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a temple to Athena, but Pergamum once housed the second largest library in the world, with space for 200,000 scrolls. A political flap with Egypt, which had the largest library in Alexandria, led to an Egyptian ban on the sale of papyrus to vendors in Pergamum. A promised reward for an apt substitute led to the invention of parchment, a sturdy writing material made from the stretched and scraped skin of young goats and lambs. Parchment has the advantage of being impervious enough so that a scribe could write on both sides, which contributed to the development of books as a more practical substitute for scrolls.

An ancient marble table inside the ruins of a third-

century Jewish synagogue in Sardis

protests at perceived government inaction. We observed a moment of silence. Pergamum, though it has little presence in the Bible beyond

its mention in Rev. 2:12-17, was praised for being faithful despite the presence of “Satan’s throne” (probably a reference to the city’s large temple and altar to Zeus), but taken to task because some members reportedly followed the teachings of the 8th

century

BC Moabite shaman Balaam, while others sympathized with the Nicolaitans, though no one now knows exactly what they taught. No trace of that church is left, though the foundation of Zeus’

altar remains (the altar itself is in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin). The acropolis of the city is reached by cable car, and offers splendid views of the surrounding countryside. Imperial quarters are detectable, and a temple to Trajan still sports a few restored columns. The steepest theater in antiquity was set into the side of the plateau. From its base, an arched passageway leads past huge vaulted storage rooms currently being used to store broken pieces of marble and granite, with hopes of restoring them. You wouldn’t know if from the empty space before what’s left of

Faithful Unto Death Continued Gnosticism

The great challenge facing the Christian church in Polycarp’s day was an ethereal, docetic view of Christ that marked the movement we call Gnosticism –the idea that Jesus only seemed or appeared to have a real physical body but was actually a ghost-like phantom figure. He had no natural, human birth at all. Marcion preached a gospel with no Christmas: “Away,” he said, “with that poor inn, those mean swaddling clothes, and that rough stable.” Along with his disembodied Christology, Marcion also wanted to rip the Old Testament out of his Bible. “It’s the book of the Jews,” he said. “It’s not our Bible.” One of the few trips we know Polycarp made outside of Smyrna was a visit to Rome, where he was accosted by Marcion. “Do you know who I am?” Marcion asked. “Yes,” Polycarp replied. “I know you. You are the firstborn of Satan!”

Persecution and Martyrdom The emperor cult was especially strong here in Smyrna, where a temple to the emperor

Tiberius had been built a generation before Polycarp was born. It reminded everyone that at the head of the Roman Empire stood a man who claimed to be a god, and who demanded to be worshiped as though he were God.

Engraving of Polycarp’s martyrdom, circa 1600 16 BAPTIST WORLD MAGAZINE Laodicea, Philadelphia and Sardis

On the last morning of a three-day tour of the “seven churches of Revelation,” we set out to visit Laodicea, Philadelphia, and Sardis.

Laodicea is a large commercial center whose church was

charged with being neither hot nor cold, but lukewarm – like the tepid water from the springs across the way at Hierapolis. Hot drinks can be good and cold drinks are terrific, but lukewarm drinks can be hard to swallow. The long road back to Philadelphia (Alasehir) passed through

Turkey’s wine and raisin country, a beautiful mountainous area where field after field of white grapes were laden with fruit. The modern city of Alasehir is built on top of ancient Philadelphia. As a result, the closest thing one comes to ancient remains are standing columns of brick that once supported the archways of a sixth century church dedicated to the Apostle John. The church in Philadelphia was promised “an open door,” and the area remains filled with opportunities for a positive witness.

The seventh church we visited was Sardis, just outside the modern town of Sart. There the remains of an expansive temple to Artemis continue to impress with gargantuan columns that could have been seen for miles. In later years, a small church was built against the back side of the temple. Down the hill, the remains of a public gymnasium have been

partially restored in spectacular fashion. Just around the corner, a third-century Jewish synagogue was the largest of its kind. A thousand persons could sit in a large rectangular room featuring