Patmos
A small island in the eastern Aegean, off the coast of Asia Minor south-west of Ephesus. The writer of the Revelation says that he received his visions there.
Patmos is one of the smaller islands of the eastern Aegean, some sixty kilometres off the coast of Asia Minor, south-west of Miletus. The writer of the Revelation says that he was on the island “because of God’s Word and the testimony of Jesus Christ” when he was told to write to the seven churches of Asia (Revelation 1:9–11). The book does not say more about why he was there. Tertullian, about AD 200, speaks of John’s exile on an island (Tertullian, Prescription against Heretics 36), and Eusebius, in the early fourth century, gives it as something said that he had been condemned to live on Patmos under Domitian (Eusebius, Church History 3.18.1). See John of Patmos.
What happened here
- about AD 95, estimated dateJohn’s Revelation on Patmos
A Christian prophet named John, on the island of Patmos, writes down visions addressed to seven churches of Asia. They show Christ in glory, the fall of the city the book calls Babylon and a new Jerusalem, and become the last book of the New Testament.