"Outside are the dogs and the sorcerers ...".

evelation 22:15 lists practitioners who do not have the approval of the writer: "the dogs and sorcerers and fornicators and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood." Unlike the "blessed ... who wash their robes" (22:14), they have no right to attain the tree of life nor to enter the city. They are "outside."

Nearly all, if not all, scholars read this list, and its parallels in 21:8 and 9:21, as a "catalog of evildoers" (Schussler Fiorenza: 110) or a list of moral vices (Kraft: 279) that the writer saw in his social world. Typical is Massyngberde Ford, who says that 22:15 "appears to refer mainly to unethical conduct: the dogs are sodomists, the 'sorcerers' ... refer to poisonous magicians or abortionists, then follow the prostitutes ... murderers and idolaters" (345).

The odd one out in this list is the very first: "the dogs." All others are obviously humans who practice certain vices. But to whom or what does the term the dogs refer? Are they to be understood at all in relation to the next group on the list, the sorcerers (pharmakoi)? I suggest that the term dogs refers to the animals and not to humans. In addition, I prefer accenting pharmakoi on the last syllable and so reading "scapegoats" rather than "sorcerers." Both dogs and scapegoats will be shown to be central in many of the purificatory rituals of Asia Minor where the churches addressed in Revelation are located.

Because dogs were regarded as purificatory animals among both Greeks and Romans, and because Revelation 22:14 refers to purification by washing, Revelation 22:14-15 might well have been heard by Asian audiences as a polemic against pagan purificatory rites, especially those related to the cult of Hecate. Hecate, a goddess whose cult had ancient affinities with Asia Minor, was especially associated with purificatory rites at crossroads and entrances. Entrances and purificatory rituals associated with them are hinted at in four expressions used in Revelation 22:14-15: "those washing their robes," "they may enter the city by the gates," "outside," and "dogs and scapegoats."

As will be shown, dogs were closely associated with Hecate and both were connected with magical herbs, with the underworld, and so with the dead. The dead and their spirits played a significant role in ancient Greek and Roman thought, as Sarah Johnston has shown, and that realm was one that could not be ignored by those who wanted to insist that the "living one" has "the keys of death and Hades" (Rev 1:18). Who has lordship over the dead: the ouranic Lord symbolized by the Lamb or the chthonic Hecate, symbolized by her dogs? That, I suggest, might also be at issue in Revelation 22:14-15 and possibly in Revelation as a whole.

"The Dogs" in Biblical Scholarship

It is sometimes suggested that "the dogs" of 22:15 is a summary term for all the practitioners that follow in the list. So Caird, "the dogs ... are here defined as those heathen who are indelibly marked with the qualities of the monster and the whore: sorcerers and fornicators" (285). It is also a shared scholarly understanding that "the dogs" is either a Jewish/Christian metaphor for the gentiles, even though it is used very rarely before the Common Era, or for those who are false teachers and heretics; and the vices that follow are seen to be descriptive of the practices of either grouping. This understanding is based on the metaphorical use of the word dogs in, for example, Psalm 22:16, 20; Matthew 7:6; Philippians 3:2; Ignatius, AD EPHESIOS 7; and ODES OF SOLOMON 28:13. So Bousset (458) interprets the dogs as "an ancient designation for the heathen," and Kraft (280) suggests that they might also refer to backsliders, false teachers, and to heretics. As already noted, there are some scholars who see a specific moral practice in the term and think that it refers to sodomites on the basis of Deuteronomy 23:17-18 (Metzger: 106; Mounce: 394; Aune: 1222-23).

There is no question that when Jewish and Christian writers refer to someone or to a group of people as a "dog" or "dogs" they are being derogatory. It is generally known that Jews regarded dogs as "unclean" animals, despised because of their public habits of "mixed" copulation, urination, and defecation. As expected, dogs were banned from many sacred sites. At Qumran, "one must not let dogs enter the holy camp, since they may eat some of the bones of the sanctuary while the flesh is still on them" (4Q394.58-59). Such a ban on dogs from sacred sites was also practiced among the Greeks, as Plutarch illustrates: "Some say a dog cannot enter the Athenian acropolis or the island of Delos because of its open mating" (QUAESTIONES ROMANAE 111).

Traditional interpretations of "the dogs" are heavily dependent on Jewish parallels, and the cultural context of the churches addressed in Revelation is easily ignored. This is true for interpreting Revelation as a whole, as Lambrecht recently demonstrates when he says: "As is well-known, Revelation must be interpreted by reference to the Old Testament and Jewish traditions" (365). But Revelation clearly is written to an audience in the thoroughly Hellenized region of Asia Minor and "the Old Testament and Jewish traditions" surely would have been heard through Hellenized ears. In addition, the audiences addressed in Revelation lived in a world in which their eyes and ears were constantly bombarded with "pagan" sights and sounds. If this is the case, then Revelation 22:14-15 cannot be interpreted without also taking into account the role and status of dogs in local pagan practices. In fact, an examination of the negative attitude towards dogs in that context is both interesting and revealing and opens the possibility for an understanding of "the dogs" in Revelation 22:14-15, an understanding missed if one is limited to parallels in "Jewish traditions."

Dogs in Greco-Roman Ritual Practices

A brief and general overview will have to suffice since the "role of the dog in ancient Greek, Roman, and Near Eastern religion and superstition ... is a vast and complex subject' (Greenewalt: 41, n. 4). My concentration here is on the status and role of dogs in purificatory rituals in particular.

There appears to have been some ambiguity about their status, especially in the matter of pollution. While some cults did indeed ban dogs from their sacred shrines, others kept and regarded them as sacred to a particular god. In fact, the custom of having sacred temple-dogs was generally widespread (Gruppe: 803, n. 8). Since the Roman Diana and her Greek equivalent Artemis were aligned with the wild and with the hunt--often with dogs in attendance--it is to be expected that dogs protected the shrine and the cultists of Diana in the Vicus Patricius at Rome (Plutarch, QUAEST. ROM. 3), and featured in the sacred processions of the Artemis cult, a cult dominant in Ephesus (Xenophon, EPHESIAKA 2.2-3.3). Likewise, their appearance on coins of Asia Minor in the company of the huntress Artemis (Head: 84, 90, 93, 97), and the finding of dog-bones at the altar to Artemis in her ancient temple at Ephesus (Bammer [et al.]: 107-57) come as no surprise.

While dogs seem to be particularly associated with female deities like Hecate and Artemis/Diana, and birth goddesses like Genetyllis and Eileithyia (Plutarch, QUAEST. ROM. 52), they were not exclusively so. They were sacred to Ares, and they were kept at Asclepius' shrines where they "played an important role in the diagnosis of strange diseases. In such cases, a dog, through contact with an ill person, was thought to contract the disease, and was then killed and examined to determine its nature" (Simoons: 236). Hippocrates writes of the healing properties of dog and puppy flesh, and Diocles, in the fourth century BCE, apparently prescribed dog-flesh to certain patients (Simoons: 237). Pliny also knows of many healing properties of dogs (NATURAL HISTORY 30). In other words, the polluted (the dogs) took on and so removed the pollution of others, especially their sickness and disease.

We can note in passing that while eating dog-flesh was not widely practiced, it certainly was known among the Greeks and the Romans. Parker (358) says that among the early Greeks, at least, "there was no danger in eating dog-flesh, and the practice seems to have been common." Pliny knows of Romans who ate dog (N. H. 29.57), and the eating of puppies in connection with the cult of Hecate will be mentioned below. In addition to the ritualistic eating of dogs, "[h]owever unacceptable dogflesh was as a food in Greece, there seems to have been less reluctance to consume dog and puppy flesh or soup in the treatment of various ailments" as, for example, in the treatment of feminine sterility (Simoons: 224-25).

The habit of dogs eating other dead animals and waste food relates closely to the association of dogs with the dead, an association that is very ancient and widespread (Day). It was quite common for dogs to be buried with humans, especially in the pre-Homeric period but also in later times. Given the geographical context of Revelation, it is worth noting that ancient evidence for such burials has been found at Sardis in Asia Minor (Horsley: 158-59; 178-79), and that dogs are also found in epitaphs and in reliefs on tombstones in the Asia Minor of the early Common Era (Day: 28).

The link between dogs and death suggests that dogs might be linked in general with transitional phases in human life, and the evidence would support that supposition. Dogs served as purificatory animals especially during childbirth, and their most common link is with Hecate and with crossroads and thresholds, sites commonly associated with harmful and threatening spirits and demons. Dogs were widely used for the purification and protection of households, as is illustrated by Plutarch, who refers to the Lares, the "overseers of lives and households" who dress in the skins of dogs and have dogs as their attendants to sniff out the evil spirits (QUAEST. ROM. 51). The interest that Revelation 22:14-15 has in the entrance/outside polarity makes such pagan practices relevant to its interpretation.

In general, dogs featured in a number of sacrificial practices in the Greco-Roman world. In Caria (south-western Asia Minor, and therefore of some relevance given the Asian context of Revelation), "the dog was the sacrificial animal par excellence" (Pedley: 99). As for other regions, Ovid says that he saw "the entrails of a dog offered to the goddess of the triple road (Triviae) by the Sapaeans and those whose homes border on thy snows, Mt Haemus" (FASTI 1.389-90). Elsewhere, he reports seeing white-robed cultists offering sacrifice to Robigus the god of mildew and rust in cereals at the rising of the Dogstar. During this ritual, Ovid sees incense, wine, the viscera of sheep, and the entrails of a dog placed on the altar. When Ovid asks why such an unusual victim, the Flamen replies: "There is in heaven a dog. When the constellation rises, the earth is parched and thirsty and the crops ripen too soon. The dog is put on the altar in the place of the starry Dog" (FASTI 4.905-41).

Plutarch reports that a bitch was sacrificed by some Romans to Geneta Mana, and he suggests that this was like the Greeks who sacrifice a bitch to Hecate--both are done "on behalf of the members of their household" (QUAEST. ROM. 52). Pausanius is aware that outside of Laconia, the youths sacrifice a puppy at night to Enyalius, but he goes on to say: "I know of no other Greeks who are accustomed to sacrifice puppies except the people of Colophon: These too sacrifice a puppy, a black bitch to the Wayside Goddess" (3.14.9). It should be noted that Colophon was situated about 30-40 miles north of Ephesus.

But it is not the sacrificial role of dogs that is the primary interest of Rev 22:15; rather, it is their use as purificatory animals.

Dogs as Purificatory Animals

What is significant and relevant for interpreting Revelation 22:15 is that the dog was, like the pig, customarily used for purification. Dogs were used as scapegoats by means of which the impurity and pollution of both people and places were removed. This role is not at all insignificant in a culture in which "[c]eremonies of 'purification' accompany every step of a man's [sic] life from the cradle to the grave' and were of 'almost daily occurrence'" (Rohde: 295).

The purificatory function of dogs in rituals is clearly expressed by Plutarch, who writes in response to the question as to why the Luperci sacrifice a dog:

    Is it because this performance constitutes a rite of purification
    for the city? Nearly all the Greeks used a dog as the sacrificial
    victim for ceremonies of purification; and some, at
    least, make use of it to this day. They bring forth for Hecate
    puppies along with the other materials for purification, and
    rub round about with puppies such persons as are in need of
    cleansing, and this kind of purification they call periskylakismos
    [QUAEST. ROM. 68].

Rubbing people with the dead bodies of puppies was thought to cause all harmful and polluting substances to be absorbed by the animal, and thus remove them from the person.

And Plutarch again:

    When it [the dog] is sent to crossroads as a supper for the
    earth-goddess Hecate, it has its due portion among sacrifices
    that avert and expiate evil. In Sparta they immolate puppies
    to the bloodiest of the gods, Enyalius; and in Boeotia, the
    ceremony of public purification is to pass between the parts
    of a dog which has been cut in twain. The Romans themselves,
    in the month of purification at the Wolf festival which
    they call the Lupercalia, sacrifice a dog [QUAEST. ROM. 111].

As already indicated, this purificatory role saw the dog in close relation with Hecate. Plutarch notes that the Greeks "bring forth" for Hecate puppies "along with the other materials for purification" (QUAEST. ROM. 68). Hecate and dogs were also present and active in the purificatory rituals for a house in which polluted things were taken to the crossroads and thrown away there with the bearer's back turned. "If these were connected with the sacrifice of a dog at the crossroads, of which we hear, we may regard the dog as a katharma, and the purifications as having some reference to child-birth in the house of to purge the house-hold of ghosts" (Farnell: 2.515).

Purificatory rituals were therefore significant in the Greco-Roman world of Asia Minor and elsewhere, and the involvement of dogs as purificatory animals in some of those rituals is commonly evidenced. Since many of these rituals were performed at crossroads and at entrances, they were publicly visible, and the communities addressed in Revelation could not have avoided witnessing them, if indeed, they did not participate in them themselves. The author of Revelation claims the washing of robes and making them "white in the blood of the Lamb" (7:14) is the correct purificatory ritual, not the use of dogs. I suggest this is the argument of Revelation 22:14-15.

Revelation 22:14-15

Purification is important in this passage. Those who wash their robes are deemed "blessed" and are given access to the tree of life in the middle of the holy city. As Parker (19) says, "Without purification there is no access to the sacred." Since purification creates and marks division between the sacred and the profane, the holy and the polluted, it is not surprising that Revelation 22:14-15 uses the language of division. Those who wash their robes are blessed and may enter the holy city via the gates; but "outside" are the polluted and polluting. As was common among pagans and Jews alike, the polluted and the unclean were denied access to sacred sites whose boundaries were clearly marked and which were often entered by gates or doors that marked the threshold between sacred and non-sacred space (Aune: 1132).

"Crossing the boundary between sacred and non-sacred space, and between sacred and non-sacred periods of time, is regularly accompanied by bathing" (Buxton: 70). Such washing with water was, of course, "the most widely used and the most basic" means of purification (Parker: 226). Blessing is pronounced by the author on those who "wash their robes." The verb used here, pluno (I wash), is often used in other literature in the purificatory sense, as indeed it is in Revelation 7:14, where those who have come through the great tribulation "have washed their robes" and made them white in the blood of the Lamb."

Kraft (279) sees the reference to entrance "by the gates" in 22:14 as reminiscent of the pilgrimage processions of the Psalms. But this penchant for finding parallels in Jewish literary traditions means that any polemic against the local cults in Revelation will most likely be missed. So here it is necessary to draw attention to the gates and thresholds that all inhabitants of cities in Asia Minor knew so very well: the gates of cities, the doors of temples and shrines, and the doors and thresholds of houses. These gates and thresholds marked the boundaries between sacred and non-sacred space, between private and public, between the clean and the polluted. Crossing such boundaries required rituals of purification and, in some cases, the setting up of images of the powers--such as Hecate--who were believed to have special interest in and control over such thresholds.

It is possible that the focus of Revelation 22:14 is on one particular transition--that of death. It was common practice that after death the corpse was stripped, washed, and dressed in new, white, and washed robes as a prelude to being carried out. The mourners in some regions also wore white robes (Plutarch, QUAEST. ROM. 26). These verses can then be heard as a polemic against the cult of Hecate and her dogs, a cult specifically--but not only--concerned with the spirits of the dead. Revelation is keen to claim the authority of God over the blessed dead and over the abyss, Hades, and death (1:18; 6:9-11; 11:11-12; 14:13; 20:1, 4-6, 13-14). Jesus is "one who died" (1:18), and the Lamb is the one "who was slain" (5:6, 9, 12; 13:8), and the possibility, threat, of closeness of death is a very common theme (2:5; 2:10; 2:16; 2:23; 3:2, 3, 8, 10 and elsewhere). In addition, "blessed" are those who have died "in the Lord" (14:13), those who are "watching" when "I am coming like a thief" (16:15), those "invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb" (19:9), and those "who share in the first resurrection" (20:6). It could be argued therefore that the wearing of washed and white clothes in Revelation commonly symbolizes those who anticipate or have gone through death. In 3:5, it is those who conquer who will be "clad in white garments," and in 4:4, the elders sitting around the throne of heaven are clad in white. In 6:9-11, it is "those who had been slain for the word of God" that are given white robes; and in 7:9-14 it is the great crowd which has "come through the great tribulation" who are also clothed in white. In other words, washed and white robes were the clothes of the dead, and of those in the heavenly world. It is also plausible to interpret the entrance into the city by the gates in 22:14 as a reference to the procession of the dead, since gates and doors are commonly found on Jewish ossuaries and in Jewish literature as symbols of the transition from this life into the next (Figueras).

A reading that sees death as a major subject of 22:14-15 gives added import to the "tree/wood of life" in that passage. Access to this tree is only for those who have removed all pollution, and it is inaccessible to those who have transgressed the pollution/purity boundaries, as the ancient Genesis myth already knew. But as Hemer points out, the tree of life can be understood not only as the mythological tree of Genesis but also as the many sacred trees which were seen as the mythological source of life and the original centre of the cults of particular gods (45-47). For example, the oak and the juniper were sacred to Hecate (Apollonius of Rhodes, ARGONAUTICA 3.1215; ORPHIC ARGONAUTICA 919, 953).

What also could be considered is that the term "the tree of life" might have some parallel in the Latin arbor felix, the productive, fruit-bearing tree. The Romans distinguished between arbor felix and arbor infelix (the unproductive, wild tree) and hung or burnt traitors and monstrosities on the latter. In other words, the arbor infelix was associated with "unproductive" or "polluted/polluting" figures in their community, figures that were used as scapegoats in purificatory rituals (Bremmer: 308-09).

The tree of life is, of course, in the middle of the holy city, the sacred site (22:2), far removed from any taint of pollution and inaccessible to the polluted ones outside. That tree is for the healing of the nations and so is not exclusively for Jews. The "blessed" of 22:14 therefore are not contrasted with all gentiles but only with those who have persisted with their traditional purificatory rituals.

Outside of the city are the dogs and the pharmakoi. What is the relation, if any, between these two groups? Dogs were used as purificatory scapegoats, but what about the latter? Who or what are the pharmakoi? When accented on the initial syllable, the meaning is that of "sorcerer," but when accented on the ultimate syllable, "scapegoat." This distinction was one made already by Herodian (Blass & Debrunner: 9). The pharmakoi were the marginalized. That could include the king, but more commonly the pharmakoi were the unwanted, "polluted" people such as murderers (note their listing in 22:15), the deformed, or foreigners. They were scapegoated by a community in order to avert evils such as disease and other catastrophes. They were ritually led "outside" via a special gate of the city to purify that city; then they were either exiled or possibly put to death (Harrison: 96). Before they were hunted out of cities, they were "cleansed" by being beaten with branches of a fig tree and with squills, which were believed to have purifying capabilities (Rohde: 590).

It would seem that this purificatory practice, while widespread, was predominant in Athens and in Ionia, and was at some stage closely related to the Thargelia festivals--festivals specially associated with Ionia, the region of cities like Ephesus whose Christian community is addressed in Revelation.

The reference to washing, blessedness, and entrance via the gates into a holy city in Revelation 22:14 all indicate purification. Given that these actions are immediately contrasted with "outside, the dogs and the pharmakoi" in 22:15, it seems justifiable to suggest that the latter terms are also best understood in a purificatory sense. Dogs certainly suit that context; and I suggest that reading pharmakoi as "scapegoats" also fits the context better than the standard reading "sorcerers."

Hecate

A discussion of the role of dogs in purificatory rituals is not complete without also a comment on their mistress, Hecate, "the goddess of ghosts and purifications" (Nilsson: 204). Rather surprisingly, little has been written about her in NT scholarship or in studies of the early Christian movement. Yet she was a significant goddess in the region of Asia Minor. "Of all the ancient cults, none [sc. but that of Hecate] has exhibited a greater vitality" (Flower Smith: 566). There is some evidence that would suggest that in later centuries when Christians were establishing themselves as a serious competitor for allegiance in the imperial world it was Hecate whom they saw as their main rival and as representative of pagan cults (Rahner). Augustine, for example, knows she was honored as "the universal power (animam) that rules the world" (SERMON 241.7).

Hecate was not an Olympian god but belonged to popular folk religion. She is not mentioned either in Homer's ILIAD or in his ODYSSEY. The earliest references to her--in Hesiod's Theogony, the Orphic Hymns, and Pindar--depict her as a helpful, benevolent "normal--indeed rather benign--goddess'(Johnston 1999: 204). Later literature shows another side of her as sinister, threatening and frightening--the goddess who could protect could also harm.

Hecate almost certainly had her origins in Caria in Asia Minor. The oldest archaeological site indicating her cult is an altar-inscription at Miletus dated about the sixth century BCE (West: 277-78). No matter where her origins, it is generally agreed that Hecate "was popular in Asia Minor" (Price: 61), and that "most of her cult sites lie on the eastern coast of Asia Minor and in the neighbouring islands of the south-east" (Heckenbach: 2779). Her cult was widespread, and it seems that in Hellenistic times it was still very strong in Lagina, a city about 80 miles to the southeast of Ephesus. There the titles attributed to her, the extent of the precincts of her temple, the annual "key-procession" held in her honor, and the large number of theophoric names built on the Hekat-root all indicate that she was the leading goddess of that city (Johnston 1999: 205-06).

Given the addressees of Revelation, it can be noted that "[l]iterary, epigraphic, and archaeological evidence testify to the existence of the cult of Hekate at Ephesus" (Aurenhammer: 257-58). Her cult is attested in the precinct of Meter on Panayirdag, the mountain of Ephesus, and her cult at Ephesus survived into later antiquity, if the rites performed by Maximos are any indication. In addition to Ephesus, an inscription at Pergamon gives her the epithet Soteira, "the one who saves" (I. PERG.132); while another at Priene refers to a "temple to Hecate on the great brow" in that city (I. PRIENE 184). It appears safe to assume that many in the audiences of Revelation were very familiar with her cult and that in Asia Minor in the Hellenistic period she was no marginalized goddess.

Early, Hecate was closely linked with Apollos, and over the centuries was often aligned with other deities such as Artemis, Demeter, Persephone, Selene, Dionysos, Pan, Cybele, Priapus, Hermes and the Charites (Farnell: 2.512-13). This close association, if not identification, of Hecate with other gods gives weight to the advice of West (277) not to pigeon-hole the gods because "[i]n reality they can seldom be summed up so neatly. A god's functions are as wide as the needs of his [sic] worshippers." Keeping that advice in mind, we see that there are two related and specific realms associated with Hecate. She was "chthonic, a goddess of the lower world, where she is at home" (Rohde: 297); and she was "known as the demonic medium par excellence between above and below, in which function she is closely aligned with magic" (Johnston 1998a: 267), which leads many scholars, like Kern, to see her as "the great goddess of magic" (3.221).

Hecate was present and active in many of the transitions of human experience, especially those of birth and death. She was the goddess of liminality, as is exemplified in the dinners held at the crossroads in her honor on the night of the new moon. The thirtieth day of the month was devoted to her as she oversaw the transition between the old month and the new (Johnston 1998b: 220). She attended girls in their transition to womanhood and to marriage, and she was also known as "the nursing mother" (Johnston 1999: 211-15). Hecate was on hand at birth, when the soul joins the body, and at death, when it leaves it; and she had a "deep-seated connexion with the primeval worship of the dead at the household hearth" (Rohde: 297).

In the magical papyri, Hecate is addressed as "she-of-the-many-names" (PAPYRI GRAECAE MAGICAE 4.2745) and is depicted in a variety of forms both attractive and frightening. Of special interest are two descriptions of her given in magical invocations. The first is that "around you turns the nature of the world ... you have created all cosmic things" (PGM 4.2551-52) and the other is even more interesting: "You are the beginning and the end; you alone rule over everything, for all things are from you and all things end, eternal one, in you" (4.2836-40). Not only does the claim of dominion of all things parallel the claims made of the lordship of God and the Lamb in Revelation, but in Revelation 22:13, which immediately precedes the verses under examination, the Angel says, "I am the first and the last." It can also be noted that the function/title "Angel" is also given to Hecate in inscriptions and in literature (Kehl: 321). Given the probable later date of the magical papyri texts, I certainly do not wish to suggest any literary connection, but Revelation might be an early counter-reflection on Hecate's claims.

Given Revelation's interest in the dead, it is relevant to note Hecate's claim over the dead: "Leadership of the ghosts became one of her best known traits" (Johnston 1999: 203). So close is her association with the dead that a Thracian inscription of the imperial period represents a dead girl as Hecate: "I lie here as the goddess Hecate" (Kraus: 50). Interesting also is the rite known from inscriptions in the Lagina temple in Asia Minor that mention eunuch priests and the office of "key-bearer," a priestess who carried a key, "the symbol of Hecate" (Steuding: I.2.1885). This is part of an annual festival called "the procession of the key," the function and purpose of which are admittedly unclear but probably allude to the mysteries of the lower world (Farnell: 2.556). It celebrated the authority that Hecate was believed to have there: she held the keys of death and Hades. It is true, as Kraus notes (50), that other gods in other cultures were also known as key-bearing, but it is certainly a claim made for Hecate, especially in the magical papyri (PGM 4.2260-64, 2293-94, 2335, 2337; she can be simply called "key" (7.786). In many artistic works she is also depicted with a key in her hand (Farnell: 2.556). If Revelation is in any sense a polemic against Hecate's claims to the underworld and her dead, and if Revelation is claiming the lordship of God in that domain, then this identification of Hecate as key-bearer is the more interesting.

Hecate, Gates and Crossroads

In the Greek world, images of Hecate were commonly placed at the entrance to cities, and that "implies that she will protect her city by preventing anything dangerous from entering" (Johnston 1998a: 268). Revelation 22:14 could be read as claiming that such protection from pollution to those who enter the holy city is given not by the rites of Hecate but by the washing of robes, presumably "in the blood of the Lamb" (7:14).

Since nearly all transitions undertaken by Greeks and Romans were undertaken by first removing pollution, it is to be expected that entrances and crossroads were commonly associated with purificatory rites. Hecate was the goddess par excellence of such liminal places. As Farnell puts it (2.556), "[t]he place before the gate of the temple, or city, or house was consecrated to Hekate." Aristophanes (WASPS: 804) implies that shrines of Hecate were everywhere on doorsteps, so that she is "the protectress of entrances and other liminal places, both public and private, at which people imagined spirits to be" (Johnston 1998a: 268). In this capacity (as has already been pointed out) she is known by the epithet "she-before-the-gates" (Kraus: 13). A fifth-century BCE Miletus text has her standing "before the gates" at the beginning of a procession. In Aphrodisias, a city just a little south of Laodicea, there was a priesthood dedicated to Hecate Propylaia "suggesting that there too she had a special connection with gates" (Johnston 1999: 207).

A clear example of Hecate as the guardian of the crossroads comes from Ephesus, where she is seen as the protectress at Triodos, the important crossroad in the center of the city, the meeting place of the Processional Way along the Tetragonos Agora, Curetes Street, and the way to Ortygia. An inscription calls on her to avenge those who urinate in--and so pollute--the eastern passage of the southern gate of the Tetragonos Agora. In addition, a number of small-sized Hekataia have been found in the peristyle courts of the apartment blocks, in official buildings, along the streets of Ephesus, and in the cryptoporticus of the Temple of Domitian (Aurenhammer: 258-59). Hecate, the averter of evil at gates and crossroads, was well known to the communities addressed in Revelation.

There is some evidence that dogs were sacrificed to Hecate at crossroads as scapegoats for purification (Farnell: 2.515). More certain are the meals or "suppers" of cakes, garlic, mullet, eggs, cheese, and sprats which were commonly left at crossroads as offerings to Hecate, not to placate her so much as the restless ghosts of the dead who were believed to frequent crossroads. Such meals left at crossroads were considered by some to be "dangerous." Theophrastus says that a superstitious person, "if ever he observes anyone feasting on the garlic at the crossroads, will go away, pour water over his head, and, summoning the priestesses, bid them carry a squill of a puppy round him for purification" (CHARACTERS, 28.29-32). The purifying circle banishes the polluting powers.

It is in connection with crossroads in particular that Hecate is often, but by no means always, depicted as having three heads (Pausanius 2.30.2): one of a dog, one of a snake, and one of a horse. Ovid says, "Thou seest Hecate's faces turned in three directions that she may guard the crossroads where they branch three several ways" (FASTI 1.141-2). She is usually seen with two ghost hounds that were said to serve her. Ovid also talks of the Lares who are the ones who stand before and guard the home and preside over the city walls. They were represented with a dog at their feet: "Both guard the house; both are faithful to their master; crossroads are dear to the god, crossroads are dear to dogs" (FASTI 5.139-40).

It is worth noting, in passing, the inclusion of murderers in the list of Revelation 22:15, since murderers were also associated with crossroads. Murders and murderers understandably required purification--hence the link with crossroads. Plato observes that the bodies of murderers were taken after execution to the crossroads where each official threw stones at the murderer's head "in order to purify the city." and the corpse was then left there unburied (LAWS 873b). Many centuries later, Nonnus understands the crossroads as a place where women commit murder (DIONYSIACA 9.40; 47.484).

Dogs, Hecate, and Magic

The association of Hecate with dogs needs little elaboration. The hound was her familiar and sacrificial animal, and although this association was not known originally (Kraus: 26), her representation either by a dog's head of as a dog is old (Heckenbach: 2776). A fifth century BCE lekythos has Hecate as a dog eating the dead in Hades, an action that Vermeule (109) believes depicts her as "a powerful gracious goddess performing a necessary task." Rahner believes that the

    dog was essentially a chthonic beast; he was, one might say,
    the earthly embodiment of the demonic. Hecate was the
    ruler of dogs and demons appeared in canine form', and he
    shows that this belief lasted long in Christian literature and
    was seen as a threatening power [237-38].

In the magical papyri, Hecate is known as "dog-lover" (4.2813) and "leader of dog-packs" (4.2722). She is invoked while the dogs howl (4.2260), and howls herself like a dog (4.2549); she has a voice like a dog's bark (4.2810); and she is a dog who can assume the form of a maiden (4.2251). Simply, Lady Hecate of the Crossroads is a black dog (4.1434), and in some spells, pitch-and-wax images of dogs are to be made along with invocations to Hecate who is attended by the ghostly pack (4.1876-1926, 2944-66).

We have already noted Hecate's reputation as "the great goddess of magic" and again only a brief elaboration is necessary. Euripides did much to foster her role and status in this regard, depicting her as the one who instructed and protected the great sorceresses, Circe and Medea (MEDEA 394-98). Her name and image are to be found on magical rings and amulets (Heckenbach: 2778). What is more relevant is her association with dogs and magic since Revelation 22:15 follows the mention of "the dogs" immediately with hoi pharmakoi. Should one prefer to read the latter as a reference to magicians and sorcerers, then it remains to comment briefly on the links between Hecate, dogs, and magic in the Greco-Roman world, connections that are illustrated in the magical papyri texts (PGM 4.1885-1926; 4.2946-51).

The pharmakoi (sorcerers) are those who work with "magic charms" (pharmaka), which are both the herbs and the potions used in magic, as well as the charms and spells used in such practices. In many instances, their purpose is cathartic of purgative (Parker: 213-15). Since both Hecate and dogs were commonly thought of as chthonic, the association of both with magical herbs and roots is logical. The late first century BCE Latin poet Tibullus links Hecate and her dogs with magical herbs, particularly those herbs gathered at gravesites (ELEGIES, 1.2.53-54; 1.5.56). In the Orphic ARGONAUTICA, a maiden has been taught by Hecate to handle magic herbs (pharmaka) with great skill (3.529); and Medea visits the garden of Hecate that consists largely of medicinal herbs and plants, roots and poisons. Medea also promises to "bring to Hecate's temple charms [pharmaka] to cast a spell upon the bulls" (3.748). The Hekate-charm link is also clearly seen a little later as Medea makes her skin shine "with ointment sweet as nectar," dons a beautiful robe, and puts a veil on her head. She calls twelve maids and tells them to take her to "the beauteous shrine of Hecate." Medea has a charm (pharmakon) with her in the band beneath her bosom (3.828-90). As expected, dogs are present (3.1040). Ovid also describes Medea searching for magical herbs at night, praying to the stars, howling to Hecate, and whispering to Mother Earth (METAMORPHOSES 7.192-98).

Similarly, Theocritus (third century BCE), in his poem PHARMAKEUTRIAE, describes a spell cast by a young woman on her neglectful lover at the shrine and before a statue of Hecate, "who makes even the whelps shiver on her goings to and fro where these tombs be and the red blood lies." Typically, the shrine is located at a triple crossroads bordered by tombs. The spell invokes a number of related gods (Selene, Artemis), and it includes the offering of bay-leaves, barley-meal, a waxen puppet, and some bran in fire, the turning of a wheel, a repeated spell, and a threefold pouring of a libation. The invocation is made to Hecate so that the desired medicine (pharmaka) be highly potent (IDYLLS, 2.10-15).

Among the plants and herbs that were sacred to Hecate was the mandragora or mandrake. This is one of the roots and herbs in Hecate's magic garden (ORPH. ARG. 919), and it was essentially a magic plant associated with Hecate and known for its highly potent magical power, particularly as a poisonous love charm or aphrodisiac (Rahner: 223-24). What is relevant is that a dog was required for its procurement.

Aelian well-describes the process.

    They bring a strong dog that has not been fed for some days
    ... and attach a strong cord to it. They put some food a
    distance away and when the dog goes for it, it pulls the root
    out of the ground, but it immediately dies (chokes itself?)
    and they bury it on the spot and after performing some mysterious
    rites and paying honor to the dead body of the dog
    as having died on their behalf, they pick up the plant which
    is considered good for "moon" diseases like epilepsy and
    cataracts [ON ANIMALS, 14.27].

Dogs, Hecate, plants--they are integral to many of the magical arts, and the link between them explains more fully and logically the connection of "the dogs" and "the sorcerers" in Revelation 22:15.

Conclusions

An examination of the term the dogs in Revelation 22:15 in its Greco-Roman context suggests that the referent may be, not pagans in general nor false teachers and heretics, but rather the animals themselves, especially in their purificatory function in some pagan cults. It can be assumed with some certainty that this use of dogs, and of humans as scapegoats (pharmakoi), was well known to the audiences addressed in Revelation.

Revelation 22:14-15 offers a contrast between two purificatory systems: that of the blessed who enter the holy city by removing pollution by the washing of their robes, and that of those who remain outside because they find purification through dogs and through human scapegoats.

The cult of the goddess Hecate was strong in Asia Minor. It was claimed that her images could avert evil at gates and crossroads. Revelation 22:14-15 might be read as a polemic against such claims. Hecate's claim over the dead is also challenged. For the writer of Revelation, the dead belong to the Lord, to the one who has the keys of Death and Hades, that one being not Hecate, but Jesus, "the living one." As well as being polemical, this claim might well have been a comfort and assurance for the audience.

Should one prefer to understand the pharmakoi as "sorcerers," their link with "the dogs" still remains, given the use of dogs in the cultural world of the writer. Hecate and her dogs were a major source of magical power and of charms (phamaka) for the use of magicians; and particularly, they supplied the magically potent mandrake root, which could not be extracted from the ground without an invocation to the chthonic Hecate and without the assistance of the sacrificial dog. The use of such magical resources to control and influence life is relegated to the outside.

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Rick Strelan, PhD (The University of Queensland) is currently senior lecturer in Studies in Religion at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia 4072 (e-mail: rick.strelan @uq.edu.au). His publications include the article, Who Was Bar Jesus?, in BIBLICA 2003 (forthcoming); and Paul's Aprons Again (Acts 19.12), in JOURNAL OF THEOLOGICAL STUDIES 54 (2003): 154-57. He is currently working on a book project examining the culturally strange acts and events in The Acts of the Apostles.