Zwingle would not accept passages in proof from the Apocalypse, 'because it is not a Biblical book,' i.e., a canonical one. Oecolampadius and Bucer appear to have had the same opinion. Carlstadt shared their doubts. Oeder and Semler also denied the apostolicity ; but the latter changed his opinion, and admitted it. Michaelis assigned better reasons for the negative view. In the same path followed Heinrichs, Bretschneider, Bleek, De Wette, Ewald, Liicke, Schott, Hitzig, Credner, Reuss, Neander, and Diisterdieck. Respectable names are found on the other side ; but the arguments of Liicke, Ewald, Bleek, De Wette, and Diisterdieck are ably advanced. Ewald and Bleek, two of the latest writers on the subject, deserve respect for their learning, honesty, and integrity. No critical opinion of theirs ought to be summarily dismissed. In England the book has been uniformly as signed to the apostle ; but a conservative ten dency in general has been more influential in this respect than the result of thorough investigation ; as appears from the fact that the fourth gospel and first general epistle of John have been generally attributed to the apostle. English theologians do not yet see, with De Wette, that if the apostle wrote the Apocalypse, he did not write the fourth gospel ; or if he wrote the latter, that he could not have been the author of the former. We believe, however, that this proposition is beginning to be acknowledged as possible, or even probable. The more it is considered, it will appear the more reasonable.
Does internal evidence correspond to the ex ternal as regards authorship ? In four places John calls himself the author (i. t, 4, 9 ; xxii. 8), some times without a predicate, at other times in the phrase, servant of 7esus Christ; or, your brother and companion in tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of 7esus Christ, in relation to his readers ; while in xxii. 9 he is styled by the angel a fellow-servant and brother of the prophets. He presents himself in the character of a man who was well known to the Christian churches of proconsular Asia ; an influential personage, in whose divine mission they could have no reason to doubt. The predicates he attributes to himself show a con sciousness of his dignity, yet a modesty withal, arising from a sense of the unity of true Christians. Though he does not call himself an apostle, yet he is commanded to write what he had seen, and to send it to the seven churches (i. I). He is the prophet of the Messiah, not his apostle in this in stance. There was no apparent necessity for the writer to designate himself an apostle, because the epithets accompanying the name John were suf ficient to indicate his person. He was the im mediate witness of the Messiah, the announcer of the revelations of God, the prophet of the new covenant. Like Daniel, he speaks of himself, I 7ohn. He treats of the apostolic time,. when Jew ish ideas prevailed and the expectation of Messiah was fresh in the general mind. When he wrote,
several apostles were living, and probably near the sphere in which John himself acted. No other man could then lay claim to the position and privi lege which the writer of the book asserts. Con temporary apostles would have frowned upon the work ; John himself would have disowned it. A work bearing his name, and composed about thirty years before his death, would have certainly called forth a contradiction, because he saw that it would be taken for his ; and such contradiction would have reached us from the circle of his disciples through Irenteus. The later assertions of its non apostolic authorship arose from doctrinal interests. None of them, as far as we can judge, sprang from a historical tradition.
Two passages, however, have been adduced as unfavourable to the apostolic authorship—viz., xviii. 20 ; xxi. 14. In the former, the writer speaks of saints, and apostles, and prophets, rejoicing over the downfall of Babylon ; in the latter, of the names of the twelve apostles being inscribed upon the foundations of the walls of the New Jerusalem. Now it is argued that the apostle would not speak so if he himself were living. But in the context of xviii. 20, the seer had transferred himself from the future into the past and present, anticipating the judgment upon Babylon. Taken strictly, the language would imply that no believer whatever was upon earth at the time ; which proves too much. As to xxi. 14, the language is not very different from that of Paul in Eph. ii. zo, where he affirms that the Christian church is built upon the foundation of apostles and prophets, not ex cluding himself ; nor from that in t Cor. iii. to, where he speaks of himself as a wise master builder, laying the foundation of the church at Corinth. Why then should John not speak of himself as one of the foundations ? Is it inconsis tent with modesty to do so ? If so, did not the sons of Zebedee covet the two highest places in the kingdom of Christ, as we read in Matt. xx. zo ? We need not wonder at the number twelve being employed, rather than thirteen, including St. Paul. The types and symbols of the book exclude the idea of minute exactness. Twelve is a number often used by the writer ; the twelve tribes of Israel ; twelve thousand sealed ones, etc. ; and Matthew himself, in speaking of the thrones allotted to the apostles, regards them as twelve, without relation to St. Paul, whom he most have known. Nothing more is needed than a comparison of Paul's own language in the epistles to the Gala tians and Corinthians, to show that he never lost the feeling of conscious dignity implied in the apostolic office, though he retained his Christian humility. And surely the consciousness of a like dignity was not less among the Palestinian apo stles, as we may infer from 2 Cor. xi. 5 ; xii. etc. Thus nothing in either passage is fitted to shake our belief in the apostolicity of the work.