JERUSALEM; ROME; REVELATION - The Preterist Archive

claim that Papias wrote that ‘John’ authored the book of Revelation and was certainly buried
at Ephesus. Oddly, Eusebius himself seriously questioned whether this ‘John’ - indeed the
stated author of the book of Revelation (Rev. 1:1,4,9 & 22:8) - was in fact the same person as
the Apostle John. See footnote 47 below.
64. The relevant references of the apocryphal Acts of John and of the A.D. 295
Victorinus, clearly derive from their understanding (or misunderstanding) of Irenaeus’s
remarks about John’s Revelation. Cf. sections 77 to 78 and 284 below. So too do the similar
references of the A.D. 300 Eusebius and the A.D. 380 Jerome. Cf. sections 77 & 78 and 285
to 290 below.
65. Now Eusebius’s own references to the authorship and date of John’s Revelation -
apart from the early date he himself claims for this in his Demonstratio Evangelica (Part 3) -
are of very little value. For Eusebius does not regard it as “ probable” that the ‘John’ who
indeed wrote the book of Revelation, is indeed the Apostle John. See footnote 47 below.
66. Furthermore, Eusebius not only gives an incorrect length of time for the (actually
A.D. 79 to 81) reign of Emperor Titus. 39 In addition, Eusebius also 40 further misinterprets the
testimony of Papias and even misquotes that of Irenaeus. 41
67. Eusebius’s total reliance on his own blind misunderstandings of Papias and
Irenaeus in this matter, eliminates the cogency of the testimony of Eusebius himself about the
date and especially about the author of John’s Revelation. Papias’s own no longer extant
testimony, is unestablishable today (except via unreliable quotations from Papias in Irenaeus
and especially in Eusebius). So this leaves the advocates of a ‘late date’ for Revelation with
no appeal to any other extant Early Church Father than only the A.D. 185 Irenaeus himself -
except perhaps also to the A.D. 165 Melito who seems to favour a Pre-70-A.D. date for the
inscripturation of the book of Revelation. Cf. sections 17 to 28 above.
68. The Irenaean claim that Papias was “the hearer of John” 37 says nothing about the
date when John inscripturated in the book of Revelation the substance of what he had
visionarily received from Christ. Only one Irenaean passage perhaps seems to do that. Yet
even that passage does not discuss the date of the inscripturation of the Apocalypse.
69. However, that one Irenaean passage has often been misinterpreted to favour a ‘late
date’ even for the inscripturation of the book of Revelation. For certain Pre-Reformation
Scholars (from Jerome to Cornelius a Lapide) - as well as certain Post-Reformation Scholars
(like Swete, Zahn, Feine-Behm, R.H. Charles, and Hengstenberg) - have all thus gone and
misinterpreted the Irenaean text in question.
70. It should not go unnoticed that the above Scholars usually acknowledge the
dependence of their ‘late date’ view on (ambiguous) statements in previous Scholars all
reaching back only as far as and ultimately merely to this one Irenaean passage alone. Many
of these ‘late date’ Scholars do not seem to be aware even of the very existence of the still
more ancient 42 Pre-Irenaean patristic testimony favouring the earlier suggested date (of
around A.D. 69) for the inscripturation of the Apocalypse.
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