§ 9. The Reception of the Apocalypse.—No immediate traces of the Apocalypse (cf. Zahn’s Geschichte des N. T. Kanons, i., pp. 201 f., and Leipoldt’s Gesch. d. N. T. Kanons, i., pp. 32 f., 58 f., etc.), are to be found in early Christian literature; the two or three apparent allusions in Clemens Romanus, Barnabas, and Hermas, imply nothing but common oral tradition or the independent use of the O.T., if not of apocryphal sources. Ignatius, however, seems to have known it (see on iii. 12, xxi. 3); certainly Papias and Justin did. Melito of Sardis (ο. 170 a.p.) wrote a commentary upon it, while Apol- lonius and Theophilus of Antioch were acquainted with it; so were the Valentinians, and of course the chiliasts. Irenzeus and the Ep. Lugd. attest its circulation in southern Gaul (ο. 177 a.p.). Clement also read it in Alexandria as a sacred scripture. The evidence of the martyrdoms and of Tertullian proves that in Africa, as well as in southern Gaul and Egypt, it was widely circulated before the close of the second century, and the Muratorian canon witnesses to its author- ityin Rome. But it did not escape sharp criticism (τί pe ὠφελεῖ ἡ ἀποκάλυψις Ἰωάννου, λέγουσά pow περὶ ἑπτὰ ἀγγέλων καὶ ἑπτὰ σαλπίγγων ;) and even repudiation not only from Marcion, with his antipathy to the O.T., but from the anti-Montanists, alike in Asia Minor and in Rome,! who disliked the sensuous elements in its prophecies and repudiated ecstasy as a form of true prophecy. The predilection for Hellenistic eschatology also helped to throw it into disfavour, as compared with, eg., The Apocalypse of Peter, which even the Muratorian canon ranks alongside of it. Another feature which probably told against its popularity was its unpatriotic attitude to the empire. When prayers were offered in the churches for the emperor, and when the empire had come to be viewed, as Paul had taught, in the
Quatr. Evangile, p. 134), Swete, M‘Giffert, Peake (Introd. N.T., 1909, 152 f.), and some others incline to this hypothesis with hesitation, as does Jacoby (Neutestam. Ethik, 1899, 444-455). It was admitted by Vogel (Commentattones, etc., 1811-1816), who was almost the first to suggest the composite origin of the Apocalypse.
1 The controversy between Hippolytus and Gaius the Roman presbyter, in the beginning of the third century, shows thit the latter, like the Alogi, possibly ascribed the Apocalypse to Cerinthus (cf. Schwartz’s essay, Ueber den Tod d. Sihne Zebedaei, 1904, pp. 33-45). Hippolytus feels that Caius has gone too far in his wholesale Tepudiation of the Apocalypse along with its Montanist exploiters. One of the objections urged by the Alogi was that there was no church at Thyatira, and con- sequently that John was no true prophet, which probably means that the local church had become Montanist (cf. Corssen in Texte u. Unters., xv. 1, 52-56), and therefore had ceased to exist as a church, from the standpoint of catholic Chris- tianity. For the most part, as Dionysius says, they went through every chapter of the book, with a keen scent for its Oriental phantasy (ἄγνωστόν τε καὶ ἀσνλλόγιστον ἀποφαίνοντες).