2:12 Pergamos. Pergamos was sixty miles north of Smyrna. It was a center of idolatry, with the great altar of Zeus, the largest altar in the world, located there. As the church at Ephesus had been infiltrated by false apostles, losing its “first love” as a result, and the Smyrna church by Judaizers, so Pergamos was impacted by compromise with the paganism surrounding it. Ever since the beginning of the church age, the church has been affected by either sacerdotalism, legalism, evolutionary pantheism, or all of these.