Revelation 11:3-14, The Two Witnesses, III of V

Now when they have finished their testimony, the beast that comes up from the Abyss will attack them, and overpower and kill them. … men from every people, tribe, language and nation will gaze on their bodies and refuse them burial. … The second woe has passed; the third woe is coming soon.

//Revelation and the Gospels all indicate that the Messianic age is either upon us or just around the corner. In part II of this series, I introduced the two witnesses as a type of Moses and Elijah, how these two figures were expected to return and herald the arrival of the Messiah, and how the Gospels portray this as having happened. Revelation’s wording seems to confirm this; the death of these two witnesses corresponds to the time in which Revelation switches from past tense to future tense.

But if the witnesses have already arrived, who are they? One obvious answer is John the Baptist, who is referred to multiple times in the Gospels as the new Elijah. Even Jesus makes this association. However, if you believe Revelation was written by the same author, or at least the same community, as the Gospel of John, then we have a problem, because in this Gospel, John the Baptist flat out denies that he is Elijah. He also denies he is “the prophet,” the Moses-like second figure.

Who, then, does Revelation have in mind for the two witnesses? Maybe James and John, the two “sons of thunder?” They seem to fit the image. But whoever John meant his “Moses and Elijah” to be, the early church would likely think first of Peter and Paul, the two most prominent and animated leaders spearheading the Christian movement.  They are also the two apostles known for performing miracles. When both leaders died nearly simultaneously under the reign of Nero (the beast of the Abyss; see http://www.dubiousdisciple.com/2011/01/revelation-1318.html ), it would surely bring catastrophic effects upon the church. Peter was crucified, Paul beheaded.

Tradition suggests Paul’s grave sits beside the Ostian Road, Peter’s in the Vatican, but the Romans usually merely abandoned their crucifixion victims on the cross for the dogs to pull down or buried them in a shallow grave, which the dogs would then dig up.  Therefore, they may have left both bodies lying by the road for a time, as Revelation indicates.  I don’t know how or when the tradition evolved that their bodies lay unburied, but in the sixth century, John Malalas vouches, “Nero ordered that the bodies of the holy apostles should not be handed over for burial, but should remain unburied.”

Are Peter and Paul the reincarnation of Moses and Elijah, then?