than that of his Apocalypse. It is necessary to recall for a moment the polemic of Dionysius of Alexandria against S. John's authorship of the Book (see p. 36). He points out that the Greek of the Apocalypse is inferior in style to that of the Gospel. The latter work shows that long residence at Ephesus had made S. John an accomplished Greek scholar. This tells very much in favour of the early date of the Book. The two propositions that S. John wrote the Apocalypse in Domitian's reign and wrote the Gospel soon after that seem to be mutually destructive. Moreover these propositions held together would confirm the contention of Dionysius that the difference of style of the two books, shows two different authors. If one was written in the year 96, and the other in the year 98, there should be no difference of style. At the end of Domitian's reign S. John's Greek education was complete, and his style formed. There is an omission from the Gospel of S. John, compared with the synoptic Gospels, which throws light on this subject. The prediction of our Lord with reference to the fall of the Temple of Jerusalem, found in Matt. (xxiv.), Mark (xiii.), and Luke (xxi.), is altogether omitted by S. John. This shows that S. John's Gospel was written long after his Revelation, which warned the Nazarenes of the fall of the Temple. The prediction was fulfilled. No Temple existed.

The Domitian theory is hopelessly at variance with the Clementine tradition that S. John led an active missionary life after the death of "the Tyrant," on his return to Patmos.

Clement of Alexandria was a contemporary of S. Irenæus and a reliable authority. He vouches for the tradition enshrined in his "Who is the Rich Man ?" in this way: "Listen to a story that is no fiction but a real history handed down and carefully preserved respecting the Apostle John" (italics ours).

This story, which we have already printed in full at page 16, so completely cuts the ground from under the Domitian date, that it has been allowed to rank as a pious legend. Clement of Alexandria was known as a writer before the time of Pope Victor, A.D. 188. He was therefore living at the same time as S. Irenæus. Eusebius calls him "a disciple of the Apostles." He was a man of great learning. S. Jerome says that he was "The most learned of our authors" (Čatal et Ep. ad Magn). Theodoret says, "That holy man surpassed all others in the extent of his learning" (Hær. F. E. 1, 8). A proof of this is that Clement succeeded Pantænus in the headship of the great Catechetical Christian School of Alexandria, about the year 190. His story of S. John's return to Ephesus on the death of the Tyrant, and prolonged missionary career afterwards, is one of the best preserved of his writings. No one

challenges its authenticity. Eusebius in the same chapter in which he stated that S. John returned from exile on the death of Domitian, quoted this story in full, as an excellent and profitable discourse (H. E. iii., 23). He overlooked the fact that it is absolutely incompatible with the Domitian date of S. John's exile.

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So far as correlated traditions go, the Domitian tradition has an unhappy knack of disagreeing with them all. We know its origin. Let us see its patristic authority. Clement of Alexandria writing at the same time as S. Irenæus, and writing about the life of S. John, deliberately places his exile in Nero's reign. Origen, a pupil of Clement's, adds the title King to that of Tyrant" used by Clement, saying, "as tradition teaches us." The tradition taught him would be that of his teacher Clement (as we have pointed out at p. 28). Tertullian knew only the Neronian date. The author of the Muratorian Fragment is in the same case, as also the author of the Syriac versions. Epiphanius attributed S. John's exile to Claudius, meaning Nero Claudius, since the Emperor Claudius died in A.D. 54, and there was no persecution in his time. We now come to Eusebius who finished his Ecclesiastical History, c. 324 A.D. He interpreted the remark of S. Irenæus, that the Apocalypse was seen towards the end of Domitian's reign, as referring to the visions of S. John. But in the same page he quotes the story of Clement which makes that interpretation impossible. S. Jerome in his book "De Script Eccl.," written about A.D. 382, follows Eusebius, but puts the exile in the year 84, ten years before there was any sign of a Domitian persecution.

So far as the early Church is concerned, the reader can see on which side the weight of testimony lies. In the early middle age, Andreas, 7th, and Arethas, 8th century, point out that the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem was found in the Apocalypse by ancient writers, showing a traditional belief that the Book was written before the year 70 A.D.

That brings us to the internal evidence of the Book, which unquestionably points to the Neronian date in many ways. Ist. The destruction of the Temple is foretold, as a revelation of the future. 2nd. Persecution was raging when the Book was written. 3rd. Nero is shown to be the reigning King when the Book was written. 4th. Tiridates, the Parthian, who made his triumphal progress to Rome in the year 66, is brought in as an illustration. And 5th, the note of vengeance belongs to the days of vengeance, when the Temple fell in the year 70.

The point, that the Temple is written about as still existing, is not disputed. The words of the Book are as follows: "And there was given to me a reed like unto a rod, and it was said to me: Rise and measure the temple of God, and the altar and

them that adore therein. But the court which is without the temple cast out and measure it not, because it is given to the Gentiles, and the holy city they shall tread underfoot forty-two months" (R. xi. 1, 2). This must have been written before the year 70 A.D. After that there was no Temple, and no altar, and no Court of the Gentiles. No one would give directions at the present day for the measurement of the throne-room and courtyard of the Palace of the Tuileries, ruined in 1870 and pulled down shortly afterwards. How, then, can we date these directions, given in the Apocalypse for measuring the Temple, as written in the year 96, twenty-six years after its fall?

The Temple prophecy in Revelation is accompanied by references to the flight of the Nazarene Church to Pella, and the coming of Christ's Kingdom. It is backed up by frequent references to prophecies in the O.T. relating to the event, and by a wealth of symbolism taken from the sacred instruments and ritual of the Temple.

2nd. The cry of the martyrs which forms the central motive of the book, "How long, O Lord," denotes a period of intense and prolonged persecution. Nero's persecution alone could account for it.

3rd. S. John does not say that Nero was the reigning King, at the time of his Revelation, for reasons known to the reader. But he works out the cryptic symbolism of his identity with marvellous ingenuity and clearness. All this will be found in the exegesis. At the cost of repetition we must review the evidence here.

First, we have a beast coming out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten diadems (R. xiii. 1). This is Daniel's fourth beast, the Roman Empire. To show that he is the fourth beast, S. John compounds the Beast of the three empires he devoured and broke up-viz., the Chaldean, Persian, and Grecian Empires. He makes him like a leopard, with the feet of a bear and the mouth of a lion (R. xiii. 2). The lion the bear and the leopard were Daniel's symbols for the above mentioned empires. Then S. John saw that one of his heads-heads consequently of the Roman Empire-was wounded to death and his deadly wound was healed, and all the earth wondered at it (R. xiii. 3). The heads of the Empire were the Emperors. There is an esoteric allusion to Nero in the Emperor who was wounded and recovered. There was a widespread belief in Nero's reign that he would be killed and come to life again. Suetonius mentions it (Nero 40-57). Tacitus alludes to it in his "History" (ii., 8). Dion Chrysostom (c. 117) refers to it (Orat d. Pulchrid, p. 371). So does Lactantius, and S. Augustine in his De Civit. Dei, xx., 19. One of the Sibylline

Books records it plainly: "He who shall obtain the mark of fifty (i.e., whose name begins with N = 50) will be Lord, a horrid serpent breathing out grievous war; who will destroy the outstretched arms of her who bore him . . . he shall be secretly destroyed. Then shall he return, making himself equal to a God" (Lib. v., p. 574). Nero destroyed his mother. In the ten years following Nero's death there appeared two pseudo Neros among the Parthians, and two in Asia Minor, showing the influence of the belief in Nero's revival, in those times.

S. John says that the beast " 'blasphemed God and his tabernacle," meaning that he was proclaimed a God and had temples erected to him with blasphemous titles inscribed thereon. Then he says that it was given to him to make war with the saints and overcome them. Tov άyíwv, "the saints," was the name given to Christians at that time. Nero was permitted by God to persecute them and overcome them, in the sense of slaying them, even to SS. Peter and Paul. "And all that dwell upon the earth adored him" (R. xiii. 6 ff.), an allusion to Cæsar worship and the deification of Nero.

We go on now to Chapter xvii., for S. John does not put all his marks of identification in one place, lest the evidence should betray him to the ruling emperor Nero.

An angel comes to S. John in Chapter xvii., and explains to him the meaning of the symbols. First he shows him a woman drunk with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. And she had on her forehead a name written, "Babylon the Great." Babylon was the well known symbolic name for Rome, amongst Christians in S. John's day. Then the angel says, "Here is the understanding that hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, upon which the woman sitteth, and they are seven kings" (R. xvii. 9). The expression "mountains" has a double significance, since great potentates were sometimes symbolised by mountains in the O.T.; and, as a matter of fact, the woman, Rome, was built upon seven hills, and was known in literature as Septicollis Roma. The angel goes on with reference to the seven heads, or Kings. "Five are fallen, one is, and the other is not yet come, and when he shall come he must remain a short time, and the beast which was and is not, the same is also the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into destruction " (R. xvii. 1o f.). We are told that "the seven heads are seven Kings," the title Basileus or King was distinctive of the heads of the Empire in Nero's reign. Five are fallen." The five fallen were Julius Cæsar, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, and Claudius. "One is." One is aliveviz., the sixth King, Nero. Then comes a further allusion to Nero's reincarnation. A seventh King must reign for a short

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time. Then "the one that was," referring to "One that is " above, the same will come back as the eighth King.

We go back now to Chapter XIII., where the principal mark of Nero, the beast, is found. It is introduced by a similar call for wisdom and understanding. "He that hath understanding let him compute the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man and his number is six hundred and sixty six' (R. xiii. 18).

S. John explains that the beast is a man, that his number 666 will disclose his name by gematria, if the matter be studied with wisdom and understanding. This was addressed to the Servants of God, the Hebrew leaders of the Church in S. John's time, to Simeon of Jerusalem, and perhaps to S. Paul at Rome. It is supposed that the latter died some time in the year 67.

It was a common custom in S. John's time to denote men by the numbers found in the letters composing their names, considered as numerals. Amongst the Hebrews it was a literary fashion.

Seeing that S. John was a Hebrew, whose Greek, in the Apocalypse, has a very strong Hebraic flavour, it occurred to Benary, Hitzig, Reuss, and Ewald that he had in his mind Hebrew letters when penning this passage (Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible, 1902). Now, the name of Nero appears in the Talmud and other Rabbinical writings in two forms-one in which it is written in Hebrew, after the Greek analogy, thus DP (Neron Kaiser). The numerical value of these letters is 666, made up as follows:

=

=

*=50, &=200, ¶=6, *=50, 100, 60, 200=666.

This very remarkable discovery was made in 1835.

S. John wishes to convey to his brethren a definite name. He makes use of gematria, or the science of numbers, with which they were familiar, and uses Greek letters to conceal his meaning from Nero and his officers.

Recent researches have shown that, in the Hebrew writings of S. John's time, the name of Nero is spelt with a mark, called the Yod, equal to ten in gematria-thus D'p, which would make the number of his name 676, not 666. But this does not detract from the value of the discovery, for it is felt that DP, without the Yod would be recognised as Nero by the brethren, as every other indication pointed to Nero. Dr. Hort says, "The absence of the Yod is nothing, there is excellent authority for that" (p. xxxi.). Dr. Swete says, "But the abbreviation is perhaps allowable in a cypher, and it is not without example " (Renan L'Antichrist, p. 415; op. cit. p. 176, note 4).