Far greater difficulties are involved in the denial of the ancient tradition of the church than in the admission of it.

3.  The date of the Apocalypse has been a matter of much discussion, the great question being whether it was written before or after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans.  The external testimony strongly preponderates on the side of a late date; for the great body of this tradition represents the banishment of the apostle to the isle of Patmos as having taken place under Domitian who succeeded Titus, and reigned from A.D. 81 to 96.  This supposition also agrees with the fact that the recipients of our Lord’s seven messages (chaps. 2, 3) are the seven churches of Proconsular Asia, among whom, according to the unanimous testimony of the primitive church, the apostle spent the latter years of his life.  The hypothesis of an earlier date is but feebly supported by external testimony.  It rests mainly on the alleged reference of the writer to the overthrow of Jerusalem as an event yet future, and as being the main subject of the prophesies contained in the book.  But this reference has never been clearly established, and is contradicted by the general analogy of prophecy, by the contents of the book, and by its manifest relation to the prophecies of Daniel.  A few only of the briefer prophetic books, as those of Jonah and Nahum, confine themselves to one particular event lying in the near future.  All the more extended among them, and many of the shorter, look forward undeniably to the distant future.  The book of Daniel can be interpreted only as containing a great scheme of prophecy stretching forward into the distant future, and with this the revelation of John has the closest connection.  The place where the revelation was received was the isle of Patmos, one of the group called Sporades in the AEgean sea off the southwestern corner of Asia Minor, where the apostle represents himself to have been “for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ” (chap. 1:9):  that is, in accordance with ancient tradition, banished to that isle on account of the gospel.

4.  For the interpretation of this book many and very discordant plans have been proposed.  Setting aside at the outset all those schemes which do not find in the Apocalypse a view of the conflicts of Christ’s people to the end of time and their final victory over their enemies, there remain two general principles of interpretation.  The first may be called the generic principle.  Those who adopt it inquire only after the general import of the symbols employed, without attempting any particular application of them to the history of the church in connection with that of the world.  Thus, the white horse of the first seal (chap. 6:2) denotes in general the conquests of Christ through his gospel; the red horse of the second seal (chap 6:4), war and carnage, as accompanying the progress of the truth; and so on throughout the other symbols of the book.