March 25, 2014

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The Date of Revelation

We have two sources which enable us to fix the date.
(1) There is the account which tradition gives to us. The consistent tradition is that John was banished to Patmos in the time of the Roman emperor Domitian, and that he saw his visions there; at the death of Domitian, John was liberated and came back to Ephesus, and there set down the visions he had seen. Victorinus, who wrote towards the end of the third century AD, says in his commentary on Revelation: ‘John, when he saw these things, was in the island of Patmos, condemned to the mines by Domitian the emperor. There, therefore, he saw the revelation … When he was afterwards set free from the mines, he handed down this revelation which he had received from God.’ The biblical scholar Jerome, who wrote at the end of the fourth century and the beginning of the fifth, is even more detailed: ‘In the fourteenth year after the persecution of Nero, John was banished to the island of Patmos, and there wrote the Revelation … Upon the death of Domitian, and upon the repeal of his acts by the senate, because of their excessive cruelty, he returned to Ephesus, when Nerva was emperor.’ The early Church historian Eusebius says: ‘The apostle and evangelist John related these things to the churches, when he had returned from exile in the island after the death of Domitian.’ Tradition makes it certain that John saw his visions in exile in Patmos; the only thing that is doubtful–and it is not important–is whether he wrote them down during the time of his banishment or when he returned to Ephesus. On this evidence, we will not be wrong if we date Revelation about AD 95.
(2) The second line of evidence is the material in the book. There is a completely new attitude to Rome and to the Roman Empire.
In Acts, the tribunal of the Roman magistrate was often the safest refuge of the Christian missionaries against the hatred of the Jews and the fury of the mob. Paul was proud that he was a Roman citizen, and he repeatedly claimed the rights to which every Roman citizen was entitled. In Philippi, he put the local magistrates in their place by revealing his citizenship (Acts 16:36—40). In Corinth, Gallio dismissed the complaints against Paul with impartial Roman justice (Acts 18:1—17). In Ephesus, the Roman authorities protected him from the rioting mob (Acts 19:23—41). In Jerusalem, the Roman tribune rescued him from what might have become a lynching (Acts 21:30—40). When the Roman tribune in Jerusalem heard that there was to be an attempt on Paul’s life on the way to Caesarea, he took every possible step to ensure Paul’s safety (Acts 23:12—31). When Paul despaired of justice in Palestine, he exercised his right as a citizen and appealed direct to Caesar (Acts 25:10—11). When he wrote to the Romans, he urged upon them obedience to the powers that be, because they were ordained by God and were a terror only to the evil and not to the good (Romans 13:1—7). Peter’s advice is exactly the same. Governors and kings are to be obeyed, for their task is given to them by God. It is a Christian’s duty to fear God and honour the emperor (1 Peter 2:12—17). In writing to the Thessalonians, it is likely that Paul points to the power of Rome as the one thing which is controlling the threatening chaos of the world (2 Thessalonians 2:7).
In Revelation, there is nothing but blazing hatred for Rome. Rome is a Babylon, the mother of prostitutes, drunk with the blood of the saints and the martyrs (Revelation 17:5—6). John hopes for nothing but Rome’s total destruction.
The explanation of this change in attitude lies in the wide development of Caesar-worship, which, with its accompanying persecution, is the background of Revelation.
By the time of Revelation, Caesar-worship was the one religion which covered the whole Roman Empire; and it was because of their refusal to conform to its demands that Christians were persecuted and killed. Its essence was that the reigning Roman emperor, who was seen to embody the spirit of Rome, was divine. Once a year, everyone in the Empire had to appear before the magistrates to burn a pinch of incense to the godhead of Caesar and to say: ‘Caesar is Lord.’After they had done that, people were able to go away and worship any god or goddess they liked, as long as that worship did not infringe decency and good order; but they had to go through this ceremony in which they acknowledged the emperor’s divinity.
The reason was very simple. Rome had a vast and diverse empire, stretching from one end of the known world to the other. It had in it many languages, races and traditions. The problem was how to weld this varied mass into a unity. There was no unifying force such as a common religion, and none of the national religions could conceivably have become universal. Caesar-worship could. It was the one common act and belief which turned the Empire into a unity. To refuse to burn the pinch of incense and to say: ‘Caesar is Lord’ was not an act against religion; it was an act of political disloyalty. That is why the Romans dealt with the utmost severity with anyone who would not say: ‘Caesar is Lord.’ And Christians could never give the title Lord to anyone other than Jesus Christ. This was the centre of their creed.
We must see how this Caesar-worship developed and how it was at its peak when Revelation was written.
One basic fact must be noted. Caesar-worship was not imposed on the people from above. It arose from the people; it might even be said that it arose in spite of efforts by the early emperors to stop it, or at least to curb it. And it is to be noted that, of all the people in the Empire, only the Jews were exempt from it.
Caesar-worship began as a spontaneous outburst of gratitude to Rome. The people of the provinces knew very well what they owed to Rome. Impartial Roman justice had taken the place of inconsistent and tyrannical oppression. Security had taken the place of insecurity. The great Roman roads spanned the world, and were safe from robbers; and the seas were clear of pirates. The pax Romana, the Roman peace, was the greatest thing which ever happened to the ancient world. As Virgil had it, Rome felt its destiny to be ‘to spare the fallen and to cast down the proud’. Life had a new order about it. The American biblical scholar E. J. Goodspeed writes: ‘This was the pax Romana. The provincial under Roman sway found himself in a position to conduct his business, provide for his family, send his letters, and make his journeys in security, thanks to the strong hand of Rome.’
Caesar-worship did not begin with the deification of the emperor. It began with the deification of Rome. The spirit of the Empire was deified under the name of the goddess Roma. Roma stood for all the strong and benevolent power of the Empire. The first temple to Roma was erected in Smyrna as far back as 195 BC. It was no great step to think of the spirit of Rome as being incarnated in one man, the emperor. The worship of the emperor began with the worship of Julius Caesar after his death. In 29 BC, the Emperor Augustus granted to the provinces of Asia and Bithynia permission to erect temples in Ephesus and Nicaea for the joint worship of the goddess Roma and the deified Julius Caesar. At these shrines, Roman citizens were encouraged and even exhorted to worship. Then another step was taken. To provincials who were not Roman citizens, Augustus gave permission to erect temples in Pergamum in Asia and in Nicomedia in Bithynia, for the worship of Roma and himself. At first, the worship of the reigning emperor was considered to be something permissible for provincial non-citizens, but not for those who had the dignity of the citizenship.
There was an inevitable development. It is human to worship a god who can be seen rather than a spirit. Gradually, people began more and more to worship the emperor himself instead of the goddess Roma. It still required special permission from the senate to build a temple to the living emperor; but, by the middle of the first century, that permission was more and more freely given. Caesar-worship was becoming the universal religion of the Roman Empire. A priesthood developed, and the worship was organized into groups of ministers and elders called presbyteries, whose officials were held in the highest honour.
This worship was never intended to wipe out other religions. Rome was essentially tolerant. People might worship Caesar and their own god. But, more and more, Caesar-worship became a test of political loyalty; it became, as has been said, the recognition of the dominion of Caesar over an individual’s life and soul. Let us, then, trace the development of this worship up to, and immediately beyond, the writing of Revelation.
(1) Augustus, who died in AD 14, allowed the worship of Julius Caesar, his great predecessor. He allowed non-citizens in the provinces to worship himself, but he did not permit citizens to do so; and he made no attempt to enforce this worship.
(2) Tiberius (AD 14—37) could not halt Caesar-worship. He forbade temples to be built and priests to be appointed for his own worship; and, in a letter to Gython, a Laconian city, he definitely refused divine honours for himself. So, far from enforcing Caesar-worship, he actively discouraged it.
(3) Caligula (AD 37—41), the next emperor, was an epileptic, a madman and a megalomaniac. He insisted on divine honours. He attempted to enforce Caesar-worship even on the Jews, who had always been and who always were to remain exempt from it. He planned to place his own image in the Holy of Holies in the Temple in Jerusalem, a step which would certainly have provoked unyielding rebellion. Mercifully, he died before he could carry out his plans. But, in his reign, we have an episode when Caesar-worship became an imperial demand.
(4) Caligula was succeeded by Claudius (AD 41—54), who completely reversed his insane policy. He wrote to the governor of Egypt–there were 1,000,000 Jews in Alexandria–fully approving the Jewish refusal to call the emperor a god and granting them full liberty to enjoy their own worship. On his accession to the throne, he wrote to Alexandria saying: ‘I deprecate the appointment of a high priest to me and the erection of temples, for I do not wish to be offensive to my contemporaries, and I hold that sacred fanes [temples] and the like have been by all ages attributed to the immortal gods as peculiar honours.’
(5) Nero (AD 54—68) did not take his own divinity seriously and did nothing to insist on Caesar-worship. It is true that he persecuted the Christians; but this was not because they would not worship him, but because he had to find scapegoats for the great fire of Rome.
(6) On the death of Nero, there were three emperors in eighteen months–Galba, Otho and Vitellius–and in such a time of chaos the question of Caesar-worship did not arise.
(7) The next two emperors, Vespasian (AD 69—79) and Titus (AD 79—81), were wise rulers, who made no insistence on Caesar-worship.
(8) The coming of Domitian (AD 81—96) brought a complete change. He was a devil. He was the worst of all things–a cold-blooded persecutor. With the exception of Caligula, he was the first emperor to take his divinity seriously and to demand Caesar-worship. The difference was that Caligula was an insane devil; Domitian was a sane devil, which is much more terrifying. He erected a monument to ‘the deified Titus, son of the deified Vespasian’. He began a campaign of bitter persecution against all who would not worship the ancient gods–‘the atheists’, as he called them. In particular, he launched his hatred against the Jews and the Christians. When he arrived in the theatre with his empress, the crowd were urged to rise and shout: ‘All hail to our Lord and his Lady!’ He behaved as if he himself were a god. He informed all provincial governors that government announcements and proclamations must begin: ‘Our Lord and God Domitian commands …’ Everyone who addressed him in speech or in writing must begin: ‘Lord and God.’
Here is the background of Revelation. All over the Empire, men and women had to call Domitian god–or die. Caesar-worship was the deliberate policy; all must say: ‘Caesar is Lord.’ There was no escape.
What were the Christians to do? What hope did they have? Not many of them were wise, and not many of them were powerful. They had no influence or status. Against them had risen the might of Rome, which no nation had ever resisted. They were confronted with the choice–Caesar or Christ. It was to encourage men and women in such times that Revelation was written. John did not shut his eyes to the terrors; he saw dreadful things, and he saw still more dreadful things on the way; but beyond them he saw glory for those who defied Caesar for the love of Christ. Revelation comes from one of the most heroic ages in all the history of the Christian Church. It is true that Domitian’s successor Nerva (ad 96—8) repealed the savage laws; but the damage was done, the Christians were outlaws, and Revelation is a clarion call to be faithful to death in order to win the crown of life.

Barclay, W. (2004). The Revelation of John (3rd ed. fully rev. and updated., Vol. 1, pp. 15—22). Louisville, KY; London: Westminster John Knox Press.

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