Saturday, May 20, 2023

Allen Brent on the Traditional Dating for the Book of Revelation: "Domitian and Domitia: the divine child: Apoc. 12,1-6"

  

Domitian and Domitia: the divine child: Apoc. 12,1-6

 

Domitia's child was born in 7 3 and died in 83. Domitia was described after this event as mother of gods on coins depicting her as Ceres, Demeter, and Cybele. It is interesting to compare the iconography surrounding this event with Apoc. 12, 1-6 . Here, essentially, there is a heavenly sign (και σημειον μεγα ωφθη εν τω ουρανω) . There is "a woman clothed with the sun (γυνη περιβεβλημενη τον ηλιον) and the moon under her feet (και η σελενη υποκατω των ποδων αυτης) and upon her head a crown of twelve stars (και επι της κεφαλης αυτης στεφανος αστερων δωδεκα)." (12,1) She is pursued by the seven-headed dragon, whose tail sweeps away one third of the stars, and who intends to devour her child, destined to rule the nations (2-4). Then "she brought forth a male child (και ετεκεν υιον αρσεν) , destined to shepherd all the nations with a rod of iron (ος μελλει ποιμαινειν παντα τα εθνη εν ραβδω σιδηρα) . And the child was snatched away to God (και ηρπασθη το τεκνον αυτης προς τον θεον) and to his throne (και προς τον θρονον αυτου.)."

 

In a coin of A.D. 92, after her restoration to favour, Domitia is depicted draped and veiled, and seated on a throne extending her hand to touch a small boy. He holds in his left hand the sceptre of world dominion whilst blessing the world with his right. The inscription reads: DIVI CAESAR[IS] MATRI (Plate 21). The obverse side of the coin depicts Domitia draped with her hair tied up at the back and raised in a dome at the front with elaborate coils (Plate 20). Domitia's child thus shows, with his sceptre and globe, close correspondence with ος μελλει ποιμανειν παντα τα εθνη εν ραβδω σιδηρα.

 

Furthermore the child has died and become one with the imperial family in deification, just like the child of the Apoc. 12,5: και ηρπασθη το τεκνον αυτης προς τον θεον. A further earlier, gold coin of A.D. 83 bears the inscription: DIVUS CAESAR IMP DOMITIANI F[ILIUS]. Here the naked infant, divus Caesar is depicted as baby Jupiter seated on a globe with seven stars around him (Plate 23). The obverse of the coin is inscribed DOMITIA AVGVSTA IMP[ERATORIS] DOMIT[IANI] (Plate 22). Thus in the image of Apoc. 12,1 we find the infant's circle or crown of seven stars interchanged with those of the woman who has επι της κεφαλης αυτης στεφανος αστερων δωδεκα.

 

The theme of the seven stars as an attribute of divinity appears also in the letter to Ephesus (2,1: ταδε λεγει ο κρατων τους επτα αστερας εν τη δεξια αυτου). Martial's poem describes the prince as moving through the air and playing with the seven stars, which indicate the seven planets. The theme of a divinised emperor being sent to the stars is typical of the Flavian dynasty, as we can see from Martial (Epig. 9, 101,22 and 14, 124) or Juvenal (Sat. XIII, 46-49).

 

Regarding the association of the woman with the sun and the moon in Apoc. 12,1, we have the image of Aeternitas, standing holding the heads of the sun and the moon in her hands, as a special mark of Flavian coinage, with the inscription AETERNITATI AVGVST. S.C. (Plate 25). Silus Atticus describes Domitian when finally divinised giving forth rays near his son.1 1 Again Statius (Silvae 4,1, 3-4) describes him on his entry to his seventeenth consulship (A.D. 91) as: "And he is rising (atque oritur) with the new sun (cum sole novo), with the lofty stars (cum grandibus astris), himself shining more brightly (clarius ipse nitens) and more greatly than the morning star (et maior Eoo)." The "morning star (τον αστερα τον προωινον) in Apoc. 2,28; 22,16 becomes a description of Christ or Christ's gift. (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], 166-68)

 

The following are plates 20, 21, 22, 23, and 25 referenced above:










 

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