We can hardly doubt that it was written at Ephesus, where the apostle spent his last years. The assertion that St. John did not live at Ephesus is in direct contradiction with the best and earliest traditions. But it has been repeated at intervals during the last sixty years by several critics, who found that they would be compelled to admit the genuineness of the Revelation if they granted that St. John lived at Ephesus, where the Revelation was evidently published.[3] Against such criticism we can confidently marshal the express and independent statements of Apollonius of Ephesus (A.D. 196), Polycrates of Ephesus (A.D. 190), {258} Irenaeus of Lyons (A.D. 185), Clement of Alexandria (A.D. 190), Tertullian of Carthage (A.D. 200), not to mention some valuable indirect evidence of earlier date. If we are to reject such evidence as this, the science of history must be laid in the tomb. The question as to the exact date is very important for those who believe that the Epistle was not written by the author of the Gospel. They are involved in the most intricate questions about the reproduction of the Gospel in the Epistle or of the Epistle in the Gospel. For those who do not believe in a diversity of authorship the problem is far less vital. The apostle was evidently advanced in years. He includes all his people under the affectionate name "my little children" (ii. 1). On the whole, it seems probable that it was written rather later than the Gospel. This is suggested by the teaching about the second coming of Christ. Both in the Gospel and in the Epistle we find mentioned or implied a present and a future passing from death to life, and a spiritual presence of Christ now and another hereafter. But in the Epistle it is the future coming of Christ which is more prominent (ii. 28; iii. 2; iv. 17). In the Revelation, A.D. 96, it is still more prominent. The Epistle suggests that St. John's readers were already acquainted with the discourses in his Gospel. The heresy described, and the fact that the heretics are already _outside_ the Church, point to a comparatively late date. We can hardly place it before A.D. 85. [Sidenote: Character and Contents.]