CHAPTER XV.

TUE APOSTLES IN ASIA.

The province of Asia was that most agitated by those terrors. The church at Colosse had received a mortal blow by the catastrophe of the year 60. Hierapolis, although built in the midst of the most bizarre dejections of a volcanic eruption, did not suffer, it seems. It was perhaps there that the Colossian believers took refuge. Everything shows us from that time Hierapolis as a city apart. The profession of Judaism was public there. Some inscriptions still existing among the wonderfully preserved ruins of that extraordinary city mention the annual distributions which should be made to some corporations of workmen, from “the feast of unleavened bread,” and from “the feast of Pentecost.” Nowhere were good works, charitable institutions, and societies for mutual help among people following the same trade of so much importance. Kinds of orphanages, créches or children’s homes, evidence philanthropic cares singularly developed. Philadelphia presents an analogous aspect; the state bodies there became the basis of political divisions. A peaceful democracy of workmen, associated among themselves and not occupied with politics, was the social form of almost all those rich towns of Asia and Phrygia. Far from being forbidden to a slave, virtue was considered to be the special portion of the man who suffers. About the time we are writing of, was born at Hierapolis an infant even so poor that they sold it in its cradle, and never knew it except under the name of the “bought slave,” Epictetus, a name which, thanks to him, has become the synonym of virtue itself. One day there shall come forth from 175his instructions, the wonderful book, a manual for strong souls who reject the supernatural of the Gospel, and who believe that duty is falsified by creating in it any other charm than that of its austerity.

In the eyes of Christianity Hierapolis had an honour which far surpassed that of having given birth to Epictetus. It gave hospitality to one of the few survivors of the first Christian generation, to one of those who had seen Jesus, the Apostle Philip. We may suppose that Philip came into Asia after the crises which rendered Jerusalem uninhabitable for peaceful people, and expelled the Christians from its midst. Asia was the province where the Jews were most at peace; thither flowed the others. The relations between Rome and Hierapolis were likewise easy and regular. Philip was a priestly personage and belonged to the old school, very analogous to James. It was pretended that he wrought miracles, even the raising of the dead. He had four daughters, who were prophetesses. It appears that one of these died before Philip came into Asia. Of the three others, two grew old in their virginity; the fourth married during her father’s life, prophesied like her sisters, and died at Ephesus. These strange women were very famous in Asia. Papias, who was bishop of Hierapolis about the year 130, had known them, but he had never seen the Apostle himself. He heard from these old enthusiastic women some extraordinary facts and marvellous recitals of their father’s miracles. They also knew many things as to the other Apostles or Apostolic personages, especially a Joseph Barnabus, who, according to them, had drank a deadly poison without being harmed.

Thus, on John’s side, there was constituted in Asia a second centre of authority and Apostolic tradition. John and Philip elevated the countries which they had chosen to reside in nearly to the level of Judea. “These two great stars of Asia,” as they were called, were for some years the lighthouse of the church, deprived 176of its other pastors. Philip died at Hierapolis and was buried there. His virgin daughter arrived at a very advanced age and was laid near him; she that was married was interred at Ephesus; all the graves, it was said, were visible in the second century. Hierapolis had thus Apostolic tombs, rivals of those at Ephesus. The province would appear to be ennobled by those holy bodies, which they imagined they could see rising from the dead on the day in which the Lord should come, full of glory and majesty, to raise his elect from the dead.

The crisis in Judea, by dispersing, about 68, the apostles and apostolic men, would yet bring to Ephesus and into the valley of the Meander, other considerable personage in the nascent Church. A very great number of disciples, in any ease, who had seen the Apostles at Jerusalem, were found in Asia, and appear to have led that wandering life from town to town which was much to the taste of the Jews. Perhaps the mysterious personages called Presbyteros Johannes and Aristion were among the emigrés. Those listeners to the Twelve spread throughout Asia the tradition of the Church of Jerusalem, and succeeded in giving Judeo-Christianity the preponderance there. They were eagerly questioned as to the sayings of the apostles and the authentic words of Jesus. Later on those who had seen them were so proud of having drunk from the pure source, that they despised the little writings which claimed to report the discourses of Jesus.

There was something very peculiar about the state of mind in which these churches lived buried in the depths of a province whose peaceful climate and profound heaven appeared to lead to mysticism. In no place did the Messianic ideas so much preoccupy men’s attention. They gave themselves up to extravagant imaginations, the most absurd parabolic language, coming from the traditions of Philip and John, were propagated. The gospel which was formed on this coast had something mythical and peculiar about it. It was imagined 177generally that after the resurrection of the bodies which was nigh at hand there would be a corporeal reign of Christ upon the earth which should last a thousand years. The delights of this paradise were described in a thoroughly materialistic way; they actually measured the size of the grapes and the strength of the ears of corn under Messiah’s reign. The idealism which gave to the simplest words of Jesus such a charming velvety aspect was for the most part lost.

John at Ephesus strengthened daily. His supremacy was recognised throughout the whole province, except perhaps at Hierapolis, where Philip lived. The churches of Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodocea had adopted him as their head, listening with respect to his statements, his councils, and his reproaches. The Apostle, or those whom he gave the right to speak for him, generally assumed a severe tone. A great rudeness, an extreme intolerance, a hard and gross language against those who thought otherwise than he did appeared to have been a part of John’s character. It is, it was said, in regard him that Jesus promulgated this principle, “whosoever is not for us is against us.” The series of anecdotes which were told of his sweetness and indulgence seem to have been invented agreeably to the model which is visible in the Johannine epistles, epistles whose authenticity is very doubtful. Features of an opposite kind, and which show much violence, accord better with the evangelical records and with the Apocalypse, and prove that the hastiness which had gained him the surname of Son of Thunder had only grown greater with age. It may be, however, that these qualities and contradictory defects might not be so exclusive of each other as one might think. Religious fanaticism often produces in the same person the extremes of harshness and goodness; just as an inquisitor of the middle ages, who made thousands of unfortunates burn for insignificant subtleties, was at the same time the gentlest, and in one sense the humblest, of men. It 178was especially against the little conventicles of the disciples of him whom they called the new Balsam that the animosity of John and his followers appeared to have been lively and deep. Such was the injustice inherent in all parties, such was the passion which filled these strong Jewish natures, that probably the disappearance of the “Destroyer of the law” was hailed with cries of joy by his adversaries. To many the death of this blunderer, this mar-plot, was a relief. We have seen that Paul at Ephesus felt himself to be surrounded by enemies; the last discourses which are attributed to him in Asia are full of sad forebodings. At the beginning of the year 69, we find the hatred against him bitter still; then the controversy shall grow calm, silence shall fall around his memory. At the point we have reached no one appears to have upheld him, and there is precisely in this what vindicated him later on. The reserve, or if it must be said, the weakness of his partisans, brought about a reconciliation: the boldest thoughts finished by gaining acceptance on condition that they yielded a long time without reply to the objections of the conservatives.

Rage against the Roman empire, delight in the misfortunes which befel it, the hope of soon seeing it dismembered, were the innermost thoughts of all the believers. They sympathized with the Jewish insurrection, and were persuaded that the Romans had not quite reached their end. The time was distant since Paul, and perhaps Peter, preached the acceptance of the Roman authority, attributing even to that authority a sort of divine character. The principles of the enthusiastic Jews in the refusal to pay taxes, as to the diabolic origin of all profane power, as to the idolatry implied in acts of civil life according to the Roman usages, carried them away It was the natural consequence of persecution; moderate principles had ceased to be applicable. Without being so violent as in 64, persecution continued secretly. Asia was the province where the fall of Nero had made the deepest impression. 179The general opinion was that the monster, cured by Satanic power, kept himself concealed somewhere and was about to re-appear. One could imagine what kind of effect these rumours would produce among the Christians. Many of the faithful at Ephesus, beginning perhaps with their head, had escaped from the great butchery of 64. What! The horrible beast saturated with luxury, fatuity, going to return! The thing was clear, those continued to think who still supposed that Nero was Anti-Christ. See him, this mystery of iniquity who would appear to be assassinated, making everybody martyrs before the luminous advent. Nero is that Satan incarnate who shall accomplish the slaughter of the saints, A little time yet and the solemn moment shall comb! The Christians adopted this idea so much the more willingly that the death of Nero had been too mean for an Antiochus; persecutors of that species usually perished with greater éclat. It was concluded that the enemy of God was reserved for a more splendid death which should be inflicted on him in sight of the whole world and the angels gathered together by the Messiah.

This idea, which gave birth to the Apocalypse, took every day more distinct forms; the Christian conscience had arrived at the height of its enthusiasm when a matter which took place in the neighbouring isles of Asia gave body to what up till then had been only imagination. A false Nero appeared and inspired in the provinces of Asia and Achaia, a lively sentiment of either curiosity, hope, or fear. He was, it would appear, a slave from Pontus, according to others an Italian of servile rank. He much resembled the deceased emperor; he had his large eyes, his strong hair, his haggard look, his theatrical and fierce face; he knew like him how to play the guitar, and to sing. The impostor found around him a first nucleus composed of deserters and vagabonds, and attempting to reach by sea Syria and Egypt, was cast by a tempest on the island of Cythnos, one of the Cylades. 180He made that island the centre of a propaganda, increased his band by enrolling some soldiers who were returning from the east, did some bloody deeds, pillaged the merchants and armed the slaves, The excitement was great, especially among the kind of people who from their credulity were open to the most absurd reports. From the month of December, Asia and Greece had no other subject of talk. The waiting and the terror increased every day. That name whose fame had filled the world turned heads anew, and made people believe that what they had seen was nothing like to what they would see.

Other things which took place in Asia or in the Archipelago, and whose date we cannot fix for want of sufficient indications, increased the agitation still more. An ardent Neronian who joined to political passion some marks of a sorcerer, declared himself loudly for either the Cythnian impostor or for Nero, who was thought to have taken refuge among the Parthians. He apparently forced peaceable people to recognise Nero. He re-established his statues and ordered them to be honoured; we are sometimes even tempted to believe that a coin was struck with the legend Nero redux. What is certain is, that the Christians imagined they would be forced to honour Nero’s statues, the money, token, or stamp in the name of “the beast” “without which one could neither sell nor buy,” and thus caused them insurmountable scruples; the gold marked with the sign of the great head of idolatry burned their fingers. It appears that rather than lend themselves to such acts of apostasy some of the believers in Ephesus were exiled; we can suppose that John was of that number. This incident, obscure for us, plays a large part in the Apocalypse, and was perhaps its prime origin. “Attention” said the seer, “there is here the end of the patience of the saints who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.” The occurrences in Rome and Italy gave reason for this feverish expectancy. Galba did not 181succeed in establishing himself, up till Nero, the title of dynastic legitimacy created by Julius Cæsar and by Augustus, had stifled the thought of a competition for Empire among the generals; but since that title had been barred by limitation, every military chief could aspire to the heritage of Cæsar. Vindex was dead, Virginius had loyally submitted; Nymphidius Lavinus, Macer, Fonteius, Capito, had expiated by death their revolutionary ideas; nothing was done, however. On the 2nd January, 69, the legions of Germany proclaimed Vetillius, on the 10th Galba adopted Piso, on the 15th Otho was proclaimed at Rome. For some hours there were three emperors; in the evening Galba was killed. Faith in the empire was terribly shaken, people did not believe that Otho could manage to reign alone; the hopes of the partisans of the false Nero of Cythnos and those who imagined every day to see the emperor’s so much regretted return from beyond the Euphrates, could not be concealed. It was then, at the end of January, in the year 69, that there was spread among the Christians of Asia a symbolic manifesto representing itself as a revelation of Jesus Christ himself. Did the author know of the death of Galba or had he only foreseen it? It is as much more difficult to say that a feature of the Apocalypses is that the writer puts forward sometimes, to the profit of his pretended foresight, some recent news which, he believes, he alone knows. Thus the publicist, who composed the book of Daniel, appears to have had a hint of the death of Antiochus. Our Seer appears to be possessed of special information on the political condition of his time. It is doubtful if he knew Otho; he believed that the restoration of Nero would immediately follow the fall of Galba. This latter appears to him already condemned. The eve of the Beast’s return is, therefore, reached. The ardent imagination of the author then appears to him a collection of views “upon what must arrive in a little while,” and thus the successive chapters of a prophetic book 182are unrolled, the object of which is to make clear the conscience of the believers in the crisis through which they are passing, and reveal to them the meaning of a political situation which disturbed the strongest spirits, and especially to reassure them as to the fate of their brethren already slain. It must be remembered that the credulous sectaries, whose sentiments we seek to discover, were a thousand miles from the ideas of the immortality of the soul, which have come forth from Greek philosophy. The martyrdoms of the last year were a terrible crisis for a society which trembled artlessly when a saint died, and asked if that one would see the Kingdom of God. People showed an unconquerable need to represent the faithful already passed into rest and blessed, although with a provisory in the midst of the plagues which struck the earth. Their cries of vengeance were heard; they considered their saints impatient, they called for the day on which God would arise and avenge his own elect.

The form of “Apocalypse” adopted by the author was not new in Israel. Ezekiel had already inaugurated a considerable change in the old prophetic style, and we may in a sense regard it as the creator of the Apocalyptic class. To fervent preaching, accompanied sometimes by extremely allegorical acts, he had substituted, doubtless under the influence of Assyrian art, the vision, that is to say, a complicated symbolism, where the abstract idea was presented by means of chimerical beings conceived outside of all reality. Zachariah continues to walk in the same path; a vision becomes the necessary framework of all prophetic instruction. Indeed, the author of the book of Daniel, by the extraordinary popularity he obtained, fixed absolutely the rules of the class. The book of Enoch, the Assumption of Moses and certain sibylline poems were the fruit of his powerful initiative. The prophetic instinct of the Semites, their tendency to group facts in view of a certain philosophy of history, and to 183present their individual thought ender the form of s divine absolute, their aptitude for seeing the great lines of the future, finding in this fantastic framework some singular facilities. In every critical situation of the people of Israel, they, in fact, demanded an apocalypse. The persecution by Antiochus, the Roman occupation, the profane reign of Herod had excited some ardent visionaries. It was inevitable that Nero’s reign and the siege of Jerusalem should have their apocalyptic protest, as later on had the severities of Domitian, Hadrian, Septimus Severus, Decius, and the invasion of the Goths in 250 called forth for themselves.

The author of this bizarre writing, which a still more bizarre fate destined to such different interpretations, laid down in it the whole weight of the Christian conscience, then addressed it under the form of an epistle to the seven principal Churches of Asia. He asked that it should be read, as was the custom with all apostolic epistles, to the assembled faithful. There was perhaps in that an imitation of Paul, who preferred to act by letters than personally. Such communications in any case were not rare, and it was always the coming of the Lord which was their object. Some pretended revelations on the nearness of the last day circulated under the name of different apostles, so much so that Paul was obliged to warn his churches against the abuse which might be made of his writing to support such frauds. The work begins by a title which was worthy of its origin and its lofty theme:—

The Revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave him to show unto his servants, even the things which must shortly come to pass: and he sat and signified it by his angel unto his servant John, who bare witness of the word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, even of all things that he saw. Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of the prophecy and keep the things which are written therein, for the time is at hand.

John, to the seven churches which are in Asia, Grace to you, and peace from him which is, and which was, and 184which is to come, and from the seven spirits which are before his throne: and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, the first born of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loveth us, and loosed us from our sins by his blood: and he made as to be a kingdom to be priests unto his God and Father, to him be the glory and the dominion for ever and ever, Amen.

Behold he cometh with the clouds, and every eye shall see him, and they which pierced him; and all the tribes of the earth shall mourn over him, even so, Amen. I am the Alpha and the Omega, saith the Lord God, which is and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.

John, your brother and partaker with you in the tribulation and kingdom and patience which are in Jesus, was in the isle that is called Patmos, for the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet, saying, What thou seest write in a book, and send it to the seven churches, unto Ephesus and unto Smyrna, and unto Pergamum, and unto Thyatira, and unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea. And I turned to see the voice which spake unto me, and having turned I saw seven golden candlesticks, and in the midst of the candlesticks one like unto a son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about at the breasts with a golden girdle. And his head and his hair were white as white wool, white as snow, and his eyes were as a flame of fire, and his feet like unto burnished brass, as if it had been refined in a furnace, and his voice as the voice of many waters, and he had in his right hand seven stars, and out of his mouth proceeded a sharp two-edged sword, and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength. And when I saw him I fell at his feet as one dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying, Fear not; I am the first and the last and the living one. And I was dead, and behold I am alive for evermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades Write therefore the things which thou sawest and the things which are and the things which shall come to pass hereafter; the mystery of the seven stars which thou rawest in my right hand, and the seven golden candlesticks. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven candlesticks are seven churches.

In the Jewish conceptions, among the Gnostics and Cabbalists who were dominant about this time, every person, and indeed every moral being, such as death or grief, has its angel; there was thus the angel of Persia 185and the angel of Greece; the angel of the waters, the angel of fire, and the angel of the abyss. It was therefore natural that each church should have thus its heavenly representative. It is to this kind of fervour or genius of each community that the Son of Man addresses his statements one after the other:—

To the angel of the church of Ephesus;

These things saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks I know thy works and thy labour, and thy patience, and how thou can et not bear them which are evil, and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars. And hest borne and had patience, and for my name’s sake hast laboured and hast not fainted. Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hest left thy first love. Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent and do the first works; or else I will tome unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent. But this thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitanes, which I also hate. He that hath an ear let him hear what the spirit saith unto the churches; to him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life which is in the midst of the paradise of God.

And unto the angel of the church of Smyrna:

These things saith the first and the last, which was dead and is alive. I know thy works and tribulation, and poverty, (but thou art rich) and I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan. Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer, behold the devil shall cast some of you into prison that ye may be tried, and ye shall have tribulation ten days. Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life. He that hath an ear let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death.

And to the angel of the church of Pergamum:

These things saith he which hath the sharp sword with two edges: I know thy works and where thou dwellest, even where Satan’s seat is; and thou holdest fast my name, and hast 186not denied my faith, even in those days wherein Antipas was my faithful martyr who was slain among you, where Satan dwelleth. But I have a few things against thee, because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balsam, who taught Balak to cast a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols and to commit fornication. So hast thou also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitanes, which thing I hate. Repent, or else I will come unto thee quickly and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth. He that hath an ear let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; to him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it.

And unto the angel of the church of Thyatira:

These things saith the son of God, who hath his eyes like unto a flame of fire, and his feet are like fine brass. I know thy works, and charity, and service, and faith, and thy patience and thy works; and the last to be more than the first. Notwithstanding, I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication and to eat things sacrificed unto idols. And I give her space to repent of her fornication, and she repented not. Behold I will cast her into a bed and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds. And I will kill her children with death; and all the churches shall know that I am he which searcheth the reins and hearts; and I will give unto every one of you according to your works. But unto you I say, and unto the rest in Thyatira, as many as have not this doctrine and which have not known the depths of Satan as they speak, I will put upon you none other burden. But that which ye have already hold fast till I come. And he that overcometh and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations. And he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers, even as I received of my father. And I will give him the morning star. He that hath an ear let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.

And unto the angel of the church of Sardis:

These things saith he that hath the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars: I know thy works, that thou hast a 187name, that thou livest, and art dead. Be watchful and strengthen the things which remain that are ready to die; for I have not found thy works perfect before God. Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast and repent. If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee. Thou hast a few names even in Sardis which have not defiled their garments, and they shall walk with me in white, for they are worthy. He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment, and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels. He that hath an ear let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.

And to the angel of the church of Philadelphia:

These things saith he that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David, he that openeth and no man shutteth, and shutteth and no man openeth. I know thy works; behold I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it; for thou hast a little strength and hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name. Behold, I will make them of Satan, which say they are Jews and are not, but do lie; behold I will make them to come and worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee. Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth. Behold I come quickly, hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take my crown. Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out; and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem; which cometh down out of Heaven from my God, and I will write upon him my new name. He that hath an ear let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.

And unto the angel of the church of Laodicea:

These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God. I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot. I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth. Because thou sayest I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing, and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and 188blind, and naked. I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire that thou mayest be rich, and white raiment that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear, and anoint thine eyes with eye-salve that thou mayest see. As many as I love I rebuke and chasten: if any man hear my voice and open the door I will come in to him and will sup with, him and he with me. To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne. He that hath an ear let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.

Who is this John who dares to make himself the interpreter of these celestial mandates, who speaks to the Churches of Asia with such authority, who boasts that he has passed through the same persecutions as his readers? It is either the Apostle John or a homonym of the Apostle John, or some one who has a desire to pass for the Apostle John. It is scarcely admissible that in the year 69, during the apostle’s life or a little after his death, some one had usurped his name without his consent for such searching counsels and reprimands. Among the apostle’s homonyms, no one would have dared to take up such a position. The Presbyteros Johannes (the only person who is alleged to have done so), if he ever existed, was, it would seem, of a later generation. Without denying the doubts which rest on nearly all these questions as to the authenticity of the apostolic writings, seeing the emit scruple which is made in attributing to apostles and holy persons the revelations to which they wished to give authority, we regard it as probable that the Apocalypse is the work of the Apostle John, or at least that it was accepted by him and addressed to the Churches of Asia under his patronage The prong impression of the massacres of the year 64, the feeling of the dangers through which the author has run, the horror of Rome, appear to us to point to the apostle who, according to our hypothesis, had been at Rome and could say, in speaking of those tragic events: Quorum pars magna fui. Blood stifled 189him, filled his eyes, and prevented him from seeing nature. The images of the monstrosities of Nero’s reign take hold of him as a fixed idea. But some grave objections here render the task of criticism very difficult. The taste for mystery and apocrypha which the first Christian generations possessed has covered with an unpenetrable mystery all the questions of literary history relating to the New Testament. Fortunately the soul shines out in those anonymous and pseudonomic writings in accents which cannot lie. The part of each man, in popular movements, it is impossible to discern—it is the sentiment of all which constitutes the true creator spirit.

Why did the author of the Apocalypse, whoever he was, choose Patmos for the place of his vision? It is difficult to say. Patmos or Pathos is a little island about four leagues in length, but very narrow. It was in the antiquity of Greece, flourishing and very populous. In the Roman period, it kept all the importance which its smallness warranted, thanks to its fine port, formed in the centre of the island by the isthmus which joins the massive rocks of the north to those of the south. Patmos was, according to the habits of the coasting trade then, the first or the last station for the traveller who went from Ephesus to Rome or from Rome to Ephesus. It is wrong to represent it as a rock or a desert, Patmos was and will become again one of the most important maritime stations of the Archipelago: for it is at the branching off of many lines. If Asia should renew its youth, Patmos would be for it something analagous to what Syra is for modern Greece, to what Delos and Rhenia among the Cyclades, a sort of emporium in the eyes of the merchant marine, a point of “correspondence” useful to travellers.

It was probably this which caused this little island to be selected—a selection from which has resulted later on such a high Christian celebrity to the spot. Whether the apostle had retired thither to escape some persecuting 190measure of the Ephesian authorities; or whether, returning from a voyage to Rome, or on the eve of seeing his faithful people again, he had prepared, in one of the cauponæ which would be on the shore of the port; the manifesto he wished to precede him in Asia; or whether, taking a kind of step backward to strike a heavy blow, and being of opinion that the place for the vision could not be made Ephesus itself, he had chosen the island in the Archipelago which, removed by about a day’s journey, was connected with the metropolis of Asia by a daily sailing; or whether he desired to keep the recollection of the last stoppage on the voyage, full of emotions, which he made in 64; or whether it was a simple accident of the sea which had obliged him to spend several days in this little port. Those navigations of the Archipelago are full of danger; the crossing of the ocean cannot give any idea of it: for in our seas there are constant winds ruling which help us, even when they are contrary. There, there are one after another dull calms, and when the narrow straits are being sailed through, violent winds. One has no control over one’s movement: he stops where he can and not where he will.

Men so ardent as those bitter and fanatical descendants of the old prophets of Israel carried their fancies wherever they went, and that imagination was so completely shut in within the circle of the old Hebrew poetry that the nature which surrounded them did not exist for them. Patmos resembles all the islands of the Archipelago: an azure sea, limped air, a serene sky, rocks with jagged peaks, only occasionally clad with a light downy verdure, The aspect is naked and sterile; but the forms and colour of the rock, the living blue of the sea, pencilled by beautiful white birds, opposed to the reddish tints of the rocks, are something wonderful. Those myriads of isles and islets of the most varied forms which emerge like pyramids or shields on the waves, and dance an eternal rondo 191around the horizon, resemble a fairy world in a circle of marine gods and oceanides, leading a brilliant life of love, youth and sadness, in grottoes of a glancous green, on shores without mystery, alternately sweet and terrible, luminous and sombre. Calypso and the Sirens, the Tritons and the Nereides, the dangerous charms of the sea, its caresses at once voluptuous and sinister, all these fine sensations which have their inimitable expression in the Odyssey, escaped the dark visionary. Two or three peculiarities, such as the great preoccupation of the sea, the image of “a mountain burning in the midst of the sea,” which seem borrowed from the Thera, have alone some local reference. From a small island, used as the basis of the picture in the delicious romance of Daphnis and Chloe, or of pastoral scenes like those of Theocistus and Moselms, he makes a black volcano, belching forth ashes and fire. Yet he must have tasted more than once upon these waves the silence full of serenity, of nights on which one hearing nothing but the groaning of the halycon and the dull whisper of the dolphin. For whole days he was facing Mount Mycale, without thinking of the victory of the Greeks over the Persians, the finest which has ever been accomplished after Marathion and Thermopylæ. At this central point of all the great Greek creations, at some leagues from Samos, Cos, Miletus, Ephesus, he was dreaming of something else than the prodigious genius of Pythagoras, Hippocrates, Thales, and Heraclitus: the glorious memories of Greece had no existence for him. The poem of Patmos ought to have been some Hero and Leander, or rather a pastoral in the style of Longus, telling of the play of beautiful children on the threshold of love. The gloomy enthusiast, thrown by chance on these Ionian shores, never quitted his Biblical recollections. Nature for him was the living chariot of Ezekiel, the monstrous cherub, the deformed Nineveh bull, an uncouth zoology, setting statuary and painting at defiance. This strange 192defect, which the eye of the Orientals has for altering the images of things, a defect which made all the pictured representations coming from their hands appear fantastic and bereft of the spirit of life, was with him at its height. The disease which had possession of his entrails tinged everything with its hues; he saw with the eyes of Ezekiel, with those of the author of the Book of Daniel, or rather he saw nothing but himself, his sufferings, his hopes, and his anger. A vague and dry mythology, already cabalistic and gnostic, wholly founded upon the transformation of abstract ideas in the divine hypostases, put him beyond the plastic conditions of art. Never has anyone been more isolated from his surroundings; never has anyone denied more openly the tangible world to substitute for the harmonies of reality the contradictory chimera of a new earth and a new heaven.