7. Clement of Alexandria says, "When, at the death of the tyrant, he removed from the island Patmos to Ephesus, &c." This passage, it is true, contains no mention who the tyrant was, nor any allusion to the writing of the Apocalypse: but it is interesting for our present enquiry as shewing, in its citation by Eusebius, how he understood the date furnished by it. For he introduces it by saying that St. John "ruled the churches in Asia when he had returned from his exile in the island after the death of Domitian," and cites Clement as one of the witnesses of the fact.

8. Origen merely calls St. John's persecutor "the king of the Romans," without specifying which. And he seems to do this wittingly: for he notices that John himself does not mention who condemned him. See the passage quoted above, § i. par. 12.

9. Eusebius, having cited the passage of Irenæus noticed above, says, Some have even accurately specified the time as the fifteenth year of Domitian, mentioning, with many others, Flavia Domitilla, daughter of the sister of Flavius Clemens, one of the powerful men at Rome at that time, as having been banished to the island Pontia for her testimony to Christ." And this same statement he repeats elsewhere: and, in another place, gives the account of the return of St. John from Patmos in the beginning of Nerva's reign, cited above, par. 92.

10. Tertullian does not appear quite to bear out Eusebius's understanding of him: for he only says, after mentioning the persecution of Nero, "Domitian also had attempted it, being a partial inheritor of Nero's cruelty but being also accessible to humane feeling, he easily stopped it when begun, and even restored those whom he had banished." Here he certainly makes Domitian himself recall the exiles.

11. Victorinus, in the passage above referred to (par. 1), and afterwards (par. 2), plainly gives the date: as also in another place, where he states that the Apocalypse was written under Domitian.

12. Jerome says, "Domitian in his fourteenth year beginning the persecution second after Nero, he (John) being banished to the island Patmos wrote the Apocalypse. . . . but when Domitian was slain, and his acts, on account of their excessive cruelty, repealed by the Senate, he returned to Ephesus under the Emperor Nerva." See too his testimony above, § i. par. 25.

13. So also Sulpicius Severus and Orosius, and later writers generally. The first who breaks in upon this concurrent tradition is Epiphanius, in two very curious passages: the first where he says, "that the Holy Spirit moved John to write his Gospel, at the age of ninety, after his return from Patmos, which took place under Claudius Cæsar;' the other, that "he prophesied long ago, in the times of Claudius Cæsar, when he was in the island Patmos."

14. Now it is plain that there must be some strange blunder here,

which Lücke, who makes much of Epiphanius's testimony as shewing that the tradition, which he calls the Irenæan, was not received by Epiphanius, entirely, and conveniently, omits to notice. The passage evidently sets the return from exile in the extreme old age of St. John. Now if this is so, seeing that Claudius reigned from 41 to 54 A.D., putting the return from exile at the last of these dates, we should have St. John aged ninety in the year 54: in other words, thirtythree years older than our Lord, and sixty-three at least when called to be an Apostle: a result which is at variance with all ancient tradition whatever. Either Epiphanius has fallen into some great mistake, which is not very probable, or he means by Claudius some other Emperor: if Nero, then he would still be wrong as to St. John's age at or near to his return.

15. The testimony of Muratori's fragment on the Canon has been cited (by Stuart, p. 218) as testifying to an early date. But all it says is this: "The blessed Apostle Paul himself, following the order of his predecessor John, writes by name to seven churches in the same order.” And the word predecessor, as has been pointed out by Credner, merely seems to mean that St. John was an apostle before St. Paul (or perhaps only represents the title presbyter or elder), not to imply that he wrote his seven epistles before St. Paul wrote his.

16. The preface to the Syriac version of the Apocalypse published by De Dieu, supposed to have been made in the 6th century, says that the visions were seen by St. John in the island of Patmos, to which he had been banished by the Emperor Nero.

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17. Theophylact, in his preface to the Gospel of St. John, says that it was written thirty-two years after the Ascension in the island of Patmos and in so saying, places the exile under Nero. But he clearly is wrong, as Lücke remarks, or his meaning not clearly understood, when he attributes the writing of the Gospel to this time: and moreover he is inconsistent with himself: for in commenting on Matt. xx. 22, he remarks that as Herod put to death the Apostle James the greater, so Trajan condemned John as a martyr to the word of truth.

18. Jerome determines nothing, only citing Tertullian: "Tertullian relates that having been put by Nero into a cask of burning oil, he came out clearer and healthier than he went in." But Tertullian only says, in the place apparently referred to, "Happy is the (Roman) Church ... where Peter was equalled to the passion of our Lord, where Paul was crowned with the death of John (i. e. the Baptist), where the Apostle John having been immersed in burning oil and taken no hurt, was banished to an island." It surely is stretching a point here to say that he implies all three events to have taken place under Nero.

19. The Author of the "Synopsis of the Life and Death of the Pro

phets, Apostles, and Disciples of the Lord" (ostensibly Dorotheus, bishop of Tyre: but probably it belongs to the 6th century), makes John to be exiled to Patmos by Trajan. Andreas and Arethas give no decided testimony on the point. Arethas, in commenting on Rev. vi. 12, says, that some applied this prophecy to the destruction of Jerusalem under Vespasian: but this is distinctly repudiated by Andreas: allowing however (on vii. 2) that such things did happen to the Jewish Christians who escaped the evils inflicted on Jerusalem by the Romans, yet they more probably refer to the times of Antichrist. Arethas again, on Rev. i. 9, cites without any protest Eusebius, as asserting St. John's exile in Patmos to have taken place under Domitian.

20. Much more evidence on this subject from other later writers whose testimonies are of less consequence,—and more minute discussion of the earlier testimonies, will be found in Elliott, Hora Apocalypticæ, i. pp. 31-46, and Appendix, No. i. pp. 503-517. In the last mentioned, he has gone well and carefully through the arguments on external evidence adduced by Lücke and Stuart for the writing under Galba and Nero respectively, and, as it seems to me, disposed of

them all.

21. Our result, as far as this part of the question is considered, may be thus stated. We have a constant and unswerving primitive tradition that St. John's exile took place, and the Apocalypse was written, towards the end of Domitian's reign. With this tradition, as has been often observed, the circumstances seem to agree very well. We have no evidence that the first, or Neronic, persecution, extended beyond Rome, or found vent in condemnations to exile. Whereas in regard to the second we know that both these were the case. Indeed the liberation at Domitian's death of those whom he had exiled is substantiated by Dio Cassius, who, in relating the beginning of Nerva's reign, says, Through hatred of Domitian his statues . . . were thrown down.. and Nerva pardoned those who were condemned for impiety, and recalled the exiles . . . and made a general concession that neither impiety, nor Jewish way of living, should form matter of accusation against any."

22. Assuming then the fact of St. John's exile at Patmos during a persecution for the Gospel's sake, it is far more likely that it should have been under Domitian than under Nero or under Galba. But one main reliance of the advocates of the earlier date is internal evidence supposed to be furnished by the book itself. And this, first, from the rough and Hebraistic style. I have already discussed this point, and have fully admitted its difficulty, however we view it. I need only add now, that I do not conceive we at all diminish that difficulty by supposing it to be written before the Gospel and Epistle. The Greek of the Gospel and Epistle is not the Greek of the Apocalypse in a maturer

state but if the two belong to one and the same writer, we must seek for the cause of their diversity not in chronological but rather in psychological considerations.

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23. Again, it is said that the book furnishes indications of having been written before the destruction of Jerusalem, by the fact of its mentioning the city and the temple, ch. xi. 1 ff., and the twelve tribes as yet existing, ch. vii. 4-8. This argument has been very much insisted on by several of the modern German critics. But we may demur to it at once, as containing an assumption which we are not prepared to grant: viz. that the prophetic passage is to be thus interpreted, or has any thing to do with the literal Jerusalem. Let the canon of interpretation be first substantiated, by which we are to be bound in our understanding of this passage, and then we can recognize its bearing on the chronological question. Certainly Lücke has not done this, but, as usual with him, has fallen to abusing Hengstenberg, for which he undoubtedly has a strong case, while for his own interpretation he seems to me to make out a very weak one.

24. Another such assumption is found in the confident assertion by the same critics, that the passages in ch. xiii. 1 ff., xvii. 10 point out the then reigning Cæsar, and that by the conditions of those passages, such reigning Cæsar must be that one who suits their chronological theory. It is not the place here to discuss principles of interpretation: but we may fairly demur again to the thus assuming a principle irrespective of the requirements of the book, and then judging the book itself by it. This is manifestly done by Lücke. Besides which, the differences among themselves of those who adopt this view are such as to deprive it of all fixity as an historical indication. Are we to reckon our Cæsars forwards (and if so, are we to begin with Julius, or with Augustus ?), or backwards, upon some independent assumption of the time of writing, which the other phænomena must be made to fit? If the reader will consult the notes on ch. xvii. 10, I trust he will see that any such view of the passages is untenable.

25. Upon interpretations like these, insulated, and derived from mere first impressions of the wording of single passages, is the whole fabric built, which is to supersede the primitive tradition as to the date of the Apocalypse. On this account, Irenæus, who had such good and sufficient means of knowing, must be supposed to have made a mistake in the date which he assigns: on this account, all those additional testimonies which in any other case would have been adduced as independent and important, are to be assumed to have been mere repetitions of that of Irenæus.

26. But it is most unfortunate for these critics that, when once so sure a ground is established for them as a direct indication, in the book itself, of the emperor under whom it was written, they cannot agree

among themselves who this emperor was. Some among them (e. g. Stuart, and others) taking the natural (and one would think the only possible) view of such an historical indication, begin according to general custom with Julius, and bring the writing under Nero. Ewald and Lücke, on account of the " is not, and shall come" of ch. xvii. 8, which they wish to apply to Nero, desert the usual reckoning of Roman emperors, and begin with Augustus, thus bringing the writing under Galba. Again, Eichhorn and Bleek, wishing to bring the writing under Vespasian, omit Galba, Otho, and Vitellius, relying on an expression of Suetonius, that their reigns were a mere "rebellion of three princes." Thus by changing the usual starting-point, and leaving out of the usual list of the Cæsars any number found convenient, any view we please may be substantiated by this kind of interpretation. Those whose view of the prophecy extends wider, and who attach a larger meaning to the symbols of the beast and his image and his heads, will not be induced by such very uncertain speculations to set aside a primitive and as it appears to them thoroughly trustworthy tradition.

27. It may be observed that Lücke attempts to give an account of the origin of what he calls the Irenæan tradition, freely confessing that his proof (?) of the date is not complete without such an account. The character of the account he gives is well worth observing. When, he says, men found that the apocalyptic prophecies had failed of their accomplishment, they began to give a wider sense to them, and to put them at a later date. And having given this account, he attempts to vindicate it from the charge of overthrowing the authority of Scripture prophecy, and says that though it may not be as convenient as the way which modern orthodoxy has struck out, yet it leads more safely to the desired end, and to the permanent enjoyment of true faith.

28. With every disposition to search and prove all things, and ground faith upon things thus proved, I own I am quite unable to come to Lücke's conclusions, or to those of any of the maintainers of the Neronic or any of the earlier dates. The book itself, it seems to me, refuses the assignment of such times of writing. The evident assumption which it makes of long-standing and general persecution (ch. vi. 9) forbids us to place it in the very first persecution, and that only a partial one: the undoubted transference of Jewish temple emblems to a Christian sense (ch. i. 20) of itself makes us suspect those interpreters who maintain the literal sense when the temple and city are mentioned: the analogy of the prophecies of Daniel forbids us to limit to individual kings the interpretation of the symbolic heads of the beast: the whole character and tone of the writing precludes our imagining that its original reference was ever intended to be to mere local matters of secondary import.

29. The state of those to whom it was addressed furnishes another