[h=1]Why Historians Date the Revelation to the Reign of Nero[/h]
The Revelation of John p. 23-26, Henry Cowles D.D. (1882)
The Revelation of John: With Notes, Critical, Explanatory, and Practical ... - Henry Cowles - Google Books
It remains to speak of the external evidence—that of the early Christian fathers. This is far from being uniform, clear and direct. Unfortunately the earliest fathers (Barnabas, Clement of Rome, Papias, Polycarp and Justin Martyr)—the very men whose testimony would have been most valuable—fail us altogether. They either omitted all allusion to this point as being well enough understood without their testimony, or what they wrote has perished. The earliest of the fathers whose testimony has been relied on is Ireneus, who wrote his book "Against Heresies," A. D. 175-180. His youth was spent in Asia Minor, but all his manhood and Christian work lay in Ancient Gaul [France]. From the dim light that reaches us it would seem that his statements as they were understood shaped the opinions of Eusebius and Jerome on this question, and that they naturally controlled the views of subsequent authors. Hence it becomes important to examine carefully what Ireneus said—the more so because it is at least supposable (I think even probable) that his testimony as to the date of the Apocalypse has been misunderstood.
The only passage appealed to as giving his testimony occurs in some remarks upon "the number of the beast" (Rev. 13: 18), which stand in our received text 066. The original Greek is this.
[. . .]
It may be translated thus :—
'' Therefore we do not imperil [the churches] by announcing the name of the Antichrist plainly, for if it were safe and wise at the present time to proclaim his name, it would have been done by him who saw the visions of the Apocalypse, for it is not a very long time since he was still to be seen, but almost in our own age. near the close of the reign of Domitian."
This passage has been generally understood to say that the vision of the Apocalypse was seen in the age of Domitian, and it seems to have been the standard authority for that opinion with the Christian authors of the third and fourth centuries and onward. His testimony turns on the single point whether in the last clause it is he (John) who was still seen among the churches in the age of Domitian, or it (the vision) which was then first seen. The logic of the passage, the course of thought, should be mainly relied on to decide this question.
I understand the logic of Ireneus thus :— Obviously it was not prudent to give Nero's name during his life. But John lived down to the time of Domitian when Nero was thirty years dead. So far forth therefore the circumstances had materially changed. Now, says Ireneus, if the necessity for divulging the real name of Nero is so great and the danger from doing it so small that we ought to have the name brought out now, then the same was true in the time of Domitian, and John would have disclosed the name himself. Ho did not do it, for though Nero was dead, yet Rome still lived, a persecuting power. The danger from Nero's personal vengeance was long since passed away, but other Neros might arise on the same Roman throne; therefore John remained silent: so let us. Hence the logic of the passage requires that the thing seen in the last clause of this passage should be John yet living in his extreme old age, and not the vision itself. The supposition that it was the vision nullifies the argument of the passage. - Or thus: The argument assumes that it would have been dangerous and therefore unwise to give Nero's name openly during his life; also, that John lived a long time after Nero's death, so that if it were proper to give Nero's name when Ireneus wrote, it was equally so in the last years of John, and he would have given the name to the churches then himself. - Origen seems to take the same view of the case, and perhaps the same view of this passage from Ireneua when he says, "The king of the Romans as tradition teaches condemned John to the Isle of Patmos for his testimony to the word of truth; and John taught many things about his testimony, yet did not say who condemned him in all that he has written in his Apocalypse."
Several fathers of the third century and the fourth speak of John's writing this book in connection with his banishment to Patmos, which they locate in Domitian's reign. Yet some of them are not explicit as between Nero and Domitian. Clement of Alexandria says John was banished by "the tyrant"—a name appropriate enough to either, yet in usage applied less to Domitian and more to Nero.
A very ancient Latin fragment [quoted in Stuart's Apocalypse, 1: 266] comes down to us, probably of the second century, saying, "Paul, following; the order of his own predecessor John, wrote in the same way to only seven churches by name." This assumes that John wrote the Apocalypse before Paul wrote the last of his seven letters to as many churches by name. The latest date of Paul's seven was about A. D. 64. He died under Nero's persecution. Eusebius [bishop of Cesarca, A. D. 314-340] in his history (book 3; chap. 18, and bk. 5: 8) speaks of John as being banished to Patmos and of seeing his visions there in the reign of Domitian, but quotes Ireneus (the very passage above cited) as his specific authority. Did he not misunderstand Ireneus? He also refers to a current tradition to the same effect, which however may have grown out of mistaking the sense of Ireneus.
Jerome [born A. D. 331; died A. D. 420] held the same opinion, apparently on the authority of Ireneus as above and of Eusebius. Victorinus of Petavio [died A. D. 303] in a Latin commentary on the Apocalypse, says that "John saw this vision while in Patmos, condemned to the mines by Domitian Caesar." Many others of a later age might be cited to the same purport, witnessing however only to a current tradition which so far as appears may have Come from the language of Ireneus, under a misunderstanding of his meaning.
On the other hand the Syriac translation of the Apocalypse has tins superscription: "The Revelation which was made by God to John the Evangelist in the Island of Patmos to which he was banished by Nero the Emperor." Most of the Syriac New Testament (known as the "Peshito"), i. e., all the unquestioned books, are supposed to have been translated late in the first century or very early in the second; but the Syriac version of the Apocalypse is not so old. Yet Ephraim the Syrian of Nisibis [died A. D. 378] wrote commentaries on nearly the whole Bible; often appeals to the Apocalypse; but wrote only in Syriac and probably was unacquainted with Greek and therefore must have had this book in the Syriac tongue. This superscription seems to testify to a current tradition in Syria at least as far back as his day, assigning the date of the book to the age of Nero.
Of later witnesses, Andreas of Cappadocia [flourished about A. D. 500], in a commentary on this book, favors the Neronian date. Arethas also, His successor [about A. D. 540], yet more decisively. He assumes the book to have been written before the destruction of Jerusalem, for he explains chapters 6 and 7 as predictions of that event.
Plainly then the traditions of the early ages and the testimony of the fathers were not all in favor of the Domitian date. Some incidental circumstances strongly favor the earlier date; e. g., tbs account given in much detail by Eusebius [Ec. His. 3: 23], who quotes Clement to the effect that John after his return from this banishment in Patmos, mounted his horse and pushed away into the fastnesses of the mountains to reach a robber chief who had apostatized from the Christian faith. But Jerome represents John in the last years of his life (i. e., at the time of Domitian's persecution) as being so weak and infirm that he was carried by other hands with difficulty to his church-meetings to say in tremulous tones: "My little children, love one another." These traditions of the aged apostle, compared with each other and with the probabilities of the case, seem to forbid us to assign the date of the Apocalypse to the reign of Domitian. The conclusion to which I am brought after much investigation is that the historic testimony for the Domitian date is largely founded on a misconception of the passage from Ireneus, and as a whole is by no means so harmonious, so ancient, and so decisive, as to overrule and set aside the strong internal evidence for the earlier date.
I am compelled to accept the age of Nero as the true date of this writing.
hi 2:12 