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Rev 1:9. Ἐν τῇ θλίψει, in tribulation) This book has most relish for the faithful in tribulation.[16] The Asiatic Church, especially since its most flourishing time under Constantine, set too little value upon this book. You can scarcely find any trace of a quotation from the Apocalypse in the doctors of Constantinople: where it is quoted in the works of Chrysostom, this very fact is a proof of interpolation. The African Church, more exposed to the cross, always valued this book very highly.-καὶ βασιλείᾳ καὶ ὑπομονῇ, and in the kingdom and in patience) These things are also joined together, 2Ti 2:12. Patience of hope (1Th 1:3) has abundant nourishment in the Apocalypse. The order of the words is worthy of notice: affliction, and the kingdom, and patience: together with the first and third of these, the second also is given.-ἐγενόμην ἐν τῇ νήσῳ) γενέσθαι ἐν Ῥώμῃ, is to arrive at Rome, 2Ti 1:17. John therefore in this passage conveys the idea, that he had been conveyed to the Isle of Patmos, and that, after his arrival, he had heard and seen these things, which he relates. Nor does the past time here used prevent us from thinking that the Apocalypse was written in Patmos: for the ancients, in writing, adapted the tenses of the verbs to the time at which the writing was read, and not to that at which it was written: Act 15:27, We have sent. This appears an unimportant observation, but it applies a remedy to great errors.-τῇ καλουμένῃ, which is called) There are some who omit this participle; and rightly so, as it seems.[17] Whether you read it or not, Patmos; although near to Asia, was not known to all the inhabitants of Asia: therefore John mentions that Patmos is an island. But Cyprus, a celebrated island, is mentioned by itself, Act 13:4; nor is it called the island Cyprus; much less, the island which is called Cyprus.-Πάτμῳ, Patmos) (John) was there in the time of Domitian and Nerva. Artemonius (in L. de Init. Ev. John, 350) thinks that the opinion held respecting the life of John, as continuing until the close of Domitian’s reign, or the commencement of Trajan’s, is false indeed, and had its origin in a confounding of two Johns. But Peter suffered martyrdom under Nero: and John long survived Peter: Joh 21:22. But he wrote the Apocalypse not long before his death. For you cannot say that one part of it was written under Claudius, another under Domitian or Nerva, since it is one Apocalypse, one prophecy, one book. Nor is Epiphanius, who thinks that it was published under Claudius-that is, before the death of Peter under Nero-alone of the ancients to be preferred to Irenæus and all the rest. The title of the Syriac version is still more recent. But you will ask, Why does John use more Hebraisms in the Apocalypse than in the Gospel? Was it not at the time of his writing the Apocalypse that he became accustomed at length to the Greek language? For he wrote the Gospel before the destruction of Jerusalem, but the Apocalypse after it. But in fact the whole style of John, and especially in the prophetical parts, takes its form, not from accustomed habit, but from Divine dictation, the resources of which are boundless.
[16] Comp. not. Gnom. on the phrase ἅ δεῖ γενέσθαι, ver. 1.-E. B.
[17] Hence the Vers. Germ, also omits it, although the margin of each Edition left a choice to the readers.-E. B.