Where was John before Patmos?

[JohannineScholar]

Does anyone know where he was before he went to Patmos? Is there any evidence?

 

[Tree of Life]

You're the Johannine Scholar. I think the tradition teaches that John was pastor over the Ephesian churches. But this could have occurred after his stint on Patmos. I am of the opinion that he was on Patmos as a younger man and Revelation was written before his gospel (and before 70AD).

 

[rockytopva]

According to Tertullian (in The Prescription of Heretics) John was banished (presumably to Patmos) after being plunged into boiling oil in Rome and suffering nothing from it. It is said that all in the audience of Colosseum were converted to Christianity upon witnessing this miracle. This event would have occurred in the late 1st century, during the reign of the Emperor Domitian, who was known for his persecution of Christians.

 

[JohannineScholar]

You're the Johannine Scholar. I think the tradition teaches that John was pastor over the Ephesian churches. But this could have occurred after his stint on Patmos. I am of the opinion that he was on Patmos as a younger man and Revelation was written before his gospel (and before 70AD).

Yes, but it strikes me that most books on the subject are silent as to where he was before Patmos, which I find very interesting. I'm wondering how people fill in the blanks.

 

[JohannineScholar]

According to Tertullian (in The Prescription of Heretics) John was banished (presumably to Patmos) after being plunged into boiling oil in Rome and suffering nothing from it. It is said that all in the audience of Colosseum were converted to Christianity upon witnessing this miracle. This event would have occurred in the late 1st century, during the reign of the Emperor Domitian, who was known for his persecution of Christians.

You're the first to mention the Rome tradition in the two threads I created on this, which is interesting as I thought it was better known. I've never heard the Colosseum story--I searched on Google books and it seems that the story floats around but evidence is never given for it. I'm glad your brought it up.

 

[Tree of Life]

Yes, but it strikes me that most books on the subject are silent as to where he was before Patmos, which I find very interesting. I'm wondering how people fill in the blanks.

Have you read Philip Schaff on the issue?

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

We frankly don't know where he was. Tradition suggests Ephesus - based on Polycarp, a disciple of his.

Patmos fell within the jurisdiction of the province of Asia, so it makes sense for a magistrate of Ephesus to exile someone there. It was a good harbour and well known. It is even mentioned in Pliny. There is no record of its use as a poenal colony, but Rome frequently exiled troublesome figures to remote locales, like Ovid to the Bosporus. Why specifically John was exiled, I don't know, but tradition dates it to Domitian I believe.

This fits Cassius Dio recording that those exiled by Domitian were allowed home by Nerva, and Eusebius claims that John fell under this clemency and returned to Ephesus thereafter. So he was likely already at Ephesus before this to be able to return there, and an exile to Patmos makes more sense if the exiling authority was based in Ephesus than further off places.

 

[FenderTL5]

According to the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese:

" entrusted with the care of our Saviour's Mother, as it were another son to her, and a brother of Christ the Teacher.
After this, he preached throughout Asia Minor, especially in Ephesus. When the second persecution against the Christians began in the year 96 during the reign of Domitian, he was taken in bonds to Rome, and there was cast into a vat filled to the brim with boiling oil. Coming forth therefrom unharmed, he was exiled to the island of Patmos, where he wrote the Book of Revelation. Returning again to Ephesus after the death of the tyrant, he wrote his Gospel (after the other Evangelists had already written theirs) and his three Catholic Epistles. In all, he lived ninety-five years and fell asleep in the Lord during the reign of Trajan in the year 100."

 

[Foxfyre]

According to Tertullian (in The Prescription of Heretics) John was banished (presumably to Patmos) after being plunged into boiling oil in Rome and suffering nothing from it. It is said that all in the audience of Colosseum were converted to Christianity upon witnessing this miracle. This event would have occurred in the late 1st century, during the reign of the Emperor Domitian, who was known for his persecution of Christians.

This is similar to the legends I have read of John of Patmos. Another is that John of Patmos was the Apostle John, the youngest of the Apostles. According to tradition, because he was constantly preaching the Gospel, the Romans sentenced him to death by being thrown into a cauldron of boiling oil. When that didn’t harm him at all, the shaken Romans exiled him to the prison island of Patmos. It was there the Lord commanded him to write the book we know as The Revelation.

 

[JohannineScholar]

Have you read Philip Schaff on the issue?

He seems to make John exiled from Rome, during Nero's reign.

 

[Deadworm]

One the great error embraced by church people is the false identification of the Johannine seer with John the son of Zebedee. This error is based on 3 false claims:
(1) that the apostle is "the disciple whom Jesus loved" (and the resulting false claim that John brought Jesus' mother with him to Ephesus: I have visited the House of the Virgin Mary near Ephesus. It is a revered shrine, but is not Mary's house.)
Even Raymond Brown (author of a 2 volume magisterial commentary on John) later recanted his identification there of the Beloved Disciple as the apostle John.
(2) that the author of Revelation is the same as the author of the Fourth Gospel.
The literarily poor Greek of Revelation is radically different from that of the Fourth Gospel and is laced with Semitisms that point to a Palestinian origin for the John who authored it.
(3) that John the son of Zebedee, John the Elder, and John the seer of Revelation are the same person. At the end of the 2nd century, there is a lamentable tendency to conflate NT figures into one person. Besides all the Johns, Philip the apostle is conflated with Philip the evangelist and Mary Magdalene is conflated with Martha's sister, Mary, and the prostitute of Luke 7:36-50.

(1)-(3) represent the current scholarly consensus.

 

[JohannineScholar]

One the great error embraced by church people is the false identification of the Johannine seer with John the son of Zebedee. This error is based on 3 false claims:
(1) that the apostle is "the disciple whom Jesus loved" (and the resulting false claim that John brought Jesus' mother with him to Ephesus: I have visited the House of the Virgin Mary near Ephesus. It is a revered shrine, but is not Mary's house.)
Even Raymond Brown (author of a 2 volume magisterial commentary on John) later recanted his identification there of the Beloved Disciple as the apostle John.
(2) that the author of Revelation is the same as the author of the Fourth Gospel.
The literarily poor Greek of Revelation is radically different from that of the Fourth Gospel and is laced with Semitisms that point to a Palestinian origin for the John who authored it.
(3) that John the son of Zebedee, John the Elder, and John the seer of Revelation are the same person. At the end of the 2nd century, there is a lamentable tendency to conflate NT figures into one person. Besides all the Johns, Philip the apostle is conflated with Philip the evangelist and Mary Magdalene is conflated with Martha's sister, Mary, and the prostitute of Luke 7:36-50.

(1)-(3) represent the current scholarly consensus.

This is a different discussion, though I would accept that John the Elder and John the Seer are one and the same--that is the testimony of people who actually knew John, like Papias.

 

[Deadworm]

This is a different discussion, though I would accept that John the Elder and John the Seer are one and the same--that is the testimony of people who actually knew John, like Papias.

Papias implicitly distinguishes John the Elder from John the son of Zebedee, but neither he nor any early church father identifies John the Elder as John the Seer.

 

[JohannineScholar]

Papias implicitly distinguishes John the Elder from John the son of Zebedee, but neither he nor any early church father identifies John the Elder as John the Seer.

He identifies the Seer with the Evangelist.

 

[toLiJC]

Does anyone know where he was before he went to Patmos? Is there any evidence?

as each of the Holy Apostles He had also served God among many people (before He was banished to patmos), and this is the evidence, namely that none of them had voluntarily stopped serving God among as many people as possible

Romans 15:1-3 "we who are strong ought to bear the weaknesses of those without strength and not just please ourselves. Each of us is to please his neighbor for his good, to his edification. For even Christ did not please Himself;",

1 Corinthians 10:24-33 "Let no one seek his own good, but that of his neighbor..... Give no offense either to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God; just as I also please all men in all things, not seeking my own profit but the profit of the many, so that they may be saved.",

Ecclesiastes 8:8 "There is no man that has power over the spirit to retain the spirit; neither has he power in the day of death: and there is no discharge in that war; neither shall wickedness deliver those that are given to it."

Blessings

 

[Deadworm]

He identifies the Seer with the Evangelist.

First, prove your claim with a quote.
Second, you just conceded my 2 points.

 

[JohannineScholar]

First, prove your claim with a quote.
Second, you just conceded my 2 points.

No, I didn't 'concede' them. I have never claimed otherwise.

Papias' identification of the same John as the author of Revelation and the Gospel is found in some Latin manuscripts:

This gospel, then, after the apocalypse was written was made manifest and given to the churches in Asia by John, as yet still in the body, as the Heiropolitan, Papias by name, dear disciple of John, transmitted in his Exoteric,

It is also implicitly claimed by Andrew of Caesarea, who states that the genuineness of the Revelation of John [i.e. that it wasn't written by someone else] was born witness to by Papias.

You would accept that Irenaeus identified the Evangelist and Seer, correct?

 

[JohannineScholar]

.

 

[mark kennedy]

Does anyone know where he was before he went to Patmos? Is there any evidence?

He was at Ephesus.

 

[mark kennedy]

Papias implicitly distinguishes John the Elder from John the son of Zebedee, but neither he nor any early church father identifies John the Elder as John the Seer.

It takes only a little common sense, the Apostle John pastured the church at Ephesus until he was so old he had to be carried to church on a mat. Since he is no longer the pastor he was considered an elder. He was still an Apostle and still the writer of Revelations.