Revelation 2:14

ὀλίγα, the errorists are a mere minority; they do not represent or affect the main body of the church, whose fault is not sympathy but indifference. This carelessness arose probably from contempt or fear rather than through ignorance. ἐκεῖ (in the midst of loyalty and martyrdom). κρατ. (not τὸ ὄνομά μου, but) lax principles worthy of a Balaam, the note of a pupil of Balaam being (according to Pirke Aboth, Revelation 2:19), an evil eye, a proud spirit, and a sensual soul. Contemporary opponents of Gnostic tendencies evidently found it an effective weapon to employ O.T. analogies or identifications such as this or the similar ones in 2 Timothy 3:8; Jude 1:2. In the Hexateuch (JE = Numbers 25:1-5, [901] =Numbers 25:6-18; Numbers 8-16, Joshua 13:22) Balaam is represented as a magician who prompts the Moabite women to seduce the Israelites into foreign worship and its attendant sensualism; but in the subsequent Jewish Midrash (followed here) his advice is given to Balak (Joseph. Ant. iv. 6, 6; cf. iv. 6, 11 for Zimri, and Philo's Vit. Mos. i. 48 55), and the sorcerer comes to be regarded as the prototype of all corrupt teachers and magicians (for this sombre reputation, see E.J. ii. 467), as of this party at Pergamos who held to John's indignation that it was legitimate for a Christian to buy food in the open market, which had already been consecrated to an idol. This problem, which had occurred years before in a sharp form at Corinth, was certain to cause embarrassment and trouble in a city like Pergamos, or indeed in any pagan town, where entertainments had a tendency towards obscenity. It is a curious instance of how at certain periods a scruple may assume the rank of a principle, and of how the ethical inexpediency of some practices lies in their associations rather than in their essential elements. Such questions of religious conscience in the East were frequently connected with food; for the association of the latter with sexual vice, see the notes on Acts 15:20 (also 1 Corinthians 10:4; 1 Corinthians 10:8, in its context). The literal sense is preferable, although the usage of the Apocalypse makes the metaphorical sense of πορν. possible, as a general description of pagan religions viewed under the aspect of unfaithfulness to the true God (cf. John 8:41, Philo de migr Abr. § 12) For the connexion between certain forms of popular religion in Phrygia and prostitution, see C.B.P., i. 94 f. Such burning questions arose from the nature of the early Christian society, which never aspired to form a ghetto, and consequently, in a pagan township, had to face many nice problems with regard to the prudence and limits of conformity or the need of nonconformity (cf. 2 Corinthians 6:16-17). In social and trading pursuits the individual Christian met and mingled with fellow-citizens outside his own religious circle, and these relationships started serious points of ethical principle (Dobschütz, 26 f., 188 f.). The line was drawn, but not always at the same place; and naturally laxity lay on the borders of enlightenment.

[901] Codex Porphyrianus (sæc. ix.), at St. Petersburg, collated by Tischendorf. Its text is deficient for chap. Revelation 2:13-16.