L. Cæcilius Firmianus Lactantius, a rhetorician and Christian Apologist of Nicomedia, who died about A.D. 330, wrote a book entitled, Divinarum Institutionum, in which he shows Chiliastic tendencies (L. xvi. 7). He accepted the Revelation as written by S. John. In his Epit. c. 42, he refers to Rev. xix. 12, "a name written which no man knoweth but himself," "sicut docet Joannes in Revelatione,"

Methodius, Bishop of Olympus, in Lydia, about the same time, took a mystical view of the Apocalypse. The seven heads of the dragon he took to be the seven deadly sins; and the Beast, the empire of lust. In this exegesis he had many followers. He belonged to the school of Allegorists.

Eusebius, Bishop of Cæsarea, in Palestine, already noticed, wrote an Ecclesiastical History, which he finished about the year 324. It is a wonderful store-house of all kinds of facts concerning the early history of Christianity. As the quotations from his history, printed above, show, he was in sympathy with Dionysius of Alexandria, in his antimontanist polemic.

He was a prominent figure in the Christian revival under Constantine whose friendship he enjoyed. He sat beside the Emperor at the Council of Nicea, and was honoured by him for many years, both in private life and in public ceremonies. His influence, therefore, was much greater than that of an ordinary Bishop, and that influence was exerted against the Canonicity of the Apocalypse. He tells us in his "Life of Constantine" (iv. 36, 37), that by order of that Emperor he prepared fifty sumptuous copies of the Bible for the Church of Constantinople. From these he excluded the Apocalypse. Thus it came to pass that when Byzantium, renamed Constantinople, became the Metropolitan Church of the East, it was endowed from the beginning with an Antimontanist Bible, and with a large number of sumptuous spare copies for presentation to the Eastern Churches under its influence. The Bible of Eusebius completed the work of Montanism and its opponents in discrediting the authority of the Apocalypse in

the East.

At the celebrated Council or Synod of Laodicea held in the year 360, many of whose Canons are still reverenced, the Eastern Bishops dropped the Apocalypse out of the Canon of Scripture. It is not found in the Peshitta or original of the Syrian New Testament.. Gwynn believes that it was unknown to the Syrian Christians for four hundred years, with the exception of those who could translate Greek. Nor does it appear in Canon 85 of Apost. Const. (Zahn. ii. 177 ff., 197, 190 ff.). Cyril of Jerusalem (d. 386), excluded the Apocalypse from public and private use (Catach. iv. 31, 36).

Gregory of Nazianzum, 330-389 A.D., left it out of his Canon. Theodore of Mopsoestia omits to quote it.

Theodoret fails to quote it.

Chrysostom omitted it from his Synopsis Scripturæ Sacræ. Nicephorus omitted it from his Chronography, and List of Books.

The Apocalypse was not generally reinstated in the Eastern Church till the 6th century. The Armenians continued to exclude it till the 12th, and the Jacobites till the 13th century. A curious instance of this Eastern prejudice was noticed as far West as Spain. At the Synod of Toledo A.D. 633, the Apocalypse was ordered to be read in Church under pain of excommunication. The Visigoths, who settled down in Spain, had brought an Eastern Bible, and Greek traditions, with them. Some of the leading Bishops of the East, however, even in the fourth century, gave the Apocalypse a canonical position.

Athanasius, the great Bishop of Alexandria (c. 326), placed it definitely in his list of canonical Scriptures.

Ephraem of Edessa, who died in the year 378, quoted it as canonical.

Epiphanius, Bishop of Constantia, in Cyprus (c. 367), insists on its Canonicity. In his "Panarion" 25 and 51, against the Alogi and Nicolaites, he places the Apocalypse and Gospel of S. John on the same level. He states that the Alogi rejected the Apocalypse, partly because there was no Church at Thyatira. He says (Hær. I. 33) : “ εἶπε πάλιν Γράψον τῶ ἀγγέλῳ τῆς ἐκκλησίας τῷ ἐν Θυατείροις, καὶ οὐκ ἔνι ἐκεῖ ἐκκλησία Χριστιανῶν εν Θυατείρῃ· πῶς οὖν ἔγραφε τῇ μὴ οὔση.” (See Gospels as Historical Documents," Stanton, p. 209.)

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He twice refers the date of the Apocalypse to Claudius. This singular departure from earlier writers, has caused general surprise, because Claudius Cæsar's date A.D. 52 is an impossible one. Dr. Hort points out, however, that Nero is often called in old inscriptions, Nero Claudius, or Claudius Nero Cæsar, or Claudius Nero.

It is very likely that Epiphanius, who was a great translator of books, found this rendering in old works of Hippolytus and other writers, and reproduced it.

Suetonius in his work on the "Twelve Cæsars " gives the title heading of Nero's reign as "Nero Claudius Cæsar." That was his official title. He was a member of the Claudian family. His uncle Claudius Cæsar, adopted him and gave him the name of Claudius.

Basil, The Great, Bishop of Cæsarea, who died in 379, quoted the Apocalypse as the work of S. John the Evangelist.

Tyconius, the Donatist of Africa c. 390, took the Book as symbolising the struggle between good and evil, and applied it to his own times. He explained it generally, in a spiritual sense. He was a præterist and had many followers.

Hilary of Poitiers, who died in 368, accepted the Apocalypse as canonical.

Ambrose of Milan, who died in 397, in his De Virginibus (iii), and De Poenitentia (c. 2) quoted the Book as Holy Scripture. Ruffinus, a contemporary writer, does the same.

The Codex Clarmontanus does the same.

The Synod of Hippo, A.D. 393, in canon xxxvi, explicitly favours the divine authority of the Apocalypse (Mansi. Nov. Coll. Council iii. p. 924).

The Third Council of Carthage, A.D. 397, treats the Book as Canonical.

The Fifth Council of Carthage, A.D. 419, does the same.

Pope Innocent, in the year 405, sent a list of the Canonical scriptures to Exuporius, Bishop of Toulouse, in which he included the Apocalypse.

Augustine, Bishop of Hippo (d. 430), quoted the Apocalypse freely as Canonical Scripture. In his great work De Civitate Dei (A.D. 413-426), he explained its millenarian passages as referring to the peaceful expansion of the Church for a period of a thousand years. This, the Tyconian, and the true explanation, was well received. The genius of S. Augustine dazzled and impressed the age in which he lived. After him, millenarianism dwindled and disappeared.

S. Jerome, the greatest of the Latin Doctors of the Church, was a contemporary of S. Augustine. He undertook the revision of the Holy Scriptures at the request of Pope Damasus, and completed it by A.D. 385. He prepared himself for the task by the study of Hebrew, and executed it with the help of Hebrew scholars. He is practically the author of the Vulgate or Latin Bible. It is not certain, however, that he revised the Apocalypse.

He accepted the Apocalypse as the work of S. John the Evangelist, and placed it in the Canon of the New Testament. In Ep. iii. 4, he writes of it as Sacred Scripture, and in Ep. xxxi. 3, "The Saviour Himself is the Apocalypse of S. John says. . ." In his letter to Paulinus, A.D. 394, he says "The Apocalypse of John has as many mysteries as words." In his Epistle" Ad Dardanum," he shows that he knew of the campaign against the Apocalypse in the Greek Church, but that he preferred the testimony of the older writers. He says "Quod si eam (viz. the Epistle to the Hebrews) Latinorum consuetudo non recipit inter Scripturas canonicas, nec Græcorum

quidem ecclesiae Apocalypsin eadem libertate suscipiunt; et tamen nos utrumque suscipimus, nequaquam hujus temporis consuetudinem, sed veterum scriptorum auctoritatem sequentes." By the combined action of S. Augustine and S. Jerome the Apocalypse was securely fixed in the Canon, as is abundantly proved by later testimonies.

The Decree of Gelasius, A.D. 494, placed the Apocalypse in the Canon.

Bede, Beatus, Cassiodorus, and Primasius, followed Origen and Tyconius, in mystical exposition. The Latin commentary of Primasius still exists.

Oecumenius, a Greek, Bishop of Tricca, in Thessaly, wrote a commentary, c. A.D. 600, which is still extant. He took Rome to be the sixth King, and Constantinople the seventh.

The Council of Constantinople, A.D. 692, admitted the Apocalypse to the Canon of Scripture.

Andreas, Bishop of Cæsarea, in Cappadocia (7th century) divided the Book into twenty-four parts, corresponding with the twenty-four Ancients in Rev. iv. 4. Each part he made into three chapters, in accordance with the threefold nature of man. These seventy-two parts have formed the basis of all subsequent divisions. Andreas believed in the spiritual character of the Book and allegorised to a great extent. But he explained parts of the Revelation, as a præterist, with reference to his own times. He was a convinced believer in the Antichrist exegesis. His work has left its mark on subsequent commentaries. He noticed that the early chapters of the Book had been interpreted by ancient writers, as referring to the destruction of Jerusalem under Titus, thus showing forth the

Neronian tradition.

Berengaud, in the 9th century, adopted the Irenæan view that the Beast was Antichrist, and the Hippolytan view that the two witnesses were Enoch and Elias. But he identified "the ten horns" with the Barbarian Kings, who destroyed the Roman Empire. In this we begin to see the guidance of history.

Arethas, Bishop of Cæsarea, early in the tenth century compiled a scholia on the Apocalypse, in which he made great use of his predecessor, Andreas. His work is still extant, but the MSS. vary considerably. In his exegesis of Rev. vii. 4, he says, "When the Evangelist received the oracles the destruction in which the Jews were involved, was not yet inflicted by the Romans," showing that, following Andreas, he believed in the Neronian date.

Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury, when he was a Doctor of the University of Paris in the year 1225, divided the

Apocalypse into our present chapters, many of which follow the copious headings of Andreas.

Joachim of Flora, of the Friars Minor, wrote a commentary on the Apocalypse in the 13th century, in which he identified the wounded Beast with the Moslem Power, and in view of disorders in the Church in his own time, he identified Babylon with Papal Rome. John of Parma, General of the Order, 1247-57, a strong supporter of the rigorous party, shared these views. The Liber Introductorius, a collection of the writings of Joachim, was solemnly condemned by Pope Alexander IV., Nov. 1255.

The Albigenses and Waldenses, in France, in the same century, and for the same reason, viz. the scandalous lives of many of the Clergy, took a similar præterist view of the Apocalypse.

Then followed the "Black Death," a visitation plainly foretold in the Book of Revelation (R. ii. 23), whereby the Clergy were swept away from the greater part of Europe. The chaos resulting from this plague, together with the great Schism of the West, led to the troubles which resulted in the Reformation. Large branches were broken away from the Church; but there was not as yet a reformation in the parent stem. That came later with the counter Reformation.

The Reformation was an event of great importance in the elucidation of the Apocalypse.

Martin Luther at first denied the authority of the Apocalypse. The Rev. Moses Stuart, Professor of Sacred Literature in the (Protestant) Theological Seminary of Andover, Mass., says: "This Reformer, when he published his German translation of the New Testament, thrust the Apocalypse from the canon, and printed it merely in the way of an Appendix, and an apocryphal book. His main reasons were that the book was unintelligible, and that there was no Christ in it.' Subsequent critics, more keen-sighted in exegesis than Luther, found, or thought they had found, good reason for applying John's description of the beast to the Pope and his adherents. As the contest waxed warmer, Luther perceived the advantage of such an ally; and it was not long before consent was given to a reception of the Apocalypse. Thus the book was restored to its place of honour at the close of the canon, and John was converted into one of the most formidable assailants of the Romish camp." (Commentary on the Apoc. Vol. I, 206.) In England an extensive school of exegetes arose who assumed the Pope of Rome to be the scarlet woman and the beast! With this key to the mystery of the Apocalypse some writers ventured to prophesy the exact date of the end of the world. As their dates all