xxi. 5. Táde Xérye announces a prophetic message, as frequently in the LXX ("The Apocalypse of S. John," p. xli, Note 4).

The Letters are distinctly a part of the Revelation of S. John, and they are put in the forefront of his Book. The reader will find that they relate exclusively to the interior state of the Church. There are predictions as to the punishments of the wicked and the rewards of the just, also as to persecution; but the general tenor of the Letters is a survey of the moral condition of the Church, accompanied by advice and warning, and guidance from the Holy Spirit. As addressed to living local Churches, one fails to understand how they could be taken as a prediction.

The repetition of warnings and threats of punishment remind one of the prophecies of the Old Law. The predictions of the prophets were given to the chosen people to encourage them to virtue and especially to warn them of the final doom of impenitence. It is natural to suppose that a similar concession would be made to human weakness in the new Dispensation. The Revelation or Prophecy of S. John stands to the Church of Christ in the same relation as the prophecies of the Old Law stood to Judaism. It reveals the future, warns the Church, and proclaims the final judgment. This will appear more distinctly in the detailed exegesis of the Letters.

The importance of the Seven Churches in the scheme of Revelation is not limited by the Letters. The Book of Revelation as a whole was intended for them. The Command of God was thus expressed to S. John, "What thou seest write in a book and send to the seven churches" (R. i. 11, where see notes).

"What thou seest" relates to the visions which come on after the Seven Letters, which visions contain the revelation of the future, down to the end of the world. Philadelphia, the sixth Church, is warned of the near approach of the second coming of Christ, "Behold I come quickly" (R. iii. 11). Laodicea, the seventh and last church, is warned that the second coming is at the door, " Behold I stand at the door and knock" (R. iii. 20).

"The last words of the Apocalypse, based on two passages of Deuteronomy, place the Apocalypse on a level with the Torah, and anticipate a place for it among the Scriptures of the Church. It is evident that S. John anticipated that it would go down to posterity as a book for the warning and comfort of the whole Church to the end of time" (Swete, op. cit., p. xcviii).

We read in the last words,

"For I testify to every one that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book: If any man shall add to these things, God shall add

upon him the plagues written in this book. And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from these things which are written in this book. . . . Surely I come quickly: Amen" (R. xxii. 18-20).

There is evidence here that the book was sent to Churches which will last to the end of the world. It is a prediction. It foresees the abundant apocalyptic literature of the seventeenth and later centuries, and it warns us not to tamper with the words of the book.

So far we have examined the Letters without reference to the special circumstances of the local Churches of Asia. We turn now to compare one with the other. The result would be astonishing if it were not foreseen. There appears to be very little connection between the Letters and the Churches.

When the Revelation was given, in the year 67, the Seven Churches of Asia were newly formed. Some of them barely existed.

When S. Paul went to Ephesus, about the year 54, he found certain disciples there, but they had not been either instructed or baptised. He asked them:

"Have you received the Holy Ghost since ye believed? But they said to him: We have not so much as heard whether there be a Holy Ghost. And he said: In what then were you baptised? Who said: In John's baptism. . . . Having heard these things they were baptised in the name of the Lord Jesus. And when Paul had imposed his hands on them, the Holy Ghost came upon them, and they spoke with tongues and prophesied. And all the men were about twelve" (Acts xix. 2, 7).

This was, practically, the foundation of the Church of Ephesus. Twelve men were baptised and confirmed by S. Paul. It would appear that they received, in Confirmation, the same gifts which the Apostles received on the day of Pentecost, for they spoke with tongues and prophesied; that is, preached as the mouthpieces of God. They were not bishops in the modern sense of the word, with mitre and ring, and with a titular diocese. In the first century, "ancients," or presbyters" of the Church were placed in charge of Christian groups, large enough to require supervision. These men had not the dignified position acquired by bishops of the Church in later times. But their existence in Asia Minor and their office as overseers of the Churches, is made clear by the "Acts of the Apostles" and the Epistles of S. Paul. About three years after S. Paul had consecrated the twelve men of Ephesus, he was shipwrecked at Malta on his way to Jerusalem. He sent to

Ephesus for the ancients of the Church, presumably these same twelve men. "Sending from Miletus to Ephesus, he called the ancients of the Church" (Acts xx. 17). And thus he addressed them: "Take heed to yourselves and to the whole flock, wherein the Holy Ghost hath placed you overseers [TíoκOTO] to rule the Church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood" (Acts xx. 28).

It appears, from the Acts of the Apostles, that the Church of Ephesus, the mother Church of the Province of Asia, was founded by S. Paul some thirteen years before the Apocalypse was writtten. We do not know when the other Churches, mentioned in the Letters, were founded. There is no evidence that S. Paul himself visited any of them. They were converted by missionaries, who spread out from Ephesus in the course of time. They were, therefore, founded later than A.D. 54.

The

The exact dates of the acts of S. Paul are not known. only fixed point we have is the date of the death of Portius Festus, the Roman Governor, which took place in the year 62. He it was who sent S. Paul to Rome for trial by Nero. This is supposed to have been about the year 61. Before that, S. Paul had been imprisoned at Cæsarea, for more than two years, by Felix the governor. And so we work back to the other dates approximately.

It is plain, at all events, that all of the Seven Churches of Asia were recently founded when the Letters were written, and that some of them were in their infancy as Churches.

It is well known that there was no organised "church," in our sense of the word, in any of the cities of Asia Minor in the year 67. There was no public worship, no religious building, and no united congregation of the faithful. Christians were not allowed church buildings until the third century. In a great city like Ephesus, there were, at that time, small gatherings of the faithful, held privately, in the houses of leading Christians. Each of them was known as a church. S. Paul speaks of "Nymphas and the church, that is in his house" (Col. iv. 15). Judging by the " Acts," the Apostles lodged in these so-called churches from time to time. Aquila and Priscilla salute you much in the Lord, with the church that is in their house; with whom I also lodge" (1 Cor. xvi. 19). The epistle to Philemon is sent, not only to Philemon, but also "to the church which is in thy house" (Phil. 2).

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Writing generally of the history of the seven Churches, it may be said that they became infested with the Montanist and Arian heresies, which arose in the East, and tormented the Church of the first centuries. When the seat of Empire was transferred from Rome to Constantinople in the fourth century, they came

under the Byzantine influence, and at the end of that century passed into the hands of the Greek Church. In the fifth century these Churches espoused the cause of Eutyches and embraced the Monophysite doctrine. Various dissensions arose in consequence, but all the forms of Eutychianism were united in the Jacobite Church by the monk, Jacob, in the sixth century. the seventh century (636) the Arab conquest of Syria brought continual misfortunes upon that part of Asia. As members of the Orthodox Greek Church they shared in the conflicts between the Greeks and the Catholic Church: they denied the supremacy of the Pope and the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son. They were finally excommunicated with the rest of the Greek Church, by Leo IX. in the year 1054. In the same century they were overrun by the Seljuk Turks. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the district of the Seven Churches of Asia Minor was devastated by Islamic hordes of wandering nomads, with whom the Byzantine power was unable to cope. At the end of the thirteenth century Mohammedanism reigned supreme in the whole district, and it does so still. The Sultan of Turkey is now lord of Asia Minor. Some of the Churches of the Apocalypse have disappeared entirely. Others survive as Orthodox Greek, or Jacobite Churches. Some even of the great cities, which gave their names to the Churches, are gone from the face of the earth. Ephesus and Laodicea are mere heaps of ruins. The first and the last, and also the greatest of the Churches, have long since disappeared. This sad historic record points to the conclusion that the Seven Churches of Asia were but vanishing symbols of the ages of a Church which is imperishable.

When we compare the Letters with the Churches in the exegesis, we shall find remarkable divergences. The statements made regarding them do not generally fit in with their condition as primitive Churches. But the things omitted are, if possible, still more surprising. Here we have Churches that were later more or less infected by Arianism and the other heresies which ravaged the Greek Church. There is not a word about heresy in any one of the Letters. On the contrary, Pergamos, the third Church, which we take to symbolise the third age, or age of heresies, is told, "I know where thou dwellest, where the seat of Satan is, and thou holdest fast my name and hast not denied my faith" (R. ii. 13). We can understand this as addressed to the Church of Rome, but not as addressed to the Church of Pergamos in Asia Minor. There is not a word about the extinction of the Churches. Quite the reverse. They are treated as guardians of the Book of Revelation till the end of

time. To the last Church it is said, "Behold I stand at the door and knock." This message was sent to Laodicea more than eighteen hundred years ago, and Christ has not come yet. More than that, Laodicea disappeared long ago. Its ruins are found near the village of Denizli, formerly called Denizli Ladik.

Of positive divergences between the Letters and the Churches to which they are nominally addressed, it will be sufficient to mention here two glaring instances. Others will be found in the detailed exegesis. The longest Letter of the series is addressed to Thyatira. This Church is assumed to be of long standing and renowned for its good works. Our Lord says, “I know thy works, and thy faith, and thy charity, and thy ministry, and thy patience, and thy last works, which are more than the former" (R. ii. 19). What are the facts? The city of Thyatira was the smallest and least important of the seven. Its Church is unknown to history. Eusebius, the early Ecclesiastical Historian, does not mention it. Its early converts seem never to have gained sufficient strength to form a Church. The Alogi, who were very prominent Antimontanists, made it one of their strongest arguments against the authority of the Apocalypse, that there was no Church at Thyatira. They lived in Asia Minor towards the end of the second century, and were in a position to know. Controversialists of those days were very acute. If there had been a Church at Thyatira, we should have heard something about it. But the statement of the Alogi remains to this day uncontested.

Again, take the case of Laodicea. This Church is assumed to be the worst of the seven, so bad, indeed, that our Lord threatens to vomit it out of His mouth (R. iii. 16). As it happens, we know more about this Church than any other, because it rose to be a well organised and zealous Church, in fact, the Primatial Church of the District. Eusebius mentions it frequently. It has left its mark upon history, and all that we know of it leads to the conclusion that it was one of the best Churches of the Seven.

Putting all these facts together we will do well to range ourselves with the early Church in considering these Letters as symbolical. If they symbolise the Christian Church in its seven ages, then their meaning is clear, and this forecast of Church history splendidly accurate. For example, Thyatira, the middle Church of the seven, becomes the Church of the Middle Ages, and its Letter depicts its condition and trials accurately, with the far-seeing eye of prophecy.

How comes it then that these Letters were addressed to the Seven Churches of Asia? S. John had a prophetic revelation to make to the "Angels," or chief Bishops of the Christian