Pergamum means “thoroughly or mixed married.” It is also referred to by its later Greek form Pergamos. Pergamum is first mentioned in secular history by Xenophon who was a contemporary of Plato and a fellow student of Socrates that lived from 430 to 354 B.C. Its library was second only to that of Alexandria. Mark Antony took it to Egypt, and gave it to Cleopatra. Parchment gets its name from Pergamum, and Galen the physician who was the most influential physician and medical researcher in the Roman Empire was born there in 129 AD. Pliny the Roman wrote a description that still exists called the Bergamah, or Bergma; which has reference to its buildings and its ruins which are reminders of the once magnificent public edifices which have caused it to be described as a city of temples. It was described as a sort of union of a pagan cathedral city, a university town, and a royal residence. Its idolatrous practices were frequent and various, and the contamination which they spread is condemned by Jesus from this epistle. This is the church that represents the age of Constantine in which the church was married to the state. It was Constantine’s “edict of toleration” that started the process and it came to fruition with Theodosius II forced conversions that the church actually fell. With the church and state merging and the forced conversions pagan practices entered the church.
https://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=101231733324018&fbclid=IwAR38zmNChgRCaxpH4xg1aY0P_HhSsvLr_gWd_rJnpz_pdQX0W26gmf9eCEM
Content retrieved from: https://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=101231733324018&fbclid=IwAR38zmNChgRCaxpH4xg1aY0P_HhSsvLr_gWd_rJnpz_pdQX0W26gmf9eCEM.