4. It is addressed to the seven churches of Asia, and yet the seven churches of Asia, to which it is addressed, rejected it.
The Alogi maintained that it was a forgery which came from Corinth. Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria, writing in the third century, says: “Divers of our predecessors have wholly refused and rejected this book, and by discussing the several parts thereof have found it obscure and void of reason and the title forged.”
Concerning its rejection by modern churchmen, the Edinburgh Review (No. 131) says: “The most learned and intelligent of Protestant divines here almost all doubted or denied the canonicity of the book of Revelation. Calvin and Beza pronounced the book unintelligible, and prohibited the pastors of Geneva from all attempts at interpretation.” Dr. South described it as “a book that either found a man mad or left him so.”
Luther, in the Preface to his New Testament (Ed. of 1522) writes: “In the Revelation of John much is wanting to let me deem it either prophetic or apostolical.”
CHAPTER XI.
PAULINE EPISTLES.
Fourteen books—Romans, First and Second Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, First and Second Thessalonians, First and Second Timothy, Titus, Philemon, and Hebrews—are ascribed, some correctly, some doubtfully, and others falsely, to Paul. They were all written, it is claimed, between 52 and 65 A.D.