by some of the latest historical students, and the new stage towards which Christianity is moving, and in which it will be better understood than it has been by purely European thought, will be a synthesis of European and Asiatic nature and ideas. This book is a very imperfect essay towards the understanding of that synthesis, which now lies before us as a possibility of the immediate future. How imperfect it is has become clearer to the writer as in the writing of it he came to comprehend better the nature of the Apocalypse. The illustrations are intended to be steps in the argument. The Apocalypse reads the history and the fate of the Churches in the natural features, the relations of earth and sea, winds and mountains, which affected the cities; this study distinguishes some of those influ- ences; and the Plates furnish the evidence that the natural features are not misapprehended in the study. The Figures in the text are intended as examples of the symbolism that was in ordinary use in the Greek world; the Apocalypse is penetrated with this way of expressing thought to the eye; and its symbolic language is not to be explained from Jewish models only (as is frequently done). It was written to be understood by the Graeco-Asiatic public; and the Figures prove that it was natural and easy for those readers to understand the symbolism.

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