The Apocalypse is one of the best authenticated books of the New Testament. It was used by Papias and others of the earliest Fathers, and already by Justin Martyr was expressly ascribed to the apostle John. (Compare also the epistle of the Churches of Lyons and Vienne, Eusebius, V. 1.) Tradition, so far as we have it, is unanimous (with the exception of the Alogi, an insignificant heretical sect of the second century, who attributed the Apocalypse as well as the Gospel to Cerinthus. Caius is not an exception: see below, chap. 28, note 4) in ascribing the Apocalypse to the apostle John, until Dionysius of Alexandria, who subjected the book to severe literary criticism (see below, Bk. VII. chap. 25), and upon the assumption of the genuineness of the Gospel and the first Epistle, doubted its authenticity on account of its divergence from these writings both in spirit and in style. He says (VII. 25, §2) that some others before him had denied the Johannine authorship and ascribed the book to Cerinthus, but the way in which he speaks of them shows that there cannot have been a ruling tradition to that effect. He may have referred simply to the Alogi, or he may have included others of whom we do not know. He himself rejects this hypothesis, and supposes the books to have been written by some John, not the apostle (by what John he does not decide), and does not deny the inspiration and prophetic character of the book. Dionysius was led to exercise criticism upon the Apocalypse (which was as well supported by tradition as any book of the New Testament) from dogmatic reasons. The supposed sensuous and materialistic conceptions of the Apocalypse were offensive to the spiritualizing tendencies of the Alexandrian school, and the offensiveness increased with time. Although Dionysius held the work as inspired and authoritative, yet his position would lead logically to the exclusion of the Apocalypse from the canon, just as Hermas had been already excluded, although Origen held it to be inspired and authoritative in the same sense in which Dionysius held the Apocalypse to be,—i.e. as composed by an apostle’s pupil, not by an apostle. Apocalyptic literature did not belong properly to the New Testament, but rather to the prophetic portion of the Old Testament; but the number of the Old Testament prophets was already complete (according to the Muratorian Fragment), and therefore no prophetic writing (e.g. Hermas) could find a place there; nor, on the other hand, could it be made a part of the New Testament, for it was not apostolic. The same was true of the Apocalypse of Peter, and the only thing which kept the Apocalypse of John in the canon was its supposed apostolic authorship. It was received as a part of the New Testament not because it was apocalyptic, but because it was apostolic, and thus the criticism of Dionysius would lead logically to its rejection from the canon. John’s Apocalypse is the only New Testament book cited by Justin as γραφή (so also by the Epistle of Vienne and Lyons, Eusebius, V. 1), and this because of its prophetic character. It must have been (according to their opinion) either a true prophecy (and therefore inspired by the Holy Spirit) or a forgery. Its authenticity being accepted, the former alternative necessarily followed, and it was placed upon a line with the Old Testament prophets, i.e. with the γραφή. After Dionysius’ time doubts of its authenticity became quite widespread in the Eastern Church, and among the doubters was Eusebius, who evidently wished to ascribe it to the mysterious presbyter John, whose existence he supposed to be established by Papias in a passage quoted in chap. 39, §4, below (compare the note on the passage). Eusebius’ treatment of the book is hesitating. He evidently himself discredited its apostolic authority, but at the same time he realized (as a historian more keenly than Dionysius the theologian) the great weight of external testimony to its authenticity, and therefore he gives his readers the liberty (in the next chapter) of putting it either with the Homologoumena or with the νόθοι. It legitimately belonged among the Homologoumena, but Dionysius’ attitude toward it doubtless led Eusebius to think that it might at some time in the future be thrown out of the canon, and of course his own objections to its contents and his doubts as to its apostolicity caused him to contemplate such a possibility not without pleasure (see the next chapter, note 1). In chapter 18, above, he speaks of it as the “so-called” Apocalypse of John, but in other places he repeats many testimonies in favor of its authenticity (see the next note), and only in chapter 39 does he state clearly his own opinion in the matter, which even there he does not press as a fixed conviction. The reason for the doubts of the book’s genuineness on the part of Eusebius and so many others lay evidently most of all in objections to the contents of the book, which seemed to favor chiliasm, and had been greatly abused for the advancement of the crassest chiliastic views. Many, like Dionysius of Alexandria were no doubt influenced also by the idea that it was impossible that the Gospel and the Apocalypse could be the works of one author, and they preferred to sacrifice the latter rather than the former. The book has found objectors in almost every age of the Church, but has continued to hold its place in the canon (its position was never disturbed in the Western Church, and only for some two or three centuries after Eusebius in parts of the Eastern Church) as an authentic work of the apostle John. The Tübingen school exalted the Apocalypse to the honorable position of one of the five genuine monuments of the apostolic age, and from it as a basis conducted their attacks upon the other Johannine writings. The more modern critical school is doubtful about it as well as the rest of the Johannine literature, and the latest theory makes the Apocalypse a Jewish document in a Christianized form (see above, chap. 18, note 1). Compare especially Holtzmann’s Einleitung, p. 411–413, and Weiss’ Einleitung, p. 93.