of the same explanatory chapters, viz., ver. 10. Here it is said that the seven heads of the beast also symbolize seven kings, viz., of Rome. The writer proceeds: Five are fallen; one is; the other has not yet come, but when he shall come, he will remain but for a short time.' That the Roman emperors were usually styled Baokes by the Greeks, needs no proof. That the line or succession of emperors is here meant, and not the primitive kings of Rome, is certain from the connection of the five with the one who is, and the one who is to come. We have only to reckon, then, the succession of emperors, and we must arrive with certainty at the reign under which the Apocalypse was written. If we begin with Julius Cæsar, it stands thus: Cæsar, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius; these make up the five who had fallen. Of course the Apocalypse was written during the reign of Nero, who is the sixth. [And this, it will be remembered, is the fact which is asserted on the title-page of the Syriac version of the Apocalypse.] If, with some critics, we commence with Augustus, then the Apocalypse was written during the short reign of Galba, who succeeded Nero." In counting the Roman emperors, only an occasional beginning with Augustus can be shown in classic authors. The almost universal usage is against it. The probability on other grounds is against beginning with Augustus. Every part of the Apocalypse shows that persecution was raging and instant when the book was written. But this could not be true, at most, but a few days after Nero's death, for the persecution was not continued under his successor. Besides, when the writer adverts to the shortness of time in which the seventh king would reign, (which fits Galba especially, as he reigned but seven months,) why, in case he wrote during the reign of Galba, should he overlook the shortness of his reign, and advert in this respect merely to the succeeding reign of Otho? There is, moreover, a plain reference, in Rev. xiii. 10, to the future death of Nero, as well as to his then present cruelties. "He that leadeth

into captivity, shall go into captivity; he that killeth with the sword, must be killed with the sword." All this agrees very well with the time of Nero, but not with that of Galba. But at all events, which side soever of this dispute we take, it must be allowed that the Apocalypse was written previously to the destruction of Jerusalem, for that calamity did not take place until the reign of Vespasian. Some writers have maintained, as Eichorn and Bleek, that the last-named was the sixth emperor. Such begin with Augustus, and omit the three who reigned so briefly, viz., Galba, Otho, and Vitellius. They count as follows: Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero, Vespasian. Although we think the arrangement which makes Nero the sixth, has by far the strongest proof in its favor, yet even this last would be consistent with the supposition that the Apocalypse was written previously to the fall of Jerusalem. But if we suppose it not to have been written until the reign of Domitian, how shall we make out that only five emperors had fallen? The Apocalypse was certainly written in the reign of the sixth emperor; and on what principle the sixth can be proved to have been Domitian, we cannot see. The weight of evidence is altogether in favor of the supposition that Nero was the sixth; and as this agrees with the declaration on the title-page of the Syriac version, that John was banished during the reign of Nero, which shows what was the current opinion in the East, we rest with no small confidence in the belief that that opinion was correct.

6. Sir Isaac Newton has advanced the supposition, which, he says, "to considering men may seem a good reason, to others not,” viz., that the Apocalypse seems to be alluded to in the epistles of Peter, and in that to the Hebrews. He mentions the following subjects in the Epistle to the Hebrews, which seem to have been drawn from the Apocalypse, viz., the sharp two-edged sword; the oaбßatioμos, or millennial rest; the earth whose end is to be burned; the judgment and fiery indignation that shall

devour the adversaries; the heavenly city which hath foundations; the cloud of witnesses; Mount Zion; the heavenly Jeru salem; the general assembly, and the church of the first-born; the shaking of the heaven and earth, that the new heaven and new earth which cannot be shaken may remain. In the first of Peter occurs the expression, "The revelation of Jesus Christ," twice or thrice repeated; and Peter also makes mention of the church at Babylon, which it seems difficult to account for, unless we suppose him to have used the name after the manner of the revelator. Sir Isaac further supposes that the sure word of prophecy, referred to in the 2d Epistle of Peter, was the prophecy of the revelator. It must be confessed that there is a remarkable agreement between the contents of that Epistle, after mention is made of "the sure word of prophecy," and the contents of the Apocalypse. In fact, in one place, Peter seems to be fearful that the Christians would not watch diligently for the coming of their Lord, because the revelator had spoken of the intervention of a thousand years before the establishment of the New Jerusalem; and he proceeds to say, " that the heavens and the earth which are now by the same word, are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men." And, apparently through fear that they would not expect to live to see this day, on account of some impression they had, from divine authority, that a thousand years were to pass away before these events should happen, he bids them remember "that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day;" 2 Peter, iii. 8; "that the Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness, but is long suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance;" that the day of the Lord should come as a thief in the night, in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise; which seems to agree quite nearly with what the revelator said should happen after the thousand years had expired,

viz., "I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and heaven fled away, and there was found no place for them;" Rev. xx. 11. The revelator then proceeds to speak of the judgment of the dead, small and great; after which, he tells us, that the New Jerusalem came down from God out of heaven, and that the tabernacle of God is with men, referring to the establishment of the kingdom of God upon the earth. And in the same manner Peter, after he had mentioned the thousand years, and insisted, notwithstanding this term had been used, still the day was near, and would come as a thief, and the heavens and earth that then were should pass away, proceeds to say, that nevertheless he looked, agreeably to the promise of God, for "new heavens and a new earth," wherein dwelleth righteousness. These answer to the New Jerusalem, seen by John, in which God would dwell with men, and there should be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying, nor pain. It seems to us very probable, from the comparison here instituted between the Epistle of Peter and the Apocalypse, that the latter was written before the former. Nero began to reign A. D. 54. The two Epistles of Peter are supposed to have been written about ten or eleven years after this; so that a sufficient time did elapse after Nero came to the throne, and before the Epistles of Peter were written, for that emperor to banish John to Patmos, for John to write the Apoca lypse there, and for the Christians to get a knowledge of it.

7. There are other circumstances which serve to confirm the impression that the Apocalypse could not have been written so late as the reign of Domitian, and near the end of his reign, as Irenæus hath it. That emperor ceased to reign in A. D. 96; and hence we are told that the Apocalypse was written about 95 or 96. But how old was John at that date? (for it is allowed by those who adhere to this date that John was the author of the book.) We suppose he could not have been far from the age of our Lord. But allowing that he was somewhat younger, say

twenty-five, at the time he was called to be an apostle, then he must have been ninety-three or ninety-four at the time it is said he wrote the Apocalypse. Does this appear probable? Can we believe that the man was over ninety years of age when he wrote that book? There is a luxuriance of imagination displayed in the Apocalypse that comports much better with his age at an earlier date than at the year 96, when, as we have shown, he must have been nearly an hundred years old. We hold, then, that the extreme age of John in the year 95 or afterwards, would show that he could not then have written the Apocalypse.

8. There still remains another consideration. It is said, by those competent to judge, that the original text of the Apocalypse, although exhibiting the same general peculiarities of diction with St. John's Gospel and Epistles, yet nevertheless abounds much more in Hebraisms and anomalies—a circumstance which seems to intimate an earlier period of the author's life, when he had but just begun to write in a foreign tongue.

Sir Isaac Newton, speaking of the style of the Apocalypse, says: "It is fuller of Hebraisms than John's Gospel. From thence it may be gathered, that it was written when John was newly come out of Judea, where he had been used to the Syriac tongue; and that he did not write his Gospel, till, by long converse with the Asiatic Greeks, he had left off most of the Hebraisms." -("Observations," &c., part ii., chap. i.)

IV. RECAPITULATION.

We have thus gone through, in a very brief manner, with the category of reasons, which have been suggested to our mind, in favor of the fact that the Apocalypse was written previously to the destruction of Jerusalem. In regard to the historical testimony, it will be remembered, that Epiphanius repeatedly affirmed