Unanimous tradition, beginning with Irenæus (V. 30. 3, quoted just below, and again in Eusebius V. 8) assigns the banishment of John and the apocalyptic visions to the reign of Domitian. This was formerly the common opinion, and is still held by some respectable writers, but strong internal evidence has driven most modern scholars to the conclusion that the Apocalypse must have been written before the destruction of Jerusalem, the banishment therefore (upon the assumption that John wrote the Apocalypse, upon which see chap. 24, note 19) taking place under Nero instead of Domitian. If we accept this, we have the remarkable phenomenon of an event taking place at an earlier date than that assigned it by tradition, an exceptional and inexplicable thing. We have too the difficulty of accounting for the erroneousness of so early and unanimous a tradition. The case thus stood for years, until in 1886 Vischer published his pamphlet Die Offenbarung des Johannes, eine jüdische Apocalypse in Christlicher Bearbeitung (Gebhardt and Harnack’s Texte und Untersuchungen, Band II. Heft. 3), which if his theory were true, would reconcile external and internal evidence in a most satisfactory manner, throwing the original into the reign of Nero’s successor, and the Christian recension into the reign of Domitian. Compare especially Harnack’s appendix to Vischer’s pamphlet; and upon the Apocalypse itself, see chap. 24, below.