Before Jerusalem Fell

Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons 51
have been given by the author of the Book. For the author was seen
on earth, he lived and held converse with his disciples, not so very
long ago, but almost in our own generation. Thus, on the one hand,
he lived years after he wrote the Book, and there was abundant
opportunity for him to expound the riddle, had he wished to do so;
and, on the other hand, since he lived on almost into our generation,
the explanation, had he given it, must have been preserved to US.”2 2
Chase’s observations are quite perceptive. Upon recognizing the
ambiguity of the passage when narrowly conceived in terms of purely
grammatico-syntactical analysis, he then proceeds upon sound hermeneutic
principle to elucidate Irenaeus’s precise point by consideration
of the contextual flow.
This sort of argumentation is why Wetstein, too, understood
‘~ohn” (which immediately preceding the verb becomes “him who
saw the apocalypse”) to be the nominative of &Jpa6q, rather than
“Revelation.”2 3
Macdonald agrees, and states the case dogmatically:
[Irenaeus] argues that if this knowledge [i.e., regarding the identity
of 666] had been important at that time it would have been communicated
by the writer of the Apocalypse, who lived so near their own
time. . . . There was therefore really no ambiguity to be avoided,
requiring him to use the name ofJohn or the personal pronoun as the
subject of &#3q, the verb of sight. The scope requires this nominative
and no other. 24
But there is still more to the contextual argument. In his Ecclesiastical
Histou (5:8:5,6) Eusebius again cites Irenaeus’s statement (Against
Heresies 5:30:3), this time with more of the context (Against Heresies
5:30:1):
He states these things in the third book of his above-mentioned work.
In the fifth book he speaks as follows concerning the Apocalypse of
John, and the number of the name of Antichrist “As these things are
so, and this number is found in all the approved and ancient copies,
and those who saw John face to face confirm it, and reason teaches
us that the number of the name of the beast, according to the mode
22. Chase, “Date,” pp. 431-432.
23. See James M. Macdonald, Th Ltj2 and Writings ~ St. Jolm (London: Hodder &
Stoughton, 1877), p. 170. He also noted that Guericke once held this view, but later
retracted it. See also Stuart, Apoca@pse 2:265.
24. Macdonald, Lye and Writings, p. 169.