Apoc. 3,21: καθισαι
μετ’ εμου εν τω θρονω μου
Particular references here to our concerns with the Imperial Cult are
sparse, even though Hemer detected and reinforced early discussions of the
relationship between what is recorded by ancient writers and inscriptions
regarding Laodicea and this letter. The wealth and self-sufficiency of the city
meant that it was in a position to decline to ask for imperial aid following
the earthquake already mentioned (5A 3.1.6). However, the promise here to the
overcomers is "to sit with me on my throne (καθισαι μετ’ εμου εν τω θρονω μου) even as I have
been victorious (ως καγω ενικησα)
and sit with my father on his throne (και εκαθισα μετα του πατρος μου εν τω θρονω μου; v. 21)."
There was however an imperial temple erected in honour of Domitian
at Laodicea in commemoration of his often fictitious, military, victories. The
depiction of the temple on coins represents Domitian in armour with a spear and
with the inscription: επινεικιος.
Furthermore, as Hemer notes, Ramsay restored an inscription from Laodicea in which
a freedman of the emperor, Tiberius Claudius Tryphon, dedicates a triple gate
and towers: "to Jupiter (Δ[ιι]) the greatest Saviour (μεγις[τω] Σ[ω]τηρι) and emperor Domitian (και Αυτοκρατορι [Δομιτιανω]), Caesar
Augustus (Καισαρι Σεβαστω),
pontifex maximus (αρχιερει μεγιστω)." We have shown the clear emphasis
in the other letters on a contra-cultural representation of Christian eschatology
in terms of the Imperial Cult. It is interesting to ask, therefore, whether the
address of the Lord Christ ("Behold I stand at the door and knock" v.
20), however allusory, is not a parallel with the gate bearing the emperor's
name and by whose will people come in and come out. The supper is clearly eschatological
(Apoc. 3,20 cf. 19,9 and 17) but a foretaste is the Eucharist of the
present which has already in previous letters been paralleled with the cultic festivities
of the guilds at Pergamon (5B 1.3) and Thyateira (5B 1.4). (Allen Brent, The Imperial Cult and the Development
of Church Order: Concepts and Images of Authority in Paganism and Early
Christianity Before the Age of Cyprian [Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae
45; Leiden: Brill, 1999], 189)
