Here you can find the text of Revelation chapters 17 and 18.
This vision is very important for understanding the spiritual reality we live in. Indeed, our spirit can belong to and be directed either towards the heavenly Jerusalem, the holy city, or towards the city of Babylon, where the spirit is prey to the divisions created by egoism, pride and the desire for power. Indeed, the evocation of Babylon reminds us of the Old Testament episode which saw men driven by their quest for power and wealth rise up against God, with the result of being divided, separated from one another, no longer speaking the same language (cf. Genesis 11:1-9, the episode of the Tower of Babel). It also speaks to us of the desire of man, who has separated himself from the filial and trusting relationship with God his Creator, to find a remedy for the anguish of his mortal condition, which is the consequence of this separation. Apart from God, there is no life, no happy life in communion with brothers and sisters. So, human beings will seek in earthly goods the means to ensure their survival, through power and wealth. All this will increase:
- his pride, which separates him from God as he rests in the illusion of being able to ensure his survival
- his greed, which separates him from his fellow man, for to ensure his survival, he will not hesitate to save his own life at the expense of his fellow man, who becomes a rival rather than an ally.
But this disastrous situation for the human being trapped in his anguish is reversed by the advent of Jesus Christ. Indeed, through his forgiveness of the multitude of men, he gives us access to a filial relationship with God, thanks to which, in turn, we can forgive those who have become our brothers and sisters. The sin that divided mankind and led to the separation of tongues is finally atoned for on the Day of Pentecost. On that day, the Holy Spirit of God’s love is poured out on the apostles, who miraculously speak their own language, but are understood by men and women from all over the world: each understands them in their own language. This heralds the reconciliation that takes place when people accept Jesus’ forgiveness. The apostles are sent into the world to forgive people’s sins, and this forgiveness invites the baptized to do the same to those who have offended them.
Here, then, the human being is reintroduced into Paradise, into communion with a multitude of brothers and sisters, here he enters the heavenly Jerusalem, for according to the interpretation of the Fathers, the name of this city means “vision of peace”.
It was above all St. Augustine who developed explanations of the human condition, redeemed from sin and reintroduced into the earthly Paradise through the forgiveness of sin received in Baptism, by which the human being dies to sin and now resurrects to the new life of a child of God. But it’s also true that in his earthly life, the human being remains exposed to temptation and evil, and if his errors lead him out of the heavenly city and into the city of Babylon, he can still, while on earth, make amends and have recourse again and again, 70 times 7 times, to God’s forgiveness, in order to re-enter the heavenly city.
Now, to fully understand the antinomy between the heavenly city and the earthly city, called Babylon in the biblical text, it’s important to reaffirm that what God has created is good. If he fashioned a body for man and woman, it is so that in this very body they can live in full communion with God. On the contrary, God himself took on our mortal condition, becoming flesh, to show us that with our bodies we can go towards him. To do this, our bodies must express and live according to the desires of the spirit, striving for the greatest happiness, that of love of God and neighbor. Our body must become the expression of the love that goes so far as to lay down its life for those it loves.
That’s why St. Augustine’s book “The City of God” is full of explanations of the two cities. He wants to prevent human beings from falling into the trap of seeing the body as an obstacle, instead of a means by which to live and express the greatest love. For this to happen, the body must obey the desire to join God and our neighbor in a trusting relationship, it must follow the call of the spirit and not that of earthly lusts, the consequences of man’s anguish at not being able to ensure his salvation on his own, the anguish of man faced with death. All that serves to ensure his material survival is not fit to make him partake of the true life in which he lives the love of neighbor and God at the very risk of his own life, the true life in which man’s spirit is illuminated by the Holy Spirit who leads him in trusting relationship to taste the source of divine love, an inexhaustible source of joy.
Here, then, are extracts from Book 14 of Saint Augustine’s “City of God”, in which he explains what is meant by the word flesh: not a contempt for the body, but our attachment to earthly goods, neglecting the true life that is nourished by the Holy Spirit of Love who gives man, made up of flesh and spirit, access to the fullness of his image and likeness with God in and through love of neighbor. “As I have loved you, so you also must love one another” (John 13:3), Jesus tells us, here is the divine likeness shining forth in the human being. The faith of the apostles is a faith in the resurrection of Christ’s flesh and of our own, but the resurrected body will be perfectly illuminated by the spirit, it will not respond to the selfishness of the flesh, to anything that might ensure man’s earthly survival. Man’s resurrected body will be a spiritual body, as Saint Paul says (1 Corinthians 15:40-44), in total harmony with the spirit that inhabits it, the Spirit of God’s love, which makes the body a place of encounter and union of the human being with God, for the spirit of love that inhabits man leads him to offer his life, through his body, for those he loves.
To fully understand the texts of the Fathers Augustine and Caesarius of Arles quoted below, we also need to know that the city of Babylon is represented by a harlot woman (Rev 17:3-5). Now, it’s important to note that throughout the Bible the grave sin of idolatry, the act of abandoning God for other gods, is called prostitution. By way of example, we could read the entire book of Hosea. God forces this prophet to marry a prostitute, who then abandons him to follow other lovers. In this way, his wife becomes the living image of the people who abandon God, the one who gave them life. However, the story of Hosea also shows us the divine clemency that asks the prophet to take back to his home the woman who had abandoned him, and promises to make her more beautiful than when she was young, even preparing her for the wedding as a young girl, a virgin. This becomes an image of the forgiveness of God, who by his spirit restores the creature who returns to him to her original splendor. Thus, prostitution is above all the image of the sin of the spirit that abandons God, and virginity is the image of one who remains attached to God and does not prostitute himself with other gods. Nor do other gods and idolatry relate solely to the religious attitude of human beings. Jesus often speaks of Mammon (Matthew 6:24), the god who represents our attachment to money. Those who devote themselves to the pursuit of perishable earthly goods such as power, wealth and pleasure make these goods their own gods, and these gods separate them from their filial relationship with their Creator.
In the following quotations, St. Augustine and Césaire d’Arles explain these two tendencies and man’s belonging to the two cities, and how it is possible to move from one to the other.
This is also analogous to the two tendencies of the soul described in the episode of Cain and Abel in the Book of Genesis: Cain, who seeks to acquire earthly goods, and Abel, who receives the abundance of creation as a gift from God. See also the article Genesis 4, 1-15 Cain and Abel.
Augustine (354-430), City of God, Book 14:
Ch. 1.
We have already said in the preceding books that God, wishing to unite men closely not only by the community of nature but also by the knots of kinship, made them all come out of one, and that the human race would not have been subject to death, had not Adam and Eve (the latter drawn from the first man, himself drawn from nothing) deserved this punishment by their disobedience, which corrupted all human nature and transmitted their sin to their descendants, as well as the necessity of dying. The empire of death has since become so established among men, that they would all be precipitated into the second death, which will have no end, were it not for the gratuitous grace of God that saved some of them. Hence it is that so many nations in the world, so different in manners, customs and language, together form but two societies of men, which we may rightly call cities, according to the language of Scripture. One is made up of those who wish to live according to the flesh, and the other of those who wish to live according to the spirit; and when both have obtained what they desire, they are at peace, each in his own kind.
Ch.2
First of all, what is living according to the flesh, and what is living according to the spirit? He who is not well versed in the language of Scripture might imagine that the Epicureans and other sensual philosophers, and all those who, without professing philosophy, know and love only the pleasures of the senses, are the only ones who live according to the flesh, because they put the sovereign good of man in the voluptuousness of the body, while the Stoics, who put it in the soul, live according to the spirit; But this is not so, and in the sense of Scripture, both live according to the flesh. Indeed, it does not only call flesh the body of every mortal and earthly animal, as when it says: “All flesh is not the same flesh; for the flesh of man is different, and the flesh of beasts is different, and the flesh of birds is different, and the flesh of fish is different” (1 Corinthians 15:39); Among other things, it makes it signify man himself, taking the part for the whole, as in the Apostle’s passage “No flesh shall be justified by the works of the law” (Romans 3:20); where by no flesh is meant no man, as Saint Paul himself declares in his epistle to the Galatians 3:11 “No man shall be justified by the law”, and shortly afterwards: “Knowing that no man shall be justified by the works of the law”. It is in this sense that the words of Saint John 1:14 should be taken: “The Word became flesh”, i.e. man. Some, having misunderstood this, have thought that Jesus Christ had no human soul. In the same way that Mary Magdalene’s words, “They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him” (John 20:13), by which she meant only his body, which she believed to have been taken from the tomb, are sometimes understood to mean the whole for the part, as in the expressions we have just reported.
Since, then, Scripture takes this word flesh in several ways that it would take too long to deduce, if we want to know what it is to live according to the flesh, let us carefully consider this place of Saint Paul to the Galatians 5:19-21, where he says: “The works of the flesh are easy to know, such as adultery, fornication, impurity, fornication, idolatry, poisonings, enmities, contentions, jealousies, animosities, dissensions, heresies, envies, drunkenness, debaucheries, and the like, of which I told you and still tell you that those who commit these crimes will not possess the kingdom of God”. Among the works of the flesh which the Apostle says are easy to know and which he condemns, we find not only those which concern the voluptuousness of the body, such as fornication, impurity, fornication, drunkenness and gluttony, but also those which concern only the spirit. Indeed, who will not agree that idolatry, poisonings, enmities, contentions, jealousies, animosities, dissensions, heresies and envies, are rather vices of the soul than of the body? It may be that one abstains from the pleasures of the body in order to indulge in idolatry or to form some heresy, and yet a man of this kind is convinced by the authority of the Apostle not to live according to the spirit, and, in his very abstinence from the voluptuousness of the flesh, it is certain that he practices the damnable works of the flesh. Are not enmities in the spirit? Who would dare to say to his enemy: You have an evil flesh against me, to say an evil will? Finally, it is clear that animosities relate to the soul, just as carnal ardors relate to the flesh. Why, then, does the Doctor of the Gentiles call all this works of the flesh, if not by using that way of speaking which expresses the whole by the part, that is, the whole man by the flesh? Ch. 3
To claim that the flesh is the cause of all vices, and that the soul does evil only because it is subject to the affections of the flesh, is not to pay due attention to the whole nature of man. It is true that “the corruptible body weighs down the soul” (Wisdom 9:15); hence the Apostle, speaking of this corruptible body, of which he had said a little earlier: “Though our outward man be corrupted” (2 Corinthians 16), adds: “We know that if this earthly house is dissolved, God must give us another house in heaven, not made by human hands. This is what makes us long for the moment when we can clothe ourselves in the glory of that heavenly house, if we are found clothed and not naked. For while we are in this mortal abode, we groan under the burden; and yet we do not desire to be stripped, but clothed over, so that what is mortal in us may be absorbed by life” (2 Corinthians 5:1-4). We are therefore pulled down by this corruptible body as by a weight; but because we know that this comes from the corruption of the body and not from its nature and substance, we do not want to be stripped of it, but to be clothed with immortality. For this body will always remain; but as it will not be corruptible, it will not weigh us down. It remains true, then, that here below “the corruptible body weighs down the soul, and that this earthly dwelling puts down the spirit that thinks much” (Wisdom 9:15), and, at the same time, it is a mistake to believe that all the soul’s derangements come from the body. In these beautiful verses, Virgil expresses
the Platonic doctrine:
“Daughters of heaven, souls are animated by a divine flame, as long as a corporeal envelope does not numb their activity under the weight of earthly organs and moribund limbs” (Eneide, Book VI, vv. 730-732).
In vain does he link to the body these four well-known passions of the soul: desire and fear, joy and sadness, in which he sees the source of all vices: “And hence,” he says, “the fears and desires, the sadnesses and joys of those captive souls who, from the depths of their darkness and their thick prison, can no longer raise their gaze to heaven”.
Our faith teaches us something quite different. It tells us that the corruption of the body which weighs down the soul is not the cause, but the penalty of the first sin; so we must not attribute all disorders to the flesh, even though it excites in us certain unbridled desires; for that would be to justify the devil, who has no flesh. Certainly he cannot be said to be a fornicator, nor a drunkard, nor subject to the other sins of the flesh; and yet he does not fail to be extremely superb and envious; so much so that it is for this that he was cast into the dark prisons of the air and destined for eternal torment. (Cf. Ephesians 2, 2-3) Now, these vices which have established their empire in the devil, Saint Paul attributes to the flesh, although it is certain that the devil has no flesh. He says that enmities, contentions, jealousies, animosities and envies are the works of the flesh, as well as pride, which is the source of all these vices, and the one that particularly dominates in the devil. Indeed, who is more an enemy of the saints than he? who has more animosity against them? who is more jealous of their glory? all these vices being in him without the flesh, how can we understand that they are the works of the flesh, if not because they are the works of man, identified by Saint Paul with the flesh? It is not, in fact, for having flesh (for the devil has none), but for having wished to live according to himself, that is, according to man, that man has become like the devil. The devil also wanted to live according to himself, when he did not remain in the truth; so that when he lied, it was not from God, but from himself, from him who is not only a liar, but also the father of lies (John 8:44); from him who lied first, and who is the author of sin only because he is the author of lies.
Ch. 4
[…] We have said that all men are divided into two different and contrary cities, because some live according to the flesh, and others according to the spirit; we can also express the same idea by saying that some live according to man, and others according to God. Saint Paul even uses this expression in his epistle to the Corinthians, when he says: “Since there is still rivalry and jealousy among you, is it not evident that you are carnal and still walk according to man?” (1 Corinthians 3:3). So it is the same thing to walk according to man and to be carnal, taking the flesh, that is, a part of man for the whole man. A little earlier he had called those whom he here names carnal animals: “Who of men,” he says, “knows what is in man, except the very spirit of man which is in him? So no one knows what is in God but the spirit of God. Now, we have not received the spirit of the world, but the spirit of God, to know the gifts that God has given us; and we proclaim them, not in the learned language of human wisdom, but as men instructed by the spirit of God and who speak spiritually of spiritual things. For the animal man does not conceive what is the spirit of God; for it passes for foolishness to his sense” (1 Corinthians 2:11-14). He addresses these kinds of men, who are still animals, when he says a little later: “Therefore, my brethren, I could not speak to you as to spiritual persons, but as to men who are still carnal” (1 Corinthians 3:1); which again is to be understood in the same way, i.e. the part for the whole. The whole man can be designated by the spirit or by the flesh, which are the two parts that make him up; and therefore the animal man and the carnal man are not two different things, but one and the same thing, that is, man living according to man. […]
Ch. 5
When we sin, therefore, we must not accuse the flesh itself, and lay this reproach on the Creator, since the flesh is good in its kind; what is not good is to abandon the Creator in order to live according to a created good, whether we wish to live according to the flesh, or according to the soul, or according to the whole man, who is composed of both, together. He who glorifies the soul as the sovereign good and condemns the flesh as evil, loves the one and shuns the other carnally, because his hatred, as well as his love, are not founded on truth, but on a false imagination.
Here is homily 16 by St. Caesarius of Arles, summarizing in simple words interpretations already present in other Church Fathers, notably St. Augustine.
Caesarius of Arles (470-542) in: L’Apocalypse expliquée par Césaire d’Arles, Les Pères dans la foi, DDB, 1989, Paris, Homélie 16, p.128-134:
Whenever you hear the name Babylon, dear brethren, do not understand a city built of stones, because Babylon means confusion, as has often been said; but recognize that this name designates proud, thieving, lustful and ungodly men persevering in their sins; on the other hand, whenever you hear the name Jerusalem, which means vision of peace, understand by this the holy men who belong to God.
For Babylon shows the image of wicked men, which is why he says of them in the following passage: “Because to the wine of the wrath of her whoredom have drunk all the nations and kings of the earth, who have fornicated with her” (Rev 18:3), i.e. with each other: Indeed, all the kings cannot have fornicated with a single prostitute; but while the fornicators, who are the members of the prostitute, corrupt each other) they are said to have fornicated with the prostitute, i.e. through their dissolute morals. After this, he goes on to say: “And all the merchants of the earth became rich through the abundance of her luxury” (Rev 18:3). Here he is referring to those who are rich in sin, for excessive luxury is more likely to produce poverty than wealth.
“And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, ‘My people, get out of here, so that you will not share in her sins and be afflicted by her plagues'” (Rev 18:4). In this place, he shows that Babylon is divided into two parts: for when, under God’s inspiration, the wicked are converted to good, Babylon is divided; and that part which has departed from her becomes Jerusalem. Every day, in fact, we pass from Babylon to Jerusalem, and from Jerusalem we stray towards Babylon, when the wicked are converted to good, and when those who appeared good through their hypocrisy, are publicly revealed as wicked.
Finally, concerning the good, Scripture also says through Isaiah: “Come out from among them and touch nothing unclean: come out from among her and separate yourselves from her, you who bear the Lord’s vessels” (Is 52:11). The Apostle reminds us of this separation, saying: “For the firm foundation of God endures, and the Lord knows his own”, and “let everyone who calls on the name of the Lord depart from iniquity” (2 Tim 2:19). Do not share in his sins,” he says, “and do not be afflicted by his wounds” (Rev 18:4). Since it is written: “The righteous man, whatever death has befallen him, will enjoy rest” (Wisdom 4:1), how can the righteous man, whom the fall of the city will have taken with the ungodly, share in sin? If not, perhaps, when the good come out of the devil’s city, that is to say, from impure and ungodly morals, if someone among them has wanted to stay and take pleasure in the voluptuousness of Babylon: if he has done so, no doubt he will share in its plague.
But if he says so many times “go out”, do not understand him bodily, but spiritually. One comes out of the midst of Babylon when one abandons bad conduct. For in one house, in one Church, and in one city live together the inhabitants of Jerusalem and those of Babylon; and yet so long as the good do not follow the wicked and the wicked do not turn to the good, Jerusalem is recognized in the good and Babylon in the wicked. They dwell together bodily, but in heart they are very much divided: because the wicked’s way of life is always earthly, because they love the earth and have placed all their hope and soul’s desire in the things of the earth; but the spirit of the good, according to the Apostle, is always inclined towards heavenly things (Phil 3:20), because they have a taste for the things above (cf. Col 3:2). “Come out of her” – that is, out of Babylon, “my people”, he says, “so that you will not share in her sins and be afflicted by her plagues” (Rev 18:4).
“Because her sins have gone up to heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities. Treat her as she has treated you, and give her double according to her deeds: in this chalice where she has prepared a mixture for you to drink, prepare for her a double mixture. As much as she has glorified herself and lived in delight, so much give her torment and pain” (Rev 18:5-7). God says all this to his people, to good Christians, that is, to the Church:
“Treat her as she has treated you” (Rev 18:6); for it is from the Church that the visible and invisible plagues fall upon the world. Because “Babylon”, that is, the people of all the wicked and proud, “says in her heart: I sit as a queen and am not a widow, nor shall I see mourning. Therefore in one day her plagues, death, mourning and famine will come; and she will be consumed by fire” (Rev 18:7-8). If she dies and is burnt in a single day, who will survive to mourn the dead? or what can be the famine of a single day? But for this day he meant the brief duration of the present life, during which one is afflicted spiritually and bodily: for for all the proud and those given to voluptuousness, greater sorrows come upon the soul than upon the body.
Indeed, they are struck with a greater plague when they glory in their iniquities and thus receive, by a just judgment of God, license to do evil. In this way, they do not deserve to be punished with the sons of God (cf. Heb 12:6), but what is written is fulfilled in them: “They have no share in the sorrows of men, and with men they shall not be smitten; therefore their pride has kept them” (Ps 72:5-6). “For it is the mighty Lord God who will judge her” (Rev 18:8).
“And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication with her, will weep and lament over her” (Rev 18:9). What kings will mourn over her ruin, if these kings have overthrown her? But what the city is, so are the kings who mourn for it. It is not the sin of lust that they committed with it that they mourn in penitence; but it is that they recognize that the prosperity of the world, by which they were slaves to their voluptuousness, has disappeared; and because those things which through lust once pleased them, are beginning to cease for them, the debauched will destroy each other, “like smoke from the imminent gehenna. Standing afar off for fear of its torment” (Rev 18:9). Standing afar off, not in body but in spirit, since each one fears for himself what he sees another suffer through slander and the power of the proud. “Woe to thee! Babylon, great city, mighty city, for in one hour your ruin has come” (Rev 18:10). The Spirit speaks the name of the city, but they lament that the world has been swept away in a very short time, and that all ruined activity has ceased.
“And the merchants of horses and chariots and slaves, who have grown rich in this trade, will stand afar off, weeping and lamenting and saying: woe! woe to you! the great city!” (Rev 18:15-16). Wherever the Spirit speaks of merchants enriched by it, it means the riches of sinners. “Clothed in fine linen, purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold, precious stones and pearls” (Rev 18:16). Is a city clothed in fine linen and purple? Is it not rather men? That’s why it’s they themselves who lament being stripped of all these things spoken of. “And all the pilots and all who go to sea, the sailors, and all who work on the sea, stood afar off and cried out with a great cry when they saw the smoke of her burning” (Rev 18:17-18). Could all the pilots and all the sailors who work on the sea have been present to see the burning of a single city? But he means that all those who love the world and do iniquity will fear for themselves when they see the ruin of their hope.
Then he says: “And I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their army” (Rev 19:19). The beast represents the devil: the kings of the earth and their army, all his people, “assembled to make war against him who sat on the horse, and against his army” (Rev 19:19), that is, against Christ and the Church. “And I saw another angel coming down from heaven” (Rev 20:1). This is the Lord Christ in his first advent. “Having the key to the bottomless pit” (Rev 20:1), i.e. power over the people: indeed, by bottomless pit we mean the evil people. “And he had a great chain in his hand” (Rev 20:1), i.e. God has given power into his hands. “And he took the dragon, the old serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years” (Rev 20:2), at his first advent, as he himself says: “Who can enter the house of a strong man, and take away his furniture unless he has first bound the strong man?” (Mt 12:29). Indeed, when he chases the devil out of the hearts of believers, he sends him into the abyss, i.e. into the evil people; and he showed this visibly when, chasing out the demons, he allowed them to pass from men into the swine that were about to be swallowed up in the abyss (cf. Mt 8:32): this is mainly accomplished among heretics.
Tyconius (4th century, died c.395), Commentaire de l’Apocalypse, Introduction, traduction et notes par Roger Gryson, Brépols, 2011, p.192, n.21:
“And the woman whom you saw is the great city, which reigns over the kings of the earth” (Rev 17:18). The woman, the city and the kings of the earth are the same thing. And so it was also said of the Church: “Come, I will show you the Lamb’s wife. And he showed me the city coming down from heaven” (Rev 21:9-10), and after describing it, he says: “And the kings of the earth bring their glory into it” (Rev 21:24). For there are two cities in the world, one belonging to God and one to the devil, one from the abyss, the other from heaven.