It’s really difficult for me, dear readers, not to love the Whore of Babylon, the metaphor and shibboleth from the New Testament Book of Revelations. As a reminder, here are some lines from that apocalyptic book:
“‘Come, I will show you the judgement of the great whore who is seated on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth have engaged in sexual immorality and with the wine of whose prostitution the inhabitants of the earth have become drunk.’ . . . I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was full of blasphemous names, and it had seven heads and ten horns. And the woman was clothed in purple and scarlet and adorned with gold and jewels and pearls, holding in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of her prostitution, and on her forehead was written a name, a mystery: “Babylon the great, mother of whores and of earth’s abominations.” And I saw that the woman was drunk with the blood of the saints and the blood of the witnesses to Jesus.”
It would be funny, dear readers, to think about how the Whore of Babylon represented humanity’s basest instincts and grossest evils — woman, overly sexual, tempting — except for the fact that we see this trope *over and over and over* throughout history. From Eve to Catherine the Great. There is too much to unpack in this short post to really understand what the Whore of Babylon meant in 120 CE, when the Book of Revelations was written. However, historian Caroline Vander Stichele has written about the ways that other capital cities in prophetic books of the Hebrew Bible were personified as slutty women. It was also typical in Ancient Rome to personify cities as women, and there is a long tradition in Christianity of thinking of the Whore of Babylon as a stand-in for the earthly corrupt city of Ancient Rome that was countered by the heavenly idealized city of Jerusalem.
See the first two images for Medieval representations, and the last two for modern. The final image is a sympathetic version of the Whore of Babylon, which English occultist Aleister Crowley also had.
“‘Come, I will show you the judgement of the great whore who is seated on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth have engaged in sexual immorality and with the wine of whose prostitution the inhabitants of the earth have become drunk.’ . . . I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was full of blasphemous names, and it had seven heads and ten horns. And the woman was clothed in purple and scarlet and adorned with gold and jewels and pearls, holding in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of her prostitution, and on her forehead was written a name, a mystery: “Babylon the great, mother of whores and of earth’s abominations.” And I saw that the woman was drunk with the blood of the saints and the blood of the witnesses to Jesus.”
It would be funny, dear readers, to think about how the Whore of Babylon represented humanity’s basest instincts and grossest evils — woman, overly sexual, tempting — except for the fact that we see this trope *over and over and over* throughout history. From Eve to Catherine the Great. There is too much to unpack in this short post to really understand what the Whore of Babylon meant in 120 CE, when the Book of Revelations was written. However, historian Caroline Vander Stichele has written about the ways that other capital cities in prophetic books of the Hebrew Bible were personified as slutty women. It was also typical in Ancient Rome to personify cities as women, and there is a long tradition in Christianity of thinking of the Whore of Babylon as a stand-in for the earthly corrupt city of Ancient Rome that was countered by the heavenly idealized city of Jerusalem.
See the first two images for Medieval representations, and the last two for modern. The final image is a sympathetic version of the Whore of Babylon, which English occultist Aleister Crowley also had.
Sources: See Vander Stichele, Caroline (2000). “Just a Whore. The Annihilation of Babylon According to Revelation 17:16”. Lectio Difficilior. European Electronic Journal for Feminist Exegesis. University of Amsterdam (1). Archived from the original on 2 June 2021. Retrieved 28 May 2021. NRSV translation Revelations 17 excerpts. Last image John Hoyt on cover of _Spectrum_ journal. Second to last image by John Gumpert. First Image Morgan Library Las Huelgas Apocolypse MS M 429 f. 125. Second and third (accidental repost) from New Testament Augsbert woodcut 1523. Also listen to Goth rap artist Zheani’s “Whore of Babylon”. It’s pretty angry https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hQynJ_fauw. Thanks for the inspiration, Megan Kapacs! @megankapacs
