Foolish Worship
Babylon the great city appears in Revelation as a prostitute, offering her wine of passion to the nations (Revelation 14:8; 17-18). She resembles the prostitute from the book of Proverbs, Lady Folly.
Both offer illicit love and the wine of passion (cf. Proverbs 7:1). Both try to seduce simpletons. Both are deadly. Those who drink the wine that Babylon offers fall with her, and end up burning in the fiery passion of God. Lady Folly's house leads down to Sheol, and everyone who visits ends up dead.
These parallels add an overlay of “wisdom literature” to the Apocalypse. More specifically, the parallels expose the folly of idolatry. Babylon encourages the nations to worship the beast; her wine is the wine of a false sacrament, the wine of the table of demons. And her fall is the inevitable fall of idolatry.
Idolatry is folly, and like folly its end is catastrophic.
Peter Leithart
Peter J. Leithart is President of Theopolis Institute. He is the author of numerous books on theology, literature, and culture, including Theopolitan, Defending Constantine, and Baptized Body.
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