1. Afterward he speaks in this manner of the Apocalypse of John.

“Some before us have set aside and rejected the book altogether, criticising it chapter by chapter, and pronouncing it without sense or argument, and maintaining that the title is fraudulent.

2. For they say that it is not the work of John, nor is it a revelation, because it is covered thickly and densely by a vail of obscurity. And they affirm that none of the apostles, and none of the saints, nor any one in the Church is its author, but that Cerinthus, who founded the sect which was called after him the Cerinthian, desiring reputable authority for his fiction, prefixed the name.

3. For the doctrine which he taught was this: that the kingdom of Christ will be an earthly one. And as he was himself devoted to the pleasures of the body and altogether sensual in his nature, he dreamed that that kingdom would consist in those things which he desired, namely, in the delights of the belly and of sexual passion; that is to say, in eating and drinking and marrying, and in festivals and sacrifices and the slaying of victims, under the guise of which he thought he could indulge his appetites with a better grace.²³⁴¹

2341 A portion of this extract (§§2 and 3) has been already quoted by Eusebius in Bk. III. chap. 28.

4. “But I could not venture to reject the book, as many brethren hold it in high esteem. But I suppose that it is beyond my comprehension, and that there is a certain concealed and more wonderful meaning in every part. For if I do not understand I suspect that a deeper sense lies beneath the words.

5. I do not measure and judge them by my own reason, but leaving the more to faith I regard them as too high for me to grasp. And I do not reject what I cannot comprehend, but rather wonder because I do not understand it.”

6. After this he examines the entire Book of Revelation, and having proved that it is impossible to understand it according to the literal sense, proceeds as follows:

“Having finished all the prophecy, so to speak, the prophet pronounces those blessed who shall observe it, and also himself. For he says, ‘Blessed is he that keepeth the words of the prophecy of this book, and I, John, who saw and heard these things.’²³⁴²

2342 Rev. xxii. 7, 8. Dionysius punctuates this passage peculiarly, and thus interprets it quite differently from all our versions of the Book of Revelation. The Greek text as given by him agrees with our received text of the Apocalypse; but the words κἀγὼ ᾽Ιω€ννης ὁ ἀκούων καὶ βλέπων ταῦτα, which Dionysius connects with the preceding, should form an independent sentence: “And I, John, am he that heard and saw these things.”

7. Therefore that he was called John, and that this book is the work of one John, I do not deny. And I agree also that it is the work of a holy and inspired man. But I cannot readily admit that he was the apostle, the son of Zebedee, the brother of James, by whom the Gospel of John and the Catholic Epistle²³⁴³

2343 On the Gospel and Epistle, see Bk. III. chap. 24, notes 1 and 18.

8. For I judge from the character of both, and the forms of expression, and the entire execution of the book,²³⁴⁴

2344 τῆς τοῦ βιβλίου διεξαγωγῆς λεγομένης. Valesius considers διεξαγωγή equivalent to dispositionem or οἰκονομίαν, “for διεξαγωγεῖν is the same as διοικεῖν, as Suidas says.” He translates ex libelli totius ductu ac dispositione, remarking that the words may be interpreted also as formam et rationem scribendi, seu characterem. The phrase evidently means the “general disposition” or “form” of the work. Closs translates “aus ihrer ganzen Ausführung”; Salmond, “the whole disposition and execution of the book”; Crusè, “the execution of the whole book.”

9. Farther on he adds:

“But John never speaks as if referring to himself, or as if referring to another person.²³⁴⁵

2345 i.e. never speaks of himself in the first person, as “I, John”; nor in the third person, as e.g. “his servant, John.”

2346 Rev. i. 1, 2.

10. Then he writes also an epistle: ‘John to the seven churches which are in Asia, grace be with you, and peace.’²³⁴⁷

2347 Rev. i. 4.

2348 1 John i. 1.

2349 Matt. xvi. 17.

11. But neither in the reputed second or third epistle of John, though they are very short, does the name John appear; but there is written the anonymous phrase, ‘the elder.’²³⁵⁰

2350 See 2 John, ver. 1, and 3 John; ver. 1.

2351 Rev. i. 9.

2352 Rev. xxii. 7, 8. See above, note 3.

12. “But that he who wrote these things was called John must be believed, as he says it; but who he was does not appear. For he did not say, as often in the Gospel, that he was the beloved disciple of the Lord,²³⁵³

2353 See Bible:John.21.20">John xiii. 23, xix. 26, xx. 2, xxi. 7, 20.

2354 See John xiii. 23; 25. These words, οὐδὲ τὸν ἀναπεσόντα ἐπὶ τὸ στῆθος αὐτοῦ, are wanting in Heinichen’s edition; but as they are found in all the other editions and versions and Heinichen gives no reason for their omission, it is clear that they have been omitted inadvertently.

13. For he would have spoken of these things if he had wished to show himself plainly. But he says none of them; but speaks of himself as our brother and companion, and a witness of Jesus, and blessed because he had seen and heard the revelations.

14. But I am of the opinion that there were many with the same name as the apostle John, who, on account of their love for him, and because they admired and emulated him, and desired to be loved by the Lord as he was, took to themselves the same surname, as many of the children of the faithful are called Paul or Peter.

15. For example, there is also another John, surnamed Mark, mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles,²³⁵⁵

2355 In Bible:Acts.15.37">Acts xii. 12, 25; xiii. 5, 13; xv. 37. On Mark and the second Gospel, see above, Bk. II. chap. 15, note 4.

2356 Acts xiii. 5.

2357 Acts xiii. 13.

16. But I think that he was some other one of those in Asia; as they say that there are two monuments in Ephesus, each bearing the name of John.²³⁵⁸

2358 See above, Bk. III. chap. 39, note 13; and on the “presbyter John,” mentioned by Papias, see also note 4 on the same chapter, and on his relation to the Apocalypse, the same chapter, note 14.

17. “And from the ideas, and from the words and their arrangement, it may be reasonably conjectured that this one is different from that one.²³⁵⁹

2359 i.e. the writer of the Apocalypse is different from the writer of the Gospel and Epistles.

18. For the Gospel and Epistle agree with each other and begin in the same manner. The one says, ‘In the beginning was the Word’;²³⁶⁰

2360 John i. 1.

2361 1 John i. 1.

2362 John i. 14.

2363 1 John i. 1, 2.

19. For he introduces these things at the beginning, maintaining them, as is evident from what follows, in opposition to those who said that the Lord had not come in the flesh. Wherefore also he carefully adds, ‘And we have seen and bear witness, and declare unto you the eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested unto us. That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you also.’²³⁶⁴

2364 1 John i. 2, 3.

20. He holds to this and does not digress from his subject, but discusses everything under the same heads and names some of which we will briefly mention.

21. Any one who examines carefully will find the phrases, ‘the life,’ ‘the light,’ ‘turning from darkness,’ frequently occurring in both; also continually, ‘truth,’ ‘grace,’ ‘joy,’ ‘the flesh and blood of the Lord,’ ‘the judgment,’ ‘the forgiveness of sins,’ ‘the love of God toward us,’ the ‘commandment that we love one another,’ that we should ‘keep all the commandments’; the ‘conviction of the world, of the Devil, of Anti-Christ,’ the ‘promise of the Holy Spirit,’ the ‘adoption of God,’ the ‘faith continually required of us,’ ‘the Father and the Son,’ occur everywhere. In fact, it is plainly to be seen that one and the same character marks the Gospel and the Epistle throughout.

22. But the Apocalypse is different from these writings and foreign to them; not touching, nor in the least bordering upon them; almost, so to speak, without even a syllable in common with them.

23. Nay more, the Epistle—for I pass by the Gospel—does not mention nor does it contain any intimation of the Apocalypse, nor does the Apocalypse of the Epistle. But Paul, in his epistles, gives some indication of his revelations,²³⁶⁵

2365 See 2 Cor. xii. 1 sq., Gal. ii. 2.

24. “Moreover, it can also be shown that the diction of the Gospel and Epistle differs from that of the Apocalypse.

25. For they were written not only without error as regards the Greek language, but also with elegance in their expression, in their reasonings, and in their entire structure. They are far indeed from betraying any barbarism or solecism, or any vulgarism whatever. For the writer had, as it seems, both the requisites of discourse,—that is, the gift of knowledge and the gift of expression,—as the Lord had bestowed them both upon him.

26. I do not deny that the other writer saw a revelation and received knowledge and prophecy. I perceive, however, that his dialect and language are not accurate Greek, but that he uses barbarous idioms, and, in some places, solecisms.

27. It is unnecessary to point these out here, for I would not have any one think that I have said these things in a spirit of ridicule, for I have said what I have only with the purpose of showing clearly the difference between the writings.”

E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH