must have been written soon after the death of Nero.' The whole account of the banishment of the apostle John to the appear that such a one, in order to deceive, has borrowed a reputation not his own, for in this case he would have designated himself more pointedly and decidedly as the person for whom he wished to be taken. It is, then, more probable that the author, a disciple of John, by some circumstance unknown to us, having devoted himself to write on a subject which he had received mediately or immediately from the apostle (as Schott and Lucke suppose), thought himself justified in introducing John as the speaker. But in reference to the origination and circulation of the work, if we place it in so early a period many difficulties will remain. The most probable supposition is, that the author, since he did not see his prophecies fulfilled in individual instances, although the ideas lying at the basis of his prophetic visions contained truth, put a stop to the circulation of the book,-that after his death, and the death of the apostle John, it was again made public, and passed more easily as the work of the latter. This book appears to assume the existence of such a scheme of doctrine as we find in John's Gospel, and this seems to be at variance with the opinion of the earlier origin of the Apocalypse. Yet the main outlines of John's peculiar doctrinal scheme might have been formed very early, from the mode in which he had received the life of Christ, according to his own mental conformation, before he appeared in Lesser Asia as a teacher in the Greek language; he also might have already adopted the use of such an expression as the term xóyos, to designate the indwelling divine life of the Redeemer, according to the Aramaic word from which it was taken, (as this term in the Alexandrian theosophic phraseology, certainly arose originally from a translation.)

We remark in this book, the vivid impression which Nero's persecution of the Christians, his setting on fire part of the city of Rome, and especially his cruelties, had made on the minds of men. The story that Nero was not really dead, but had retired to the Euphrates, and would return again from thence (see my Church History, i. 137,) appears here more fully delineated by a Christian imagination. He is the monster to whom Satan gave all his power, who returns as anti-christ and the destroyer of Rome, who will force all to worship his image. The Roman empire at that time is set forth as the representative of heathenism, and of ungodly power personified, and in this connexion, under the image of the beast with seven heads (the seven Roman emperors which would succeed one another till the appearance of antichrist), Nero is signified as one of these heads (xiii. 3), which appeared dead, but whose deadly wound was healed, so that to universal astonishment he appeared alive again. Nero reappearing after it had been believed that he was dead, is the beast "which was, and is not, and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit-and yet is," Rev. xvii. 8. Of the seven emperors who were to reign until the appearance of anti-christ, it is said that five have fallen-one (Nero's successor) is now reigning, and the other is not yet come; and when he comes, he must remain only a short time, and the beast which was and is not, is itself the eighth and one of the seven; (Nero as one of the seven emperors is the fifth, but

Isle of Patmos may have been taken chiefly from the Apocalypse, and if this book can be shown not to belong to John, the credibility of this account at once falls to the ground. Yet here two cases are possible. If the Apocalypse proceeded from another John than the apostle, if it was the composition of the Presbyter John who was his contemporary at Ephesus, the banishment to the Isle of Patmos would relate to him, and not to the apostle of this name. And this change, by which the Apocalypse was attributed to the apostle, would have occasioned also the report of his banishment to this island, although it is possible that the same outward causes might have led to the banishment of both these distinguished

inasmuch as he comes again as anti-christ, and founds the last universal monarchy following the succession of the seven emperors, he is the eighth.) Nero comes from the East, supported by his tributaries-the ten kings (his Satraps, the ten horns of the beast) leagued with him to destroy Rome, and to make war on Christianity. The waters of the Euphrates are dried up, to make a way for Nero with his ten Satraps, xvi. 12, who, in his service, would burn and destroy Rome, xvii. 16. All this marks the time in which the Apocalypse must have been written, the change of the emperor after Nero, while the image of this monster was yet in vivid recollection, and men were disposed to depict the future in magnified images of the past; it also agrees with this date, that the temple at Jerusalem is described as still in existence, i. 1, therefore it must be before the year 70. But in this book, I am struck with one contradiction, of which I have never met with a satisfactory solu tion. I shall rejoice to find that it has been explained by Dr. Lücke in his Commentary, which I am anxiously looking for. In vii. 4, the whole number of believing Jews is given as one hundred and forty-four thousand; and though this number may seem to be merely an assumed round number, yet the number of Christians then existing among the Jews might not differ very greatly from it. See Acts xxi. 20. Besides these, an innumerable company of believers from all nations and tongues appear before the throne of God, from which the former as Jews are expressly distinguished. On the other hand, in xiv. 4, the hundred forty and four thousand appear as the company of the elect from the great body of Christians in the whole world, who present the model of a holy life, as belonging to which a life of celibacy seems to be reckoned, a view which would not accord with John's sentiments. Origen has indeed noticed this contradiction, t. i. Joh. § 1, 2; but he avails himself of the allegorical interpretation; he thinks that in the first passage, the Jews in a spiritual sense, the flower of Christians out of all nations are to be understood; this opinion, which others also have adopted, cannot be correct, for it is evident from the other passage, that here only believers of Jewish descent are intended. As in the last quoted passage I can find nothing predicable of Jewish Christians, I cannot satisfy myself with the solution proposed by Credner in his Einleitung, p. 711.

teachers of the religio illicita. But if we admit that another person wished to represent these revelations as those which the apostle John had received, and if we hence infer, that in order to personate John, he made use of certain passages in his life, then the words in i. 9, in case they are to be understood of a banishment to the Isle of Patmos,1 yet always presuppose the fact of such an exile of the apostle, and we must in this case place his banishment in the first period after his arrival in Lesser Asia. But it is possible that, independently of the Apocalypse, such a tradition might be spread that the apostle John was banished by the Emperor Domitian (in whose reign such banishments to the islands on account of passing over to Judaism or Christianity were not uncommon) to the Isle of Patmos or some other island; and it is possible that, from this tradition, the supposition was formed that the Apocalypse ascribed to the apostle was written during this period. Certainly we cannot refuse

to believe the unanimous tradition of the Asiatic churches in the second century, that the apostle John, as a teacher of those churches, had to suffer on account of the faith, for which reason he is distinguished as a martyr in the epistle quoted above of Polycrates, Bishop of Ephesus."

As in those regions where the general superintendence of the church devolved on John, manifold attempts were made to adulterate the Christian faith, as well as to disturb and suppress the spirit of Christian love, it was the main object of his protracted labours to maintain and propagate the essence of the Christian faith and of Christian love, in opposition to these injurious influences. Of this fact his writings bear witness, which as they were produced under such cir

'Here everything depends on the interpretation of the words in Rev. i. 9. There is no necessary reference to sufferings on account of the gospel. The words may be understood thus: "I was in the Isle of Patmos for the purpose of publishing the word of God, and testifying of Christ;" which would be only saying that John had visited that island for the sake of publishing the gospel. But a comparison with τί. 9, τῶν ἐσφαγμένων διὰ τὸν λίγον τοῦ θεοῦ, καὶ διὰ τὴν μαρτυρίαν ἣν εἶχον - xii. 11, λόγος τῆς μαρτυρίας- ΧΧ. 4, πεπελεκισμένος διὰ τὴν μαρTupíay, would rather lead us to understand the words of sufferings for the profession of the faith, and the phrase συγκοινωνὸς ἐν τῇ θλίψει favours this reference.

The words of the epistle in Euseb. v. 24, quoted above, kal μúptus καὶ διδάσκαλος· οὗτος ἐν Ἐφέσῳ κεκοίμηται.

cumstances, give indications of their tendency even where they are not professedly and intentionally polemical. But as his natural character was rather contemplative than argumentative, the controversial element in his writings is not so decidedly indicated, nor developed with so definite and complete an outline as in the dialectic Paul. His controversial style is more that of simple affirmation: from the 'fulness of his heart he testifies his inmost convictions of the basis of salvation, and he only marks occasionally, and points out with abhorrence, the opposite of these convictions, instead of entering into a full confutation. This especially applies to his gospel. Since he wrote it among such churches and for such, among whom a multitude of traditions respecting the history of Christ, oral and written, must long have been in circulation, as Paul had assumed the existence of the memorials in the exercise of his ministry, it might be expected that in his historical representations he would take these circumstances into account, and hence designed to give only a selection from the evangelical history, such a one appeared to him best fitted to represent Jesus as the Son of God, from whom alone men could receive eternal life,-to transfer to others the impression which the exhibition of his life had made upon himself, as he declares at the close of his gospel, where he says, "And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing (by the virtue of this faith) ye might have life (true, divine, eternal life) through his name (through him as the Son of God); xx. 30, 31. John accordingly made exactly this selection from the evangelical history, in order to lead men to this faith, to aid, strengthen, and uphold them in maintaining it. As in the application of the idea of faith in John there were various shades of meaning, all these varieties may be included in the words "that ye may believe;" and as they are all embraced in the apostle's design, those polemic references must be understood which belong to the maintenance and confirmation of that faith. And the delineation of the life of Christ in its unity, as it proceeded from the heart and mind of John, must of itself have been adapted to form a barrier against all those tendencies which disturbed the purity of Christianity. But as

this adaptation did not assume a direct polemical form, owing to the peculiarity of John's mind, and the nature of the work (that of simple narrative), it cannot be proved that he had in his eye any special controversies. Even those which, from his peculiar scene of labour, we might consider as most probably aimed at, cannot be ascertained from the gospel itself by any fair deduction; as, for example, the declaration ó λóyos σapë ¿yévɛTO, which occurs in the introduction, and marks the spirit of the whole historical development, as describing the revelation of the divine life in human form, is peculiarly suited to form a refutation of the Cerinthian gnosis. But there is no indication that John made this refutation a leading object of his gospel. In his narrative of Christ's baptism, he might have had a strong inducement to bring forward this controversy, as Cerinthus had affixed a peculiar interpretation on this event, in accordance with his general scheme. But in order to combat Cerinthus, he must have commenced the history of Christ at an earlier period, and have adduced those marks of the Divine, which accompanied the birth of Christ. So also, though the manner in which the purely human in Christ is developed throughout the gospel is most decidedly opposed to Docetism, yet we can find in it no trace of a designed and continuous refutation of that heresy. The ὁ λόγος σαρξ ἐγένετο is not in the least suited for this purpose, for, taken by itself, it may be fairly understood in the docetic sense, that the Aéyos itself became aap, since Docetism considered cap only as the apparent sensuous guise in which the Xoyos presented itself to eyes of flesh. From this standing-point it might with propriety be affirmed that the λóyos became cap, or presented itself in the form of cap. And in what John says of the flowing of water and blood from Christ's side, it has been very erroneously attempted to find a reputation of Docetism. This argumentation cannot affect the Docetæ, for they would be as ready to allow that the Roman soldier and John saw the blood and water flowing, as to grant that Jesus presented himself to the senses of men in his life and passion, as is narrated in the evangelical history. They only denied the objective reality of the sensuous perceptions, and this denial would apply to one fact as well as to another. But John mentions it in that connexion simply as a sign of the reality of Christ's death, in