Commentari biblici

Revelation 1:1-3. The superscription. Ἀπ. Ἰωάννου is the ecclesiastical title (distinguishing it from the apocalypse of Peter, or of Paul, etc.) of what professes in reality to be an ἀπ. Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ (subjective genitive), i.e., a disclosure of the divine μυστήρια (Daniel 2:19; Daniel 2:22; Daniel 2:28, Theod.) in the immediate future (ἃ δεῖ γ. ἐν τάχει) which has been communicated (ἔδωκεν, cf. on Revelation 3:9) by God to Jesus (cf. Revelation 5:7) and which in turn is transmitted by Jesus (Galatians 1:12) to John as a member of the prophetic order.

Revelation 1:1. δούλοις, in specific sense of Revelation 10:7, Revelation 11:18, after Daniel 9:6; Daniel 9:10; Zechariah 1:6, and Amos 3:7 (ἀποκαλύψῃ παιδείαν πρὸς τοὺς δούλους αὐτοῦ τοὺς προφήτας). Jesus Christ is used only in Revelation 1:1-5 (Revelation 22:21?), Lord Jesus only in Revelation 22:20, Lord (i.e., Jesus) only in Revelation 11:8 and Revelation 14:13; elsewhere either ὁ Χριστός (Revelation 20:4; Revelation 20:6) αὐτοῦ (Revelation 11:15, Revelation 12:10) or (as in Hebrews) the simple Jesus. ἃ δεῖ κ.τ.λ. (from Daniel 3:28-29), either object of δεῖξαι (Vit. ii. 229) or more probably in opposition to ἥν. ἐν τάχει = “soon” (as in Clem. Rom. 23:5 and the instructive logion of Luke 18:8). This is the hinge and staple of the book. When the advent of Jesus is hailed as a relief, it is no consolation to say that the relief will come suddenly; sudden or not, it must come soon (Revelation 10:7), if it is to be of any service. The keynote of the Apocalypse is the cheering assurance that upon God’s part there is no reluctance or delay; His people have not long to wait now. καὶ ἐσήμανεν (so of what is future and momentous, Ezekiel 33:3, Acts 11:26, etc.: Heracleitus on the Delphic oracle, οὔτε λέγει οὔτε κρύπτει ἀλλὰ σημαίνει) ἀποστείλας (from seventh heaven, in Asc. Isa. vi. 13), a loose Heb. idiom for “he (i.e., Jesus here and in xxii. 16, God in xxii. 6) sent and signified it”. διὰ (as in Asc. Isa. xi. 30, etc.) τοῦ ἀγγέλου αὐτοῦ (cf. Test. Jos. vi. 6). Jesus is the medium of all revelation, but ἀποκάλυψις is further conceived of as transmitted through the angelus interpres, a familiar and important figure in rabbinic (cf. E. J. i. 592, 593) and apocalyptic tradition (see reff, and on Acts 7:30), who stands here between Jesus and the prophet as a sort of double of the former. Like Hermas (Mand. xi. 9), the post-exilic tradition required the executive function of this angel, in order to (a) satisfy the yearning for some means of divine communication, and (b) at the same time to maintain reverence for the divine glory (Baldensperger, 48 f.). But John’s Christian consciousness here and elsewhere is too large for the traditional and artificial forms of its expression. Unless this angel is identified with that of Revelation 10:1 f., he plays only a scanty and tardy role (Revelation 17:1 f., Revelation 21:5 f.) in the series of visions; the prophet’s sense of direct experience (e.g., in Revelation 1:9 f.) bursts through the cumbrous category of an intermediate agent between himself and Christ. It is by a conventional form of religious symbolism prevalent in this genre of literature, that Jesus, like Yahweh in Ezekiel (cf. Ezekiel 10:1; Ezekiel 10:3, Ezekiel 44:2), is represented both as addressing the prophet directly and as instructing him indirectly. The latter mode of expression (cf. Milton’s Uriel and 4 Ezra 4:1) was due to a hypostatising tendency which was not confined to Judaism. As Plutarch points out (cf. below on Revelation 8:5 and Revelation 15:8), the daemons in Hellenic religion are a middle term between the divine and the human; they prevent the former from being disturbed or contaminated by direct intercourse with men, and they also act as interpreters who communicate the divine will to men (cf. De Iside 25; Oakesmith’s Religion of Plutarch, pp. 121 f., 163 f.). Wherever the reaction against materialism prevailed, especially in the popular religion of the empire, the belief in daemons or spirits as intermediate agents gave expression to the conviction that human weakness could not come into direct touch with the divine glory (cf. Friedländer, iii. 430 f.; Hatch’s Hibbert Lectures, 245 f.).

Revelation 1:2. ἐμαρτ. (epistol. aor., cf. Philemon 1:19, cf. further Thuc. i. 1 ξυνέγραψε). λόγ. τ. θ., like דבר יהוה (LXX λόγος τοῦ θεοῦ, e.g., Jeremiah 1:2), a collective term for God’s disclosures to men (τοὺς λόγους, 3), or as here for some specific revelation more exactly defined in ὅσα εἶδεν, all that was seen or even heard (Amos 1:1) in visions being described by this generic term. The double expression the word of God and the testimony borne by Jesus Christ (Revelation 22:16; Revelation 22:20; cf. Revelation 19:10) is an amplified phrase for the gospel. The subject upon which Jesus assures men of truth is the revelation of God’s mind and heart, and the gospel is that utterance of God—that expression of His purpose—which Jesus unfolds and attests. The book itself is the record of John’s evidence; he testifies to Christ, and Christ testifies of the future as a divine plan. For the revelation of God, in the specific form of prophecy, requires a further medium between Jesus and the ordinary Christian; hence the role of the prophets. On the prophetic commission to write, cf. Asc. Isa. i. 4–5 and i. 2, παρέδωκεν αὐτῷ τοὺς λόγους τῆς προφητείας οὓς αὐτὸς εἶδεν, κ.τ.λ. The primitive sense of μαρτ. (= oral confession and proclamation of Jesus by his adherents) thus expands into a literary sense (as here) and into the more sombre meaning of martyrdom (Revelation 2:13, John 18:37-39; John 19:19; cf. Lightfoot on Clem. Rom. v.). It is significant that the λόγος τ. θ. of Judaism was not adequate to the Christian consciousness without the μαρτυρία Ἰησοῦ.

Revelation 1:3. The first of the seven beatitudes in the Apocalypse (Revelation 14:13, Revelation 16:15, Revelation 19:9, Revelation 20:6, Revelation 22:7; Revelation 22:14), endorsing the book as a whole. In the worship of the Christian communities one member read aloud, originally from the O.T. as in the synagogues, and afterwards from Christian literature as well (apostolic epistles, Colossians 4:16, and sub-apostolic epistles), while the rest of the audience listened (Eus. H. E. iv. 23). In its present form the Apocalypse was composed with this object in view. Cf. Justin’s description of the Christinn assemblies on Sunday, when, as the first business, τὰ ἀπομνημονεύματα τῶν ἀποστόλων ἢ τὰ συγγράμματα τῶν προφητῶν ἀναγινώσκεται (Apol. i. 67). The art of reading was not a general accomplishment in the circles from which the Christian societies were for the most part recruited, and this office of reader (ἀναγνώστης), as distinct from that of the president, soon became one of the regular minor positions in the worship of the church. Here the reader’s function resembles that of Baruch (cf. Jeremiah 22:5-6). τηροῦντες τὰ, κ.τ.λ., carefully heeding the warnings of the book, observing its injunctions, and expecting the fulfilment of its predictions, instead of losing heart and faith (Luke 18:8). Cf. Hipp. De Antich. 2 and En. civ. 12, “books will be given to the righteous and the wise to become a cause of joy and uprightness and much wisdom”. The content of the Apocalypse is not merely prediction; moral counsel and religious instruction are the primary burden of its pages. The bliss of the obedient and attentive, however, is bound up with the certainty that the crisis at which the predictions of the book are to be realised is imminent; they have not to wait long for the fulfilment of their hopes. This, with the assurance of God’s interest and intervention, represented the ethical content of early Christian prediction, which would have been otherwise a mere satisfaction of curiosity; see on Revelation 1:19.

[Note on Revelation 1:1-3. If this inscription (absent from no MS.) is due to the author, it must have been added (so Bruston, Jülicher, Hirscht, Holtzm., Bs.), like the προοίμιον of Thucydides, after he had finished the book as a whole. But possibly it was inserted by the later hand of an editor or redactor (Völter, Erbes, Briggs, Hilg., Forbes, Wellhausen, J. Weiss, Simcox = elders of Ephesus, John 21:24) rather than of a copyist (Spitta, Sabatier, Schön), who reproduced the Johannine style of the Apocalypse proper. At the same time, the change from the third to the first person (Revelation 1:9) is not unexampled (cf. Jeremiah 1:1-4 f.; Ezekiel 1:1-4; Enoch repeatedly), and forms no sure proof of an original text overlaid with editorial touches; nor is a certain sententious objectivity (cf. Herod, Revelation 1:1, Revelation 2:23, etc.) unnatural at the commencement of a book, when the writer has occasion to introduce himself. The real introduction begins at Revelation 1:4 (cf. Revelation 22:21).]

Revelation 1:4-8. The prologue.

Revelation 1:4. ταῖς ἑπτὰ ἐκκλ., seven being the sacred and complete number in apocalyptic symbolism (E. Bi. 3436). The ταῖς must refer proleptically to to Revelation 1:11; for other churches existed and flourished in proconsular Asia at this time, e.g., at Troas, Magnesia, Hierapolis and Colossae, with which the prophet must have been familiar. These seven are selected by him for some special reason which it is no longer possible to disinter (see above, Introd., § 2). ἀπὸ ὁ ὢν, κ.τ.λ., a quaint and deliberate violation of grammar (Win. § 10, IC.; Moult, Revelation 1:9) in order to preserve the immutability and absoluteness of the divine name from declension, though it falls under the rule that in N.T. and LXX parenthetic and accessory clauses tend to assume an independent construction. The divine title is a paraphrase probably suggested by rabbinic language (e.g., Targum Jonath. apud Deuteronomy 32:39, ego ille, qui est et qui fuit et qui erit); the idea would be quite familiar to Hellenic readers from similar expressions, e.g., in the song of doves at Dodona (Ζεὺς ἦν, Ζεὺς ἔστιν, Ζεὺς ἔσσεται) or in the titles of Asclepius and Athene. Simon Magus is said to have designated himself also as ὁ ἐστὼς, ὁ στὰς, ὁ στησόμενος, and the shrine of Minerva (= Isis) at Sais bore the inscription, I am all that hath been and is and shall be: my veil no mortal yet hath raised (Plut. de Iside, 9), the latter part eclipsed by the comforting Christian assurance here. ἦν, another deliberate anomaly (finite verb for participle) due to dogmatic reasons; no past participle of εἰμί existed, and γενόμενος was obviously misleading. ὁ ἐρχ., instead of ὁ ἐσόμενος, to correspond with the keynote of the book, struck loudly in Revelation 1:7. In and with his messiah, Jesus, God himself comes; ἐρχ. (the present) acquires, partly through the meaning of the verb, a future significance. For the emphasis and priority of ὤν in this description of God, see the famous passage in Aug. Confess, ix. 10. τ. ἑπτὰ πνευμάτων: a puzzling conception whose roots have been traced in various directions to (a) an erroneous but not unnatural interpretation of Isaiah 11:2-3, found in the Targ. Jonath. (as in En. lxi. 11, sevenfold spirit of virtues) and shared by Justin (Dial. 87, cf. Cohort, ad Grace, c. 32, ὥσπερ οἱ ἱεροὶ προφῆται τὸ ἓν καὶ τὸ αὐτὸ πνεῦμα εἰς ἑπτὰ πνεύματα μερίζεσθαί φασιν), or—more probably—to the later Jewish notion (b) of the seven holy angels (Tobit xii. 15; cf. Gfrörer, i. 360 f.) which reappears in early Christianity (cf. Clem. Al. Strom, vi. 685, ἑπτὰ μέν εἰσιν οἱ τοῦ μεγίστου δύναμιν ἔχοντες πρωτόγονοι ἀγγέλων ἄρχοντες). modified from (c) a still earlier Babylonian conception, behind (b), of the seven spirits of the sky—the sun, the moon, and the five planets. The latter is not unknown to Jewish literature before 100 A.D. (cf. Jub. ii. 2; Berachoth, 32, b), corresponding to the Persian Amshaspands (Yasht, xix. 19, 20, S. B. E. xxxi. 145) and reflected in “the seven first white ones” or angelic retinue of the Lord in Enoch xc. 21 f. (Cheyne, Orig. Ps. 281–2, 327 f., 334 f.; Stave, 216 f.; Lüken, 32 f.; R. J. 319). Whether the prophet and his readers were conscious of this derivation or not, the conception is stereotyped and designed to express in archaic terms the supreme majesty of God before whose throne (i.e., obedient and ready for any commission, cf. Revelation 5:6) these mighty beings live. They are not named or divided in the Apocalypse, but the objection to taking the expression in the sense of (a) denoting, as in Philo (where, e.g., ὁ κατὰ ἑβδομάδα ἅγιος or κινούμενος is a characteristic symbol of the divine Logos), the sevenfold and complete energy of the Spirit in semi-poetic fashion, is the obvious fact that this is out of line with the trinity of the apocalypse, which is allied to that of Luke 9:26; 1 Timothy 5:21; Just. Mart. Apol. i. 6. The Spirit in the Apocalypse, as in Jude, 2 Peter and the pastoral epistles, is wholly prophetic. It has not the content of the Spirit in Paul or in the Fourth Gospel. Since the writer intends to enlarge upon the person of Jesus, or because the seven spirits stood next to the deity in the traditional mise-en-scène, he makes them precede Christ in order.

Revelation 1:5. ἀπὸ, κ.τ.λ., another grammatical anomaly; as usual the writer puts the second of two nouns in apposition, in the nominative.—ὁ μ. ὁ π. Jesus not merely the reliable witness to God but the loyal martyr: an aspect of his career which naturally came to the front in “the killing times”. ὁ πρωτότοκος (a Jewish messianic title by itself, Balden-sperger, 88) τ. ν., his resurrection is the pledge that death cannot separate the faithful from his company. The thought of this and of the following trait (cf. Matthew 4:8 f.) is taken fröm Ps. 88:28, κἀγὼ πρωτότοκον θήσομαι αὐτόν, ὑψηλὸν παρὰ τοῖς βασιλεῦσιν τῆς γῆς. On the two allied functions of ruling and witnessing (Isaiah 55:4) cf. the different view of John 18:37. At the inspiring thought of Christ’s lordship the prophet breaks into adoration—ἀγαπῶντι κ.τ.λ. The eternal love (cf. Revelation 3:19) which Christ bears to his people is proved by his death, as a revelation of (a) what he has done for them by his sacrifice, and (b) what he has made of them (so Ephesians 5:25-26 = Revelation 19:7-8). The negative deliverance from sins (cf. Psalm 129:8) at the cost of his own life (ἐν instrumental) is a religious emancipation which issues in (6) a positive relationship of glorious religious privilege.—βασιλείαν, ἱερεῖς, a literal (cf. Charles on Jub. xvi. 18) and inaccurate rendering of ממלכת כחנים (Exodus 19:6) to emphasise the royal standing of the Christian community in connexion with their Christ as ἄρχων, κ.τ.λ., and also (Titus 2:3) their individual privilege of intimate access to God as the result of Christ’s sacrificial death. καὶ ἐποίησεν, the harsh anacolouthon breaks up the participial construction, ἡμᾶς, emphatic. “We Christians are now the chosen people. In us the Danielic prophecy of a reign of the saints is fulfilled and is to be fulfilled.” This is a characteristically anti-Jewish note. Persecution (cf. 1 Peter 2:5) deepened the sense of continuity in the early Christians, who felt driven back on the truth of election and divine protection; they were the true successors of all noble sufferers in Israel who had gone before (cf. the argument of Hebrews 11:32 to Hebrews 12:2). In the Apocalypse the Christian church is invariably the true Israel, including all who believe in Christ, irrespective of birth and nationality. God reigns over them, and they reign, or will reign, over the world. In fact, Christians now and here are what Israel hoped to become, viz., priest-princes of God, and this position has been won for them by a messiah whom the Jews had rejected, and whom all non-Christians will have to acknowledge as sovereign. According to rabbinic tradition, the messianic age would restore to Israel the priestly standing which it had lost by its worship of the golden calf; and by the first commandment (Mechilta on Exodus 20:2), “slaves became kings”. There may also be an implicit anti-Roman allusion. We Christians, harried and despised, are a community with a great history and a greater hope. Our connection with Christ makes us truly imperial. The adoration of Christ, which vibrates in this doxology (cf. Expos. ver. 302–307), is one of the most impressive features of the book. The prophet feels that the one hope for the loyalists of God in this period of trial is to be conscious that they owe everything to the redeeming love of Jesus. Faithfulness depends on faith, and faith is rallied by the grasp not of itself but of its object. Mysterious explanations of history follow, but it is passionate devotion to Jesus, and not any skill in exploring prophecy, which proves the source of moral heroism in the churches. Jesus sacrificed himself for us; αὐτῷ ἡ δόξα. From this inward trust and wonder, which leap up at the sight of Jesus and his grace, the loyalty of Christians flows.

This enthusiasm for Jesus naturally carries the prophet’s mind forward (Revelation 1:7-8) to the time when the Lord’s majesty will flash out on mankind. He resumes the line of thought interrupted by the doxology of 5b–6.

Revelation 1:7. A reminiscence and adaptation of Daniel 7:13 (Theod.) and Zechariah 12:10-14. The substitution of ἐξεκέντησαν (so John 19:37, Justin’s Apol. i. 52, Dial, xxxii., cf. 61., 118., adding εἰς) for κατωρχήσαντο (70 mistranslation in this passage, though not elsewhere, of דקרו)—shows that the original text was used (though Lücke and Ewald hold that ἐξ. was the LXX reading till Origen), and that it was interpreted in some (Johannine? Abbott, Diatessarica, 1259–1262, 2317) circles as a prophecy of the crucifixion. Only, the reference is no longer to repentance (Zech.), but, by a turn of characteristic severity, to remorse and judgment. There is a remarkable parallel in Matthew 24:30, where patristic tradition (cf. A. C. 233–36) early recognised in τὸ σημεῖον τ. ὑ. ἀ. the cross itself, made visible on the day of judgment. The first of the three signs preceding Christ’s advent in the clouds, acc. to Did. xvi. 6 (cf. Zechariah 2:13 LXX), is σημεῖον ἐκπετάσεως ἐν οὐρανῷ (Christ with outstretched arms, as crucified?); and, acce. to Barn, vii. 9, “they shall see him on that day wearing about his flesh τὸν ποδήρη κόκκινον”. Note (a) that the agreement with John 19:37 is mainly verbal; the latter alludes to the crucifixion, this passage to an eschatological crisis, (b) No such visible or victorious return of Christ is fulfilled in the Apocalypse, for visions like Revelation 14:14 f., Revelation 19:12 f., do not adequately correspond to Revelation 1:7, Revelation 22:12, etc. (c) No punishment of the Jews occurs at Christ’s return, for the vengeance of Revelation 19:13 f. falls on pagans, while Revelation 11:13 lies on another plane. καὶ, κ.τ.λ.: the monotonous collocation of clauses (Vit. i. 9–16) throughout the Apocalypse with καί, is not necessarily a Hebraism; the syntax of Aristotle (e.g., cf. Thumb, 129), betrays a similar usage. καὶ οἵτ. κ.τ.λ., selected as a special class (καὶ τότε μετανοήσουσιν, ὅτε οὐδὲν ὠφελήσουσι, Justin). The responsibility of the Jews, as opposed to the Romans, for the judicial murder of Jesus is prominent in the Christian literature of the period (Luke–Acts, cf. von Dobschütz in Texte u. Unters. xi. 1, pp. 61, 62), though the Apoc. is superior to passages like 2 Clem. xvii. πᾶσαι κ.τ.λ.= the unbelieving pagans, who are still impenitent when surprised by the Lord’s descent (ἐπὶ = “because of,” cf. Revelation 18:9 in diff. sense); a realistic statement of what is spiritually put in John 16:8-9.—This forms an original element in the early Christian apologetic. To the Jewish taunt, “Jesus is not messiah but a false claimant: he died,” the reply was, “He will return in visible messianic authority” (Mark 14:62 = Matthew 26:64, significant change in Luke 22:69). In several circles this future was conceived not as a return of Jesus, nor in connexion with his historical appearance, but as the first real manifestation of the true messianic character which he had gained at the resurrection (cf. Titius, 31, 32). See on Revelation 12:4 f. ναὶ, ἀμήν: a double (Gk. Heb.) ratification of the previous oracle.

Revelation 1:8. Only here and in Revelation 21:5 f. is God introduced as the speaker, in the Apocalypse. The advent of the Christ, which marks the end of the age, is brought about by God, who overrules (παντοκράτωρ always of God in Apocalypse, otherwise the first part of the title might have suggested Christ) even the anomalies and contradictions of history for this providential climax. By the opening of the second century πατὴρ παντοκράτωρ had become the first title of God in the Roman creed; the Apocalypse, indifferent to the former epithet, reproduces the latter owing to its Hebraic sympathies, ἐγώ εἰμι: Coleridge used to declare that one chief defect in Spinoza was that the Jewish philosopher started with It is instead of with I am. τὸ ἄλφα καὶ τὸ ὦ: not the finality (Oesterley, Encycl. Relig. and Ethics, i. 1, 2), but the all-inclusive power of God, which comes fully into play in the new order of things inaugurated by the second advent. The symbolism which is here put in a Greek form had been developed in rabbinic speculation upon תא. With this and the following passage, cf. the papyrus of Ani (E. B. D. 12): “He leadeth in his train that which is and that which is not yet.… Homage to thee, King of kings, and Lord of lords, who from the womb of Nut hast ruled the world and Akert [the Egyptian Hades]. Thy body is of bright and shining metal, thy head is of azure blue, and the brilliance of the turquoise encircleth thee.” For the connexion of a presentiment of the end (Revelation 1:7-8) with an impulse to warn contemporaries (9 f.) see 4 Esd. 14:10 f., where the warning of the world’s near close is followed by an injunction to the prophet to “set thine house in order, reprove thy people, console the humble among them”; whereupon the commission to write under inspiration is given.

Revelation 1:9 to Revelation 3:22, an address to Asiatic Christendom (as represented by seven churches) which in high prophetic and oracular style rallies Christians to their genuine oracle of revelation in Jesus and his prophetic spirit. At a time when local oracles (for the famous one of Apollo near Miletus, see Friedlander, iii, 561 f.), besides those in Greece and Syria and Egypt, were eagerly frequented, it was of moment to lay stress on what had superseded all such media for the faithful. Cf. Minuc. Felix, Oct. 7, “pleni et mixti deo uates futura praecerpunt, dant cautelam periculis, morbis medelam, spem afflictis, operam miseris, solacium calamitatibus, laboribus leuamentum”.

Revelation 1:9-20, introductory vision.

Revelation 1:9. The personality of the seer is made prominent in apocalyptic literature, to locate or guarantee any visions which are to follow. Here the authority with which this prophet is to speak is conditioned by his kinship of Christian experience with the churches and his special revelation from God. ἀδελφός (cf. Revelation 6:11, Revelation 12:10): for its pagan use as = fellow-member of the same (religious) society, cf. C. B. P. i. 96 f., and Dittenberger’s Sylloge Inscr. Graec. 474, 10 (ἀδελφοὶ οἶς κοινὰ τὰ πατρῷα). θλίψει, put first as the absorbing fact of their experience, and as a link of sympathy between writer and readers; καὶ βασιλείᾳ, the outcome of θλίψις in the messianic order: distress no end in itself; καὶ ὑπομονῇ, patient endurance the moral condition of participation in ἡ θλίψις and ἡ βασιλεία, by which one is nerved to endure the presence of the former without breaking down, and to bear the temporary delay of the latter without impatience. While μακροθυμία is the absence of resentment at wrong, ὑπομονή = not giving way under trials. See Barn, ii., “the aids of our faith are fear and patience, long-suffering and self-control are our allies”; also Tertullian’s famous aphorism, “ubi Deus, ibi et alumna eius, patientia scilicet”.—ἐν Ἰησοῦ (a Pauline conception, only repeated in Apocalypse at Revelation 14:12), either with all three substantives or merely (cf. 2 Thessalonians 3:5) with ὑπομονή. In any case ὑπ. is closely linked to ἐν Ἰ.; such patience, as exemplified in Jesus, and inspired by him, was the cardinal virtue of the Apocalypse and its age. In the early Christian literature of this period “we cannot name anything upon which blessedness is so frequently made to rest, as upon the exercise of patient endurance” (Titius, 142). ἐγενόμην ἐν (“I found myself in”: implying that when he wrote he was no longer there), not by flowing waters (as frequently, e.g., En. xiii. 7), but in the small, treeless, scantily populated island of Patmos, one of the Sporades, whither criminals were banished sometimes by the Roman authorities (Plin. Hist. Nat. iv. 12, 23). Relegatio to an island was not an infrequent form of punishment for better-class offenders or suspects under the black régime of Domitian, as under Diocletian for Christians (cf. Introd. § 6). No details are given, but probably it meant hard labour in the quarries, and was inflicted by the pro-consul of Asia Minor. Why John was only banished, we do not know. As “the word of God and the witness of Jesus” are not qualified by any phrase such as ὅσα εἶδεν (Revelation 1:2, and thereby identified with the present Apocalypse), the words indicate as elsewhere (cf. διὰ, κ.τ.λ., reff.) the occasion of his presence in Patmos, i.e., his loyalty to the gospel (cf. θλίψις), rather than the object of his visit. The latter could hardly be evangelising (Spitta), for Patmos was insignificant and desolate, nor, in face of the use of διὰ, can the phrase mean “for the purpose of receiving this revelation” (Bleek, Lücke, Düsterdieck, Hausrath, B. Weiss, Baljon, etc.). Either he had voluntarily withdrawn from the mainland to escape the stress of persecution (which scarcely harmonises with the context or the general temper of the book) or for solitary communion (cf. Ezekiel 1:1-3), or, as is more likely, his removal was a punishment (cf. Abbott, 114–16). The latter view is corroborated by tradition (cf. Zahn, § 64, note 7), which, although later and neither uniform nor wholly credible, is strong enough to be taken as independent evidence. It can hardly be explained away as a mere elaboration of the present passage (so, e.g., Reuss, Bleek, Bousset); the allusion to μαρτύριον is too slight to have been suggested by the darker sense of martyrdom, and it is far-fetched to argue that the tradition was due to a desire to glorify John with a martyrdom. Unless, therefore, the reference is a piece of literary fiction (in which case it would probably have been elaborated) it must be supposed to be vague simply because the matter was perfectly familiar to the circle for whom the book was written. It is to those exercised in prudence, temperance, and virtue that (according to Philo, de incorrupt, mundi, § 1, cf. Plutarch’s discussion in defect. orac. 38 f.) God vouchsafes visions, but John introduces his personal experience in order to establish relations between himself and his readers rather than to indicate the conditions of his theophany.