re testimony to its genuineness." Irenaeus, the pupil of Polycarp,
the disciple of St. John, quotes it as written by "John, the disciple
of the Lord." About A.D. 170 Melito of Sardis, one of the places to
which part of the book was specially addressed, wrote a commentary upon
it. It was accepted by the Churches of Vienne and Lyons in Gaul in
A.D. 177, for they wrote of it as "Scripture" in their letter to the
Christians of Asia Minor. Near the same date the _Muratorian Fragment_
mentions it twice. It will be observed that this evidence is not only
good, but it is also mostly drawn from sources which were most closely
connected with St. John. The evidence of the Churches of Vienne and
Lyons would be important, even if it stood alone. For these
Greek-speaking Churches were allied with the Church of Ephesus, and
were not likely to be mistaken about this question. And the evidence
of Irenaeus and Melito is still more weighty.

Strange to say, the belief in the authenticity of the Revelation began
to waver as time went on. We need pay little heed to the sect known as
the Alogi, who attributed both St. John's {271} Gospel and the
Revelation to Cerinthus, because they disliked the doctrine of the
Logos contained in these two books. They were too ignorant to have
been influenced by any real critical knowledge. But it is an important
fact that about A.D. 248 Dionysius of Alexandria stated that it was
probably written by John the Presbyter, and that the great Eusebius
seems at one time to have been inclined to accept the opinion of
Dionysius.[1] So far as we can discover, Dionysius founded his opinion
solely on the difference of style which can be observed as separating
the Revelation from the Gospel. He does not seem to have been in
possession of any facts which gave historical support to his theory.
Nevertheless, we can legitimately think that there was another reason
which induced orthodox Christians to regard the Revelation with less
confidence. The Montanist sect, which arose in the latter half of the
2nd century and became powerful in Asia Minor and North Africa, taught
an extravagant doctrine about the millennium when Christ would return
to reign on earth. This doctrine was partly founded on Rev. xx., and
was supported by pretended prophecies. It caused orthodox Christians
to be more suspicious about the statements of Christian prophets, and
probably made them less anxious to translate and circulate the
Rev