Excerpt from An Exposition of the Gospel of St. John: Consisting of an Analysis of Each Chapter, and of a Commentary, Critical, Exegetical, Doctrinal, and Moral, Having the Text, English and Latin, Prefixed in Full to Each Chapter

While displaying his wonted Apostolic zeal, thundering against Heresy and Infidelity, and especially against the worship Of the great Diana of the Ephesians, he was denounced, as a dangerous character, to the tyrant Domitian, who had raised a second furious persecution against the Church. Having been sent to Rome, and' confronted with the jealous Emperor Domitian, this cruel persecutor Of the Christians, he was condemned to an extraordinary kind Of punishment. He was sentenced, as we are told by Tertullian (de Presc. 36) to be thrown into a cauldron Of boiling oil, whence he came forth, as St. Jerome assures us (contra. Iovin.) quite uninjured, thus earning for himself the glorious title of Martyr, 'as the punishment inflicted would have caused his death, were he not miraculously preserved. Domitian fearing that any further attempts on his life might prove abortive, had him banished to the little island of Patmos, one of the Sporades in the {egean Sea. It is commonly held, that it was here, he wrote the Apocalypse. The acts Of Domitian, so remarkable for cruelty, having been, on that account, cancelled under his successor, the Emperor N erva, St. John was permitted 'to return to Ephesus, where he died in peace, after having reached an extreme old age. The precise year of his death cannot be exactly determined; it must have closely bordered on the moth year of our zera.

This disciple of love, which he is never tired Of inculcating in all his writings.

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