There is other testimony to prove this, easily got at, besides what our author supplies.
Sir Isaac Newton long ago fixed upon the year 68 as the date.
Dr. Davidson says: "We should despair of proving the authenticity of any New Testament book by the help of ancient witnesses, if that of the Apocalypse be rejected."
In the present quarter's "Edinburgh Review" (October 1874) there is a remarkable confirmation of the importance I am attaching to the Apocalypse as a book written by the Apostle John during the nine months' reign of the Emperor Galba, that is, between May 1, 68, and January 15, 69. The writer of the article, which is a review of Rénan's "Antichrist," says: "The arguments which support the assignment of A.D. 68 as the date of its composition are absolutely irresistible." And he adds: "Here we have a book the date of which is positively ascertained, and the writer almost certainly known, while its contents are of a prophetic character, and lay claim (in a marked manner) to inspiration, yet are so peculiarly historical in their character, and deal with a period of history so perfectly well known down to its minutest details, that it can be checked and verified at every turn. Might we not almost say that we have here (as in the Book of Daniel) a gauge by which to measure inspiration, a sample by which to understand prophecy, a key for a full comprehension of what Holy Scripture is and means?"
The Apocalypse is, as our author describes it, an ecstatic and dogmatic allegory. What it is besides, which the believer in Divine inspiration would include in the definition, is out of the range of such a critic's comprehension, and he would not be likely to attach much importance to the words, "Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter." But he seems to have overlooked how much essential evangelical doctrine it expresses, and how much it is imbued with its spirit; that it testifies to the resurrection of Christ and the atonement. Although it is an allegory, its author could no more have written it, if he had known nothing of those doctrines, than Bunyan could have written "The Pilgrim's Progress," or Milton "Paradise Lost" and "Regained." By proving John to be the author of this "highly dogmatic treatise," as he calls the Apocalypse, he takes us to the essence of the dogmas. They must have either been in existence before John wrote it, or he invented them, for they are certainly there.
He seems unconsciously to have furnished the very contemporary evidence which such critics as himself pretend not to have found, and profess they require, before they can accept the miracles and evangelical doctrines of the gospel.
He allows that Matthew was an eye-witness, but denies that he wrote of miracles. He allows that Paul wrote of miracles, but he was not an eye-witness.
Now John both saw them and wrote of them, for he was the son of Zebedee, and he wrote the Apocalypse. This being proved, we have in it, from him, as an eye-witness of the miracles of Jesus, evidence which confirms the Gospels. The vision is from Him "who liveth and was dead; the first begotten of the dead, who cometh with clouds," and to one who was "in the spirit on the Lord's day."
It as evidently presupposes the miraculous facts of the Gospels, and is supplementary to them, as certainly as it presupposes the prophecies of the Old Testament, and supplements the predictions of Daniel.
The allegory of "a Lamb as it had been slain," which is prominent in the vision, is unmistakable. No critic could be so perverse as to deny that this plainly indicates that Jesus Christ rose from the dead, and that His death is referred to as a sacrifice for sin in fulfilment of the ancient types and sacrificial rites; nor can it be doubted that the same is in harmony with the gospel which Paul preached and wrote about in his absolutely unquestionable epistles, to which alone we refer, avoiding, for obvious reasons, allusion to the Acts of the Apostles, as our author seems to ignore that book altogether.