John's Apocalypse in the Delta

Let's talk Apocalypse. This is called Revelatio in Latin but today I'd consider its reception in Greek Aigyptos.

I have here Jonathan Kirsch's History of the End of the World and John Crossan's Render Unto Caesar. Saturday I leafed through (but didn't buy) Bart Ehrman's Armageddon. Would've poasted then, but got sidetracked.

I cannot review this full book; I confess I leafed mostly past one chapter. That's the chapter on how Problematic is John for the modern world, the only real world for Ehrman. Dispensationalists, you see, tend not to care about "climate". In other words Bart Ehrman's chief problem with John's eschatology is that it competes with Bart's. I have no respect for this attitude so refuse, on principle, to trade coin for such as evangelise for it. THIS TOO 3/30: "the word rapture isn't in [the Bible]". Here Ehrman might even be lying.

Still: where Ehrman stays in his own lane, which is scholarship, he always has something new and important to offer. (I do wonder when 6 Ezra will start making its way into Apocalypse commentary.) For this book, there's glimpses at a history of... ancient Apocalypse commentary.

One form of commentary is, as the Muslims point out, translation. For the Revelation, Latin came first - followed, I understand, by Coptic. Its original Greek, as Dionysius of Alexandria pointed out over the AD 250s, is barbarous. Ehrman holds its Greek as the worst in the New Testament, which is saying something for a collection which still (somehow) includes most of Mark. I take it that the Latins found a translator who made Revelation read like it does in the KJV: a rhetorical monument. (I still cannot speak for Coptic.)

Accordingly this Revelation's first readers trended Western. Irenaeus accepted it; Hippolytus even commented upon it although we seem to have lost this work. Still extant is Victorinus AD 260.

But our John's reception wasn't just Western; some Greeks - Papias foremost - could be found to forgive his prose and accept his wahy. Over in Alexandria, Clement accepted John as the Apostle and occasionally cited his Apocalypse as "The Prophet". We are told that his disciple Origen (d. AD 253) composed homilies upon this text (also in Greek); twelve of which circulated in one tome although this has got lost too. Among the Monophysites the Sahidic tradition went its own way as seen Pseudo-Cyril (pdf).

So: Dionysius. We are told that Dionysius was a student of Origen; this may or may not be true, but as an Alexandrine, Dionysius could hardly avoid him. Dionysius' books do not survive on their own but Eusebius - himself no fan of the Apocalypse - did posterity the great favour of reprinting the bulk of his rebuttal of chialism. Dionysius, as the local archbishop not to say pope, found one Coracion expounding a book by one Nepos, by then an Egyptian saint.

Coracion was active in the Arsinoë praefecture. Dionysius was able, through sheer reason, to rebut Nepos' book to Coracion's satisfaction, and apparently to other Hellenophones' to the point Nepos' book went uncopied (unless PsCyril will use it). Dionysius treats the Apocalypse similarly: with respect to John's holiness, but not allowing his status as Apostolic. As Eusebius has framed Dionysius' excerpts, he implies that Dionysius associated Nepos with an Apostolic reading of the Apocalypse, i.e. that Johanan bar Zebedaya composed it. As noted Apostolic authorship of the Apocalypse was the mainstream Alexandrine opinion since Clement.

It might be from Nepos that we own "Pseudo-Origenic Scholia" upon the Apocalypse. Contrariwise, note how Dionysius bears witness to anticommentary upon the Apocalypse, apparently book-by-book. Eusebius will report that Dionysius has his own book-by-book summary. It may well have quoted from the Apocalypse's enemies (SPECULATE 3/26: Pierius?). But Eusebius won't share what Dionysius had said! Reminds me of his Serapion extract, on "Peter". Sigh.

Of side-interest: Dionysius makes great use of the Johannine Gospel (chs. 1-20) and of the Catholic Epistle - and (quietly) of Luke's Acts, on the assumption that these "Johannines" belong to the Apostle. Dionysius knows 2-3 John as letters by "The Elder"; but he does not deal with them further, instead returning to 1 John as the Epistle. Clement and Origen could be foremost whom Dionysius considers many brethren who value [Rev.] highly (so not just Nepos and Coracion). Clement had probably accepted 2 John; Origen seems to have questioned it (and 3 John); ditto Pierius. Dionysius, I think, is being discreet and allowing for Origen.