Unsupported by any historical evidence, some com- mentators have put forth the conjecture that the Reve- lation was written as early as the time of Nero. This is simply their inference from the style and contents of
tic 1 k. But it is difficult to see why John's old age
rendered it, as they allege, impossible for him to write his inspired message with force and vigor, or why his residence in Ephesus must have removed the Hebraistic peculiarities of his Greek. It is difficult to see in the passages i. 7; ii, 9; iii. 9; vi, 12, 16; xi, 1. anything which would lead necessarily to the conclusion that Je- rusalem was in a prospi roiis condition, and that the pre- dictions of iis fall bad not been fulfilled when those
verses were written, \ i « weighty argument in favor
of an early date might be urged from a modern inter- pretation ofxvii, lit, if that interpretation could be es- tablished. Galba i- alleged to be tin- sixth king, the one that -i-." In Nero these interpreters see the beasl that was wounded (xiii, 3), the beast that was and is not, the eighth kin- (xvii, 11). for some time after death the Roman populace believed that he was
not dead, but had lied into the La-t. whence he would return and regain hi- throne; and these interpreters
venture to suggest that thev riterol the Revelation shared
ami meant to express the absurd popular delusion. Even the able and learned ReilBS I Thiol. Chrit. i, 143), by way
of supporting this interpretation, advances his untenable
' claim to the first discovery of the name of Nero Caesar in the number of the beast, 6Ctj. The inconsistency of this interpretation with prophetic analogy, with thecon-
lext of Revelation, and with the fact that the I k is of
divine origin, is pointed out by Hengstenberg at the end of his Commentary on eh, xiii, andbj Elliott, Bora Aj>"c. iv. ol7.
It ha- been inferred from i. 2. '.». L0, that the Revela-
, tion was written in Ephesus, immediately after the apos- tle's return from Patmos. But the t> si i- scarcely suf- ficient to support this conclusion. The style in which the message- to the seven churches an- deln ered rather Suggests the notion that the book was written in Pat- mos. s.e John tin. Apostle.
HI. Language. — The thought first suggested by 11a- renberg, that the Revelation was written in Aramaic, ha- met with little or no reception. The silence of all ancient writers as to any Aramaic original is alone a suf- ficient answer to the suggestion. Lucke (Einleit.p. Ill) has collected internal evidence to show that the original i- l he l .reek of a Jew i-h Christian.
Lucke has also (p. 148 164) examined in minute de- tail, after the preceding labors of Donker-Curtius, Vogel, Winer. Ewald, rvoltholf. and Hitzig, the peculiarities of language which obviously distinguish the Revelation from every other book of the New Test. In subsequent sections (p. 680 7 17) he urges with great force the differ- ence between the I ,'evelal i. hi. on one side, and the fourth Gospel and first Epistle, on the other, in respect of their style and composition and the menial character and at- tainments of the writer of each. Hengstenberg, in a dissertation appended to his Commentary, maintains that they are by one writer. Thai the anomalies and pecu- liarities of the Revelation have been greatly exaggerated by some critics is sufficiently shown by Hitzig's plausi- ble and ingenious, though unsuccessful, attempt to prove the identity of style and diction in the Revelation and the ( rOSpe] of Mark. It may lie admitted that the Rev- elation lias many surprising grammatical peculiarities. But much pf this is accounted for by the fact that it was probably written down, as it was seen, "in the spirit." while the ideas, in all their novelty ami vastness, Idled the apostle's mind, and rendered him less capable of at- tending to forms of speech. His Gospel and Epistles, on the other hand, were composed equally under divine influence, but an influence of a gentler, more ordinary kind, with much care, after Ion-- deliberation, after fre- quent recollection and recital of the fads, and deep pon- dering of the doctrinal truths which they involve.
Gebhardl has recently given the coincidences in lan- guage between the Gospel and the Lev elation of John in a most, convincing manner (DoctHm of the Apocalypse, etc.; transl. from the German, Kdiub. 1S7.S ) : "There are underlying identities of style which demonstrate identity of authorship. The subjects, of course, are stu- pendously different, and so require even of the same writer a stupendous difference of style. In the Apoc- alypse the pictorial imagination is perpetually on the Utmost Stretch; events and objects are crowding upon each other with intense rapidity. The scenery and pic- torial material are generally borrowed from the Hebrew Scriptures, with immense improvements. .More than all. the mind of the writer, steeped in Hebraism, is in a preternatural state, lie who was in his youth a sou of thunder has all the thunder of his youth prelcrnaturally renewed within him. Lightly, the extraordinary con- ditions demand an extraordinary change of style, both in thought and language. Vet, underlying all this change, the natural Btyle and mind i i-takably dis- close themselves. He who cannot see this was never born a critic, and can never be reconstructed into one"