The history of this movement in the formative period of the New Testament canon explains why the "revelations of the prophets" obtained but scant recognition as compared with the "word of the Lord" and the "commandment of the apostles." Last of the three, in order of rank (1st Cor. xii. 28; Eph. iv. 11), last also to be codified in written form, we need not be surprised that our present New Testament retains but a single one of the once current books of 'prophecy.' For a time the _Shepherd_ of Hermas and the _Apocalypse of Peter_ rivalled the claims to canonicity of our own Revelation of John, but were soon dropped. Our own Apocalypse has suffered more opposition than any other New Testament writing, being still excluded from the canon in some branches of the church. Its precarious place at the end of the canon which we moderns have inherited from Athanasius (_ob._ 373) was due, in fact, far less to its author's vigorous assertions of authority as an inspired "prophet" (i. 1-3; xxii. 6-9, 18 f.) than to the claims to apostolicity put forward in the preface and appendix. For until the third century no one drammed of understanding the "John" of Rev. i. 4, 9 and xxii. 8 otherwise than as the Apostle. Eusebius accordingly (325) is uncertain only as to whether the book should be classed in his first group of "accepted" writings, along with the Gospels and Pauline Epistles, or in the third as "spurious." If written by "some other John than the Apostle" he would not even honour it with a place in his second group of "disputed" books, along with Hebrews, James, Jude, and 2nd Peter.