Part II, Chapter 1, 1

Introduction, concerning the time when the Apocalypse was written.

Irenæus introduced an opinion that the Apocalypse was written in the time of Domitian; but then he also postponed the writing of some others of the sacred books, and was to place the Apocalypse after them: he might perhaps have heard from his master Polycarp that he had received this book from John about the time of Domitian's death; or indeed John might himself at that time have made a new publication of it, from which Irenæus might imagine it was then but newly written. Eusebius in his Chronicle and Ecclesiastical History follows Irenæus; but afterwards¹ in his Evangelical Demonstrations, he joins the banishment of John to Patmos with the deaths of Peter and Paul: and so do² Tertullian and Pseudo-Prochorus, as well as the first author, whoever he was, of that very ancient fable, that John was put by Nero into a vessel of hot oil and, coming out unhurt, was banished by him to Patmos. Though this story is no more than a fiction, yet it was founded on a tradition of the first churches, that John was banished to Patmos in the days of Nero. Epiphanius represents the Gospel of John as written in the time of Domitian, and the Apocalypse even before that of Nero.³ Arethas, at the beginning of his Commentary, quotes the opinion of Irenæus from Eusebius, but does not follow it: for he afterwards affirms the Apocalypse was written before the destruction of Jerusalem, and that former commentators had expounded the sixth seal as that destruction.

With the opinion of the first Commentators agrees the tradition of the Churches of Syria, preserved to this day in the title of the Syriac Version of the Apocalypse, which title is this: "The Revelation which was made to John the Evangelist by God in the Island Patmos, into which he was banished by Nero the Cæsar." The same is confirmed by a story told by⁴ Eusebius out of Clemens Alexandrinus, and other ancient authors, concerning a youth, whom John some time after his return from Patmos committed to the care of the Bishop of a certain city. The Bishop educated, instructed, and at length baptized him; but then, relaxing his care, the young man thereupon fell into bad company, and began by degrees first to revel and grow vicious, then to assault and rob those he met at night; and at last grew so desperate that his companions, turning into a band of highwaymen, made him their Captain: and, says⁵ Chrysostom, he remained their Captain a long time. At length John, returning to that city and hearing what had been done, rode to the thief; and when he, out of reverence for his old master, fled, John rode after him, called him back, and restored him to the Church. This is a story of many years, and requires that John should have returned from Patmos rather at the death of Nero than at that of Domitian; because between the death of Domitian and that of John there were but two years and a half; and John in his old age was⁶ so infirm as to be carried to Church, dying above 90 years old, and therefore could not then be supposed able to ride after the thief.

This opinion is further supported by the allusions in the Apocalypse to the Temple and Altar, and holy City, as then standing; and to the Gentiles, who were soon after to tread underfoot the holy City and outward Court. It is confirmed also by the style of the Apocalypse itself, which is fuller of Hebraisms than his Gospel. For from this it may be gathered that it was written when John was newly come out of Judea, where he had been accustomed to the Syriac language; and that he did not write his Gospel until by long association with the Asiatic Greeks he had left off most of the Hebraisms. It is confirmed also by the many false Apocalypses, as those of Peter, Paul, Thomas, Stephen, Elias and Cerinthus, written in imitation of the true one. For as the many false Gospels, false Acts, and false Epistles were occasioned by true ones; and the writing of many false Apocalypses, and ascribing them to Apostles and Prophets, argues that there was a true Apostolic one in great request with the first Christians: so this true one may well be supposed to have been written early, that there may be room in the Apostolic age for the writing of so many false ones afterward, and fathering them upon Peter, Paul, Thomas and others, who were dead before John. Caius, who was contemporary with Tertullian,⁷ tells us that Cerinthus wrote his Revelations as a great Apostle, and pretended the visions were shown him by Angels, asserting a millennium of carnal pleasures at Jerusalem after the resurrection; so that his Apocalypse was plainly written in imitation of John's: and yet he lived so early that⁸ he resisted the Apostles at Jerusalem in or before the first year of Claudius, that is, 26 years before the death of Nero, and⁹ died before John.

These reasons may suffice for determining the time; and yet there is one more, which to considering men may seem a good reason, to others not. I'll propound it, and leave it to every man's judgment. The Apocalypse seems to be alluded to in the Epistles of Peter and that to the Hebrews, and therefore to have been written before them. Such allusions in the Epistle to the Hebrews, I take to be the discourses concerning the High-Priest in the heavenly Tabernacle, who is both Priest and King, as was Melchisedec; and those concerning the word of God, with the sharp two-edged sword, the sabbatismos, or millennial rest, the earth whose end is to be burned, by the lake of fire I suppose, the judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries, the heavenly City which has foundations whose builder and maker is God, the cloud of witnesses, mount Sion, heavenly Jerusalem, general assembly, spirits of just men made perfect, namely, by the resurrection, and the shaking of heaven and earth, and removing them, that the new heaven, new earth and new kingdom which cannot be shaken, may remain. In the first of Peter occur these:¹⁰ The Revelation of Jesus Christ, twice or thrice repeated;¹¹ the blood of Christ as of a Lamb foreordained before the foundation of the world;¹² the spiritual building in heaven, 1 Pet. ii. 5. an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for us, who are kept for salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time, 1 Pet. i. 4, 5.¹³ the royal Priesthood,¹⁴ the holy Priesthood,¹⁵ the judgment beginning at the house of God, and¹⁶ the Church at Babylon. These are indeed obscurer allusions; but the second Epistle, from the 19th verse of the first Chapter to the end, seems to be a continued Commentary upon the Apocalypse. There, in writing to the Churches in Asia, to whom John was commanded to send this Prophecy, he tells them they have a more sure word of Prophecy, to be heeded by them, "as a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day-star arise in their hearts," that is, until they begin to understand it: for "no Prophecy," he says, "of the scripture is of any private interpretation; the Prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke, as they were moved by the Holy Spirit." Daniel¹⁷ himself professes that he understood not his own Prophecies; and therefore the Churches were not to expect the interpretation from their Prophet John, but to study the Prophecies themselves. This is the substance of what Peter says in the first chapter; and then in the second he proceeds to describe, out of this sure word of Prophecy, how there should arise in the Church false Prophets, or false teachers, expressed collectively in the Apocalypse by the name of the false Prophet; who should bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, which is the character of Antichrist: "And many," he says, "shall follow their lusts¹⁸; they that dwell on the earth¹⁹ shall be deceived by the false Prophet, and be made drunk with the wine of the Whore's fornication, by reason of whom the way of truth shall be blasphemed; for²⁰ the Beast is full of blasphemy: and through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you; for these are the Merchants of the Earth, who trade with the great Whore, and their merchandise²¹ is all things of price, with the bodies and souls of men: whose judgment does not linger, and their damnation²² does not slumber, but shall surely come upon them at the last day suddenly, as the flood upon the old world, and fire and brimstone upon Sodom and Gomorrha, when the just shall be delivered²³ like Lot; for the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust until the day of judgment to be punished, in the lake of fire; but chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness,²⁴ being made drunk with the wine of the Whore's fornication; who despise dominion, and are not afraid to blaspheme glories; for the beast opened his mouth against God²⁵ to blaspheme his name and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven. These, as natural brute beasts, the ten-horned beast and two-horned beast, or false Prophet, made to be taken and destroyed, in the lake of fire, blaspheme the things they understand not; they count it pleasure to riot in the daytime, sporting themselves with their own deceivings, while they feast²⁶ with you, having eyes full of an²⁷ Adulteress: for the kingdoms of the beast live luxuriously with the great Whore, and the nations are made drunk with the wine of her fornication. They are gone astray, following the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness, the false Prophet²⁸ who taught Balak to cast a stumbling-block before the children of Israel. These are, not fountains of living water, but wells without water; not such clouds of Saints as the two witnesses ascend in, but clouds that are carried with a tempest," etc. Thus does the author of this Epistle spend all the second Chapter in describing the qualities of the Apocalyptic Beasts and false Prophet: and then in the third he goes on to describe their destruction more fully, and the future kingdom. He says that because the coming of Christ should be long delayed, they should scoff, saying, "Where is the promise of his coming?" Then he describes the sudden coming of the day of the Lord upon them, as a thief in the night, which is the Apocalyptic phrase; and the millennium, or thousand years, which are with God but as a day; the passing away of the old heavens and earth, by a conflagration in the lake of fire, and our looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which dwells righteousness.

Seeing therefore Peter and John were Apostles of the circumcision, it seems to me that they stayed with their Churches in Judea and Syria until the Romans made war upon their nation, that is, until the twelfth year of Nero; that they then followed the main body of their fleeing Churches into Asia, and that Peter went from there by Corinth to Rome; that the Roman Empire looked upon those Churches as enemies, because they were Jews by birth; and therefore to prevent insurrections, put their leaders under guard, and banished John to Patmos. It seems also probable to me that the Apocalypse was there composed, and that soon after, the Epistle to the Hebrews and those of Peter were written to these Churches, with reference to this Prophecy as what they were particularly concerned in. For it appears by these Epistles that they were written in times of general affliction and tribulation under the heathens, and consequently when the Empire made war upon the Jews; for until then the heathens were at peace with the Christian Jews, as well as with the rest. The Epistle to the Hebrews, since it mentions Timothy as related to those Hebrews, must be written to them after their flight into Asia, where Timothy was Bishop; and consequently after the war began, the Hebrews in Judea being strangers to Timothy. Peter seems also to call Rome Babylon, as well with respect to the war made upon Judea, and the approaching captivity, like that under old Babylon, as with respect to that name in the Apocalypse: and in writing to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, he seems to intimate that they were the strangers newly scattered by the Roman wars; for those were the only strangers there belonging to his care.

Introduction, concerning the time when the Apocalypse was written.

Irenæus started the opinion that the Apocalypse was written in the time of Domitian; but then he also put off the writing of some other sacred books, and placed the Apocalypse after them: he may perhaps have heard from his master Polycarp that he received this book from John around the time of Domitian's death; or John may himself have made a new edition of it at that time, from which Irenæus might have imagined it was only newly written. Eusebius in his Chronicle and Ecclesiastical History follows Irenæus; but afterwards¹ in his Evangelial Demonstrations, he joins the banishment of John into Patmos with the deaths of Peter and Paul: and so do² Tertullian and Pseudo-Prochorus, as well as the first author, whoever he was, of that very ancient fable, that John was put by Nero into a vessel of hot oil, and coming out unhurt, was banished by him into Patmos. Though this story is no more than a fiction, it was founded on a tradition of the first churches, that John was banished into Patmos in the days of Nero. Epiphanius says that the Gospel of John was written in the time of Domitian, and the Apocalypse even before that, in the time of Nero.³ Arethas at the start of his Commentary quotes the opinion of Irenæus from Eusebius, but does not follow it: for he later states that the Apocalypse was written before the destruction of Jerusalem, and that earlier commentators explained the sixth seal as that destruction.

The opinion of the first Commentators agrees with the tradition of the Churches of Syria, preserved to this day in the title of the Syriac Version of the Apocalypse, which title is this: "The Revelation which was made to John the Evangelist by God in the Island Patmos, into which he was banished by Nero the Cæsar." The same is confirmed by a story told by⁴ Eusebius out of Clemens Alexandrinus, and other ancient authors, concerning a youth, whom John some time after his return from Patmos handed over to the care of the Bishop of a certain city. The Bishop raised him, taught him, and at last baptized him; but then relaxing his care, the young man got into bad company, and began by degrees first to revel and turn vicious, then to attack and rob those he met at night; and at last grew so desperate that his companions, turning into a band of highwaymen, made him their Captain: and, says⁵ Chrysostom, he stayed their Captain a long time. At last John came back to that city, and hearing what had happened, rode after the thief; and when the young man, out of respect for his old master, ran away, John rode him down, called him back, and restored him to the Church. This is a story of many years, and requires that John returned from Patmos rather at the death of Nero than at that of Domitian; because between the death of Domitian and that of John there were only two years and a half; and John in his old age was⁶ so weak that he had to be carried to Church, dying above 90 years old, and so could not then be thought able to ride after the thief.

This opinion is further supported by the allusions in the Apocalypse to the Temple and Altar and holy City, as then standing; and to the Gentiles, who were soon after to tread under foot the holy City and the outer Court. It is confirmed also by the style of the Apocalypse itself, which is fuller of Hebrewisms than his Gospel. From this it may be gathered that it was written when John had just come out of Judea, where he had been used to the Syriac language; and that he did not write his Gospel until, after long company with the Asiatic Greeks, he had dropped most of the Hebrewisms. It is confirmed also by the many false Apocalypses, such as those of Peter, Paul, Thomas, Stephen, Elias and Cerinthus, written in imitation of the true one. For just as the many false Gospels, false Acts, and false Epistles were caused by true ones; and the writing of many false Apocalypses, and crediting them to Apostles and Prophets, shows that there was a true Apostolic one in great demand with the first Christians: so this true one may well be supposed to have been written early, so that there is room in the Apostolic age for the writing of so many false ones afterwards, and fathering them on Peter, Paul, Thomas and others, who were dead before John. Caius, who was a contemporary of Tertullian,⁷ tells us that Cerinthus wrote his Revelations as a great Apostle, and claimed the visions were shown to him by Angels, teaching a millennium of bodily pleasures at Jerusalem after the resurrection; so that his Apocalypse was plainly written in imitation of John's: and yet he lived so early that⁸ he opposed the Apostles at Jerusalem in or before the first year of Claudius, that is, 26 years before the death of Nero, and⁹ died before John.

These reasons may be enough to settle the time; and yet there is one more, which to thoughtful people may seem a good reason, to others not. I will set it out, and leave it to every man's judgment. The Apocalypse seems to be alluded to in the Epistles of Peter and in that to the Hebrews, and therefore to have been written before them. Such allusions in the Epistle to the Hebrews, I take to be the passages about the High-Priest in the heavenly Tabernacle, who is both Priest and King, as was Melchisedec; and those about the word of God, with the sharp two-edged sword, the [Greek: sabbatismos], or millennial rest, the earth whose end is to be burned, suppose by the lake of fire, the judgment and fiery anger which shall devour the adversaries, the heavenly City which has foundations whose builder and maker is God, the cloud of witnesses, mount Sion, heavenly Jerusalem, general assembly, spirits of righteous men made perfect, that is, by the resurrection, and the shaking of heaven and earth, and removing them, that the new heaven, new earth and new kingdom which cannot be shaken, may remain. In the first Epistle of Peter occur these:¹⁰ The Revelation of Jesus Christ, twice or thrice repeated;¹¹ the blood of Christ as of a Lamb foreordained before the foundation of the world;¹² the spiritual building in heaven, 1 Pet. ii. 5. an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for us, who are kept for the salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time, 1 Pet. i. 4, 5.¹³ the royal Priesthood,¹⁴ the holy Priesthood,¹⁵ the judgment beginning at the house of God, and¹⁶ the Church at Babylon. These are indeed more obscure allusions; but the second Epistle, from the 19th verse of the first Chapter to the end, seems to be a running Commentary upon the Apocalypse. There, writing to the Churches in Asia, to whom John was commanded to send this Prophecy, he tells them that they have a more sure word of Prophecy, to be heeded by them, as a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns, and the day-star rises in their hearts, that is, until they begin to understand it: for no Prophecy, he says, of the scripture is of any private interpretation; the Prophecy did not come in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke, as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. Daniel¹⁷ himself says that he did not understand his own Prophecies; and therefore the Churches were not to wait for the interpretation from their Prophet John, but to study the Prophecies themselves. This is the substance of what Peter says in the first chapter; and then in the second he goes on to describe, out of this sure word of Prophecy, how there should arise in the Church false Prophets, or false teachers, named together in the Apocalypse by the name of the false Prophet; who should bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, which is the character of Antichrist: "And many," he says, "shall follow their lusts¹⁸; they that dwell on the earth¹⁹ shall be deceived by the false Prophet, and be made drunk with the wine of the Whore's fornication, because of whom the way of truth shall be blasphemed; for²⁰ the Beast is full of blasphemy: and through greed shall they with made-up words trade on you; for these are the Merchants of the Earth, who deal with the great Whore, and their merchandise²¹ is all things of price, with the bodies and souls of men: whose judgment does not wait, and their damnation²² does not sleep, but shall surely come upon them at the last day suddenly, as the flood upon the old world, and fire and brimstone upon Sodom and Gomorrha, when the righteous shall be rescued²³ like Lot; for the Lord knows how to rescue the godly out of temptations, and to keep the unjust until the day of judgment to be punished, in the lake of fire; but above all those who walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness,²⁴ being made drunk with the wine of the Whore's fornication; who despise rule, and are not afraid to blaspheme glories; for the beast opened its mouth against God²⁵ to blaspheme his name and his dwelling, and those that live in heaven. These, like unreasoning animals, the ten-horned beast and the two-horned beast, or false Prophet, made to be caught and destroyed in the lake of fire, blaspheme the things they do not understand: they count it a pleasure to riot in the daytime: amusing themselves with their own deceptions, while they feast²⁶ with you, having eyes full of an²⁷ Adulteress: for the kingdoms of the beast live in luxury with the great Whore, and the nations are made drunk with the wine of her fornication. They have gone astray, following the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness, the false Prophet²⁸ who taught Balak to cast a stumbling-block before the children of Israel. These are not fountains of living water, but wells without water; not such clouds of Saints as the two witnesses rise in, but clouds driven by a storm," etc. So the author of this Epistle spends all the second Chapter describing the qualities of the Apocalyptic Beasts and false Prophet: and then in the third he goes on to describe their destruction more fully, and the future kingdom. He says that because the coming of Christ would be long delayed, they would scoff, saying, where is the promise of his coming? Then he describes the sudden coming of the day of the Lord upon them, as a thief in the night, which is the Apocalyptic phrase; and the millennium, or thousand years, which are with God but as a day; the passing away of the old heavens and earth, by a burning in the lake of fire, and our looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which dwells righteousness.

So since Peter and John were Apostles of the circumcision, it seems to me that they stayed with their Churches in Judea and Syria until the Romans made war on their nation, that is, until the twelfth year of Nero; that they then followed the main body of their fleeing Churches into Asia, and that Peter went from there by Corinth to Rome; that the Roman Empire treated those Churches as enemies because they were Jews by birth; and therefore, to prevent uprisings, arrested their leaders, and banished John into Patmos. It also seems likely to me that the Apocalypse was composed there, and that soon after, the Epistle to the Hebrews and the Epistles of Peter were written to these Churches, with reference to this Prophecy as what they were especially concerned in. For it appears by these Epistles that they were written in times of general affliction and trouble under the heathens, and therefore when the Empire made war on the Jews; for until then the heathens were at peace with the Christian Jews as well as with the rest. The Epistle to the Hebrews, since it mentions Timothy as related to those Hebrews, must be written to them after their flight into Asia, where Timothy was Bishop; and therefore after the war began, the Hebrews in Judea being strangers to Timothy. Peter also seems to call Rome Babylon, both with respect to the war made on Judea and the coming captivity, like that under old Babylon, and with respect to that name in the Apocalypse: and in writing to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, he seems to hint that they were the strangers newly scattered by the Roman wars; for those were the only strangers there belonging to his care.