up the meaning of the mysterious passage relative to St. John's immortality. This local prophecy is easily distinguished from the more solemn and universal advent of our Lord, declared in the first verses of the Apocalypse. The time when "every eye shall see him, and they that pierced him, and the kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him," was determined for the last ages, and for an assertion of his majesty and judgment before all mankind. THE DATE OF THE APOCALYPSE. It was the original opinion of the Church that the Apocalypse was written before the close of the first century. The testimony of Irenæus has been already detailed; he fixes it in the reign of Domitian. * Clement of Alexandria speaks of St. John's returning from Patmos to Ephesus after the death of the tyrant Domitian.t Victorinus (A. D. 290) says that John was banished by Domitian, and in his reign saw the Apocalypse.‡ Eusebius, in the history of Domitian's persecution, says, "In this persecution, as it is said, John, the Apostle and Evangelist, being still living, was banished into the island of Patmos, for the testimony of the word of God."§ Jerome, in his book of "Illustrious Men," already alluded to, says, "Domitian, in the fourteenth year of his reign, raising the second persecution after Nero, John was banished to the island of Patmos, where he wrote the Revelation, which Justin Martyr and Irenæus explain, (or attest.) When Domitian had * Lib. v. c. 30. + Apud Cave. † Euseb. H. E. 1. iii. c. 23. been killed, and his edicts repealed by the senate for their excessive cruelty, he returned to Ephesus, in the time of the Emperor Nerva."* In his treatise against Jovinian, he repeats that "John was at once Apostle, Evangelist and Prophet. Apostle, in that he wrote letters to the Church as a master: Evangelist, in that he wrote a Gospel: and Prophet, in that he saw the Apocalypse in the island of Patmos, whither he was banished by Domitian."t Polycrates, Bishop of Ephesus, towards the close of the second century, in a document of great importance and publicity, his "Letter," in the name of the Asiatic Bishops to Victor the Bishop of Rome, on the controversy relative to the keeping of Easter, says, "John also was buried at Ephesus, who leaned on the Lord's breast, who was a priest, bearing a plate, (or bearing a rank equivalent to that of Jewish High Priest, who wore a golden plate on his forchead,) a martyr and master, fell asleep at Ephesus." Further evidence of the early opinions must be un necessary. But in subsequent times there have been no less than six different conjectures as to the date. Upon those I shall not dwell, because, all admitting the inspiration of the book, the differences of date can affect only the interpretation. It has been asserted, on the authority of Epiphanius, that this book was written in the time of Claudius. To this it is to be answered, that there is no proof of any Christian persecution in the reign of Claudius. (A. Ď. 41, &c.) He commanded the Jews to leave Rome; yet the command did not affect the Jews who lived out of Italy, nor the Christians; consequently, St. John's exile to Patmos cannot be referred to that time. De V. H. c. 9. † Adv. Jov. 1. i. t. 4. It is altogether improbable, from the history of the planting of the Asiatic Churches, that they existed in the reign of Claudius, or that St. John had been then in Ephesus; for St. Paul* found no Apostolic Church there. Another opinion is, that John was exiled to Patmos, and wrote the Apocalypse in the reign of Nero, and for this has been adduced the subscription to the Syriac version. "The Revelation which was made by God to John the Evangelist in the island of Patmos, whither he was banished by the Emperor. Nero." This version is a part of the Philoxenian made at the beginning of the sixth century. To this the answer is, that a subscription which might have been written by any one, however ignorant, at any time, however late, is no authority,-and that, in the titles of the Sacred Books of the Syriac version there are known errors. The opinion of this date has been much assisted by a prejudice. Many commentators, misconceiving the prophecies addressed to the Seven Churches, and anxious to find some great event applicable to our Lord's declaration that he was "coming quickly," looked for that "coming" in the fall of Jerusalem, and, in consequence, attempted to throw back the date. Sir Isaac Newton, Bishop Newton, and Michaelis, with others of name, have adopted this error; which has been lately revived by Mr. Tilloch in a volume of considerable ingenuity. He concludes that the Apocalypse was written before the Gospels and Epistles, from certain phrases in the latter, which might seem to have been adopted from the prophecy. The answer is plain. Similarity of subject might naturally induce similarity of phrase. The Apostles were all prophets, all acting under the same views, and all deriving a large * Acts xix. ! portion of their imagery, and even of their expressions, from the ancient Scriptures. His two principal arguments, that the Apocalypse is mentioned by name in the Epistles, and that St. Paul, in speaking of the resurrection at the last trumpet, alludes to the seventh trumpet of the prophecy, allow of the obvious answers, that the use of the verb αποκαλύπτω is frequent in the Septuagint, from which it may have been derived equally by both the Epistle and the prophecy; and that the use of the trumpet as a summoner in the hands of the Deity to great changes, and peculiarly to that change by which his people shall be placed in final security and glory, is familiar to the prophets. "And it shall come to pass in that day, that the great trumpet shall be blown, and they shall come. that were ready to perish in the land of Assyria, and the outcasts in the land of Egypt, and shall worship the Lord in the Holy Mount at Jerusalem."* "The Lord God shall be seen over them, and his arrow shall go forth as the lightning, and the Lord God shall blow the trumpet.-And the Lord their God shall save them in that day as the flock of his people, for they shall be as the stones of a crown, lifted up as an ensign upon his land."t On the other hand, St. Peter talks of things as in some degree future, which the Apocalypse declares to have already come. "There shall be false teachers among you who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them.-And many shall follow their pernicious ways, by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of."‡ His description, "But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat; the earth also, and the * Isaiah xxvii. 13. †Zech. ix. 14, &c. 2 Peter li. 1, 2. works that are therein, shall be burnt up,"* is not like that of a man who had known the detail of the Apocalypse which marks the progress of the judgment, and divides the "Great Coming," from the final consummation by a thousand years. It is fairly conceivable too, that in speaking of that day of judgment, of which so many doubted at the time, he would have availed himself of the authority of a prediction so powerful and distinct as the Apocalypse, if it had been in existence. The dates of Trajan and Hadrian are given each only on the authority of a single MS. On the whole, there is discoverable no sufficient. reason to disturb the most ancient decision, that the Apocalypse was written between A. D. 95 and 97; and thus, after the fall of Jerusalem, and shortly before the persecution by Trajan. It may seem extraordinary that a book of Scripture, sanctioned by the name of the beloved disciple, and received by the first, second, and third centuries, should have come down to us the subject of so many contradictory opinions. But it should be recollected, that the chief opposition arose from sects to which its doctrines were obnoxious; or from the absurdities of those who, in the fourth century, perverted the pure Scriptural triumph of Christianity into a sensual paradise; and, in general, from the pride of fathers and philosophers, who, embarrassed by a prophecy not to be solved but by later events, haughtily conceived that what was darkness to them must be destitute of all light to the future. The Peculiar circumstances too aided this error. MSS. of the Apocalypse, as of a book containing neither express history nor doctrine, were fewer than those of any other portion of the New Testament. The seizure and destruction of the Christian Scrip *2 Peter iii. 10. |