The sorceries of Empire and the temptations of Christ
Saint Michael Fighting the Dragon by Albrecht Dürer - This file was donated to Wikimedia Commons as part of a project by the National Gallery of Art under the Gallery’s Open Access Policy, CC0.
Rev. Dwight Davidson
“Satan… craftily blends and unites himself with…good thoughts… to disorder all that is rightly conceived.”
—St. Gregory the Great, Moralia on Job, 37.63
In the spring of 1943, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote from a Nazi prison cell that he had clipped an image from a German newspaper to hang on his wall: Albrecht Dürer’s “Michael Fighting the Dragon.”[i] The dragon is unmistakably the multi-headed creature of Revelation 12 — Satan, who undergirds the worldly system later referred to as “Babylon the Great.” Revelation’s clues — the city of seven hills (Rev. 17:9), its role as a commercial and slave-trading hub (Rev. 18:11–13), and the visibility of its destruction from the sea (Rev. 18:18) — make clear that “Babylon” is a symbol of Rome and its empire.
As Bonhoeffer gazed at Michael’s battle, he surely would have identified the dragon as the Satanic spiritual force animating Germany’s expansionist, fascist regime. But countless other Christians saw the same image in their papers. Did they see an indictment of empire — or merely a comforting symbol of personal safety and salvation?
“Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light,” the good book says (2 Cor. 11:14 NIV), and evil works best when it blends with what appears good on the surface, slowly obscuring peoples’ moral clarity. “The enemy” causes truth to sound false and right to seem wrong. Revelation names this dynamic plainly: “All nations were deceived by your sorcery” (Rev. 18:23).
The Greek word translated “sorcery” is pharmakeia — the ancient use of drugs or potions to induce altered states. Babylon’s “sorceries” were not literal potions but ideological intoxicants that lulled the beneficiaries of empire into a moral stupor. Citizens of the realm, the author or Revelation suggests, get thrown into a trance-like state where the distinctions between justice and injustice blur.
And as we enter the season of Lent, it’s curious to note that these imperial “sorceries” closely parallel the devil’s temptations of Jesus in the wilderness.
The Sorcery of Relaxed Satisfaction: A World Without Vision
Satan’s first temptation — turn stones into bread — targets physical satisfaction. It invites Jesus into a moral haze of comfort and self-sufficiency: “Just take a rest in knowing your needs are met.” This is the same drug Babylon administers. Revelation condemns the empire for its sense of smug satisfaction, built on material things gathered through exploitation: gold, fine cloth, wine, livestock — and even “human beings sold as slaves” (Rev. 18:12–13 NIV).
“Slaves?” Clearly people would see that as wrong — right? Or maybe not. Bonhoeffer knew how difficult it is for those who benefit from unjust systems — or simply feel safe within them — to see the truth. Comfort itself becomes anesthetic. When bellies are full and markets rise, injustice can be forgotten or written off as tolerable. “What’s so bad about any of this?” becomes a reflexive response.
Seeking first God’s kingdom requires the moral clarity to understand that others matter as much as I do. Empires undermine this moral clarity with bread and circuses.
This satisfaction tempts people to abandon moral responsibility. To the ancient question, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” the mind quietly answers, “No, I’m actually only responsible only for me, myself and mine.” Jesus rejects this visionless world. “One does not live by bread alone,” he proclaims. Seeking first God’s kingdom requires the moral clarity to understand that others matter as much as I do. Empires undermine this moral clarity with bread and circuses.
The Sorcery of Power Without Limits: A World Without Rules
Next, Satan urges Jesus to leap from the temple, forcing God’s intervention to guarantee himself some authority. This temptation is to use power to get whatever one wants by any means necessary. Jesus refuses, saying, “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.” Power itself is not evil, but power without restraint is a corrupting intoxicant. It becomes another pharmakeia. When “might makes right,” limits disappear. In Revelation, Rome is condemned for exactly this: violence against the “the least of these,” the reduction of human beings to objects, rule through force rather than governance with justice. Empires tend to rely on ethical nihilism: If we can get away with it, it’s all right. Dialogue is abandoned for coercion; diplomacy for bullying and domination. Law becomes optional. These are signs of a world drugged by Satanic sorceries, where dignity, rules, and restraint no longer matter.
The Sorcery of Control: A World Without Spiritual Maturity
Finally, Satan offers Jesus control over “all the kingdoms of the earth” — if he will but worship him. This is empire’s favorite potion. Revelation portrays Rome as drunk on dominance, claiming authority over “every tribe and people and language and nation” (Rev. 13:7), boasting, “I rule as a queen… I will never see grief” (Rev. 18:7).
This craving for total control betrays deep spiritual immaturity. Children grasp and hoard; those who are emotionally and spiritually mature learn to share, cooperate, and trust. Jesus refuses the illusion that true power comes through control. “Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.” To veer off into the ego trip of control, either as individuals or as societies, feels good in the moment if one is “winning,” and this is certainly the modus operandi of ethically unhinged empires, but it is not the way of the children of God.
Have we Drunk the Potion?
As I think about these prophetic texts as an American today, I worry. People with great power are acting by principles we would expect our elementary-aged children to know to reject — self-interest above all, contempt for rules, ego-driven hunger for authoritarian control. These patterns are anti-Christ in the most literal sense. And the great heartache is that many people in this nation appear to be anesthetized to this.
In a Nazi prison, Bonhoeffer understood his struggle, first and foremost, as spiritual warfare: “against the rulers, the authorities, the cosmic powers of this present darkness” (Eph. 6:12). Empires preserve unjust systems by offering up illusions: This power is too big to fail. Let the divine Caesar protect you. God is on our side and against the Other. This, Revelation insists, is a sorcery that is also terribly bad advice. Because in the end, Rome falls and justice prevails.
The armor of empire does not protect us. Rather, our call is to, “Put on the full armor of God,” so that we may “stand against the devil’s schemes” (Eph. 6:11 NIV). I wonder if, as Bonhoeffer gazed upon Michael’s triumph over the dragon on his prison wall, he felt some solace in Revelation’s final declaration: That the dragon has already been cast out of heaven, and his time will come to an end. As we work to keep ourselves spiritually sober, perhaps that can be an anchor of hope within us as well.
Rev. Dwight Davidson, D. Min, BCC, lives in Delaware, Ohio with his wife, Kari, and works as a hospital chaplain. Dwight and Kari were ABCUSA missionaries to Japan from 2001 to 2010 and Dwight has served ABCUSA congregations in New Jersey and Ohio.
The views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of American Baptist Home Mission Societies.
[i] Dietrich Bonhoeffer ([1953] 2017) Letters and Papers from Prison. Norwich, UK: SCM Press, p. 3.
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