have already refuted so erroneous an interpretation of the words of Christ, and it would then have been much more appropriate to explain afresh the sense of the words 'till I come.' Moreover, there is no reference here to the death as having already occurred, although a small addition to that effect in ver. 24 would have been so easy. But if we were to suppose that John had long been dead when this was written, the whole rectification as it is given would be utterly without sense."(1) On the contrary, we affirm that the whole history of the first two centuries renders it certain that the Apostle was already dead, and that the explanation was not a rectification of false hopes during his lifetime, but an explanation of the failure of expectations which had already taken place, and probably excited some scandal. We know how the early Church looked for the immediate coming of the glorified Christ, and how such hopes sustained persecuted Christians in their sorrow and suffering. This is very clearly expressed in 1 Thess. iv. 15--18, where the expectation of the second coming within the lifetime of the writer and readers of the Epistle is confidently stated, and elsewhere, and even in 1 John ii. 18, the belief that the "last times" had arrived is expressed. The history of the Apocalypse in relation to the Canon illustrates the case. So long as the belief in the early consummation of all things continued strong, the Apocalypse was the favourite writing of the early Church, but when time went on, and the second coming of Christ did not take place, the opinion of Christendom regarding the work changed, and disappointment, as well as the desire to explain the non-fulfilment of prophecies upon which so much hope had been based, led many to reject the Apocalypse {445}