There is, therefore, everything in the circumstances to make it _probable_ that the book was written at the time in which it is so uniformly said by the early historians to have been. Those things seem to me to make it proper to acquiesce in the general opinion so long entertained in regard to the date of the Apocalypse, for there is, perhaps, no book of the New Testament whose date is better determined on historical grounds than this. These considerations also make it unnecessary to examine the alleged internal evidence from the book that it was written before the destruction of Jerusalem, especially as it will be shown in the Notes that the passages usually relied on (chap. vi. 9, 10; vii.; xi. 3, 8; xvii. 8, 11; and chap. i. 1, 3; xxii. 7, 20) are susceptible of an easy and satisfactory explanation on the supposition that the book was written in the time of Domitian, or _after_ the destruction of Jerusalem. See also Editor’s Preface. § III.――_The Place where the Book was Written._ The book itself purports (chap. i. 9) to have been written in the island of Patmos, where the writer says he was “for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ;” that is, clearly, where he had been banished for his attachment to the Saviour. For an account of this island, see Notes on chap. i. 9. The only question that has ever been raised on this point is, whether this was a _reality_, or a _poetical fiction_――that is, whether the writer in his visions merely _seemed_ to have been transferred to the place, and this was made the imaginary scene of the vision. The latter supposition has been entertained by Eichhorn in his _Introduction to the New Testament_ (1810), and by some other writers. In favour, however, of understanding this as a literal fact, the following considerations may be suggested:―― 1. The clear statement of the writer himself (chap. i. 9)――a statement that should be received as literally true, unless there is something in the character of the composition, or some intrinsic improbability in the case, to set it aside. {l} If the composition were avowedly fictitious or poetical, then it would be understood that such a statement was not to be received literally. And thus, in a prophetic record, it _might_ be clear that it was a mere visionary representation, in which the prophet _seemed_ to be transported to some place where there would be no danger of misunderstanding it. Undoubtedly, on this principle, some of the visions of Ezekiel and Jeremiah are to be regarded as located at some place remote from that where the prophet was; and thus many of the visions in this book are located in heaven or elsewhere. But these cases are wholly different from the statement in chap. i. 9. Patmos is not represented as the mere scene of a vision. The statement occurs in a plain prose narrative, and there is no intrinsic improbability that it is true.