St John on Patmos

The purpose of this paper is to discuss some aspects of the—to me—perennially fascinating problem of the Johannine literature: in particular of the relationship of the Gospel, the Epistle and the Apocalypse; and to put forward some rather speculative views of my own—though they are not wholly original—which owe their origin to some ideas I have had about the John who on the island of Patmos saw the Apocalypse. Who was he, and why was he there? What, if anything, had he to do with the Gospel and the Epistle? In the course of some twenty-five years' study of the Johannine literature, desultory though it has inevitably been, I have gradually become convinced that the problem cannot be solved piecemeal, and that any theory designed to account for the Gospel must be applicable also to the Epistle and the Apocalypse, and vice versa. And I may as well lay my cards on the table, and state the view which I have been led to hold.