Patmos and the Revelation

August 9 - We took the ferry to Patmos yesterday.  It lies about 15 miles south and west of Samos, one of the outermost islands off the Turkish coast.  We never lost sight of land.  As we left the port of Pythagorio, we had the island of Agathonisi on our left, then as we travelled we could see Fourni on the right, Arkoi and Lipsi on the left, and finally we entered the harbor at Patmos.  The island is about seven miles long, with many low hills and a deeply indented coastline.

Patmos, of course, is where John received a vision of "things which must be hereafter."  All that is known of John's circumstances on the island is contained in just one verse, Rev. 1:9.  "I John, who also am your brother, and companion in tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was in the isle that is called Patmos, for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ."  Much has been built on these few words.  Most Bible commentators assert that John was exiled to Patmos, supposedly a Roman penal colony, but that is not required by the language.  It would be equally true to say that, when Doyle arrives here tomorrow, he will be on Samos for the Gospel's sake.  John may simply have been lying low in a safe harbor during a very stormy period of history.

To my knowledge, Patmos is never mentioned by a single ancient writer as a place of punishment.  I would be very interested to hear if anyone knows otherwise.  We know that, in AD 37, two leading Romans were put on trial, and it was suggested that they be exiled to Giaros, in the western Cyclades.  They were ultimately banished to the remote Cyclades island of Amorgos.  The Roman historian Tacitus mentions the same two islands as places of exile as well as a third, Donoussa.  Amorgos and Donoussa are the next islands beyond Patmos, in the easterly-most ring of the Cyclades.

The dating of Revelation is even more suspect.  The AD 95 date cited by most reference books is taken from Irenaeus, the Catholic bishop of Lyon, who wrote "Against Heresy" around AD 185.  He is making the point that only the "Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church" can be traced back to apostolic seed; the other Christian sects were all of later origin.  Ignatius, the bishop of Antioch around the turn of the first century, was one of their key links to the New Testament church.  Supposedly Ignatius had been taught by the apostle John, and this is only possible if John had lived to a ripe old age.  So they invented a very late date for the Revelation.  

A  more plausible date is between the death of Nero and the destruction of the Second Temple.  We are given a set of clues in Revelation 17:10.  "And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space."  If we begin the count of the seven kings with Augustus, the first imperator of the Roman Empire following the Republic, the fifth emperor, that is, the last one fallen, would be Nero. He fell by his own sword on June 9th, 68. The king "now reigning" would therefore be Galba, and "the one not yet come", who would "continue a short space," would be Otho, who sat on the throne from January to April of A.D. 69.  It is thus reasonable to date the Book of Revelation to AD 69.

The Book of Revelation has had a chequered history in the Universal Church.  When Eusebius wrote AD 325, he said  the churches were "evenly divided" on the canonicity of Revelation.  The western churches went on to adopt it without reservation, but many of the eastern rites, including the Syrian Orthodox, the Nestorians, and the Maronites, still do not include the book in their canon of scripture.