Heresy X, Of the Apocalypse of John the Evangelist

OF THE APOCALYPSE OF JOHN THE EVANGELIST — Heresy X (De Apocalypsi Ioannis Euangelistæ hæresis X)

That the Apocalypse is neither John the Apostle’s, nor to be received among the canonical scriptures.

ASSERTORES HVIVS HAERESEOS [The Assertors of this Heresy]

Both parts of this heretical assertion were first carried into the church by the Alogi, or A[nti]logiani, whom we remembered again when we treated of the Gospel of John. These men (as Epiphanius, Philastrius, and Augustine relate) judge this book to have been fabricated by Cerinthus the heresiarch, the adversary of the Apostles, and stuffed with innumerable figments and juggleries (præstigiis); ¹ whose blasphemy Theodore of Byzantium seconds, the prince of the Theodotians, against whom Epiphanius writes in the second book. But Luther and his fellow-conspirators — although they dare not openly condemn this book by themselves, against the universal assertion of the catholic church — nevertheless cunningly vituperate it under the person of others, and endeavor to shake it with many reasons, which they leave undissolved: saying that it was of old exploded by most erudite and most grave men, as the narration of a fabulous and made-up matter, in which there was nothing of the apostolic breast. And they are in doubt also about the author of the book — whether it was a certain John the presbyter, buried at Ephesus, or some other; for they say they have it as a thing ascertained that it is not the work of John the Apostle.

IMPVGNATIO [The Refutation]

Against the rash error of these men fight the testimonies of the most ancient fathers, the determinations of councils, and the authority of the whole catholic church. And first of all Dionysius the Areopagite, the disciple of Paul, first showed this book to be John the Apostle and Evangelist’s. For he, in the book on the ecclesiastical Hierarchy, setting down a universal partition of holy scripture, speaks thus of the Apocalypse: “Or that arcane and altogether mystical vision of the beloved disciple, divine, of the lord Jesus — and it expounds the most lofty theology to those who merit to become gods (dii fieri), and uplifts and confirms them through the sacred and divine mysteries.” ² By which words assuredly Dionysius has most clearly designated the holy Apocalypse of John. But because Luther, with his Academics, who call all things into doubt, contemns the testimony of Dionysius — saying that he is not that Dionysius the Areopagite, Paul’s disciple, because he wrote no volumes; and that this is a new and supposititious Dionysius, sent forth into the light by some Greekling scarcely five hundred years ago, and adorned with the counterfeited surname of the Areopagite — let him know that he is refuted by the testimony of many ancient writers, and condemned besides by the authority of many Councils. For Gregory the Great, in the homily on the hundred sheep; and Pope Agatho, in the epistle to the sixth synod, and the sixth synod itself; and Pope Martin, in the synod celebrated at Rome; likewise John Damascene, in the books on the orthodox faith and against the Iconomastics [image-breakers] — make mention of Dionysius the Areopagite and of his books, and prove ecclesiastical dogmas out of them, as from the authority of a most holy and most ancient man. And after Dionysius, Justin the philosopher and martyr not only attested that the Apocalypse is John the Apostle’s, but also (as Eusebius in the Chronicles and Jerome in the book On illustrious men are witnesses) pursued it with a most luminous exposition. Irenaeus also, in the fifth book against heresies, attested that the Apocalypse was written by John the Evangelist near the end of [the reign of] Domitian Caesar ³

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attested [that the Apocalypse was written by John near the end of Domitian], and put forth commentaries upon it. Theophilus likewise, bishop of Antioch, as Eusebius writes, used the testimonies of this book, as of the canonical scriptures, against the heresy of Hermogenes; and Melito of Asia, bishop of the church of Sardis, composed commentaries on this book as on a canonical work. ⁴ The Council of Ancyra also, celebrated under Diocletian Augustus, uses the sentences of this book for the confirmation of dogmas under the name of John the Apostle, whom it also asserts to be the author of this book. For thus it speaks in the sixth volume of Eusebius: ⁵ “John the Apostle saw the sacrament of the Apocalypse in the spirit, not in the body, as he himself says: ‘I was in the spirit on the Lord’s day,’ etc.” Dionysius also, pontiff of the church of the Corinthians, noble among the ecclesiastical writers, speaks of the Apocalypse of John, in the same Eusebius, in this manner: ⁶ “But I, so far as pertains to my own opinion, in no wise dare to spurn or cast away the scripture of this book — especially since many of the brethren think with me; and this rather is my judgment of it: that the things written in it exceed and rise above the measure of human hearing, and that there is in it a certain arcane and recondite and admirable sense, which I too admire and venerate even if I do not understand it; and I so think, that certain divine sacraments are covered over by human words: not so much discerning this by my own judgment as believing it by faith; and thus I do not reprobate the things I do not understand, but admire them the more, the less I attain to them.” But John Damascene also, in the fourth book On the Faith, after he had woven together a catalogue of the divine volumes, placed the book of the Apocalypse last in it, under the name of John the evangelist. ⁷ And Jerome, in the book On Illustrious Men, has this of the Apocalypse: “In the fourteenth year, therefore, Domitian stirring up the second persecution after Nero, John, relegated to the island of Patmos, wrote the Apocalypse, which Justin Martyr and Irenaeus interpret.” And in the epistle to Paulinus, weaving an encomium of this same book: “The Apocalypse of John,” says he, “has as many sacraments as words. I have said too little: in proportion to the merit of the volume, all praise is inferior. In its single words lie hidden manifold intelligences.” The divine Augustine also, in the thirty-sixth tractate on John, says that the Apocalypse is that same John’s whose is the gospel; and in the book On holy virginity he asserts that the Apocalypse is his — the beloved disciple, who reclined upon the breast of the lord at the supper; ⁸ and in the second book On Christian doctrine he numbers it among the canonical books — upon which he also put forth particular Annotations in a separate volume. I pass over the testimony of Ticonius the African concerning the Apocalypse, and his commentaries upon it, which Gennadius writes that he read [described] in his catalogue; likewise the joint attestation of Epiphanius, and of Isidore in the sixth book of the Etymologies; ⁹ of Ambrose too, and of the divine Gregory, of Bede, of Haymo, and of writers without number. I am silent also concerning the decrees of the fourth Synod of Toledo, and of other councils, on behalf of the venerable authority of this book — observing that I have produced far more testimonies than was needful; but the rash assertion of the Innovators (Nouatorum) compelled me to do so, who proclaim this book as scarcely acknowledged by the ancient fathers, and especially by the Greeks. We have wished, therefore, to show that through all the successions of the fathers, from the very first beginning of the nascent church even to our own times, it was always received, as the true and legitimate work of John, Apostle and Evangelist, into the number of the sacred volumes.

OBIECTIONES HAERETICORVM [The Objections of the Heretics]

1. To begin with, it is established again and again (they say) that the Apocalypse is not John the Apostle’s, from the inscription of the work, which in all the Greek codices is had thus: ἀποκάλυψις τοῦ ἁγίου Ἰωάννου τοῦ θεολόγου — that is, “The Revelation of B. John the Theologian.” ¹⁰ But that this “theologian” was one far other than John the evangelist, Papias, the hearer of John, attested, writing — in the books which he entitled OF THE LORD’S SAYINGS (Verborum Dominicorum) — that there were two Johns: the one the apostle; the other outside the number of the Apostles, whom, a certain distinction being made, he called John the presbyter, and associated with a certain Aristo. From which words when Eusebius of Caesarea, in the third book of the ecclesiastical history, chapter 38, had fallen into the suspicion that perhaps [this] John [the presbyter], and not John the Evangelist, was the author of the Apocalypse, he said: “By these things it is proved to be true, what certain Asians write: that there are two sepulchres at Ephesus, and each is called John’s. To which if we attend more diligently, perhaps this second will be the John — if the first is not believed [to be he] — under whose name is had the revelation which is called John’s.” Moreover — because Eusebius brought forth [his view] concerning the author of this book under doubt — Dionysius bishop of Alexandria, Eusebius witnessing in the seventh of the History, expressed himself most clearly, not only affirming that it is not John the Evangelist’s, but also showing this with reasons adduced; namely: ¹¹

2. From the very style of the writing: both because the phrase and manner of speaking of the two volumes — namely of the Gospel of John and of the Apocalypse — is diverse; and because John, who wrote the Gospel, nowhere in his Gospel made mention of his own name, nor signed himself by name; but this man, who wrote the Apocalypse, makes mention of his own name at almost the third word, often repeating that: “I John; I John” — ¹² as though he were writing us not a book but a promissory note (syngrapham) — contrary to the custom of the other Apostles, and his own, who in the Gospel, keeping his name unsaid, indicates the author only, saying: “This is that disciple whom Jesus loved,” etc.

3. Next, those very ecclesiastical writers who ascribe the Apocalypse to John the Apostle so disagree among themselves about the place and time in which and when John wrote it, that it evidently appears John the Apostle could not have been its author. For Irenaeus, at the end of the fifth book, handed down to memory that the Apocalypse was written near the close of the empire of Domitian; consenting with whom, Eusebius in the chronicles and Jerome in the book On Illustrious Men assert that it was written by John on the island of Patmos in the fourteenth year of Domitian. But Epiphanius, bishop of Salamis, Arethas and Andreas, bishops of Cappadocia, and very many others of the Greeks, [say that it was written] under ¹³

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hand down that it was put forth under Claudius Nero, almost forty years earlier. And Dorotheus, bishop of Tyre, handed down to memory that the gospel was written by John on Patmos, but the Apocalypse by no means [there]. Nay, the author himself, in the very beginning of the book, narrating the time of his vision, says that he heard his revelation on the holy Lord’s day: “I John” (says he) “was in the spirit on the Lord’s day”; ¹⁴ but it is most certain that in the time of John the Evangelist there was as yet no institution or appellation of the Lord’s day, which was decreed by the fathers much later. Wherefore, since concerning the author, the place, and the time of this revelation nothing certain is had, it remains that it cannot be affirmed by us as ascertained that the Apocalypse is John the Apostle and Evangelist’s. On these and suchlike things they lean who deny this book to be John the Evangelist’s.

4. But those who cast this very volume out of the canon and ascribe it to Cerinthus the heretic — the Alogians — taking their occasion from the things which are treated in this revelation, arm themselves against it with these weapons (as Dionysius and Epiphanius recite), saying: ¹⁵ First, that there is nothing in it agreeable to the sanctity and majesty of John, but all things vain and well-nigh ridiculous, of no utility or fruit. “For what utility” (say they) “comes to us out of this Apocalypse, which teaches us nothing besides certain empty things about seven stars, seven angels, seven eyes, seven candlesticks, seven trumpets, seven vials, seven seals, and frivolous things of this sort? — which, since they are covered over with a certain thick veil of ignorance, under wrappings of visions and enigmas of dreams, are worthy to be called not a revelation, but rather a veiling and an enveloping (non reuelationis, sed velationis & obuolutionis).”

5. To these add that in some places it is even manifestly caught lying, writing to churches which exist nowhere, nor ever did exist, saying: “And to the angel of the church which is in Thyatira write: These things saith the son of God, who hath eyes…” etc. ¹⁶ But in Thyatira — a city which is in Mysia, on the left side of the river Caycus — there was never, in the time of John, any church of Christians. How then does he write to her who is nowhere?

6. Besides these things, moreover, it contains the heretical dogmas of Cerinthus: namely, the restoration of an earthly kingdom in Jerusalem, and of the temple, and of the Jewish festivities, when he says: “I saw the holy city Jerusalem, new, descending from heaven, prepared by God as a bride adorned for her husband; and I heard a voice: behold the tabernacle of God with men, and he will dwell with them.” ¹⁷ And a little after: “And the kings of the earth shall bring their glory into her; and the nations shall walk in her light; and her gates shall not be shut by day.” ¹⁸ Likewise a satiety of foods and abundance of cups, when he says: “They shall not hunger nor thirst any more; and he shall lead them to the fountains of waters”; ¹⁹ and again: “To him that overcometh I will give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of my God; and I will give him the hidden manna.” And again, future nuptials, and the pleasures of wedlock, and the other enticements of the flesh, saying: “Let us be glad and rejoice, for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath prepared herself. Blessed are they who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” ²⁰ And then, after these things, the time of the kingdom of Christ and of the saints, according to the heresy of the χιλιαστῶν [Chiliasts], he designates as destined to endure through the space of a thousand years on earth, when he says: “And I saw the souls of the beheaded, for the testimony of Jesus; and they lived, and reigned with Christ a thousand years. But the rest of the dead lived not, until the thousand years be consummated. This is the first resurrection. Blessed is he who hath part in the first resurrection: in these the second death hath no power; but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.” ²¹ All which things Cerinthus — that greatest friend of the flesh and of lusts — dictated according to the lasciviousness of his own wit; and, that he might strengthen them with the authority of an apostolic name, he divulged them under the title of John. These things the Alogians, in Epiphanius and Dionysius.

7. But the Lutherans superadd to these arguments of the Alogians that Eusebius, in the third volume of the History, relates that Gaius, a most ancient and most celebrated writer of the catholic church, wrote in the dialogue of his disputations that Cerinthus the heretic composed the book of this Apocalypse under the name of John, that by the authority of the apostolic name he might confirm an earthly kingdom of Christ, to endure through a thousand years. ²² To which they add also another disadvantage (incommodum) for this work: that none of the Greek churches receives it in the canon of the sacred volumes — as Jerome says to Dardanus: “Nor indeed do the churches of the Greeks receive the Apocalypse of John with the same liberty.” And neither Anastasius the Greek author, nor the Council of Laodicea, enumerates the Apocalypse in the catalogue of the divine letters.

DISSOLVTIO OBIECTORVM [The Dissolution of the Objections]

1. From how light causes these heretics cast away the holy Apocalypse is shown first of all by that lightest of conjectures which they produce concerning the inscription of the book — not knowing that B. John the Theologian is the same who was both Apostle and evangelist; who, on account of the sublimity of his gospel, in which he touched the most lofty things concerning the divinity of the Word, and raised himself higher than the other evangelists, has been celebrated by the ancient writers under the name of “the Theologian” — by Dionysius the Areopagite especially, whose tenth epistle is still extant, fore-noted with these words: “To John the Theologian, Apostle and Evangelist, relegated on the island of Patmos”; in which Dionysius himself, speaking of the theology of John the Evangelist, inserts these words: “But us no storm, no adversity shall deprive of the most bright ray of John — [we being] indeed destined to attain it by the memory and renewal of thy most true theology,” etc. In like manner invalid is the conjecture which they draw from the suspicion of Eusebius and the testimony of Dionysius of Alexandria, perversely understood. For Eusebius, in his Chronicles and in very many chapters of the ecclesiastical history, so openly confesses the Apocalypse to be John the apostle’s, that he easily frees himself from this suspicion, and shows that he brought forth those words out of the opinion of others. And Dionysius does not deny that the Apocalypse is John the apostle’s, but says only this: that he knows the author of the Apocalypse to be called John, and that it was written through the Holy Spirit; but that this is not clearly established for him — whether Jo[hn…]

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whether it be John the apostle’s, on account of the diversity of style and the frequent repetition of his own name. And even if of old there was some doubt or other about it, before the decree concerning it was made in the Church, we, after so long an approbation of the church and of the fathers, can no longer be in two minds about it.

2. Now concerning the diversity of style, which these Innovators always inculcate and repeat in almost all the books of scripture, we answer that the conjecture from style is feeble, seeing that style must needs be varied according to the diversity of the argument. Wherefore, since in the Gospel of John and in the Apocalypse the argument is diverse, it would not be greatly to be wondered at if John had kept a diverse manner of speaking in the two. And yet the character of the two volumes does not very much disagree: for both were written in the common dialect of the Greeks, and with the same phrases and idioms of the Hebrew tongue. And if in the Apocalypse he makes frequent mention of his own name, of which he had never made mention in his Gospel, it is no wonder. For in the Gospel he was writing another’s history — namely, Jesus Christ’s — wherefore there was no need to name himself; but in the Apocalypse he was writing revelations and visions narrated to himself, in which to interpose his own name frequently was not at all beside the matter.

3. Nor is the argument less infirm which they adduce from the controversy of fathers dissonant among themselves about the time and place. For it does not follow that the Iliad of Homer was not put forth by Homer himself, because concerning the time and place in which Homer wrote, and likewise concerning Homer’s fatherland, there has always been contention among his expositors, the suit still hanging before the judge. Wherefore, even if the sentences of the fathers differed about the place and time of the scripture, not on that account would the scripture itself have to be doubted. How much less, then, is there now to be any wavering, when the aforesaid sentences of the fathers, diligently considered, differ nothing among themselves? For Dorotheus does not deny that the Apocalypse was written on Patmos, but is silent and passes it by in silence. But if from his silence they would conclude that the Apocalypse is not John the Apostle’s, by the same reasoning they will have to conclude that the first epistle of John the apostle is not his, because this Dorotheus made no mention of it. And as for what they object concerning the Lord’s day — that it was not yet instituted in the time of John — it is most false, the consensus of the whole church crying out against it, which believes that the solemnity of the Lord’s day was founded by the apostles themselves in memory of the Lord’s resurrection. Of whose institution by the apostles Augustine testifies, in sermon 25 De tempore, in these words: “The apostles, therefore, and apostolic men, decreed that the Lord’s day was for this reason to be held in religious solemnity: because on it our redeemer rose from the dead.” Nor does that derogate from the authority of the Apocalypse, that even to the times of Eusebius there was disputation in the Church about its author and its authority; nay rather, this lends it much greater credit. For since John had begun a new kind of writing, and was writing things future — not things done, as the other writers of the new testament had — the novelty of the matter furnished a handle of admiration and of ambiguity to those first fathers; and that doubt yielded to the credit of the greater work: because this book was received by them into the order of the sacred volumes only after the matter had been diligently examined and discussed. Wherefore, even if it was at one time doubted of, it ought not now to be of less authority than the other sacred books, since the church has received it into the canon with a veneration equal to the rest. And let these things be said to those who deny that John the Apostle is the author of the Apocalypse.

4. It remains now that we confute the calumnies of those who accuse the Apocalypse as useless and pernicious, and full of the dogmas of Cerinthus: vituperating the things that are obscurely narrated in it of the seven trumpets, candlesticks, and angels — as if they were to be understood Judaically, that is, carnally, and according to the dead letter (as they perversely suppose), and not rather spiritually and mystically, according to the mind of the author; who at the beginning of his narration teaches that he saw the things which he wrote not carnally and corporally, but spiritually — since he was rapt in the spirit on the Lord’s day, ²³ and, the divine spirit thoroughly showing them, beheld the sacraments of intellectual visions not with the eyes of the body but of the mind. For he himself, in that same place, calls his visions “Sacraments” — that is, sacred secrets — that from this we may know that, just as in all sacraments one thing is seen and heard outwardly, but another is understood inwardly and spiritually through allegory, so in his visions one thing is represented without, another is found and uncovered within. So that by the seven golden candlesticks we should understand the seven churches, burning with divine charity and illuminated by the wisdom of the divine light, to which John writes; and by the seven stars and seven angels, the rulers and bishops of the seven churches (as John himself expounds), who ought to shine for others with the splendor of doctrine and of work; by the seven eyes of the Lamb, the seven gifts of the holy spirit, with which the Lamb — Christ — as with seven most bright rays, irradiates the darkness of our souls; ²⁴ by the seven seals, the seven revelations of things to be carried on in the church through seven future times — sealed and shut up in the book of the divine mind to such a degree that, unless the Lamb had opened the book of his own arcana, we could never have either read or understood them; by the seven trumpets, the seven orders of preachers and teachers, who through the seven coming ages, even to the consummation of the world, were to succeed one another in turn: to uncover, by the sound of the evangelical voice, the ambushes of the heretics; to frighten off, by the clangor of the divine word, the rebel minds of tyrants; and to stir up the souls of the faithful, that they might sustain the assaults of the enemies and fight fiercely against their endeavors; and by the seven vials, the seven plagues and seven tribulations which the Church, through seven ages succeeding one another, was to suffer even to the end of the present world. All and each of which things were written by John the apostle not in vain, nor without any profit to the Church (as the heretics calumniate), but for the perpetual consolation of the faithful and the stability of the Christian faith. For the Apostle wished to hand down to the memory of posterity the things God revealed to him concerning the future tribulations and persecutions of the church, lest the faithful, terrified by the unforeseen arrival of these things, should suffer scandal,

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and should fall away from the faith of Christ, thinking that the church of the Christians, oppressed with such great slaughters, was of no care to God, and that, its affairs being altogether despaired of, it was rolling down to final destruction. Meeting this scandal of the faithful, therefore, John prophetically foretold the calamities and hardships impending over the church even to the end of the world: so that, when the fullness of their time should arrive, the elect of God, already forewarned out of his writing, might not be troubled or waver at all, but might persevere firmer and more stable in the faith, seeing those things then being fulfilled in the Church which, long before they came to pass, the Holy Spirit had foretold through the mouth of his Apostle; and might come forth daily more robust in hope and in patience — hoping, again, after a little while, both the brief labor of the Church, and the promised rest for those who labor, victory for those who contend, the palm for the victors, and, the palm being obtained, the crown of eternal felicity. And this is the admirable utility of this book: that the punishments denounced in it terrify us, and the promised rewards gladden us. Yet John wrote these things obscurely and in wrapped-up fashion (inuolutè), lest his prophetic scripture should grow cheap, and lest there should lie open to the heretical robbers (latrunculis) a place for perverting it. And he called it by the most fitting name of Apocalypse for this reason: that all the things contained in this book were revealed and manifested to him, and he himself also revealed some of them to us. Whence in vain do the heretics make it a crime, [saying] that it ought rather to have been inscribed an involution than a revelation.

5. But as to what they reprehend concerning the Church which (they say) was by no means in Thyatira in John’s time, Epiphanius answers: that John, in the prophetic spirit, wrote not to that [church] which then was not, but to that which afterward was to be there; and fore-announced to it how it was to err, deceived by the false prophetesses of the Phrygasters [Montanists] — namely Priscilla, Maximilla, and Quintilla — whom he designated under the name of Jezabel the prophetess, seducing the servants of Christ. ²⁵ And the same Epiphanius writes that this church, in his own times, had been purged again from every heresy of the Phrygasters.

6. Finally, as to those things in which they accuse this book of the dogmas of Cerinthus, they gravely err — being ignorant that the things related in this book about the restoration of Jerusalem, and the nuptials of the Lamb, and the satiety of hunger and thirst, are to be understood not corporally and carnally of that corruptible Jewish Jerusalem, but of the heavenly and sempiternal Jerusalem — that is, of the Church, the bride of Christ; which John saw adorned with the ornaments of immortality and impassibility and the other divine dowries, together with her spouse Christ, in sempiternal felicity, to come after the judgment — ²⁶ yet not before that first resurrection should take place, which is not corporal but spiritual, namely of the soul from sins; and this indeed he called the first resurrection, to distinguish it from the second, general resurrection, in which all sou[ls] will rise again with their bodies — just as by the second death he understood the perpetual damnation of soul and body; and by the thousand years of that [first] resurrection he designated the space between the seventh tribulation of the church and the coming of Antichrist: so that he took a determinate number (which is most frequent in the divine letters) for an indeterminate number of years. And that John wrote of the heavenly and spiritual Jerusalem, and not of the earthly, he himself discloses, when he adds that he saw no temple in her — “for the Lord God omnipotent and the lamb was the temple thereof” — nor Sun nor Moon to shine in her, “for the clarity of God illuminated her, and her lamp was the Lamb”; ²⁷ at whose glorious conjunction with the church, in eternal beatitude, those saints rejoice, saying: “Let us be glad and rejoice, for the marriage of the lamb is come” — in which, namely, the Church was joined to Christ: she who, while she before was warring (militando), had been the spouse of Christ in hope, then at last, triumphing, was made the spouse of Christ in reality (in re); whose bridal garments and mystical ornaments are the justifications (as John says) and the merits of the saints. And the Nuptials to which the saints are invited are filled not with corporeal banquets and the other enticements of gluttony and of the flesh, but with the hidden manna — that is, with the presence of the divinity of Christ, which is the true manna — and with the tree of life, that is, the presence of the glorious humanity of Christ: in the sight of which things there will be present the end of all our desires, nor will there any longer be in us groaning or weeping, but a perpetual and stable beatitude, of soul and of body alike, destined to endure into everlasting.

7. Now finally, what the Lutherans adduce concerning the words of Gaius is altogether futile. For neither can that be deduced from the words of Gaius, nor does Eusebius affirm it; nor does the sentence of Gaius recited by Eusebius commemorate any such thing, but indicates only this: that Cerinthus had introduced his own heresy through certain revelations, as though written by a great Apostle. ²⁸ Which words do not assert that Cerinthus was the author of those revelations, but that out of those revelations of the great Apostle, perversely understood, he introduced the falsity of his own dogma — as the words of Dionysius, bishop of the Corinthians, adduced by Eusebius immediately after these, show clearer than light; and Dionysius, in the same Eusebius, narrates it more at large. And concerning the catalogues of Anastasius and of the Council of Laodicea, in which the Apocalypse is not recounted, there is nothing to be wondered at, since in those times the Catholic Church had not yet decreed anything concerning its authority — as she afterward decreed that it was to be received in the Canon of the holy volumes. ²⁹ Let all the heretics therefore cease to assail the holy Apocalypse of John with maledictions, and let them acknowledge themselves overcome by these things which, God aiding, have been said by us.

Septimi Libri Finis. (The End of the Seventh Book.)