John on Patmos

It is said that in this persecution the apostle and evangelist John, who was still alive, was condemned to live on the island of Patmos for his testimony to the divine word. [a] Irenaeus, writing about the number of the name given to the Antichrist in the so-called Apocalypse of John, says this about John, word for word, in the fifth book of his work Against Heresies: [b] “If it had been necessary for his name to be proclaimed openly at the present time, it would have been spoken by the one who also saw the revelation. For it was seen not long ago, but almost in our own generation, toward the end of Domitian’s reign.”

To such a degree, indeed, did the teaching of our faith shine out at that time that even writers far removed from our message did not hesitate to record in their histories the persecution and the martyrdoms that took place in it. They even marked the date exactly, recording that in the fifteenth year of Domitian, Flavia Domitilla, with many others, was given up to the island of Pontia as a punishment because of her testimony to Christ. She was the daughter of a sister of Flavius Clemens, one of the consuls at Rome at that time. [c]