Sjef van Tilborg, «The Danger at Midday: Death Threats in the Apocalypse», Vol. 85 (2004) 1-23
This paper proposes a new suggestion in the discussion regarding possible death threats in the Apocalypse. It makes a comparison between relevant texts from the Apocalypse and what happens during festival days when rich civilians entertain their co-citizens with (gladiatorial) games. At the end of the morning and during the break special fights are organized. Condemned persons are forced to fight against wild animals or against each other to be killed by the animals or by fire. The paper shows that a number of texts from the Apocalypse are better understood, when they are read against this background.
16 Sjef van Tilborg
There is a social demand and so there arises even a form of trade
in noxii who can be used as meridiani in the midday intermission.
Among other things a copy was found in Sardis of a senate decree
from 177 about these damnati. The State is prepared to deliver them
cheap, but the buyers have to guarantee that they are killed within a
certain deadline (45). It is a strange trade. It is also precisely the time in
which the first Acts of the Christian martyrs are dated. Without any
doubt these martyrs were, to the amazement of the spectators, in a
strange way willing meridiani.
The last phase of the combat is death: dying or (otherwise) killing.
The common words apoqnhskw and apokteinw are used, but also the
j v/ j v
special word sfavzw: to slaughter, to kill, to sacrifice. It is a special
word because, like a few other words, it is open to a double meaning.
It is a LXX word. There it is used 84 times (plus still 24 times the word
sfaghv and 5 times the word sfagion)(46) and is more properly dealt
v
with in a twofold context: 1) in the sacrifice of the animal for slaughter,
e.g. 30 times in Leviticus (see 1,5.11; 3,2.8.13; 4,4.15.24.29.33 etc.),
but also with the sacrifice of Isaac (Gen 22,10). And 2) in a war
context, in the massacre of people: Elijah who causes the prophets of
Baal to be massacred (1 Kgs 18,40); the 70 princes of Ahab who are
massacred at the throne succession (2 Kgs 10,7), the sword of God
which is sharpened for the slaughter (Ez 1,15) etc. and especially in the
context of the Maccabean wars (1 Macc 1,2; 2,24; 2 Macc 5,24; 8,24;
10,37; 12,26; 4 Macc 2,19).
The word sfavzw, however, is also used in a typical manner within
the context of gladiators. I give a number of relevant texts:
– in an inscription from Hierapolis (47) in a fourfold strip four
names at the right side are still legible. One must assume that still four
other names would be at the left side. It is then about four gladiatorial
pairs whose outcome was all the time written down:
– mon Biktwr ajpevqanan
[Me]levagro" ejsf[avgh]
– no" ∆Ingevnh" ejsf[avgh]
∆Antiociano" ejsf[avgh]
v
(45) Insc Sardis 16; see for commentary KYLE, Spectacles of Death 84, 94;
and MEIJER, Gladiatoren, 85-91; 147-157.
(46) Cf. the statistics in J. LUST – E. EYNIKEL – K. HAUSPIE, A Greek-English
Lexicon on the Septuagint (Stuttgart 1996) II, 465.
(47) Altertümer von Hierapolis 62.63; ROBERT, 122
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