rode after him, recalled him, and restored him to the church. This," Sir Isaac remarks, "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 and a half years; and John in his old age was so infirm as to be carried to the church, dying above 90 years old, and therefore could not then be supposed able to ride after a thief." The "long time" of Chrysostom is indefinite. It could not mean "many years," because the reprobate is designated still a young man, 19 VEO. Clement, who is the author of the story, uses language, which, if Sir Isaac Newton had duly considered, would have shown the fallacy of his conclusion, attempted on the secondhand authority of Chrysostom. He calls him a youth, one who has obtained puberty, juvenis, when he was presented by John to the pastor of the church; when brought back again from his apostasy he calls him still a youth-juvenis; and speaks of the interval as "aliquanto post tempore"-after a certain time. Nothing therefore invalidates Clement's testimony as an original, independent witness, understood by Eusebius to testify identically the same fact with Irenæus, that John wrote the Apocalypse during the reign of Domitian. The testimony of Tertullian has been also supposed to corroborate that of Irenæus, and has therefore been objected to by Prof. Stuart. It is by no means as distinct and definite as that of Irenæus, or even of Clement. It behoves us, however, in this canvas of evidence, to investigate it. He is the first of the Latin fathers whose works have come down to us. He was born A.D. 160, and lived to a great age; was regarded of great authority; was called by Cyprian his master; and exerted an extensive influence in the church. In his Apology 2 he says, "Tentaverat et Domitianus, portio Neronis de crudelitate, sed qua et homo facile coptum repressit, restitutis etiam quos relegaverat." This in fact is no testimony; but Eusebius, in quoting the passage, says: "This is the statement of the historians of the day. It was then, also, that the apostle John returned from his banishment at Patmos, and took up his abode at Ephesus, according to an ancient tradition of the church." "How Eusebius understood Tertullian," says Prof. Stuart, seems to be clear; but the words of Tertullian himself leave the matter in doubt, and nothing certain can be drawn from them in respect to John." We regret that we have not access to the works of Tertullian; for Prof. Stuart admits that in another passage he says, "Ubi (sc. Roma) apostolus Johannes, posteaquam in oleum igneum demersus nihil passus est, insulas relegatur." Nothing here, or in the context, decides whether he regarded this 1 Obs. on the Apoc. of St. John, pp. 237, 238. 3 Euseb. Eccl. Hist., 1. iii., 20. 2 Tertul. Apollo., 1. 5. as happening under Nero or Domitian. The reference here is not given; but the Rev. Mr. Elliott, having quoted on the authority of Lardner, ii., 286, more largely from Tertullian's treatise de Pres. Hær., c. 36, remarks, that while he was the first author of the story referred to, the conjoined mention of John's being thrown into burning oil, and of Paul's and Peter's death, is not at all a chronological, but a local conjecture. It was not when Peter suffered martyrdom of which he spoke, but where. Not a word is said of the event of John's being thrown into boiling oil having taken place under Nero. On the contrary, tradition has referred it to the times of Domitian. That very learned critic and profound scholar, Dauberg, having cited the quotation from Irenæus, in proof that John saw the Revelation about the end of Domitian's reign, adds, "and this full evidence is backed by another, Tertullian, who saith, that Domitian, having commanded that St. John should be thrown into boiling oil, but he coming out again alive, was exiled into Patmos, where, as he tells us, he saw these visions." 2 Prof. Stuart says that this passage in Tertullian "is applied by Newton to the banishment of John by Nero." We presume he means Sir Isaac. The fact in the case is, that Sir Isaac Newton having questioned the accuracy of Irenæus's testimony, that the Apocalypse was seen during the reign of Domitian, having also started the perfectly gratuitous supposition, that "John might himself at that time have made a new publication of it, from whence Irenæus might imagine it was then but newly written;" and having further referred to Eusebius as of like judgment with Irenæus, undertakes to impeach the credibility of the historian by remarking, that in his Evangelical Demonstrations "he conjoins the banishment of John into Patmos with the deaths of Peter and Paul," and continues," and so do 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." He gives his references as follows: vid. Pamelium in notis ad Tertul. de præscriptionibus n. 215, and Hieron., 1. i., contra Jovinianum, c. 14, edit. Erasmi.3 We have already seen that the "ubi" of Tertullian, which might afford a pretext as to identity of time, if translated when, instead of where, denotes association of place. We give the passage itself to the reader. "Ista quam felix ecclesia cui totam doctrinam apostoli cum sanguine perfuderunt: ubi Petrus passioni Dominicæ adæquatur; ubi Paulus Joannis (sc. Baptistæ) exitu coronatur; ubi apostolus Joannes, posteaquam in oleum demersus nihil passus est, în insulam relegatur." It is surprising that Sir • Com. on Rev., p. 80. 1 Horæ Apoc., vol. i., p. 40. 3 I. Newton's Observations upon the Apocalypse, p. 236. Lardner, i., 286. Isaac Newton should have been led by such a circumstance, to assert, that either Eusebius or Pseudo-Prochorus has associated the deaths of Peter, John, and Paul, in point of time. Not having access to this work of Eusebius, we quote Mr. Elliott, who says: "After briefly sketching the earlier persecutions of the apostles and disciples, as related in the book of the Acts of the Apostles, Eusebius adds, that subsequently to these (Eл T8TOS) James, the Lord's brother, was stoned to death; and then passes to the following notice of Peter, Paul, and John, which is the passage referred to by Sir I. Newton: και Πετρος δε επι “Ρωμης κατα κεφαλης ςαυρωται, Παυλος τε αποτέμνεται, Ιωαννης τε νησῳ παραδιδοται a passage followed by the general statement that the surviving disciples, undeterred by these things, persisted in their Christian profession and designs. Eusebius Dem. Evang.,lib. iii., p. 116 (Paris, 1628). Thus we see that there is no intimation whatever of synchronism between the two events." Prof. Stuart admits that the passage contains no certain evidence respecting the time when banishment took place. Even Jerome, referred to by Sir Isaac, and who Prof. Stuart says seems directly to assert, that Tertullian meant to convey the idea, that what had happened to John was during the life of Nero-immediately before this passage speaks of John as exiled by Domitian. This contradiction of himself, Prof. Stuart reconciles by saying, that "when Jerome says, 'a Nerone missus in ferventis olei dolium,' he is only giving his views of what Tertullian had said, and not his own opinion. Jerome's views of Tertullian's opinion may be correct. Besides, Tertullian does not here speak of John's exile."2 Prof. Stuart, therefore, does not make much account of Sir Isaac Newton's views, who is just as far from being correct, in his reference to the Pseudo-Prochorus, as to Tertullian and Eusebius. "The Pseudo-Prochorus, who tells the story at full length (of John's being thrown into boiling oil), and similarly conjoins the mention of this event with that of Paul's and Peter's martyrdoms, as a mere association of place (for he supposes it to have occurred at Rome, and that thus the porta Latina in that city became a memorial of the one apostle, as the orta Vaticana was of the two others), expressly states the emperor, by whom St. John was thus thrown into the oil, to have been Domitian, who soon after banished him to Patmos, not Nero. Audiens Domitianus de adventu ejus (Joannis) jussit ut proconsul duceret ante portam Latinam, et in ferventis olei dolium illum vivum dimitti. * ** * Deus enim per crudelem tyrannum consilium suum disponebat, ut sicut virtutibus et signis Joannes et Petrus socii fuerunt, ita in urbe Româ memoriam haberent sui triumphi, sicut enim porta Vaticana, &c. Domitian is again and again mentioned, by this writer, as the 1 Horæ Apoc., i., p. 40. THIRD SERIES, VOL. III. NO. 3. 2 Stuart's Com. on Rev., vol. i., p. 267. 2 Emperor concerned in the persecution of St. John. ii., 52." 1 B. P. M., It does not appear, therefore, after a careful examination of this whole matter, that the early testimony, as to the Domitian date of the Apocalypse, is at all invalidated. Clement, for anything we know to the contrary, was an original, independent witness, and took not his testimony from Irenæus. Eusebius interprets Tertullian conformably with the received traditionary history, which was not disputed or doubted till in the fourth century by Epiphanius, whose authority in this matter, in consequence of his great inaccuracies and blunders, is entitled to no respect. VII. The more direct evidence adduced in favor of the Neronian date of the Apocalypse does by no means establish it. That which deserves attention first, is the title page of the Syriac version of the Apocalypse. This declares that it was written in Patmos, whither John was sent by Nero Cæsar.' But Michaelis states expressly, "the Syriac version of the Apocalypse is now known to be a part of the Philoxenian version, which was made by Poly. carp at the beginning of the sixth century." (P. 521.) Prof. Stuart admits, that the old Peshito version of the second century "has never comprehended the Apocalypse;" that which now appears, in our Syriac New Testament, and in the London and Paris polyglotts, having been copied in the East by Caspar, a resident of Western Asia, and thence passed through the hands of Scaliger, the younger, to the library of Leyden, where it was copied, and then published by Ludovicus de Dieu, in 1627. Yet he doubts whether this version, as Michaelis states, "belongs to the so-called Philoxenian version, which was made about A. D. 508. It would rather seem," continues he, "that there was a version of the Apocalypse into Syriac earlier than the Philoxenian; for Ephrem Syrus, in his commentaries (Cent. iv.), often appeals to the Apocalypse; and it is generally supposed that he did not understand Greek, and therefore must have read it in Syriac," referring to Hug's Introd., § 65. This, it is obvious, is not evidence, but doubt and supposition. Yet he remarks, "If this view is correct, then does the inscription mentioned above acquire additional importance. It becomes an early, as well as a plain testimony, respecting the current opinion in the East with regard to the time when the Apocalypse was written." The fact, however, that Ephraim the Syrian quotes the Syriac version does not prove the correctness, or even the existence of the title. It might, as Michaelis intimates, have been annexed to the more ancient Syriac version, and it might perhaps also, as Archdeacon Woodhouse replies, have been added in later times. For, of what authority are some of the subscriptions to other books of the New Testament, even those which are printed 1 Hora Apoc., i., p. 40. * Stuart's Com. on Rev., vol. i., p. 267. with the Greek text?' They are anonymous, and without date, and, in some cases, are known to give false information. Michaelis, in his Introduction, has twice asserted that "no subscription of this kind is entitled to the name of evidence." 3 2. The next direct evidence is from the Commentary of Andreas, bishop of Cæsarea in Cappadocia, probably about the beginning of the sixth century. He says that Rev. 6: 12 was applied by some to the siege and destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, giving at the same time his own opinion, that it is rather to be applied to Antichrist. Of Rev. 7:1 and 2 he says similar things. Hence Prof. Stuart argues: "It is plain then, from what Andreas says in these passages, that in his time there was one class of interpreters, who referred part of the Apocalypse to the destruction of Jerusalem, and of course believed that this book was composed before that event took place." It may have been so for anything we know but this inference is a non sequitur. It is no uncommon thing to accommodate the language of Scripture to other things than those to which the writer intended immediately to apply them. Besides, there are parts of the Apocalypse, as Rev. 12:1, ferred, by many commentators, to events even before the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, who never meant to intimate, by that circumstance, that the book was written at such an early date. At all events it is a specimen only of the manner in which some attempted through their interpretation, or by what might be called internal evidence, just as Prof. S. himself has done, to determine its date. re 3. Arethas, the successor of Andreas, is the next witness cited against the Domitian date. This author, who is generally supposed by critics to have lived near the middle of the sixth century, has left a Greek commentary on the Apocalypse, consisting chiefly of extracts from Andreas and other expositors. Although he quotes what Eusebius says of the Domitian date of the Apocalypse, and objects not; yet in speaking of the passages in Rev. 7: 1 and 4, he evidently places its origin before the destruction of Jerusalem. But Lücke (p. 409), as Prof. Stuart states, speaks of him in reference to these passages as "confused and contradictory." Prof. Stuart, nevertheless, attempts to shield him from this judgment by saying, that Arethas only cites the opinion of others." This, however, does not help the matter; for Prof. Stuart himself is constrained to admit, that "what Arethas says on Rev. xi. would rather afford some occasion for the remark of Lücke."4 His testimony, therefore, is worth nothing; since, like that of Andreas and Prof. Stuart, its whole value depends upon his exposition, by which he manufactures internal evidence for its support. 1 Woodhouse on the Apoc., p. 12. 1, p. 14. Com., vol. i., p. 268. |