both died and was buried at Ephesus: which is sufficient to discredit the tradition, however ancient, that he never died, but was translated like Enoch and Elijah.

Jerome, De Scriptoribus Ecclesiasticis places his banishment in the fourteenth of Domitian; his return, under Nerva; and his death at Ephesus, sixty-eight years after the Passion. As Jerome's date for the Passion is U. C. 784, this places the death of St. John, U. C. 852, in the second of Trajan. The same dates appear in his Chronicon. In another passage also, which has been produced at length already", he mentions an opinion which included the half of a prophetical week, that is thirty-five years, between the commencement of the Jewish war under Nero, and the death of St. John, in the time of Trajan. From U. C. 819, thirty-five years would bring us to U. C. 854, in the fourth of Trajan.

Augustin reckons it 320 years to his own time, since the composition of that one of St. John's Epistles, which contained the declaration, it is the last time*: and 420 years to the same time from the birth of Christ. On this principle, he supposed the epistle to have been written one hundred years after the birth of Christ that is, as his date for the Nativity is U. C. 752, he dates the composition of the epistle, U. C. 852, and therefore considered St. John to be still living in the second of Trajany. He adds; Huc accedit, quia inspecta diligenter ecclesiastica historia, reperitur Johannes apostolus longe ante fuisse defunctus, quam quinque millia quingenti anni a generis humani exordio complerentur.

Theophylact's date for the Gospel of St. John, thirty

r Eusebius, E. H. iii. 31. 102. D.: v. 24. 191. C.

s Cap. ix. Operum iv. Pars ii. 105. Cf. Ibid. 168. ad calcem, Adversus Jovinianum i. t Operum iii. 1114. in Dan. ix. u Supra page 617. X 1 John ii. 18. 747. G. Epistolæ, 199. 18: 748. E. F. Ibid. 20.

y Operum ii.

two years after the Ascension, U. C. 784, would place its composition, U. C. 816: but if referred to the date of the destruction of Jerusalem, U. C. 823, it would place it U.C. 855, in the fifth of Trajan. Suidas, under the article 'Iwávvns, supposes the composition of the Gospel after his return from Patmos; when he was one hundred years old; and his death at one hundred and twenty*. The Paschal Chronicon places the banishment under Domitian; the recall in the first of Nerva; and the death in the seventh of Trajan, seventy-two years after the Ascension; when St. John was one hundred years and seven months old2. As this Chronicon dates the Ascension U. C. 785, these two notes of time meet together in U. C. 857. Hippolytus, περὶ τῶν ιβ' ἀποστόλων, makes St. John one hundred and six years old at his death". A fragment of Hippolytus the youngerb makes him one hundred and ten; though it places his death under Domitian.

To judge, therefore, from all these testimonies, it seems the most probable opinion that St. John survived until the second or third of Trajan at least; and that he was one hundred years old, and upwards, at the time of his death. In this case, he must have been born U.C. 751, or 752, and he would be a year or two younger

* So likewise the treatise ascribed to Chrysostom, (Operum vii. Spuria, 231. C. De S. Joanne Apostolo,) and Dorotheus, bishop of Tyre, (Theophylact, Operum i. 500,) from the former of which the passage in Suidas seems to have been copied. Dorotheus

places the banishment to Patmos in the reign of Trajan-though he mentions the opinion also which placed it under Domitian. The banishment Suidas (Δομετιαvòs) places under Domitian, the recall under Nerva: cf. also in Νέρβας.

z i. 467. 1. 20-470. 1. 19. Cf. however, 461. 1. 6. where he is supposed to have spent nine years in Ephesus, before his banishment, fifteen in Patmos, and twenty-six at Ephesus after his return; which is dated U. C. 822, in the first of Vespasian. Hence his death would be U. C. 848, in the fourteenth of Domitian; at the time when other authorities suppose him to have been banished. a Operum i. Appendix, p. 41. e Cedreno.

b Ibid. 49.

than our Lord; to which conclusion his history, so far as it is related, would a priori seem to conduct us. There is every reason to believe that he was the youngest of the apostles, and it is not improbable that he was even younger than our Saviour himself. The two traditions, of his death in the seventh of Trajan U. C. 857, and of his age, at the time, one hundred and six-would accord wonderfully with this conjecture; for he must have been born, in that case, U. C. 751, and have been just one year younger than our Lord.

Epiphanius, indeed, represents him to have been ninety years old, when he returned from banishment; but as he places his return under Claudius, this is so material an error as to discredit his testimony altogether*. Besides which, even he, in other parts of his works, asserts that St. John survived to the reign of Trajan. And, perhaps, his meaning in the former instance is simply this; that St. John composed his Gospel, after his return from banishment, at ninety years of age-that is, he was ninety at least when he wrote his Gospel, though not necessarily when he returned-for he speaks of several years being spent in Asia even after the return, yet before the composition of the Gospel.

This supposes, it is true, a ten years' interval between the composition of his Gospel and his death; an interval which would, perhaps, have been more correct of the time of his banishment and his death. For if he returned U. C. 849, in the year which Dio assigns to the recall of the exiles, under Nerva; and lived to

* Yet Hippolytus περὶ τῶν ιβ' anоσтóλv supposes the Gospel, as well as the Revelation, to

have been composed in Patmos. Theophylact also supposes the same of the Gospel: i. 504. A. B.

ci. 434. A. Alogi, xii: cf. 456. A. Ibid. xxxiii. 636. A. Manichæi, xix. e lxviii. 1.

d i. 149. A. Ebionæi, xxiv:

be one hundred and six years old in U. C. 857-he survived his return eight years, and his banishment, dated U. C. 847 or 848, nine or ten.

It is probable that his Gospel was composed in the third or fourth of Trajan; which Jerome seems to designate as the time of his death, perhaps because tradition had handed it down as the time of the composition of the Gospel. The fourth of Trajan, U. C. 854, would accord with the thirty-second year current from the date of the destruction of Jerusalem, U. C. 823.

The question of the time of the death of St. John is connected with that of the date of the martyrdoms of Ignatius and of Polycarp respectively: more especially with that of the former; which some authorities place so early as the eighth of Trajan, U. C. 858. This question will be discussed elsewhere. Some regard also is due, in considering the time of the death of St. John, to the historical anecdote respecting him and the heretic Cerinthus, according to Irenæus, on the traditionary authority of Polycarp, (iii. iii. 204. Cf. Eusebius, E. H. iii. 28. 100. C. D.); or the heretic Ebion, according to Epiphanius (i. 148. Ebionæi, xxiv.) The antiquity of either of these heresiarchs is great enough for the circumstance in question to have happened early in the reign of Trajan*.

*There is a remarkable passage, respecting the date of the Apocalypse, and other circumstances in the history of St. John, which occurs in the commentary on Revelation, compiled by Arethas, bishop of Cæsarea in Cappadocia, from the work of Andreas, a more ancient bishop of the same see, and other authorities of equal antiquity: a

commentary appended to Ecumenius in Novum Testamentum.

Tom. ii. 713. D-714. A. in Rev. vii. 4. understanding the 144,000 there alluded to, of such of the Jews as were designed by the Divine Providence to escape from the calamities coming upon their unbelieving countrymen, the commentary proceeds: οὔπω γὰρ ἡ ὑπὸ Ῥω