cults. Thus, since the general intensity of John’s language about martyrdom cannot be explained altogether as either a reminiscence of the Neronic outburst or as a prophetic anticipation of what was to be expected at the hands of the world-power during the latter days— for some concrete occasion is necessary to account for the prophet’s standpoint—the most probable solution is that Christians were being persecuted here and there in Asia Minor for what Domitian (as Neumann and others rightly point out) regarded as a cardinal offence, vzz., the refusal to acknowledge him as the divine head of the empire. The religious development of the churches is often held to: presuppose a considerable length of time, but this argument must be used with caution. Worldliness and error and uncharitable feelings did not require decades to spring up in the primitive churches of Asia Minor and elsewhere. No great stress can be laid on this feature. Still, the character of the heresies described in ii.-iii. cer- tainly presupposes an acquaintance with incipient gnosticism which requires a later period than 70 a.p. for its development.
The one passage (apart from vi. 6, where see note) which appears. to be a water-mark of the date is unfortunately ambiguous (see notes on xvii.), as it contains an earlier Vespasianic source. But in xvii. 10-11 so much at least seems clear. The numbers are literal. not symbolical. The reckoning probably begins with Augustus as the first emperor; the three usurpers (Galba, Otho and Vitellius) are passed over (cf. Suet. Vesp. 1: rebellione trium principum et caede incertum diu et quasi uagum imperium suscepit firmauitque tandem gens Flavia), as was only natural to a provincial, who would be specially apt to regard their struggle as a brief nightmare. The sixth and reigning emperor (6 eis ἔστιν) is Vespasian (69-79 Α.Ρ.), with whom the Flavian dynasty took up the imperial succession, after Nero’s death, which ended the Julian dynasty, had well-nigh broken up the empire (cf. xiii. 3 f.). Vespasian’s successor (Titus, 79-81 A.D.) is to have a very brief reign.! As a matter of fact it only lasted for a couple of years. After him, the deluge! Nero-redi- vivus (τὸ θηρίον), incorporating the full Satanic power of the empire, who had already reigned on earth (6 ἦν) but who meanwhile was
1 This might be (a) a waticinium ex euentu, or (b) an eschatological inference (a writer, composing under the sixth emperor of a series which was only to number seven, would naturally argue that, as the end was near, the seventh emperor could not have long to reign), or (c) a reflection of the widespread feeling (cf. Schiller’s. Gesch. d. Rim. Kaiserzeit, i. 520) that the poor health of Titus would not permit him. to reign for very long.