The Altar of Pergamon Themes

by Jonathan Cahn

This analysis draws on moments from across the whole book and may contain spoilers.

The novel is really wrestling with whether history is driven by a hidden spiritual war. It treats the Altar of Pergamon as Satan's throne, a physical object whose transfer lines up with wars and upheaval, while Satan mimics and inverts holy things. Lara's dreams steer the search, Ariel's unbelief grows from his grandfather's Holocaust suffering, and unseen watchers hunt them.

Here you will find each major theme with concrete moments: the first murder, Lara's guiding dreams, Ariel's Holocaust-linked doubt and the problem of evil, the manuscript pages, Schliemann's swastika, and the winged Nike. We trace the hidden watchers, the satanic inversion of sacred things, and the cosmic war between two kingdoms and two altars, including redemption through God's altar. Recurring symbols include the Altar, manuscript, swastika, and Nike/Victoria.

Major Themes in The Altar of Pergamon

The Altar of Pergamon as the Throne of Satan and hidden engine of history

The book treats the Altar as Satan's throne, a physical object whose possession or transfer coincides with wars, political upheavals, and threats of world destruction. From its unearthing and shipment to Germany to its later moves to the Soviet Union and East Berlin, the Altar is presented as a hidden force steering modern history.

Professor Marinus explains the Great Altar of Pergamon was a pagan altar to Zeus and connects it to the Bible's Throne of Satan because the gods were masks of demonic spirits.
Isik declares the dark trio of resurrections in 1871: the unearthing of Satan's Throne, the birth of Germany, and the resurrection of the swastika.
Yaroslav reveals that after Hitler's suicide the Red Army found the Altar in a Berlin bunker on May 1, 1945, and it passed to the Soviet Union and Joseph Stalin.
Ilka reveals that the Altar of Pergamon was moved to East Berlin in November 1958, and the Berlin Crisis began the same month.

Satanic inversion of the sacred

The Devil is repeatedly described as a mimic who inverts God's holy things, turning Scripture, sacrifice, holy days, and worship against God's people. The manuscript is a Devil-worship inversion, the Altar of Satan is revealed on Yom Kippur, and the Holocaust is framed as a burnt offering in a reversed holy place.

Professor Marinus says illuminated manuscripts were used for sacred Scripture, so this one is a Devil-worship inversion: 'In the worship of the Devil, the things of God are inverted...'
The boy reveals that the Pergamon Museum opened on Yom Kippur, October 2, 1930, so the Altar of Satan was revealed on the day of God's Altar.
The man says 'Olah b'Kodesh' translates to 'the Holocaust in Auschwitz,' connecting the burnt offering to a satanic inversion.
The boy identifies the Zeppelin Tribune as a colossal re-creation of the Altar of Pergamon, the Throne of Satan, on which Hitler stood enthroned.

Dreams as divine revelation and guidance

Lara's dreams repeatedly provide the next destination or key, functioning as supernatural guidance for the investigation. The dreams move the plot from a maze and eagle door to the Grand Bazaar, Berlin, Sarajevo, Nuremberg, Auschwitz, Havana, Berlin's Tiergarten, Jerusalem, and finally Mount Sinai.

Lara agrees to accompany Herzog after a dream in which she leads him out of a maze and to a door marked with an eagle.
Lara recognizes the television images of the Grand Bazaar as her exact dream, insists they go to Istanbul, and leads Herzog through the bazaar by remembering the course she took in the dream.
Lara dreams of Hitler speaking at Nuremberg to thousands under shafts of light and notices a troubled boy, which leads them to Zeppelin Field.
Lara tells Ariel a dream of a mountain with two columns of numbers, and they decipher the symbols as Hebrew words for north and east, realizing the numbers are coordinates pointing to Mount Sinai.

Skepticism, faith, and the problem of evil

Ariel's unbelief is tied to his grandfather's Holocaust suffering, while Lara's Christian faith and the guides' revelations press him toward God. The story debates whether evil disproves God and moves Ariel toward making peace with God and accepting a calling.

Herzog says his grandfather survived the Holocaust, and he could not reconcile such evil with a loving God.
Lara tells of crying out to God during a bad drug episode and finding Him, saying her faith is not religion but a choice and a new birth.
At Auschwitz, Ariel says the place took away his faith in God, and Lara argues that evil does not disprove God.
The custodian says if the darkness is real, so too must be the light, and that evil can only exist by warring against the Good.
Mr. Herzog makes his peace with God at the pagan sanctuary, at an unholy altar and before the Throne of Satan.

Hidden conspiracy, watchers, and danger

From the first murder to the final betrayal, the protagonists are pursued by an organized clandestine power that guards the Altar and tries to stop the revelation. Threats, surveillance, hotel searches, attacks, and betrayals create a sense of constant hidden danger.

Detective Richter reports that a note on Max Yildirim's body read 'Thieves don't live long.'
Kazim Yarikan identifies himself as an intelligence agent specializing in terrorism and warns them that a dangerous clandestine organization is tracking them.
Lara is confronted in an elevator by three people who threaten her to give up the pursuit or she will never have a family.
Alaina explains that the Keepers of the Altar/Guardians of the Throne are descended from priests of Zeus but serve the Dark One and guard the Altar and its purposes.
Kazim reveals at Pergamon, 'I am not your advocate. I'm your adversary,' and prepares Herzog and Lara as sacrifices.

Cosmic war between two kingdoms and redemption through the Altar of God

The Altar is not only a political object but part of a war between God's kingdom and Satan's, with two altars and two thrones. The ending contrasts the Altar of Satan with the Altar of God's love and calls Ariel to write the mystery for the world.

Meir calls the Altar 'the sign of a cosmic war... of two kingdoms, two altars, two thrones.'
The custodian explains the light, God, love, Jesus/Yeshua, and the Altar of God, and tells Herzog he must learn its mystery.
Professor Marinus tells Ariel he must write a book revealing the mystery, and Ariel agrees.
On Mount Sinai, Ariel sees all the guides encircling them, praying, then transformed into radiant figures of light before vanishing.

Symbols and Motifs

The Altar of Pergamon / Throne of Satan

The physical altar to Zeus represents Satan's throne and a dark spiritual power that transfers among empires and drives historical calamity.

Professor Marinus explains that the Great Altar of Pergamon was a pagan altar to Zeus and argues it connects to the Bible's Throne of Satan.
Yaira says, 'The Altar is the Throne of Satan. Satan is the Dragon. So the coming of a dragon represents the coming of the Altar.'
Yaroslav recounts that the Red Army found the Altar in a Berlin bunker on May 1, 1945, and it passed to the Soviet Union.
Meir calls it 'the sign of a cosmic war... of two kingdoms, two altars, two thrones.'

The manuscript and successive pages

The illuminated manuscript and the pages given along the journey are the unfolding revelation and the scripture of the Keepers of the Altar, presented as a satanic inversion of sacred Scripture.

Professor Marinus examines the manuscript, confirms its date and language with a spectrometer, translates it, and explains its references to Satan's throne, Isaiah, Pergamon, and a physical altar/throne.
Alaina explains that the book is the scripture of the Keepers of the Altar/Guardians of the Throne.
The pages include titles such as 'Kingdom,' 'Fury,' 'Possession,' 'Cataclysm,' 'Sacrifice,' 'Contagion,' 'Revolution,' 'Transference,' 'Diabolos,' 'Inferno,' 'Abyss,' and 'Mystery'; one page has the Greek title Apoleia and a Destroyer text.
Isik walks them to the front door and gives Lara a sheet that is the third page and second manifestation.

The swastika / Hakenkreuz

The ancient symbol unearthed by Schliemann becomes the embodied sign of the Altar's evil and later the Nazi symbol, tying ancient discovery to modern destruction.

Schliemann uncovered almost two thousand variations of an ancient symbol at Troy, and German nationalists used it before it became known as the Hakenkreuz/swastika.
Isik says, 'the Throne of Satan and the sign that would embody its evil entered the world together.'
Adolf Hitler later made the swastika the symbol of Nazism with red, white, and black imagery.

Nike/Victoria, the winged figure

The winged goddess represents pagan victory and the return of Zeus worship, linked to dechristianization and the exaltation of the Altar's power in modern Europe.

Lara dreams of a white winged creature at the Berlin Wall and a column, and the man identifies it as Nike/Victoria on the Victory Column.
The man explains that Barack Obama's July 2008 Tiergarten speech was at the Victory Column, and Obama's nomination stage re-created the Altar of Pergamon.
The man says Victoria's reappearance signifies dechristianization of Western civilization and the rise of anti-Christian ideologies.