Of the incidents of John’s life at Ephesus, no well authorized account whatever can be given. Yet on this part of apostolic history the Fathers are uncommonly rich in details, which are interesting, and some of which present no improbability on examination; but their worst character is, that they do not make their appearance until above one hundred years after the date of the incidents which they commemorate, and refer to no authority but loose and floating tradition. In respect to these, too, occurs exactly the same difficulty which has already been specified in connection with the traditionary history of Peter,——that the same early writers, who record as true these stories which are so probable and reasonable in their character, also present in the same grave manner other stories, which do bear, with them, on their very faces, the evidence of their utter falsehood, in their palpable and monstrous absurdity. Among the possible and probable incidents of John’s life, narrated by the Fathers, are a journey to Jerusalem, and one also to Rome,——but of these there is no certainty, nor any acceptable evidence. These long journeys, too, are wholly without any sufficient assigned object, which would induce so old a man to leave his quiet and useful residence at Ephesus, to travel hundreds and thousands of miles. The churches of both Rome and Jerusalem were under well organized governments, which were perfectly competent to the administration of their own affairs, without the presence of an apostle; or, if they needed his counsel in an emergency, he could communicate his opinions to them with great certainty, by message, and with far more quickness and ease, than by a journey to them. Such an occasion for a direct call on him, however, could but very rarely occur,——nor would so unimportant an event as the death of one bishop and the installation of another, ever induce him to take a journey to sanction a mere formality by his presence. His help certainly was not needed by any church out of his own little Asian circle, in the selection of proper persons to fill vacant offices of government or instruction. They knew best their own wants, and the abilities of their own members to exercise any official duty to which they might be called; while John, a perfect stranger to most of them, would feel neither disposed nor qualified for meddling with any part of the internal policy of other churches. But the principal condemnation of the statement of his journey to Rome is contained in the foolish story connected with it, by its earliest narrator,——that on his arrival there, he was, by order of the emperor Domitian, thrown into a vessel full of hot oil; but, so far from receiving the slightest injury from such a frying, he came out of this greasy place of torture, quite improved in every respect by the immersion; and, as the story goes, arose from it perfumed like an athleta anointed for the combat. There are very great variations, however, in the different narrations of this affair; some representing the event as having occurred in Ephesus, under the orders of the proconsul of Asia, and not in Rome, under the emperor, as the earlier form of the fable states. Among the statements which fix the scene of this miracle in Rome, too, there is a very important chronological difference,——some dating it under the emperor Nero, which would carry it back as early as the time of Peter’s fabled martyrdom, and implies a total contradiction of all established opinions on his prolonged residence in the east. In short, the whole story is so completely covered over with gross blunders and contradictions about times and places, that it can not receive any place among the details of serious and well-authorized history.
Thrown into a vessel of oil.——This greasy story has a tolerably respectable antiquity, going farther back with its authorities than any other fable in the Christian mythology, except Justin Martyr’s story about Simon Magus. The earliest authority for this is Tertullian, (A. D. 200,) who says that “at Rome, the Apostle John, having been immersed in hot oil, suffered no harm at all from it.” (De Praescriptionibus adversus Haereticos, c. 36.) “In oleum igneum immersus nihil passus est.” But for nearly two hundred years after, no one of the Fathers refers to this fable. Jerome (A. D. 397.) is the next of any certain date, and speaks of it in two passages. In the first (Against Jovinianus I. 14,) he quotes Tertullian as authority, but bunglingly says, that “he was thrown into the kettle by order of Nero,”——a most palpable error, not sanctioned by Tertullian. In the second passage, (Commentary on Matthew xx. 23,) he furthermore refers in general terms to “ecclesiastical histories, in which it was said that John, on account of his testimony concerning Christ, was thrown into a kettle of boiling oil, and came out thence like an athleta, to win the crown of Christ.” From these two sources, the other narrators of the story have drawn it. Of the modern critics and historians, besides the great herd of Papists, several Protestants are quoted by Lampe, as strenuously defending it; and several of the greatest, who do not absolutely receive it as true, yet do not presume to decide against it; as the Magdeburg Centuriators, (Century 1, lib. 2. c. 10,) who however declare it very doubtful indeed, “rem incertissimam;”——Ittig, Le Clerc and Mosheim taking the same ground. But Meisner, Cellarius, Dodwell, Spanheim, Heumann and others, overthrow it utterly, as a baseless fable. They argue against it first, from the bad character of its only ancient witness. Tertullian is well known as most miserably credulous, and fond of catching up these idle tales; and even the devoutly credulous Baronius condemns him in the most unmeasured terms for his greedy and undiscriminating love of falsehood. Secondly, they object the profound silence of all the Fathers of the second, third and fourth centuries, excepting him and Jerome; whereas, if such a remarkable incident were of any authority whatever, those numerous occasions on which they refer to the banishment of John to Patmos, which Tertullian connects so closely with this story, would suggest and require a notice of the causes and attendant circumstances of that banishment, as stated by him. How could those eloquent writers, who seem to dwell with so much delight on the noble trials and triumphs of the apostles, pass over this wonderful peril and miraculous deliverance? Why did Irenaeus, so studious in extolling the glory of John, forget to specify an incident implying at once such a courageous spirit of martyrdom in this apostle, and such a peculiar favor of God, in thus wonderfully preserving him? Hippolytus and Sulpitius Severus too, are silent; and more than all, Eusebius, so diligent in scraping together all that can heap up the martyr-glories of the apostles, and more particularly of John himself, is here utterly without a word on this interesting event. Origen, too, dwelling on the modes in which the two sons of Zebedee drank the cup of Jesus, as he prophesied, makes no use of this valuable illustration.
On the origin of this fable, Lampe mentions a very ingenious conjecture, that some such act of cruelty may have been meditated or threatened, but afterwards given up; and that thence the story became accidentally so perverted as to make what was merely designed, appear to have been partly put in execution.
In this decided condemnation of the venerable Tertullian, I am justified by the example of Lampe, whose reverence for the authority of the Fathers is much greater than that of most theologians of later days. He refers to him in these terms: “Tertullianus, cujus credulitas, in arripiendis futilibus narratiunculis alias non ignota est.”——“Whose credulity in catching up idle tales is well known in other instances.” Haenlein also calls him “der leichtglaubige Tertullian,”——“the credulous Tertullian.” (Haenlein’s Einleitung in Neuen Testamentes vol. III. p. 166.)
This miraculous event procured the highly-favored John, by this extreme unction, all the advantages with none of the disadvantages of martyrdom; for in consequence of this peril he has received among the Fathers the name of a “living martyr.” (ζοων μαρτυρ) Gregory of Nazianzus, Chrysostom, Athanasius, Theophylact and others, quoted by Suicer, [sub voc. μαρτυρ,] apply this term to him. “He had the mind though not the fate of a martyr.” “Non defuit animus martyrio,” &c. [Jerome and Cyprian.] Through ignorance of the meaning of the word μαρτυρ, in this peculiar application to John, the learned Haenlein seems to me to have fallen into an error on the opinion of these Fathers about his mode of death. In speaking of the general testimony as to the quiet death of this apostle, Haenlein says: “But Chrysostom, only in one ambiguous passage, (Homily 63 in Matthew) and his follower Theophylact, number the Apostle John among the martyrs.” [Haenlein’s Einleitung in Neuen Testamentes vol. III. chap. vi. § 1, p. 168.] The fact is, that not only these two, but several other Fathers, use the term in application to John, and they all do it without any implication of an actual, fatal martyrdom; as may be seen by a reference to Suicer, sub voc.
So little reverence have the critical, even among the Romanists, for any of these old stories about John’s adventures, that the sagacious Abbot Facditius (quoted by Lampe) quite turns these matters into a jest. Coupling this story with the one about John’s chaste celibacy, (as supported by the monachists,) he says, in reference to the latter, that if John made out to preserve his chastity uncontaminated among such a people as the Jews were, in that most corrupt age, he should consider it a greater miracle than if John had come safe out of the kettle of boiling oil; but on the reverend Abbot’s sentiment, perhaps many will remark with Lampe,——“quod pronuntiatum tamen nimis audax est.”——“It is rather too bold to pronounce such an opinion.” Nevertheless, such a termination of life would be so much in accordance with the standard mode of dispatching an apostle, that they would never have taken him out of the oil-kettle, except for the necessity of sending him to Patmos, and dragging him on through multitudes of odd adventures yet to come. So we might then have had the satisfaction of winding up his story, in the literal and happy application of the words of a certain venerable poetical formula for the conclusion of a nursery tale, which here makes not only rhyme but reason,——
HIS BANISHMENT.
This fable of his journey to Rome is by all its propagators connected with the well-authorized incident of his banishment to Patmos. This event, given on the high evidence of the Revelation which bears his name, is by all the best and most ancient authorities, referred to the period of the reign of Domitian. The precise year is as much beyond any means of investigation, as most other exact dates in his and all the other apostles’ history. From the terms in which the ancient writers commemorate the event, it is known, with tolerable certainty, to have occurred towards the close of the reign of Domitian, though none of the early Fathers specify the year. The first who pretend to fix the date, refer it to the fourteenth year of that emperor, and the most critical among the moderns fix it as late; and some even in the fifteenth or last year of his reign; since that persecution of the Christians, during which John seems to have been banished, may be fairly presumed, from the known circumstances as recorded in history, to have been the last great series of tyrannical acts committed by this remarkably wicked monarch. It certainly appears, from distinct assertions in the credible records of ecclesiastical history, that there was a great persecution begun about this time by Domitian, against the Christians; but there is no reasonable doubt that the extent and vindictiveness of it has been very much overrated, in the rage among the later Fathers, for multiplying the sufferings of the early Christians far beyond the truth. The first Christian writers who allude to this persecution very particularly, specify its character as far less aggravated than that of Nero, of which they declare it to have been but a shadow,——and the persecutor himself but a mere fraction of Nero in cruelty. There is not a single authenticated instance of any person’s having suffered death in this persecution; all the creditable historians who describe it, most particularly demonstrate that the whole range of punishments inflicted on the subjects of it, was confined to banishment merely. Another reason for supposing that this attack on the Christians was very moderate in its character, is the important negative fact, that not one heathen historian makes the slightest mention of any trouble with the new sect, during that bloody reign; although such repeated, vivid accounts are given of the dreadful persecution waged by Nero, as related above, in the Life of Peter. It is reasonable to suppose, therefore, that there were no great cruelties practised on them; but that many of them, who had become obnoxious to the tyrant and his minions, were quietly put out of the way, that they might occasion no more trouble,——being sent from Rome and some of the principal cities, into banishment, along with many others whose removal was considered desirable by the rulers of Rome or the provinces; so that the Christians, suffering with many others, and some of high rank and character, a punishment of no very cruel nature, were not distinguished by common narrators, from the general mass of the banished; but were noticed more particularly by the writers of their own order, who thus specified circumstances that otherwise would not have been made known. Among those driven out from Ephesus at this time, John was included, probably on no special accusation otherwise than that of being prominent as the last survivor of the original founders, among these members of the new faith, who by their pure lives were a constant reproach to the open vices of the proud heathen around them; and by their refusal to conform to idolatrous observances, exposed themselves to the charge of non-conformity to the established religion of the state,——an offence of the highest order even among the Romans, whose tolerance of new religions was at length limited by the requisition, that no doctrine whatever should be allowed to aim directly at the overthrow of the settled order of things. When, therefore, it began to be apprehended that the religion of Jesus would, in its progress, overcome the securities of the ancient worship of the Olympian gods, those who felt their interests immediately connected with the system of idolatry, in their alarmed zeal for its support, made use of the worst specimens of imperial tyranny to check the advancing evil.
PATMOS.