THE APOCALYPSE.

SECTION FIRST.

ITS FIRST RECEPTION.

269. OF all the writings of the New Testament, the Apocalypse is found to be the most frequently and most powerfully attested in the monuments of the primitive Church. None of them has — been commented upon and cited more frequently, from its first appearance, And it was not without irrefragable reasons that Eusebius ranked it among the homologoumena, while yet making exceptions, and allowing his mind to entertain the strong repugnance which existed in his age to the millenarian doctrine.

270. In fact, if, as Olshausen¹ has said, and. Kirchhofer² has repeated after him, there can hardly be found in the New Testament a book which has in its favour a more numerous and powerful array of historical testimonies; yet the Apocalypse is, notwithstanding, the book against which, in later times, on account of its mysteries and prophecies, the opponents of the canon and of inspiration are most passionately adverse. In the third and fourth centuries, its misunderstood doctrine of a millennium roused opposition to it; but the principal cause in our day, especially in Germany, has been its incontestable claims to the most absolute inspiration. This wholly prophetic, that is to say, wholly inspired writing, can never cease to be rejected by the enemies of the Divine inspiration of the New Testament.

271. But it will be necessary, before proceeding further, carefully to notice the nature of the objections which its first detractors raised in the third and fourth centuries. When, after having been so long received by the universality of churches, the Apocalypse began, in the third century, to find some timid cavillers, and later, in the fourth, when its adversaries became more decided and numerous, none of them ever dreamt of attacking it by historical arguments; for on that side it was as perfectly impregnable as the four Gospels. Exceptions were taken to its contents; to its style, which, it was pretended, was not that of John; and to its title, where the author, it was said, while assuming the name of John, did not give himself the title of apostle; and yet the true St John, in his Gospel,³ and in his First Epistle, (ii. 2,) had, with sufficient clearness, revealed himself as an apostle. Who, then, can assure us that the John of the Apocalypse was indeed the son of Zebedee, and not some unknown writer of the same name? Such, in the third century, were the only objections of opponents. And when Eusebius, in his turn, in 324, expressed his own, he alleged, Michaelis tells us, “no historic motive whatever. He did not say this book was not received by the ancients; it has been rejected from the time when it first appeared; it was introduced at such or such a time; no one spoke of it during John’s lifetime; it was not preserved among the seven churches of Asia.” By no means; none of these objections was then possible; and. no one thought of advancing them, in spite of all the intense feeling with which many strove to get rid of millenarian doctrines. Certainly this consideration forms an historic argument of the greatest force in favour of its authenticity.

272, Moreover, when Eusebius sought in the Christian Church for writers who were decided against the Apocalypse, he could not find any, setting out from the days of the apostles, till the third century. There was first of all Caius, a presbyter of Rome, whose testimony has nothing decided in it; and there is Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria, and who even acknowledged the canonicity and the inspiration of the book, but only called in question its apostolicity; and certain persons in Egypt, who pretended to attribute it to Cerinthus the heretic, as had been done (out of the Church) by the heretical sect of the Alogi, who, from their antipathy to the name of Logos, (the Word,) given to Jesus Christ, rejected the Gospel of John as well as his Apocalypse.

But a long time before these first isolated voices had made themselves heard, the unanimous testimony of the churches during the whole course of the preceding century had continued to be uttered in favour of this book in all the countries of the Hast and West; a great number of eminent writers had never ceased to recommend it to the regard of the churches by commentaries and innumerable quotations; Justin Martyr in Asia; the church of Lyons in Gaul; Irenzous the martyr, in the same city, to which he came after he had long sojourned in Asia, in the country of Ephesus, from which the Apocalypse was issued; Theophilus in Antioch of Syria; Apollonius in Italy, where he suffered martyrdom; Melito in Asia Minor; Clement of Alexandria, in Egypt; and Tertullian in Africa.

And later:still, even after the opposition of Caius and Dionysius had reached Egypt, what effect did they produce on their age? A very slight effect certainly; for the great voice of the churches continued at the same time its testimony by the mouth of the teachers and martyrs — Hippolytus of Aden, astronomer, theologian, and martyr, in Italy; the great Origen in Asia; Cyprian in Africa; Victorinus at Pettaw, in Pannonia; Methodius, bishop of Tyre, also a martyr; Arnobius of Numidia; Lactantius in Gaul, that eloquent African, who was the tutor of the son of the Emperor Constantine. And not only was the Apocalypse recommended by all who were most eminent in the Church, but even schismatics, the Novatians and Donatists, expressed the same regard for it as the orthodox theologians.

And still later, in the East, at the beginning of the fourth century, at the very time when Eusebius, Cyril of Jerusalem, and Gregory of Nazianzus, appeared unwilling to put the Apocalypse, without hesitation, in the canon of the homologoumena, the great Athanasius felt no scruples; and in other parts of the Hast might be heard Basil, Epiphanius, Cyril of Alexandria among the Greeks; St Ephrem among the Syrians; and in the West and in Africa, Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustin among the Latins, speaking of this book with the same reverence.

But before we pass under review these various testimonies, and notice also the Council of Laodicea, it will be convenient to fix the date of the first appearance of the Apocalypse.

SECTION SECOND.

THE DATE OF THE APOCALYPSE,

273. The exact age of the Apocalypse has been given us by Irenæus, the most reliable of witnesses, since of all those we have named none lived nearer the time nor nearer the place where the prophet wrote his revelations, and finished his career.⁴

Irenæus, the friend and disciple of Polycarp and Papias, themselves friends or disciples of John, was born in the early part of the second century, in the neighbourhood of Ephesus or Smyrna, that is to say, in that province of the seven churches of Asia where John, Polycarp says,⁵ was burned. His birth must have been only a few years after the death of the apostle, who, according to Eusebius, lived to the days of Trajan, and, according to Jerome,⁶ to the sixty-eighth year after our Lord’s death, that is to say, the year 102, or the fifth year of the reign of Trajan.

The following are the exact words of Irenæus:⁷ — “Nor was the Apocalypse seen long ago, (οὐδέ γὰρ πρὸ πολλοῦ χρόνον ἐωράθη,) but almost within our generation, towards the end of the reign of Domitian, (ἀλλὰ σχεδὸν ἐπὶ τῆς ἡμετέρας γενεᾶς, προς τῷ τέλει τῆς Δομετιανοῦ ἀρχῆς.)”

This explicit statement receives confirmation from independent witnesses in the same century.

Clement of Alexandria⁸ attests that John returned from Patmos to Ephesus after the death of the tyrant, (τοῦ τυράννου τελευτήσιιντος.) Tertullian⁹ speaks of Domitian as having “banished the Christians;” and of John as having “been plunged into boiling oil, without injury, and banished to an island.”¹⁰ Origen, about the year 230, tells us, in his commentary on Matthew, “that a Roman emperor, as tradition teaches, (ὡς ἡ παράδοσις διδάσκει,) banished John to the isle of Patmos; and that John bore witness to the fact without naming the emperor.” Victorinus, bishop of Pettaw, and martyr in 290, asserts repeatedly that John was banished to Patmos “by Domitian.” Lastly, Eusebius (Hist. Eccl., iii, 18) repeats the same account at the beginning of the fourth century; likewise the treatise De Duodecim Apostolis, (attributed to Hippolytus,) and the apocryphal narrative of Prochorus in the third century; so also Jerome in the fourth, and Orosius in the fifth, Arethus and Primasius in the sixth, and Isidore of Seville in the seventh century.

All Christian antiquity attests that John died full of years in the province of Asia.

Epiphanius alone, about the end of the fourth century, has advanced (if we are to believe his text as it stands) the absurd account that John prophesied in Patmos during the reign of Claudius. But we have reason to suspect here an error of the copyist, since, otherwise, Lardner says, the same Epiphanius makes John more than 90 years old when he returned to Patinos. Can it be imagined that he was of such an age in the year 54, when the Emperor Claudius died, since that would make him 70 when he was first called, and 139 on the day of his death? The fathers agree in placing the latter event in the year 103.

274. Many writers in Germany and America,¹¹ attached to certain systems of prophetic interpretation, have made great efforts to get rid of all these historical testimonies, and to fix the publication of the Apocalypse fifty years earlier, in the days of Nero. With this view they have argued —

(1.) That the apostolic epistles were written after the Apocalypse.

(2.) That the Neronic persecution of the Christians, after the “burning of Rome, extended to Asia, which no historian has ever asserted.

(3.) That the punishment of banishing to the islands was employed already, as in the time of Domitian, a supposition equally gratuitous.

(4.) That the city of Laodicea, where the seventh of the churches to which Jesus Christ addressed His apostolic epistles existed, and which was overthrown in 61, with Colossae and Hierapolis, by an earthquake, had been almost immediately rebuilt under the reign of Nero; while it appears, according to history, that almost half a century elapsed before the restoration of these cities.

(5.) That the passage in Irenæus on the date of the Apocalypse is either misunderstood, or mistranslated, or erroneous. (6.) That all the other writers who report the same fact have copied this father, though the details of their respective testimonies attest their independence.

(7.) That the alleged passage from Origen expresses some doubt on his part as to which of the Roman emperors banished the apostle to Patmos, though the only object of Origen in this passage was to point out the moderation of John, in speaking of the persecution without naming the persecutor.

(8.) Lastly, (and this last attempt is made by Guericke,) that the perplexing passage in Irenæus indicates the Emperor Nero rather than Domitian, as the persecutor of John, because the word Δομετιανοῦ, instead of being the genitive of the proper name Domitianus, may be simply the genitive feminine of an adjective qualifying the word ἀρχῆς which follows it, and formed, from Domitius, one of the proper names of Domitius Nero; so that, instead of translating the clause, “towards the end of the reign of Domitianus,” it must be read, “towards the end of the Domitian or Neronian reign.” And for this two reasons are given: — First, because if the word Δομετιανοῦ had been a proper name, it would have been preceded by the article τοῦ; and next, because the adjective formed from Δομετιανός would rather have been Δομετιανίκος. But these suppositions are without validity; for (1.) The Greeks never suspected this extraordinary sense; (2.) The employment of the name Domitius, by itself, to designate Nero, was not in use; (3.) So far from the article τοῦ being necessary in this passage before Δομετιανοῦ, we shall find in the same chapter of Eusebius from which it is taken as many as three other proper names without the article;¹² (4.) Because, even supposing Δομετιανοῦ to be taken as an adjective, it is against all reason to derive it from Domitius, rather than from Domitianus. We have a double proof in the monuments of history, since, on the one hand, we read in Suetonius, “Domitia gens,” and not Domitiana, to designate the family of Domitius Nero; and on the other, in Statius,¹³ “Viam Domitianam miratus sum,” and not Domitiancam, to designate a Roman road constructed by Domitian.¹⁴

The Apocalypse, then, did not appear till after the year 96, in which Domitian died, on the 18th of September, and when John _ was able at last, like many others, to come forth from his captivity.

SECTION THIRD,

THE APOCALYPSE IN THE FIRST CENTURY.

275. As the Apocalypse could not appear sooner than in the three last years of the first century, we shall not be able to find testimonies to it earlier than the beginning of the second.

Consequently, we can understand that it could not be noticed in the epistle of Clement, which was written thirty years before the Apocalypse, (Prop. 255,) nor be contained in the Peshito version, also published before this sacred book, and during one of the thirty-five last years of the first century, (Prop. 32.)

The Peshito was composed for the use of the numerous Christians of Jerusalem, Judea, Syria, Chaldea, and Adiabene, who spoke the same language as Jesus Christ, and who for a long time formed the ‘majority of the primitive Church, since in the city of Jerusalem alone they amounted, about the middle of the first century, (in 54,) to many myriads, (Acts xxi. 20,) and according to the testimonies of history, they abounded at a very early period in the countries we have just named. This version, which contains, besides the twenty books of the first canon, the Epistle of James and the Epistle to the Hebrews, both necessarily written before the year 64, could not contain the Apocalypse, which was not composed till long after. But the Syrian church, which extended its vigorous branches to the farthest bounds of the East, very soon received it, either by placing it at the end of the ancient version, or adopting it in some more recent version. We have the proof of this (1.) From the fact that the Apocalypse was received and commented upon by the most eminent of the Syriac teachers, the illustrious St Ephrem, born at Nisibis, in Mesopotamia, about the year 320; and (2.) By this other fact, that the Nestorian branch carried the Apocalypse to China. We know, indeed, that the ancient monument discovered in 1629 by the Jesuit missionaries at Sanxuen, in the province of Xensi, and going back to the year 781, presented two inscriptions, one in Chinese, and the other in Syriac, in which the New Testament was mentioned as containing twenty-seven books, “which attests sufficiently,’ says Michaelis, “that the Apocalypse made a part of it.”¹⁵

Dr Thiersch¹⁶ is convinced of it after the researches of Hug.¹⁷

SECTION FOURTH.

TESTIMONIES IN THE FIRST HALF OF THE SECOND CENTURY.

276. The very few works of this period that have reached us bear testimony to the Apocalypse.

Whoever might be the unknown author of the allegorical book called The Shepherd, which appeared about the middle of the second century, and who is believed to have been a brother¹⁸ of Pius I, his work presents such manifest allusions to the Apocalypse, that it may be cited as one of the witnesses of the existence of the book among the churches. He often speaks of a “great tribulation,” (ii. 2.,) already known to Christians as speedily coming; he calls it, as John does, “the great tribulation,” (Apoc. vii. 14.) His great beast, the four colours of its head, the locusts issuing from its mouth; the tower which, he says, is “the woman;” the Church, which has crowns of palms and white vestments; “the seal, on which is the name of the Son of God,” &c.; — all these traits oblige us to recognise a mind familiar with the imagery of the Apocalypse.

But we pass on to Ignatius. This bishop, a companion of the apostles, suffered martyrdom in the year 107, that is to say, at the most, ten years after the appearance of the Apocalypse. Can we find in his three authentic epistles any traces of the Revelation of St John? It can scarcely be expected in epistles where he does not cite the books of the New Testament, except by allusions, and expressly names only the Epistle of Paul to the Ephesians; for he wrote ‘them in the company of the rough soldiers who hurried his journey to Rome for his capital punishment. And yet we find more than one passage in which we may detect reminiscences of our sacred book. Thus, for example, in his Epistle to the Romans, at the end, there is this remarkable expression of the Apocalypse, (i. 9,) — ἐν ὑπομονῇ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ) — which is found nowhere else under this form in the New Testament.¹⁹

277. As to Polycarp, if we have nothing left of his own writing but his Epistle to the Philippians, too short to contain any citation from the Apocalypse of John, or from his Gospel, yet we possess, as we have seen, the account of his martyrdom. Written by his own church at Smyrna immediately after the event, it is to us equivalent to the testimony of Polycarp himself. But it represents to us his body burnt “like gold and silver melted in a furnace, (ὡς χρυσὸς καὶ ἄργυρος ἐν καμίνῳ πυρουμὲνος;)” and thus, in citing, according to all appearance, the passage in which Peter (1 Ep. i. 7) compares suffering Christians to gold tried by fire, (διὰ πυρὸς δοκιμ-αζομένονῧ they substitute the beautiful expressions of the Apocalypse (i. 15) describing the feet of the Son of man — ὡς ἐν καμίνῳ πεπυρωμὲνοι. The form of the phrase, it seems, can only be explained by this reminiscence of St John.

And again, when, at the approach of the fire which they applied to the pile, Polycarp offered a prayer, he began with these words, taken also from the Apocalypse, in the prayer of the elders — Κύριε ὁ Θεὸς ὁ παντοκράτωρ, (Apoc. xi. 17.)

278. We can also cite at this period, so strangely destitute of monuments, Papias, who was bishop of Hierapolis, not far from Smyrna, where Polycarp resided, and who was, Irenæus tells us, (v. 23,) one of John’s hearers, and a friend (ἑταῖρος) of Polycarp. He bore testimony in writing to the doctrine of the millennium in the fourth of his five books, which have all perished.²⁰ But if, in the absence of these writings, we appeal to the testimonies of antiquity, we find two eminent authors who, closely examined, leave us in no doubt respecting the use this father made of the Apocalypse. The one is Eusebius, in 324, and the other Andreas, bishop of the same city in the sixth century.

Andreas, who himself composed a commentary on the Apocalypse that is still extant, and who tells us that he consulted the ancient fathers, and made copious extracts from their writings, declares expressly, although he himself was an anti-chiliast, that Papias (as well as Irenæus, Methodius, and Hippolytus,) had given testimony to the inspiration of this book, (περὶ τοῦ θεοττυεύστου τῆς βίβλου.) “As to the inspiration of the Apocalypse,” he says, “we think it superfluous to employ many words to shew that the blessed Gregory, the theologian Cyril, and men more ancient, besides Papias, Irenæus, Methodius, and Hippolytus, have borne testimony to the title this book has to our confidence, (ταύτῃ προσμαρτυρούντων τὸ ἀξιόπιστον.)”²¹

279. Eusebius, in his aversion to the millennium, tried to insinuate that Irenæus and others had taken their doctrine on this subject from Papias, who was not worthy of much confidence, “because he was,” he tells us, “a man of very small capacity, (σφόδρα. 'γάρ τοί σμικρὸς ὢν τόν νοῦν,) who formed his system from a misconstruction of the apostolic narratives, (τὰς ὰποστολικᾶς παραδεξάμενον ὃιηνγήσειςῶ and from not comprehending what they had said mystically by figures, (τὰ ἐν ὑποδεινγμασι πρὸς αὐτῶν μυστικῶς ἀρήμεναγ” Yet the testimony of Papias is not less of high importance, because his personal relations to John certainly prevented his attributing to this apostle a book which he had never written.

The language of Eusebius is ambiguous and embarrassed. Sometimes he seems to wish to say that, according to the expressions of Papias, John, a presbyter, rather than John the apostle, might well have written the Apocalypse, and that Papias took his doctrine from him; sometimes he seems to say that Papias would never have imagined his earthly reign of a thousand years but for misunderstanding the mystic language of the apostolic writings. But on either of these two contradictory suppositions, Papias, according to him, knew and cited the Apocalypse.

Michaelis believes, on the contrary, that we might conclude from these passages of Eusebius that Papias derived his millenarian doctrine only “from oral traditions.” But Eusebius has not said so, and, to reach this conclusion, Michaelis is obliged to translate the words of Eusebius (παρεκδεξάμενον and διηγήσεις) very differently from Valesius (H. de Valois) and many others.²²

We conclude, then, from all this, (1.) That the very positive testimony of Andreas respecting Papias has much more force than the hypothetical and contradictory insinuations of Eusebius; and (2.) That Papias, according to Eusebius himself, founded his millenarian doctrine on the Apocalypse — on the Apocalypse of the apostle John, or on the Apocalypse of the presbyter John, but always on the Apocalypse.²³

SECTION FIFTH.

TESTIMONIES OF THE SECOND HALF OF THE SAME CENTURY.

280. If we pass from the year 150 to the following years, numerous and eminent testimonies present themselves to us in different parts of the world, and these do not content. themselves with merely mentioning the Apocalypse; they comment upon it and quote it most freely.

(1.) First of all, Justin Martyr, the converted philosopher, born in Palestine the same year, it is said, that the Apocalypse appeared, (in 102 or 103,) who became a Christian in 133, and suffered martyrdom in 165. He wrote his Dialogue at Ephesus, and must have known better than any other person what had. happened there only thirty years before. But hear his words in his Dialogue with Trypho: — “A man among us named John, one of Christ’s apostles, in an Apocalypse or Revelation which he made, (ἐν ἁπόναλύψει 'γενομένῃ αὐτᾷ) has prophesied that all those who believe in our Christ shall live a thousand years in Jerusalem.”²⁴

(2.) We have next, in 177, The Narrative of the Martyrs of Lyons, composed by one of the Christians of that city, who had escaped the carnage, and addressed by the churches of Gaul to those of proconsular Asia. Eusebius25 has preserved it for us; the language of the Apocalypse pervades it. We find, for example, this remarkable expression used (Apoc. xiv. 4) to describe a true disciple of Christ: — “I follow the Lamb wherever he goeth,” (ἀκολουθῶν τῷ Ἀρνίῳ ὅπου ἄν ὑπάγῃ.) And this other, so characteristic, referring to Christ, (Apoc. i. 5; iii, 14,) — “To the faithful and true witness, and the first-born of the dead, (τῷ πιστῳ καὶ αληθινῷ μάρτυρι, καὶ πρωτοτόκῳ τῶν νεκρῶν.)” And again, (Apoc. xxii. 11,) speaking of the rage of these persecutors resembling the beast, (θηρίον') that the scripture may be fulfilled. And what scripture? Without doubt that which they soon after quote word for word, — “He that is unjust, let hum be unjust still; and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still.”

(3.) Again, we have the celebrated Irenæus, who came shortly after the martyrs, to take charge of the church of Lyons. In his great work, De Haeresibus, written about the year 185, he very often and copiously refers to the Apocalypse, quoting it in at least thirty-one different passages, calling it the work of that John, the Lord’s disciple, who at the Last Supper lay on His breast.²⁶ He comments on it frequently, and when he explains the number of the beast, appeals “to all the most exact, ancient copies of this holy book, (ἐν πᾶσι δὲ τοῖς σπουδαίοις καὶ ἀρχαίοις ἀντνγραφοῖς,) and to the testimony of those who had seen John with their own eyes.”

(4.) In the fourth place, we find at Sardis, in Asia Minor, about the year 170, Melito, who presided over this church when they received the letter of the churches of Gaul respecting the martyrs of Lyons. He had written himself a treatise on “The Apocalypse of St John.”²⁷

(5.) We have spoken of the fragment of the Latin canon of Muratori, which is allowed to be very ancient, (Propp. 193-198.) We find in it these remarkable words: — “We also receive the Apocalypse of John, which some of our people will not have read in the church, And John, in the Apocalypse, though he writes to the churches, yet says to all, (Apocalypsin etiam Johannes recipemus, quam quidam ex nostris legy in ecclesia nolunt. Et Johannes in Apocalypsi licet septem ecclesiis scribat tamen ommibus dicit.)” . . . .

It is important, in passing, to remark, in the last words of this catalogue, a usage which explains and confirms what we have said (Prop. 90) of the later decree of the Council of Laodicea. The Apocalypse was universally received as Divine; but “many, at the same time, on account of its obscurity, did not wish it to be read in the public assemblies, (quidam ea nostris legr in ecclesia nolunt.)”

(6.) We find in Syria, at the same period, Theophilus, bishop of Antioch, who, in combating the error of Hermogenes, quotes against him the Apocalypse. This was in 181.²⁸

(7.) At Rome, in 186, Apollonius, called “the eloquent,” and who is believed to be the same person whose affecting martyrdom Eusebius has narrated in his Ecclesiastical History, (v. 21.) He mentions his having appealed to testimonies taken from the Apocalypse of John.²⁹

(8.) Lastly, at the same time, we find in Africa two of the most respectable witnesses that Christian antiquity can produce. One of them, who will be the eighth, is Clement of Alexandria, about the year 191. He cites the Apocalypse very frequently.

(9.) The other, at Carthage, is the great Tertullian, the most ancient of the Latin fathers, as he is, also, one of the most enlightened. We can count more than seventy passages in which Tertullian cites the Apocalypse. He asserts that it is the work of the Apostle John. He defends it against the heretic Marcion, (iv. 5.,) who rejected it only for doctrinal reasons; and he appeals, on this point, (which is important,) to the testimony of the churches of Asia, and to the succession of bishops, going back to John, the author of that book. (“Habemus et Johanms alumnas ecclesias; nam etsi Apocalypsin ejus Marcion respwit, ordo tamen episcoporum ad originem recensus, in Johannem stabit auctorem.”)

All these great teachers continually cite the Apocalypse without mentioning the least opposition raised against it, up to their time, in the churches of God. Thus, to the end of the second century, and even to the beginning of the third, this holy book was universally regarded as the inspired work of the apostle John, whether in the Greek Church or the Latin — in Egypt, in Palestine, in Asia Minor, in Syria, in Italy, in Africa, and even in Gaul.³⁰

SECTION SIXTH.

THE FIRST HALF OF THE THIRD CENTURY.

281, We must come down towards the middle of the third century to hear of the first serious opposition. It was not till then that some isolated depreciators of the Apocalypse began to be heard in the Church, and yet they alleged no historical reason against it. Eusebius, with all his prejudices, could only find, at the beginning of the century, one voice (the first) at Rome, that of a presbyter named Caius, who, in a controversy with Prochus, in order to repel his gross errors on the millennium, had set himself against this book by attributing it to Cerinthus.³¹ But even his attacks (see Eusebius) have not been clearly ascertained.³² Hug questions them.³³ This Caius was animated by a strong antipathy against the millenarian doctrine, of which he had conceived a revolting idea from the totally carnal descriptions of it by Cerinthus, the Gnostic, who, it is said, was opposed by St John. But Caius, in the words cited by Eusebius, (iii. 28,) did not say, as was asserted, that Cerinthus ascribed his gross notions to the Apocalypse. He traced them “to certain revelations, (δι' ἀποκαλύψεων,)'” which, he asserted, “were written by a great apostle,” and “to wonders which, he pretended, had been shewn him by angels.”³⁴ Further, the martyr Hippolytus has victoriously refuted, in several chapters of his writings, the errors of Caius; and, whatever may have been the words of the latter in Rome, words which | remain unknown, they certainly made a very slight impression there, since Rome, as well as the churches of the West, has never ceased to acknowledge this scripture as an inspired book.

It would appear, also, from some words of Dionysius of Alexandria,³⁵ cited by Eusebius, (vii. 25,) that in Egypt, about a quarter of a century after Caius, some anonymous persons, before the days of Dionysius, (the Alogi,) had rejected the Apocalypse, and had gone to the absurd hardihood of attributing it to Cerinthus. Absurd, we say, because there is not a sacred book more contrary to the peculiar doctrines of Cerinthus than the Apocalypse, as Lardner has proved.³⁶

282. Lastly, Eusebius shews us, again in Egypt, forty years after Caius, towards the middle of the third century, the first man of any note who raised his voice, not against the canonicity or Divine inspiration of the Apocalypse, (for he acknowledged both,) but only against its apostolicity. This was Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria from the year 247, who died in 264; a man of learning, and justly respected, but of whose numerous writings we know scarcely anything except by the fragments preserved in the history of Eusebius.³⁷ Yet it is somewhat remarkable that Dionysius, to justify his prejudices against the apostolic authorship of the Apocalypse, has not been able, as we have just intimated, to allege a single historical argument, and is obliged to content himself with saying, “that some before him had rejected it, attributing it to Cerinthus.” And, certainly. that so learned a man should find it impossible to advance any historic objection, is a fact which Michaelis³⁸ impartially declares to be of “very great weight.” —

We will now state what are almost the only reasons alleged by Dionysius to prove that the Apocalypse, instead of being St John’s, was the work of some other disciple equally inspired, and bearing the same name; for example, of John Mark, (the cousin of Barnabas,) or, rather, of another John, who lived in the province of Asia; for he said that two sepulchres were still shewn near Ephesus, both distinguished by the name of John.

In the first place, the author of the Apocalypse calls himself John more than once; while the apostle has never named himself either in the epistles or in his Gospel. In the second place, while calling himself John, he never says apostle. Then there is no mention of the epistles of John in the Apocalypse, nor of the Apocalypse in the epistles. In the fourth place, there are great resemblances between the three epistles and the Gospel of John; but none can be found between those books and the Apocalypse. Fifthly, while the Greek of those books is very correct, that of the Apocalypse is not so.

Of all these objections, the only serious one is that relating to the dissimilarity of styles.

But every one knows how very different in this respect are often the productions of the same author, according to the subjects he treats of, the period or circumstances of his writing. Who has not noticed this in the sacred authors of both Testaments, according as they narrate, or exhort, or prophesy? Let any one make the trial, and compare, for example, Moses in Kis history, with Moses in his last song, (Deut. xxxii.;) Isaiah in his historical chapters, (xxxvi. to xxxviii,) with Isaiah in his poetic prophecies; St Paul in his Epistle to the Romans, with St Paul in his Epistle to Philemon.

Even Dionysius, after having laid open his prejudices against the Apocalypse, takes care to add, “that for himself, he dare not reject it, so many brethren being strongly attached to it."³⁹ And if he hesitates to grant that John, the son of Zebedee, was its author, he by no means doubts its “inspiration” — “that the John, whoever he might be, who wrote the Apocalypse had a Divine revelation — that he received from heaven knowledge, and a prophecy, is what I will not deny;⁴⁰ and I admit, with others, that it must have been the work of some holy and divinely-inspired man, (ἀγίσυ μὲν γὰρ εἷ’ναί τενος καὶ θεοπνεύστου συναινῶ.)”

Thus, then, we must not rank even Dionysius of Alexandria among the opponents of the Apocalypse. I mean, of its canonicity and its inspiration; he only impugned its apostulicity, and he did even this with a considerable measure of reserve and doubt. And if, since Dionysius, objectors have become for a time more numerous and more confident, they have never appealed, as we have said, to history; so that their prejudices ought not to have more weight with us than we grant to those of modern authors.

283. But while in this first half of the third century the first isolated expressions of doubt which Eusebius was able to quote made themselves heard with so much reserve, — while he beheld far behind him, during the same time, the long chain of witnesses, this chain, which we have seen begin in the days of the apostles, continued to extend itself with increasing reputation; and in particular, three of the most pious, and, what is of importance here, three of the most learned doctors of Christian antiquity, — all three martyrs or sons of martyrs — one in Asia, at Rome, and in Arabia, the other in Palestine, and the third at Carthage, — loudly expressed, and with copious citations, their veneration for the Apocalypse,

The first, Hippolytus, one of the most learned men of antiquity, not less celebrated in mathematics and astronomy than in sacred literature, was an intimate friend of Origen. He was a teacher at once for the East and the West; for after having been, as it is believed, bishop of Aden,⁴¹ in Arabia, he came to the capital of the empire about the year 235, laboured there for a long time, and even is believed to have suffered martyrdom there.⁴² This great man was not content with frequently citing the Apocalypse as one of the inspired works of the apostle John. He wrote a commentary upon it often cited by the ancients,⁴³ and devoted some chapters expressly to refute the errors of Caius. The testimony of a man so learned and so pious was of such weight, that Michaelis attributes chiefly to his influence the universal reception of the Apocalypse in the Christian Church. In his book on Christ and Antichrist, in seventy short chapters, which we -still possess, he says, “John saw in the isle of Patmos terrible mysteries. Tell me, then, O John, thou apostle and disciple of Christ, what hast thou seen of Babylon?”

The second witness, still more illustrious, is Origen, in the first half of the third century. There is not, indeed, an authority of equal weight in all antiquity on a question of sacred criticism. He was born fifteen years before the end of the second century, and died in 253. “This learned man,” Michaelis says, “notwithstanding his ardent opposition to the doctrine of the millenarians, received the Apocalypse into the canon of the inspired Scriptures.” He had not the least doubt of its authenticity as a work of John the son of Zebedee. In his commentary on St John, he calls that apostle, on account of the Apocalypse, (διὰ τῆς ἀποκαλύψεως,) apostle, evangelist, and prophet. He mentions this book so often in his writings, that it would be superfluous to accumulate citations. “What shall we say of John, who laid his head on the bosom of Jesus,” he writes in a passage preserved by Eusebius,⁴⁴ “for not only has he left us a Gospel, declaring that he could have written many more things in it, so that the world could not contain them, but he has likewise written the Apocalypse,⁴⁵ in which it was ordained for him to seal up the things uttered by the seven thunders, and not to write them?” Therefore the learned Dr Lücke, a modern opponent of the Apocalypse, has had the fairness to say, “That which is of the greatest weight against us is, that Origen has so often cited this book as being the work of the apostle John,⁴⁶ — Origen, who made so many researches relative to the canon of the New Testament, to its limits and its classifications, and who never concealed the objections raised against such or such a book.”

Lastly, the third of our witnesses at this remote epoch is the learned and pious Cyprian in Roman Africa, the contemporary of Origen, and the martyr of Carthage. When he cites the Apocalypse, it is as a work of St John, as a book of Holy Scripture,⁴⁷ as a writing inspired by God.⁴⁸

SECTION SEVENTH.

THE SECOND HALF OF THE THIRD CENTURY.

284. In this latter portion of the century we shall meet no new opponent of importance; on the contrary, we shall find the Apocalypse received into the canon as an apostolic writing, as fully by the teachers of the schismatic churches, the Novatians and Donatists,⁴⁹ as by the most eminent writers of the age in the universal Church; — I mean, by Victorinus, bishop of Pettaw, who suffered martyrdom under Diocletian, and who wrote a commentary on the Apocalypse;⁵⁰ by Methodius, his contemporary, bishop of Tyre, and, like him, a martyr;51 by Arnobius of Numidia, the illustrious apologist of the Christian religion, in his commentary on the 102d Psalm;⁵² and, lastly, by the learned Lactantius, his disciple, to whom the Emperor Constantine intrusted the education of his son, and who died, it is said, in 325.⁵³

285. Thus, then, from the first appearance of the Apocalypse, - the long chain of testimonies rendered by the most brilliant lights of the Church to its authenticity, inspiration, and apostolicity, was continued. These testimonies were brilliant in the east, and not less brilliant in the west; they were proclaimed in the north as far as Pannonia and Gaul, and to the south, in Italy, Asia Minor, Palestine, Egypt, Arabia, and Proconsular Africa; and if, at the same time, some isolated voices less approving, hesitating, or contrary were heard, not on the inspiration of the book, but on the person of its author, even these voices must add new weight to our argument, since they attest the absolute inability of its adversaries to cite any historic proof in support of their opposition.

SECTION EIGHTH.

WITNESSES OF THE FOURTH CENTURY.

286. The voices of this fourth century, notwithstanding the hesitation of Eusebius and the silence of Cyril, Gregory, and Chrysostom, were very distinct, and prepared for the unanimous readoption of the Apocalypse in all parts of the universal Church.

Among the Latins all the great theologians of the age bore testimony to it — St Ambrose, at Milan; St Jerome, in Rome, and afterwards in the East;⁵⁴ St Augustin, in Proconsular Africa, where his writings no sooner appeared than they spread, it was said, like the light; Rufinus, in Venetia, in the Hast, and in Rome.⁵⁵

Among the Syrians it had St Ephrem for a witness, the most eminent of all their teachers,⁵⁶ although it is not found, as we have said, in their Peshito version,⁵⁷ which was made before the death of St John. St Ephrem makes use of all the books of the New Testament, as well in his works which remain to us in Greek as in those which are in Syriac, (Opera, Syr., ii, 232.) He says, for example, “John saw in his Apocalypse a great and admirable book, guarded by seven seals.” And elsewhere, (ii. p. 342,) “The day of the Lord is a thief,’ (Apoc. iii, 3, xvi. 45.) These Syriac churches spread through all the East, into Tartary, and even as far as China. The famous monument discovered by the Jesuits at Sanxuen,⁵⁸ bore on its two inscriptions, as we have already said, (Prop. 275,) the mention of the New Testament as containing twenty-seven books, which proves that for these churches the Apocalypse made a part of it.

287. Among the Greeks the most illustrious theologians of this century received the Apocalypse as a divinely-inspired writing. Among others, Athanasius, who often cites it, and who, in his “Festal Epistle,” gives us actually the same catalogue of the writings of the New Testament which all the churches of Christendom offer at the present day, (Propp. 65, 66;) Epiphanius, (Propp. 68, 69;) St Basil the Great, who cites it in his second book against Eunomius,⁵⁹ and who is named by Arethas as acknowledging its inspiration; St Cyril, the patriarch of Alexandria. Therefore we see that Eusebius has not dared, in his chapter on the canon, (Hist. Eccl., iii. 25,) to leave it out of the number of the uncontroverted books; and with these is to be placed, (τακτέον,) he says, “the Apocalypse of John, if it should appear so, (εἴγε φανείῃ,) . . . . which some, as I have said, reject, but others reckon it among the homologoumena, (ἐνγκρίυουσι τοῖς ὁμολογουμένοις.)” Thus Eusebius, sometimes favourable, sometimes hesitating, yielded to the prejudices of his times against the millenarianism which was attributed to the Apocalypse; but he acknowledged very freely that the historical testimonies of the ancients were all favourable to it.

Cyril of Jerusalem appears to have hesitated, like Eusebius, on this point; for if he has not named the Apocalypse in the catalogue which we find in his fourth catechesis, (Prop. 59,) yet he cites it very clearly three times (Apoc. xii. and xvii.) in his fifteenth catechesis, (chapters 12, 13, and 27.)⁶⁰ And we believe we may say as much of Gregory of Nazianzus and of Chrysostom, for both, though they received, as it would appear, the Apocalypse, have abstained, like Calvin in modern times, from commenting upon it, and have made only some few quotations from it; so that their opinion on this book has remained a subject of controversy.

In fact, as to Gregory of Nazianzus, although in the verses of his xxxiii. poem (Propp. 60, 61) he has not, as we have said, named directly the Revelation of St John, yet in the 24th verse we have seen him mark this apostle sufficiently as the author of the Apocalypse, when he calls him κήρυξ μέγας, οὐρανοφοὺτης, “The great herald who perambulates heaven.” Moreover, in another of his writings which is extant, Lardner says that Gregory⁶¹ clearly cites the Apocalypse twice; and Andreas of Caesarea, not only mentions him as one of the fathers who acknowledged it, but cites it himself on several occasions.⁶²

And as to Chrysostom, though he scarcely ever cites the Apocalypse, we hear him, at the beginning of his commentary on the Epistle to the Ephesians, making an evident allusion to it when he names St John as “the blessed evangelist, who was exiled in the neighbourhood of Ephesus, (καὶ τγὰρ καὶ ἐξωρίσθη εκεῖ,) and who ended his days there.” And Professor Lücke⁶³ has pointed out, after Wetstein and Schmid, many passages in the homilies of Chrysostom on Matthew, where that father evidently borrows from the Apocalypse, which seems, he says, to confirm the assertion of Suidas, that Chrysostom received the three epistles of John, and his Apocalypse, (δέχεται δὲ ὁ Χρυσοστομος καὶ τὰς ἐπιστολας· αὐτοῦ τὰς τρεῖς καὶ τὴν Ἀποκάλυψιν) and this shews how very little we ought to rely on negative arguments taken from the absence or rarity of certain citations in certain authors.

288. In the same century two councils drew up, as we have mentioned, their catalogues of the Holy Scriptures, and one of them — that of Laodicea, in Phrygia, in 367 — excluded the Apocalypse from the canon, while the other — that of Carthage, in 397 — admitted it. But, as we have shewn in our First Book, (Chap. xii,) the authenticity of the decrees which in both cases referred to this subject has been formally called in question; and even admitting their authenticity, the intention of the fathers was not to fix authoritatively what were the inspired books of the Old and the New Testament, but only to decide, as the terms of the decree⁶⁴ sufficiently express, what books might be usefully read in the public assemblies of the Church, and what ought not to be read.

Thus, while in the Council of Laodicea, the divine but mysterious book of the Apocalypse was excepted from this number — as at the present day it is by our brethren of the Anglican Church in their calendar and preface to their liturgy, though esteemed by them a canonical book — on the other hand, in the Council of Carthage, it was decided to allow the public reading, not only of the inspired and properly canonical books, but also of some other books revered for their doctrine and their antiquity, which on this account were called ecclesiastical, and sometimes, but more rarely, regular or regulative, (that is to say, serving as a rule for manners if not for belief,) and in regard to which the practice of one church might differ from the practice of another.⁶⁵

289. Thus, then, the Apocalypse, during the three first centuries which followed its appearance in the Church — I mean, during the second, third, and fourth centuries — was received as divine; and though Dionysius of Alexandria in the third century expressed some doubts affecting, not its canonicity, but its apostolicity; though others at a later period, in the East especially, during the times of Eusebius, and the evil times of Arianism, hesitated to accept and use it for public worship; though at the end of the fourth century many churches of the Greeks, as St Jerome⁶⁶ has expressed it, did not receive it with the same liberty as their predecessors had done, and all the churches of the West still did; yet their objections had never an historical character, and were always rejected and combated by the great body of teachers. No church could be named which absolutely rejected it, and it was never attacked but the attack was censured; so that Augustin, at the end of the fourth, and at the beginning of the fifth, century, classed the rejection of the Apocalypse among the heresies, (De Haeres., cap. xxx.,) as Tertullian had done in the second and third, (Contra Marcion, lib. iv.)

SECTION NINTH.

FIFTH CENTURY.

290. The fifth century at last saw an end put to the uncertainties which had followed in the fourth, the days of Eusebius, and the controversy of the anti-millenarians. At that time, when Arianism had done so much mischief to the churches, there were minds disposed to make light of the testimonies of antiquity in order to give themselves up to rash conjectures, destitute entirely of an historical basis, and having no support but doctrinal prejudices. It is to this tendency of his times that Jerome alludes when, speaking of the Epistle to the Hebrews and the Apocalypse, he says — (Ep. 119 ad Dardan.,) — “And yet, for ourselves, we receive both of these books, (et tamen nos utrumque suscipimus,) conforming, in so doing, not to the fashion of the times, but to the authority of ancient authors, (nequaquam hujus temporis consuetudinem, sed veterum scriptorum auctoritatem sequentes.)” Nevertheless, starting from the first half of this century, the unanimity of the churches, which for a long time had been gained for all the books of the second canon, was finally and for ever given to the sacred book of the Apocalypse.

1) Authenticity of the New Testament, ch. x.

2) “Scarcely any book of the New Testament,” says Kirehhofer, (Quellensamml., p. 296,) “has such a striking abundance of historical testimonies on its behalf.”

3) John xxi. 24, xix. 25, 26, and elsewhere.

4) Grabe, Prolog. in Irenæum.

5) Eusebius, Hist. Eccl., v., 24, iii, 25.

6) In his work, De Viris Ilustribus. See Lardner, vol. x., p. 100.

7) Iren., Adv. Haeres., v., 30; Eusebius, Hist. Hccl., iii., 18. In chap.- xxviii, the same Irenæus attributes the Apocalypse to the apostle John. See also four chapters further on, sec. iv., 50.

8) Eusebius, Hist. Eccl., iii., 23.

9) Apologeticus, v.

10) De Praesc. Haeret., 36. “Posteaquam in oleum igneum demersus nihil passus est, in insulam relegatur.”

11) Dr Tilloch, Moses Stuart, Burgh, Professor Lee, Professor Lücke, and Guericke. The learned Lardner had before victoriously refuted the arguments by which Sir Isaac Newton had wished, in favour of his interpretations, to establish the Neronian date,

12) Middleton, in his excellent work on “The Use of the Definite Article in the New Testament,” has established, that the rule of the double article among the Greeks does not apply to proper names.

13) Sylvae, lib. iv., and the third ode, entitled, Via Domitiana.

14) More than this, Cicero might be cited, (pro Fonteio,) who calls a road opened by the Proconsul Domitius, Via Domitia. Cæsar, it is true, (B. C., i, 16, 22,) calls the partisans of Domitius, Domitiani, but this termination is the Latin form applied to men of a party. It is thus that Servius calls the orations in which Cicero is lavish in the praises of Cæsar, Cæsarianae Orationes.

15) Michaelis, vol. vi., ch. xxxiii., p. 495, edit. Marsh. See Hug’s Hinleitung, p. 65, (ed. 1808.)

16) Versuch zur Herstellung des Hist. Standpuncts, ch. vi. And Kirchhofer, (p. 16,) speaking of what the Peshito contained, says, “and (according to Hug’s judgment) the Apocalypse.”

17) Hug’s opinion is founded on the passages of Ephrem reported below, (Prop. 286.) Yet Zozomen (H. E., iii., 16) and Theodoret (H. E., iv., 29) say that Ephrem did not know Greek; and Ephrem himself, speaking of a visit he made to Basil, says that he needed an interpreter, (Ephr., Opera, iii., 712, edit. Vossii, 1608.)

18) Rom. xvi. 14. Hefele (Patrum Apost. Opera, pag. lxxxi.) believes he must adopt the opinion of the author of the Fragment of Muratori, (see Prop. 196,\ which attributes it to the brother of Pope Pius I., from the year 142 to 147.

19) We might bring forward other allusions, taken from the epistles of Ignatius to the Trallians and Philadelphians. But we prefer confining ourselves to the only uncontroverted epistles which are found in the Syriac collection, edited by Cureton, (Berlin, 1845.)

20) See Eusebius, Hist. Eccl., iii. 39, who cites some fragments.

21) Biblioth. Patr. Max., v., 589, 590.

22) Instead of translating, “having misunderstood the apostolic narrations,” by, has read, “having investigated the apostolic sayings.”

23) Eusebius having cited a fragment of Papias respecting the first disciples of the Saviour, in which the name of John occurs twice, and the second time with the epithet of presbyter, concluded that perhaps there were two Johns, one an apostle, the other a presbyter, and that perhaps it was this last, if not the other, who wrote the Apocalypse. Two sepulchres of John, he adds, are shewn at Ephesus; and he infers from that that one might be the apostle’s, and the other the presbyter’s. Eusebius would have little credit for sagacity if all his conclusions were of no more worth than this. The same Eusebius (iii., 23) has strongly affirmed, “on the testimony,” he says, “of men most worthy of credit, Irenæus and Clement of Alexandria,” that the apostle St John lived to the reign of Trajan, having returned from Patmos to Ephesus after the death of the tyrant, (Domitian.)

24) See also Eusebius, Hist. Eccl., iv. 18.

25) Hist, Eccl., v., 1. 

26) De Haer., iv., 37, 50, v., 26, 30.

27) Πιρὶ τῆς Ἀποκαλύψιως Ἰωάννου. Eusebius, Hist. Eccl, iv., 26. See also Jerome, (De Vir. Ilustr., ch. xxiv.) Melito presented, in 172, to the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, an “Apology for the Christian Religion.”

28) Eusebius, Hist. Eccl., iv., 24.

29) Κὲχρπται δὲ καὶ μαρτυρῐᾱιε ἀπὸ τῆς Ἰωάννου Ἀποχαλύψεως.

30) We do not speak of heretics. Out of the Church, the impious sect of the Alogi, enemies of the term Logos applied to Jesus Christ, rejected at the same time the Gospel of John and his Apocalypse.

31) Hist. Eccl., iii, 28, vii., 25.

32) Michaelis, (French translation,) iv., pp. 528-548.

33) See his Introduction.

34) Δι' ἀποκαλύψεων ὡς ὑπὸ ἀποστόλου μεγάλου γεγξαμμὲνων, τεςαλογίας ἡμῖν ὡς δι' ἀγγέλων αὐτῷ ὅεὸειγμένας ψευόομέυσς.

35) Τινὲς μὲν οὖν τῶν πρὸ ἡμῶν, Says Dionysius.

36) Vol. ii., (in 4to,) p. 700.

37) VII., 20, 22, 25, 26, vi., 45, 46, (above all, vii., 25.)

38) Chap. xxxii., vol. ii,; vi., p. 484.

39) Ἐγὼ ὂὲ ἀθετῆσαι μὲν οὐκ ἂν τολμήσαιμι τὸ βιβλίον, πολλῶν αὐτὸ διὰ σπουδῆς ἐχόντων ἀδελφῶν.

40) Τούτῳ δὲ ἀποκάλυψιν ὲωξακὲναι, καὶ γιῶσιι εἰληφεναι καί ετςοεητεῐαν, οὐκ ἀντεξω.

41) Portus Romanus. This fact, maintained by Cave, (Hist. Litt. Saeculum Novatianum,) is strongly rejected by Bunsen, (see his Hippolytus.) But the arguments of Cave remain, and we do not think that they have been satisfactorily answered.

42) At least there was in his time a Bishop Hippolytus quartered for the kingdom of God. In 1551, near the walls of Rome, a curious marble was discovered raised to his memory, and bearing a list of his works, so highly were they esteemed. (See Bunsen’s Hippolytus, vol. i., p. xxii., 13, 210, 213.)

43) Among others, by Andreas, bishop of Caesarea, in 520, and Jacob the Syrian, bishop of Edessa, in 651. (Michaelis, p. 479.)

44) Hist. Eccl., v., 25. See other remarkable citations in Kirchhofer, 1842, p. 309.

45) Ἔγραψε δὲ καὶ τὴν Ἀποκάλυψιν.

46) “De bona patient.” He cites there Apoc. xix, 10.

47) “De Eleemos.” He cites Apoe. iii. 17,18. “Audi in Apocalypsi Domini tui vocem,” &e.

48) He cites also Apoc. xvii. 15. “In Apocalypsi Scriptura Sacra declarat dicens. .. .”

49) Lardner, iii., 121,565. Edit. in 4to.

50) Ibid., p. 163.

51) Ibid., pp. 181, 198.

52) Ibid., p. 480. If the commentaries on the Psalms are not the work of Arnobius the younger. (Cave, Hist. Litt., i, p. 161.)

53) Instit., vii., 17; Epitome, cap. xlii., 73, 74.

54) “Apocalypsis Johannis,” he says in his letter to Paulinus, “tot habet sacra- - menta quot verba.” (Opp., tom. iv., p. 576.) ‘

55) “Johannis epistolae tres,” ‘“Apocalypsis Johannis,” he says. “Haec sunt quae Patres ter Canonem concluserunt; ex quibus fidei nostrae assertiones constare voluerunt.” — Expositio in Symb. Apost., p. 26, apud Cyprianum.

56) See Michaelis, p. 495-497; Lardner, vol. iv., p. 313.

57) Propp. 32-34, 275.

58) And found again in 1850 by the care of the Protestant bishop of Shanghai — North China Herald. The Record, March 31, 1851.

59) Lardner, vol. iv., p. 279, v., 13.

60) See Moses Stuart on the Apocalypse, vol. i, p. 361; Elliott, Horae Apoc., p. 32, (3d edition.)

61) The first time he says, , Ὠς Ἰωάννης διδάσκει με διὰ τῆς Ἀποκαλύψεως. The second time he quotes this verse- — Καί ὁ ὧν, καί ὁ ἦν, καί ὁ ἐρχόμενος, ὀ Παντοκρατωρ.

62)  In his Commentary on the Apocalypse. . See Lardner, v., 5. See Prop. 61,

63) Lücke, Einleitung, p. 337,

64) “Quia a Patribus (the decree of Carthage says) ista accipimus in Ecclesiâ LEGENDA.” “ὅτι οὐ ὃεῖ (says that of Laodicea) ἰδιωτικοὺς ψαλμοὺς (plebeios psalmos) ΛΕΤΕΣΘΑΙ ἘΝ Τῌ ΕΚΚΑΗΣῙᾼ οὐδε ἀκανόνιστα βιβλία, ἀλλὰ μόνα τὰ κανονικὰ.” — Bruns, Canones Apost. et Concil., Berolini, 1839, p. 79, (the fifty-ninth canon of the council, or the sixty-third in the “Codex Canonum Eccl. Univ.”)

65) See on this subject our Propp. 88, 89, and Note 2, p. 76. More ample state- ments will be found (1.) in Cosin, “History of the Canon to the Year 419,” London, 1683; and (2.) in Westcott, “General Survey of the History of the Canon of the New Testament,’ Cambridge, 1855. The latter writer, after a very attentive study of the Greek manuscripts of the canon, of their Latin versions, and, above all, of the Syriac manuscripts preserved in the British Museum, as well as the systematic collections of the canons made at different times, judges, contrary to Cosin, that “on the whole it cannot be doubted that external evidence is decidedly against the authenticity of the catalogue as an integral part of the text of the Canons of Laodicea.” He thinks that “the catalogue is of Eastern and not of Western origin;” and “that some early copyist endeavoured to supply, either from the writings of Cyril, or more probably from the usage of the Church which Cyril represented, the list of books which seemed to be required by the language of the last genuine canon.” (Pp. 504, 505.) Professor Spittler (according to Michaelis, p. 489) had already endeavoured to shew that this part of the canon of Laodicea is an imposture, and has been marked as suspected in many editions of the Councils; for example, in Harduin, (pp. 292, 293.)

66) “Nec Graecorum quidem ecclesiae Apocalypsin Joannis eadem libertate suscipiunt et tamen nos (eam) suscipimus . . . . veteruam scriptorum auctoritatem sequentes.” — Ep. ad Dardanum, tom. ii., p. 608, Edit, Paris.