Pergamum was a kingdom established in present-day Turkey after fall of Babylon, around 539BC.  Its capital was Pergamos, and it was here that the Spirit says Satan’s “seat” was in 90AD.

In John’s time Pergamos included many of Satan’s determined and loyal followers and these helped him to maintain his “seat” there.  What does this mean? 

The book “Two Babylons” by Alexander Hislop convincingly shows that the present Roman Catholic religious system which forms part of what God calls “MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH” (Revelation 17:5) IS NOT A COPY of the ancient/ Babylonian one, but is actually the same idolatrous system transposed from Babylon to Rome.  But it did not happen directly.

Historians tell us that the transfer began on October 12, 539BC, on the night Belshazzar the last king of Babylon was slain and Darius the Mede took the kingdom.  Daniel 5:30-31.  (Today that area is known as Iraq.)  After Babylon fell, there was a general move by the priesthood away from that country into the area of Pergamum.  Following a period of great expansion and financial growth, the last god/king of Pergamum, Attalus III (281-133BC), having no heir, left his city and possessions to the Empire of Rome, which called it the province of “Asia”.  Rome already had a COPY of Babylon’s pagan religion, for it was a very popular one throughout the world under various names, but the Roman one was not active in politics at that time.  The religious hierarchy of Pergamos did not move there immediately, but waited for an opportune moment.

At first the Roman Pagan religious leaders had no immediate connection with the Pergamos system, but eventually Julius Caesar became the first of the Roman god/kings to take the title Pontifex Maximus which came with the religion, and he did this in 65BC. (He also claimed Venus as the ancestor of his family!)  Subsequent emperors, including Augustus his successor, continued the practice.

The temple at Pergamos was dedicated to the goddess Roma and the emperor Augustus in 29BC and the city fathers were very active in promoting it as the religious centre of the Roman state religion.  For example, the emperor Hadrian (76-138AD) enlarged the temple there, and from then on it did become the chief town of the whole new province. With this background it was only natural that the Christians in it should be singled out for persecution because they refused to worship the emperor.  

In Pergamos there was a great altar to Zeus which could be the literal “seat” that the scripture refers to – Zeus being the head god of the Pagan religion.  It is now in the Pergamum museum in Berlin.  Construction of the altar began about 160BC and it is rumoured that it was a site of human sacrifice.  (Also in the German museum is the Ishtar gate from Babylon, and the bust of Nefertiti, the wife of Akhenaton and the mother of Tutankhamen, both important symbols of Satan’s religious system.)

However, Satan’s “seat” was not only the hub of his religion, but also a great medical centre, having the most modern of systems in the world at that time. 

The healing centre, called the “Asclepieum” after the god of healing, was very similar to many modern natural healing clinics today, for as well as surgery, patients were given exercises, drugs, herbal remedies, or they could take the honey cure, drink the waters of the spring, and even be treated by hypnosis. They were sometimes prescribed walks among the trees in order to be calmed by the scent of pines. Over the main entrance were emblazoned the words: “In the name of the Gods, Death is forbidden to enter”. 

Snakes were sacred to the god “Asclepius” because of their apparent power to renew themselves by shedding their skins. There was a carving of snakes symbolizing a new life at the entrance to the sacred area of the medical centre, and the shrine quarter itself was inhabited by thousands of harmless snakes.

(Consider Revelation 12:9 where it is written, “And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceives the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him”.)   

As mentioned before, the city became the seat of Babylonian sun worship, a centre of idolatry and demon controlled religions, with splendid temples to Nature.  People came from all over the Roman Empire to seek healing in the Pagan temple.   

Thus medicine and science were also worshipped there, and the symbol of their worship, the snake, has been carried down into our own day by the medical emblem of a staff entwined with serpents called the “caduceus”.

 Aesculapius is often depicted holding the caduceus in his hand.

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 http://www.endicott-studio.com/rdrm/forcaduc.html

If you've ever been to a hospital or flipped through a phone book looking up a physician, you've seen the image: two serpents criss-crossed around a staff topped by a round knob and flanked by wings. This is known as the caduceus, and it has been the symbol of the American medical profession for nearly a hundred years -- a decidedly odd symbol for doctors, until you begin to investigate its underlying meanings.

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Something else the city was famous for was its massive use of parchment.  Because of its enormous library, rivalled only by the one in Alexandria in Egypt, they used a lot of papyrus which they imported from Egypt.  However, one day the king of Egypt banned the export of the material because of a shortage of the reed from which it is manufactured.  Forced to find a substitute, the people of Pergamos came up with idea of using calf or goatskin, stretched, scraped and dried under tension, which creates a stiff white paper alternative known after the Latin name of the city “pergamenum” or “parchment” in English.  (Its best quality is called “vellum” which, until recently, was used in important legal documents.)

The characteristics of the branch of the Christian church in that city in 90AD are used in The Revelation as a picture of the qualities of the whole church in the centuries between 313AD and 538AD when the Roman ways were infiltrating it.  They were Sabbath-keepers, their good “works” were noted and the only condemnations were that they had among them those who worked religion for money, and that they were developing a class system of clergy and laity. They stayed close to their Bibles (the BOOK) as evidenced by the salutation, although many died as martyrs at the hands of Satan’s congregation, including “Antipas”, who stood solely for the one God.

Of course, Satan's “seat” is in other wicked cities as well, and he is a wily foe to contend with wherever he is, but in this instance it was a suitable picture for the prophecy, having, as it did, the actual religious framework from Babylon.  The city had a background of a world-wide state religion, imposing medical work, and the production of many books!   It was a hard place in which to raise up a Christian church because of the opposing influences surrounding the converts, many of which infiltrated into the congregation. 

A few centuries later however, in 382AD, the emperor Gratian refused to continue the Pagan tradition in Rome, and officially abolished the Pagan religion by removing its state subsidies.  (Constantine had favoured the Christian religion in 321AD.)   Some time after that the whole priesthood and system literally migrated from Pergamos to Rome and became assimilated into the Roman Christian church, making Rome the “seat of the beast” and the bishop of Rome became the Pontifex Maximus, the high priest.  

By 538AD that system with its rituals was calling itself “Christian”!

God says of that later time (538-1517), “Notwithstanding [your good works] I have a few things against you, because you suffer [allow] that woman Jezebel, which calls herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce My servants to commit fornication [worship other gods], and to eat things sacrificed to idols [the mass]”.  Revelation 2:20.

However, not until Martin Luther made his stand was “Jezebel” really seen for what she was – Satan’s handmaiden.

Conclusion:

In 90AD Pergamos was literally the centre of Satanic sun worship through sacrifice and education and healing.  (Satan’s clergy had moved there after the Medes and Persians conquered Babylon in 539AD.)  But it was only a step in Satan’s plan, for he wanted the city of Rome to be the new centre of his religious arm.  The Christians in Pergamos were commended for their steadfastness in the face of special persecution.