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"Outside are the dogs and the sorcerers …" - Revelation 22:15 - Critical Essay
Biblical Theology Bulletin, Winter, 2003 by Rick Strelan
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).
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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."
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