ospel still continued to have friends among the Roman nobility. Flavius
Clemens, a person of consular dignity, and the cousin of the Emperor,
was now put to death for his attachment to the cause of Christ; [170:4]
and his near relative Flavia Domitilla, for the same reason, was
banished with many others to Pontia, [170:5] a small island off the
coast of Italy used for the confinement of state prisoners.

Domitian governed the Empire fifteen years, but his persecution of the
Christians appears to have been limited to the latter part of his reign.
About this time the Apostle John, "for the word of God and for the
testimony of Jesus Christ," [171:1] was sent as an exile into Patmos, a
small rocky island in the Aegaean Sea not far from the coast of Asia
Minor. It is said that he had previously issued unhurt from a cauldron
of boiling oil into which he had been plunged in Rome by order of the
Emperor; but this story, for which a writer who flourished about a
century afterwards is the earliest voucher, [171:2] has been challenged
as of doubtful authority. [171:3] We have no means of ascertaining the
length of time during which he remained in banishment; [171:4] and all
we know of this portion of his life is, that he had now those sublime
and mysterious visions to be found in the Apocalypse. After the fall of
Jerusalem, as well as after he was permitted to leave Patmos, he appears
to have resided chiefly in the metropolis of the Proconsular Asia; and
hence some ancient writers, who flourished after the establishment of
the episcopal system, have designated him the "Bishop of Ephesus."
[172:1] But the apostle, when advanced in life, chose to be known simply
by the title of "the elder;" [172:2] and though he was certainly by far
the most influential minister of the district where he sojourned, there
is every reason to believe that he admitted his brethren to a share in
the government of the Christian community. Like Peter and Paul before
him, he acknowledged the other elders as his "fellow-presbyters,"
[172:3] and, as became his age and apostolic character, he doubtless
exhorted them to take heed unto themselves and to all the flock over the
which the Holy Ghost had made them overseers. [172:4]

John seems to have been the last survivor of the apostles. He is said to
have reached the advanced age of one hundred years, and to have died
about the close of the first century. He was a "Son of Thunder," [172:5]
and he appears to have