Days of Vengeance - The Preterist Archive

INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
Author and Date
Although the author’s identity has been much debated,
there is really no reason to doubt that he was the same
St. John who wrote the Fourth Gospel, as the virtually
unanimous testimony of the early Church affirms. He
identifies himself simply as “John” (1:1, 4,9; 21:2; 22:8),
apparently assuming that he will be recognized by his
first-century audience on the basis of his name alone;
and he writes in an authoritative, “apostolic” style, not
to individuals merely, but to the Church. Taking into
account the Church’s highly organized government,
which existed from its inception, it is unlikely that any
but a recognized apostle could have written in this
manner. 1 In addition, there are numerous points of
resemblance between the Revelation and the Gospel of
John. Even a cursory glance reveals several expressions
(e.g. Lamb of God, Word, and witness) which are
common only to the Gospel of John and the
Revelation; no other New Testament writer uses these
terms in the same way. 2 Austin Farrer 3 draws attention
to a number of stylistic similarities between the Gospel
and Revelation: Both books are arranged in series of
“sevens”; 4 both are structured in terms of the
Biblical/heavenly liturgy and festive calendar; and both
books use numbers in a symbolic sense that transcends
their literal significance (this is obvious in Revelation;
cf. John 2:6, 19-20; 5:2, 5; 6:7, 9, 13; 8:57; 13:38; 19:14,
23; 21:11, 14, 15-17).
There are several Biblical indications that St. John was
a priest, and even came from the high priest’s family. 5
His name was probably common in that family (cf.
Acts 4:6; contrast Luke 1:61). St. John himself tells us
of his close relationship to the high priest: On account
of this he was able, on an extremely sensitive occasion,
to gain access into the high priest’s Court, using his
influence with the guard to achieve entry for St. Peter
as well (John 18:15-16). Moreover, numerous
references in both the Gospel and Revelation reveal
their author’s unusual familiarity with the details of
Temple services. As Alfred Edersheim observed, “the
other New Testament writers refer to them in their
narratives, or else explain their types, in such language
as any well-informed worshipper at Jerusalem might
have employed. But John writes not like an ordinary
Israelite. He has eyes and ears for details which others
would have left unnoticed . . .
“Indeed, the Apocalypse, as a whole, may be likened to
the Temple services in its mingling of prophetic
services with worship and praise. But it is specially
remarkable, that the Temple-references with which the
Book of Revelation abounds are generally to minutiae,
which a writer who had not been as familiar with such
details, as only personal contact and engagement with
them could have rendered him, would scarcely have
even noticed, certainly not employed as part of his
imagery. They come in naturally, spontaneously, and so
unexpectedly, that the reader is occasionally in danger
of overlooking them altogether; and in language such
as a professional man would employ, which would come
to him from the previous exercise of his calling. Indeed,
some of the most striking of these references could not
have been understood at all without the professional
treatises of the Rabbis on the Temple and its services.
Only the studied minuteness of Rabbinical
descriptions, derived from the tradition of eyewitnesses,
does not leave the same impression as the
unstudied illustrations of St. John.” 6
“It seems highly improbable that a book so full of
liturgical allusions as the Book of Revelation – and
these, many of them, not to great or important points,
but to minutiae – could have been written by any other
than a priest, and one who had at one time been in
actual service in the Temple itself, and thus become so
intimately conversant with its details, that they came
to him naturally, as part of the imagery he employed.” 7
In this connection Edersheim brings up a point that is
more important for our interpretation than the issue of
Revelation’s human authorship (for ultimately [see 1:1]
it is Jesus Christ’s Revelation). St. John’s intimate
acquaintance with the minute details of Temple
worship suggests that “the Book of Revelation and the
Fourth Gospel must have been written before the
Temple services had actually ceased.” 8 Although some
scholars have uncritically accepted the statement of St.
Irenaeus (A.D. 120-202) that the prophecy appeared
“toward the end of Domitian’s reign” (i. e., around A.D.
96), 9 there is considerable room for doubt about his
precise meaning (he may have meant that the Apostle
John himself “was seen” by others). 10 The language of
1. Contrast this with the tone of St. Clement’s letter to the Corinthians. As J.
B. Lightfoot says in his edition of The Apostolic Fathers (Vol. I, p. 352):
“Authority indeed is claimed for the utterances of the letter in no faltering
tone, but it is the authority of the brotherhood declaring the mind of Christ
by the Spirit, not the authority of one man, whether bishop or pope.” Cited
in John A. T. Robinson, Redating the New Testament (Philadelphia: The
Westminster Press, 1976), p. 328.
2. See William Hendriksen, More Than Conquerors: An Interpretation of the Book
of Revelation (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1939), pp. 17ff., for a list of
such similarities. For example, he cites John 7:37 and Rev. 22:17; John 10:18
and Rev. 2:27; John 20:12 and Rev. 3:4; John 1:1 and Rev. 19:13; John 1:29
and Rev. 5:6.
3. Austin Farrer, The Revelation of St. John the Divine (Oxford: At the Clarendon
Press, 1964), pp. 41ff.
4. One minor example of this in John is 1:9-2:11, which follows a seven-day
structure patterned after the creation week; see David Chilton, Paradise
Restored: A Biblical Theology of Dominion (Ft. Worth, TX: Dominion Press,
1985), pp. 62f.
5. This is, to some extent, substantiated in the tradition recorded in Eusebius
that as Bishop of Ephesus St. John “was a priest, and wore the sacerdotal
plate”- i.e., the petalon, insignia of the high priest worn on the forehead
(Ecclesiastical History, v.xxiv). It is likely, of course, that St. John and the
other “ministers of the New Covenant” wore a distinctive “uniform”
corresponding to their official status, and it is possible that their garments
and “badge of office” were similar to those worn by the Israelite priesthood.
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