John’s Revelation on Patmos

The book opens as a revelation of Jesus Christ sent “to his servant, John” (Revelation 1:1). John calls himself the brother of his readers and their partner in suffering. He was, he says, on the island called Patmos “because of God’s Word and the testimony of Jesus Christ”, and was “in the Spirit on the Lord’s day” when a voice told him to write what he saw and send it to seven churches of Asia, beginning with Ephesus. He turned and saw one “like a son of man” standing among seven lampstands (Revelation 1:4, 9–13).

Seven short messages follow, each praising or rebuking one church. Ephesus has left its first love; Smyrna is about to suffer; at Pergamum a witness named Antipas has been killed; Laodicea is lukewarm (Revelation 2:4, 10, 13) (Revelation 3:16).

The visions that fill the rest of the book show the souls of those killed for their testimony, a beast that makes war on the saints and demands worship, and a woman called “Babylon the great”, drunk with the blood of the martyrs and seated on seven mountains, “the great city, which reigns over the kings of the earth” (Revelation 6:9–11) (Revelation 13:7–8) (Revelation 17:5–9, 18). When Irenaeus discussed the beast’s number, one of the names he weighed was Lateinos, because “the Latins are they who at present bear rule”; he would not decide between it and others (Irenaeus, Against Heresies 5.30.3). The book ends with a new heaven and a new earth, the new Jerusalem coming down from God, and the prayer “Yes, come, Lord Jesus” (Revelation 21:1–4) (Revelation 22:20).

The writer names himself only as John and counts himself among the prophets (Revelation 22:8–9). Justin, in the middle of the second century, calls him “one of the apostles of Christ” (Justin, Dialogue with Trypho 81), and Irenaeus calls him John, the Lord’s disciple (Irenaeus, Against Heresies 4.20.11). In the third century Dionysius of Alexandria argued from its language and style that the book was not by the author of John’s Gospel, though he held it to be the work of a holy man of that name (Eusebius, Church History 7.25). Eusebius suggested a second John, an elder mentioned by Papias (Eusebius, Church History 3.39.5–6). The identification with the apostle is therefore ancient, and so is the doubt.

Eusebius reports as tradition that John was banished to Patmos under Domitian and returned to Ephesus when Domitian died (Eusebius, Church History 3.18) (Eusebius, Church History 3.20). He also records that in his own day some received the book as Scripture and others rejected it (Eusebius, Church History 3.25.2–4).