Thus far, to the end of the second century, the testimony of the fathers of the church, as far as we now have it, was uniform and unbroken; and so far as historical testimony is concerned, this should be permitted to decide the {xxxv} question. Marcion, indeed, who lived in the time of Polycarp, and whom Polycarp called “the first-born of Satan” (Lardner, ii. 95), rejected the book of Revelation (see the declaration of Tertullian in Lardner, ii. 275); but it is also to be remembered that he rejected the whole of the Old Testament, the account of the genealogy and baptism of the Saviour, the Acts of the Apostles, the Epistles to Timothy, Titus, the Hebrews, and the Catholic Epistles (Lardner, vi. 142‒151, 347‒350; viii. 489‒513). Besides the opinion of Marcion, the testimony was uniform, with the exception of the heretical sect of the _Alogi_, if there was any such sect, which is generally supposed to have arisen in the latter half of this century, who derived their name from their antipathy to the name of _Logos_, and who on this account denied both the Gospel of John and the book of Revelation. See Lardner, iv. 190, 191; viii. 627, 628. Lardner, however, maintains that there never was any such sect (viii. 628). 3. The third half century after the death of John, A.D. 200‒250. Among the names embraced in this period are those of Hippolytus, who flourished about A.D. 220; Nepos, an Egyptian bishop; the well-known Origen, the most acute critic of all the early fathers, and who devoted his life to the study of the Scriptures; Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, who flourished about A.D. 246; and Methodius, bishop of Olympia in Lycia. All these, without exception, have left a clear and decided expression of their belief that the apostle John was the author of the Apocalypse. See that testimony at length in Prof. Stuart, i. 321‒326. It is unnecessary to pursue the historical evidence further. If the testimony in favour of the work is unbroken and clear for an hundred and fifty years, the testimony of those who lived subsequent to that period would add little to its strength. To the names already mentioned, however, there might be added those of Epiphanius, Basil, Cyril of Alexandria, Ephrem the Syrian, Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, Hilary of Poictiers, Gregory Nazianzen, Chrysostom, and many others. Such is the external positive testimony in favour of the opinion that the book of Revelation was written by the apostle John.