AUTHOR
AUTHOR
Early Christian Testimony
As early as the middle of the second century, Revelation was ascribed to John, "one of the apostles of Christ” (Justin, Dial. 81). Other second-century works and writers make the same claim: a lost commentary on Revelation by Melito, bishop of Sardis (c. A.D. 165; see Eusebius, H.E. 4.26.2); Ireneus (c. 180; Adv. Haer. 3.11.1, 4.20.11, 4.35.2); and the Muratorian Canon (late second century). Whether Papias, an even earlier witness than these (d. c. 130), can be added to this list is disputed, but a good case can be made out that he both knew Revelation and attributed it to John. 6 The evidence of these writers is particularly strong in that two of them (three, if Papias is included) could well be reporting firsthand evidence. Sardis, where Melito was bishop, was one of the churches addressed in Revelation (Rev. 1:11; 3:1-6). Ireneus was from Smyrna, also a church addressed in Revelation (1:11; 2:8-11), and claims to have heard Polycarp, who had talked with John the apostle himself. Papias knew John the apostle personally. The early tradition is confirmed by the third-century fathers Tertullian, Hippolytus, and Origen. Not only do these authors ascribe Revelation to John the apostle, they do so without any hint of there being a contrary claim. No New Testament book, concludes Gerhard Maier, has a stronger or earlier tradition about its authorship than does Revelation. 7
Nevertheless, the association of John the apostle with Revelation, while early and widespread, is not unanimous. Marcion rejected the book (but then he rejected most of the New Testament, including the gospel of John). The second-century group called the Alogoi also rejected the apostolic origin of Revelation, suggesting that it was written by Cerinthus. But particularly clear and strong in his dissent from the tradition of apostolic authorship was Dionysius, a third-century bishop of Alexandria. As recorded by Eusebius (H.E. 7.25.7-27), Dionysius claimed on three grounds that John the apostle could not have written Revelation: (1) the author of Revelation makes no claim to be an apostle or eyewitness and does not describe himself, as does the author of the gospel of John, as "the beloved disciple”; (2) the conceptions and arrangement of Revelation are completely different from those of the fourth gospel and 1 John; and (3) the Greek of Revelation differs drastically from the Greek of the fourth gospel and 1 John. If, then (as Dionysius thought), John the apostle wrote the gospel and 1 John, he could not have written Revelation. Revelation must have been written by some other person named John; in fact, Dionysius had heard it said that there were two tombs of significant Christians named John in Ephesus.
Dionysius’s views are shared by most contemporary scholars, and we will examine his arguments below. For the moment, we want to estimate the value of his witness as an ancient authority. This value is not great. Dionysius makes no claim to be passing on tradition; his rejection of apostolic authorship is based entirely on arguments from the content of Revelation. Moreover, his arguments themselves are motivated by theological bias. Several early Fathers (e.g., Justin, Ireneus, Tertullian) interpreted
Revelation 20:1-6 as teaching what was called chiliasm: the doctrine that Christ would establish a thousand-year reign on earth (the doctrine is today usually called premillennialism). Other Fathers, however, found this doctrine abhorrent because of its alleged Jewish roots and materialism. Dionysius was one of these, and his rejection of apostolic authorship of Revelation has as its purpose the discrediting of its alleged chiliastic teaching. 8 This does not mean that Dionysius was wrong or that his arguments are therefore without force. But it does mean that his opinion, being independent of any tradition and motivated by polemical concerns, will be only as valuable as the arguments he uses to support it.