Revelation 1:9

Ἐγὼ Ἰωάννης κ.τ.λ. “I John, your brother and partaker in the tribulation, and kingdom, and patience in Jesus.” The condescending choice of titles—if the writer is the son of Zebedee—is unique in the New Testament. To the opening part of the salutation there is a parallel in 1 Peter 5:1. The collocation of the latter words is peculiar, nor is the sense of ὑπομονὴ clear; probably here and in Romans 8:25, as in Psalms 38:8 (LXX.), it combines the ideas of expectation and endurance. The disciples knew from the first, Acts 14:22, that the tribulation came before the kingdom, and a phrase which coupled the two might have become familiar before they learnt that there was to be the discipline of prolonged waiting.

ἐγενόμην. Had come there, found myself there. Here and in the next verse he avoids, perhaps intentionally, the use of the word for continuous and absolute “being”: see note on Revelation 1:4.

Πάτμῳ. One of the Sporades, the south-eastern group of the islands of the Aegean. According to the tradition, as given by Victorinus, he was condemned to work in the mines—which, if trustworthy, must mean marble quarries, as there are no mines, strictly speaking, in the island. Christians were sent to the mines (Roman Christians to those of Sardinia) at least as early as the reign of Commodus (Hipp[72] Ref. Haer. IX. 12), and this was much the commonest punishment during the Diocletian persecution in which Victorinus suffered himself. In St John’s time it was commoner to put Christians to death; but the tradition is probably right; ‘deportation,’ confinement without hard labour on a lonely island, was then and afterwards reserved for offenders of higher secular rank.

[72] St Hippolytus. The readings not given by Tischendorf are from the newly published 4th book of his commentary on Daniel.

διὰ τὸν … Ἰησοῦ. Cf. Revelation 6:9 and Revelation 20:4. Apart from these references the words might mean (a) that the Seer had gone to the island to preach the Gospel, (b) that (by special revelation or otherwise) he had withdrawn there to await this vision. As it is, the traditional view that he was banished there for being a Christian is clearly right.

VISION OF THE SON OF MAN, Revelation 1:10-20