Imperial Commune

In his Revelation of St. John the Divine (171), GB Caird offers this bit of history to illuminate the significance of the beast from the land (Revelation 13:11-18):

“In the province of Asia the imperial cult was in the hands of a body known in Greek as the koinon and in Latin as the commune. The commune Asiae, a provincial council consisting of representatives from the major towns, was a least as old as Mark Antony, who found it already in existence. Augustus, who make a practice of using existing political institutions wherever possible, built it into his system of provincial administration, and used it as a model for similar councils elsewhere. The Asiarchs (Acts xix. 31) were members of the commune and probably local priests of the imperial cult as well. This indigenous body with its delegated power is John’s monster rising out of the land. In all matters of local government it could be said to yield the authority of the first monster. The presence of the monster from the sea was represented by the proconsul; but, since his was only an annual appointment, he would normally be only too pleased to leave the routine administration to the local authority.”

Caird emphasizes that the push to worship the emperor came from the communes of the eastern provinces, with their long history of divine kingship: “It was historically that the commune had made the earth and its inhabitants worship the first monster; for it would never have occurred to Augustus to claim divinity, if the eastern provinces, accustomed as they were to worship of their previous oriental rulers, had not taken the initiative in elevating him to a place among the immortals, city vying with city for the right to erect a temple to Rome and Augustus. It was the commune that had given orders to make a statue to the emperor. If other emperors had subsequently gone further in their demands for worship, it was because Augustine had first accepted in the east a spontaneous tribute of loyalty and gratitude which he discouraged to the end of his life in the less demonstrative west” (171-2).

He adds that the beast’s miracle-working may fit into this context: “The widespread influence of sorcery and ventriloquism attested in Acts . . . reached even into court circles; for Tiberius had surrounded himself with astrologers in his retreat on the island of Capri, Appeles the miracle-monger of Ascalon had been welcomed at the court of Caligula, and Apollonius of Tyana had been the friend of Nero, Vespasian, and Titus” (172).

To this, I add a few twists. The second beast in Revelation 13 comes from the land, and is thus associated with Israel as the beast from the sea originates from the turbulent Gentile ocean. If John intends to evoke the communes of the imperial cult, he is taking a wicked swipe at Herod and/or the Jews: While they claim to be building a temple to worship Yahweh, they are in fact the koinon of a Roman deity. (The swipe is there regardless, because even if there is no reference to the commune, John still says that the land beast makes the earth and those who dwell in it worship the sea beast. The background Caird provides sharpens an irony that is already there.)

And then there’s an implied underside to the designation. For if a koinon is a provincial council that carries out the orders of the empire, a council consisting of local priests who support and enact the imperial cult, then the church is the koinon of a heavenly emperor and a heavenly empire. The land beast opposes the saints because the latter represent a different imperial order, with an alternative imperial worship.