Closely related to this authority claimed and exercised by the writer of the Apocalypse over the Church--so

closely related that it is merely another aspect of that authority--is the claim which he makes to speak in the

name of Christ. He writes in a book what he has seen and heard. The words of the letter are given him to set

down. It is the Divine Head of the Church Himself, from whom all the letters and the book as a whole

originate. The writer is distinguished from the Author; though the distinction is not to be regarded as

carried through the book with unbroken regularity, and must not be pressed too closely. The one idea melts

into the other with that elusive indefiniteness which characterises the book as a whole.

On his credentials as a legate or messenger is founded the authority which the writer exercise over the

Church. Over the Church God alone has authority; and no man may demand its obedience except in so far as

he has been directly commissioned by God to speak. Only the messenger of God has any right to obedience:

other men can only offer advice.

Let us try to understand this attitude and this claim by first of all understanding more clearly the sit uation in

which the writer was placed, and the circumstances in which the work originated. Only in that way can the

problem be fairly approached. It may prove insoluble. In a sense it must prove insoluble. At the best we

cannot hope to do more than state the conditions and the difficulties clearly in a form suited to the mind and

thoughts of our own time. But a clear understanding of the difficulties involved is a step towards the

solution. The solution however must be reached by every one for himself: it is a matter for the individual

mind, and depends on the degree to which the individual can even in a dim vague way comprehend the mind

of St. John. It involves the personal element, personal experience and personal opinion; and he who tries to

express the solution is exposed to subjectivity and error. The solution is to be lived rather than spoken.

St. John had been banished to Patmos, an unimportant islet, whose condition in ancient times is little known.

In the Imperial period banishment to one of the sma ll rocky islands of the Aegean was a common and

recognised penalty, corresponding in some respects (though only in a very rough way and with many

serious differences) to the former English punishment of transportation. It carried with it entire loss of civil

rights and almost entire loss of property; usually a small allowance was reserved to sustain the exile's life.

The penalty was life -long; it ended only with death. The exile was allowed to live in free intercourse with the

people of the island, and to earn money. But he could not inherit money nor bequeath his own, if he saved

or earned any: all that he had passed to the State at his death. He was cut off from the outer world, though

he was not treated with personal cruelty or constraint within the limits of the islet, where he was confined.

But there are serious difficulties forbidding the supposition that St. John was banished to Patmos in this

way.

In the first place this punishment was reserved for persons of good standing and some wealth. Now it seems

utterly impossible to admit that St. John could have belonged to that class. In Ephesus he was an obscure

stranger of Jewish origin; and under the Flavian Emperors the Jews of Palestine were specially open to

suspicion on account of the recent rebellion. There is no evidence, and no probability, that he possessed

either the birth, or the property, or the civic rights, entitling him to be treated on this more favoured footing.

He was one of the common people, whose punishment was more summary and far harsher than simple

banishment to an island.

In the second place, even if he had been of sufficiently high standing for that form of punishment, it is

impossible to suppose that the crime of Christianity could have been punished so leniently at that period. If

it was a crime at all, it belonged to a very serious class; and milder treatment is unknown as a punishment for

it. In its first stages, before it was regarded as a crime, some Christians were subjected to comparatively mild

penalties, like scourging; b ut in such cases they were punished, not for the crime of Christianity, not for