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Hunt-ing the Whore of Babylon: Part II

Jimmy Akin

Dave Hunt’s earlier books seem to be divided into two categories: those against the New Age movement and those blaming the New Age movement on the Catholic Church. Now Hunt has written a straight-out attack on the Church, A Woman Rides the Beast: The Catholic Church in the Last Days. My analysis of Hunt’s thesis, begun in last month’s issue of This Rock, is based on a preview of his book given recently in his newsletter, The Berean Call

The Mother of Harlots 

The seventh argument is Hunt’s most ridiculous. He states: “John’s attention is next drawn to the inscription on the woman’s forehead: `THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH’ (v. 5). Sadly enough, the Roman Catholic Church fits that description as precisely as she fits the others. Much of the cause is due to the unbiblical doctrine of priestly celibacy.” He argues that priestly celibacy has “made sinners of the clergy and harlots out of those with whom they secretly cohabit.” The Catholic Church produces harlots and so is the mother of harlots. 

Problems abound here. First, priestly celibacy is not a doctrine but a discipline–a discipline which only the Latin rite of the Church uses (the Eastern rites do not) and which has not always been mandatory even in the history of the Latin rite. 

Second, the discipline can scarcely be unbiblical, since Hunt himself says, “The great Apostle Paul was a celibate and recommended that life to others who wanted to devote themselves fully to serving Christ.” 

Third, Hunt again has lurched to an absurdly literal interpretation. He should interpret the harlotry of the whore’s daughters as the same as their mother’s, which is why she is called their mother in the first place. This would make them spiritual or political fornicators or persecutors of Christian martyrs (cf. Rev. 17:2, 6, 18:6). Instead he gives the ridiculous interpretation of the daughters as literal, earthly prostitutes committing literal, earthly fornication. 

Fourth, if he did not have a fixation on the King James Version, Hunt would notice another point which identifies the daughters’ harlotries with that of their mother: The same Greek word (porne) is used for both mother and daughters. The King James Version translates this word as “whore” whenever it refers to the mother, but as “harlot” when it refers to the daughters. More modern translations render it consistently. Thus the Revised Standard Version says John is taken to see the “great harlot” (17:1, 15, 16, 19:2) who is “the mother of harlots” (17:5). The harlotry of the daughters, therefore, must be the same as their mother’s, which we have seen is either spiritual or political fornication or the persecution of Christians–not literal sex! 

Finally, both pagan Rome and apostate Jerusalem could be described as “mother of harlots” since both committed spiritual fornication and led other nations to do so, formed unholy political alliances with other nations, and persecuted Christians and encouraged other nations to do so. 

The Blood of Saints 

For his eighth argument, Hunt states, “John next notices that the woman is drunk–not with alcohol but with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus (v. 6).” As proof he advances numerous charges of brutality by the Inquisitions and alleges that the Church forced the conversion of whole nations. He even blames the Church for the Nazi holocaust! 

This section of Hunt’s article abounds with historical errors, not the least of which is his implication that the Church endorses forced conversions, which it emphatically does not. It condemned forced conversions as early as the third century and has condemned them on numerous occasions since, most recently in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (160, 1738, 1782, 2106-7). 

We will set aside Hunt’s errors and ad hominems because they do not affect the interpretation of the text. Even if all the things he says about the Church were true (including his wildly exaggerated statistics), the fact would remain that both pagan Rome and apostate Jerusalem fit the description of a city drunk with the blood of the saints and martyrs. 

Since Rome and Jerusalem were the notorious persecutors of Christians in the first century, they could be recognized as referents for this symbol by John and his readers. T he original readers of Revelation would have thought of one of these two as the city that persecutes Christians; they would not have thought of a future Catholic Church centered in Rome. 

Hunt is aware of this, for he defensively remarks that “`Christian’ Rome has slaughtered many times the number of both Christians and Jews that pagan Rome did.” This statement, which is questionable on historical grounds, is irrelevant. If sheer numbers determine who the whore is, then Moscow is the prime candidate, for the Soviet Union killed far more Christians than did the Inquisitions or any group of Catholics. Hunt forgets that the Protestant Reformers were responsible for thousands of Christians being killed (a fact he admits in one of his other books, Whatever Happened to Heaven?). 

The bottom line is that numbers are irrelevant. Both pagan Rome and apostate Jerusalem were notorious persecutors of Christians and were responsible (directly or indirectly) for the deaths of thousands. They were the ones to which John and the original audience of Revelation would have looked. 

Reigning over Kings 

For his last argument, Hunt states, “Finally, the angel reveals that the woman `is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth’ (v. 18). Is there such a city? Yes, and again only one: Vatican City.” 

This is foolishness. Vatican City has no power over any other nation; it certainly does not reign over them. (If it did, the geopolitical state of the world would be very different.) In fact, the Vatican’s very existence has been threatened in the past two centuries by Italian nationalism. 

Hunt appeals to power the popes once had over Christian political rulers (neglecting the fact that this was always a limited authority, by the popes’ own admission), but at that time there was no Vatican City. The Vatican became a separate state only in 1929, when the Holy See and Italy signed the Lateran Treaty. 

Soon after making Christianity a tolerated religion in the early fourth century, Constantine moved the capital of the empire to his new city, Constantinople. It, not Rome, ruled over the Christian empire. In the seventh century large amounts of territory were lost to the Muslims, removing from Rome any prospect of its ruling them. The eleventh-century schism by the Eastern Orthodox churches removed still more territory from Rome’s potential rule. The Protestant movement took away northern Europe and the British Isles. Emerging nationalism in France and other countries removed lands over which popes enjoyed some temporal authority. Only the tiny Papal States, located in central Italy, were left, and they vanished in 1870. Today Vatican City rules nothing but itself. 

Conclusive & Irrefutable?

At the conclusion of his article Hunt brags that “The qualifying data which John gives us under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit for identifying this woman/city is specific, conclusive, and irrefutable. There is no city upon earth, past or present, which meets all of these criteria except Catholic Rome and Vatican City.” 

While the evidence that John gives us may or may not be specific, conclusive, and irrefutable, the evidence Hunt has given us certainly is not. Pagan Rome fits every one of the criteria Hunt lays out, and apostate Jerusalem fits them almost as well (the only questions being the identification of the mountains or hills on which “the city” is situated and the nature of Jerusalem’s reign over the kings of the earth, though Jerusalem has Revelation 11:8 in its favor). 

The presence of these two likely candidates proves that Hunt’s evidence is not conclusive, which automatically means it is not irrefutable, for no inconclusive case is irrefutable. One must acknowledge, though, that Hunt’s evidence is specific–often too specific, as when he interprets Revelation 17’s symbols as referring to the vestments of certain clerics, pectoral crosses, Eucharist ic chalices, and literal prostitutes committing actual sex acts. 

Unfortunately for Hunt, when we press beyond what he quotes for us from Revelation 17, his case comes apart at the seams. Further reading of the book’s discussion of the Great Harlot (chs. 17-18) reveals it is impossible for the Catholic Church to be the whore. 

The Seven Kings

The whore sits on the beast with seven heads (17:3). In 17:9 we are told that these heads stand for seven mountains (or possibly hills). The next verse tells us “they are also seven kings, five of whom have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come, and when he comes he must remain only a little while.” If five of these kings had fallen in John’s day and one of them was still in existence, then the whore must have existed in John’s day. 

Catholic Rome and Vatican City did not exist then, but pagan Rome did have a line of emperors, and the majority of commentators see this as the line of kings to which 17:10 refers. Five of these emperors are said to have already fallen, one was still reigning in John’s time, and another was yet to come. Since Jerusalem had no such line of kings in the first century, this argues that the beast is pagan Rome. 

Note that the beast could be Rome and the whore Jerusalem. The picture of the whore seated on the beast (17:3-4) could represent an alliance between Jews and Romans. On this theory, the alliance represents Jews inciting and using pagan and Roman forces to persecute Christians (which they did at the crucifixion of Jesus and repeatedly afterward; see Acts 12:2-3, 13:50, 14:2, 5, 18-19, 17:4-8, 13, 18:12-13, 21:11, 22:30, 24:9, 27, 25:2-9, 15, 26:2, 28:19). This unsteady alliance between the whore (apostate Jerusalem/Judaism) and the beast (pagan Rome/paganism) is brought to an end in 17:16-17, when the beast and its subjects destroy and burn the whore, a prophecy fulfilled in history by the destruction and burning of Jerusalem by Roman forces in A.D. 70. (This would explain Jerusalem’s connection with the seven hills–one of alliance with Rome.) 

Hub of World Commerce

The whore is depicted as the center of world commerce. When it is destroyed, “the merchants of the earth weep and mourn for her, since no one buys their cargo any more” (18:11), and “all shipmasters and seafaring men, sailors and all whose trade is on the sea .. . wept and mourned, crying out, `Alas, alas, for the great city, where all who had ships at sea grew rich by her wealth!'” (18:17-19). 

Pagan Rome was indeed the hub of world commerce, but Catholic Rome has never been that, even during the Middle Ages. After the Reformation, economic centers of power became located in Germany, Spain, Holland, and England; in this century they have been in America and Japan. Rome is nowhere near the leading economic center in the world (try New York, London, or Tokyo). No matter how much money the pope once had, Vatican City (which runs a yearly deficit) has never been the center of world commerce. 

Daily Life in the Vatican?

In Revelation 18:21-23 we read, “Then a mighty angel picked up a boulder the size of a large millstone and threw it into the sea, and said: `With such violence the great city of Babylon will be thrown down, never to be found again. . . . No workman of any trade will ever be found in you again. The sound of a millstone will never be heard in you again. . . . The voice of bridegroom and bride will never be heard in you again. Your merchants were the world’s great men.'” 

Because it gives us a picture of daily life in the whore prior to its destruction, this passage demolishes any claim that the whore could be Vatican City. Since when has Vatican City had an economy of tradesmen living in it? Since when has Vatican City milled its own flour? Since when have the inhabitants of Vatican City been in the habit of marrying each other? (Most of them, even the women, are under vows of celibacy.) Since when has Vatican City had a corps of native merchants? (In fact, since when has Vatican City had any natives at all? Its citizens come from outside.) All of these things reflect life in an ordinary city, not in an ecclesiastical one such as Vatican City. If we want to find a city which fits the description of everyday life that Revelation 18:21-23 offers, we need to look to worldly cities such as pagan Rome or apostate Jerusalem. 

Early Persecutions

In Revelation 18:20 and 18:24 we read, “`Rejoice over her [the whore], O heaven! Rejoice, saints and apostles and prophets! God has judged her for the way she treated you’ . . . In her was found the blood of prophets and of the saints, and of all who have been killed on the earth.” This shows that the whore persecuted not just Christians, but apostles and prophets. 

Apostles existed only in the first century, since one of the requirements for being an apostle was seeing the risen Christ (1 Cor. 9:1). Prophets existed as a group only in the Old Testament and in the first century (Acts 11:27-28, 13:1, 15:32, 21:10), after which they ceased to appear in any numbers. 

Since the whore persecuted apostles and prophets, the whore must have existed at the same time they did, which means it existed in the first century and prior to the first century. This ruins Hunt’s identification of Catholic Rome or Vatican City as the whore of Babylon. Vatican City did not exist in the first century, and Rome was not a Christian city until the fourth century, so neither could be the whore. 

(If Hunt tried to broaden the whore to being the Catholic Church instead of a literal city–which he insists it is in his article–he would still undercut himself since he claims, contrary to the facts, that the Catholic Church did not even exist in the first century. This means that he cannot claim Catholicism in general is the whore.) 

Because the whore had to exist in the first century, it could only be pagan Rome or apostate Jerusalem. Only these two cities have any hope of meeting the criteria Revelation 17-18 lays out. Both of them were known for persecuting Christians and, in particular, for killing apostles. 

Rome was responsible for the deaths of the apostles Peter and Paul, who died there around A.D. 64, during Nero’s persecution. Jerusalem was responsible for the deaths of James the son of Zebedee and James the Just (who is described as an apostle in Gal. 1:19). Jerusalem was especially known for killing prophets (Matt. 23:34, Luke 11:49-51, 13:33-35, Acts 7:52). Revelation 18:24’s statement, “In her was found the blood of prophets and of the saints, and of all who have been killed on the earth,” might be a reference to Jesus’ statement of Jerusalem “that the blood of all the prophets, shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation” (Luke 11:50). 

Hunt’s Premillennialism

One of the reasons Hunt does not recognize that the whore must have been a creature of the first century is that he has straight-jacketed himself into the system of premillennialism, which requires that the events of Revelation refer primarily to our future. This belief warps his understanding and prevents him from understanding the data in the text. 

Premillennialism is a system that was rejected by the Protestant Reformers (as well as by the Catholic Church), but Hunt embraces it anyway. The current popularity of the system among Protestants in America goes back less than a 150 years and is due primarily to the influence of the Scofield Reference Bible, which espoused the system and was widely circulated in the United States. 

According to premillennialism, the millennial reign of Christ and the saints mentioned in Revelation 20:1-10 refers to a reign in an earthly paradise (which is why it must be future) prior to the end of the world and the general judgment. Premillennialism does not interpret the millennial reig n of Christ and the saints, as did both the Reformers and the Catholic Church, as the current reign of the saints in heaven and of the Church on earth. 

Because his premillennialism forces him to distort the text of Revelation and say that the millennium (Rev. 20) is future, Hunt does not recognize that the doom of the whore (Rev. 17-18) must have happened long ago, in the early centuries, certainly no later than the Christianization of the Empire in the fourth century. Hunt is forced to miss obvious cues in the text, such as those at the beginning and the end of the book, which state that the chief events it records were “what must soon take place” (Rev. 1:1, 22:6, 20)–not what would take place in the distant future. 

Even if Hunt were right and premillennialism were true, this would raise serious problems for his attempt to identify the whore of Babylon. If the whore were a future reality immediately preceding an earthly millennium, identifying it ahead of time would be virtually impossible. A future whore might not be any city currently existing. Attempting to identify it would be as foolish as attempting to identify the Antichrist before he arrives. 

Hunt and his fellow premillennialists are fond of conjecturing that in the last days there will be a “revived Roman Empire,” one that will persecute Christians. Yet they never draw the inference that this revived empire must be headed by a revived pagan Rome, with the bishop of Rome leading the Christian underground, as he did in the first century. 

In summary, Revelation 18:20 and 18:24 prove that the whore had to be a creature of the first century, which in Hunt’s own view the Catholic Church was not. Identifying the Catholic Church with the whore is completely impossible, no matter how hard Hunt strains against the evidence of the text.

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