Patmos
“Etymology unknown”
Summary
Patmos is a small, rocky island in the Aegean Sea where the apostle John was exiled under the Emperor Domitian and where he received the visions recorded in the book of Revelation.
☩Geography
Patmos lies in the Icarian Sea, part of the Aegean, about twenty miles south of Samos and twenty-four miles west of the coast of Asia Minor near Miletus. The island is approximately ten miles long and six miles wide at its northern end, with a deeply indented coastline and an excellent harbor. It is rocky, bare, and volcanic, with Mount Elias rising to over 800 feet. The island is divided into two nearly equal parts by a narrow isthmus, where the harbor and town are located on the eastern side. Though treeless, Patmos abounds in flowering plants and shrubs, and its wine is noted as the strongest and best-flavored in the Greek islands.
☩John's Exile
John states that he was in Patmos "for the word of God and the testimony of Jesus" (Revelation 1:9). According to tradition preserved by Irenaeus, Eusebius, and Jerome, John was exiled there in the fourteenth year of Domitian's reign (about AD 95) and returned to Ephesus under Nerva around AD 96. Small, inhospitable islands were commonly used as places of banishment under the Roman Empire, and exiles were often sent to the most rocky and desolate locations. The rocky solitude of Patmos suited the sublime and awful nature of the revelation John received there. It was on this island, "on the Lord's day," that John was "in the Spirit" and received the visions of the Apocalypse.
☩Later History and Traditions
On a hill in the southern part of the island stands the celebrated Monastery of St. John the Divine, founded by Alexius Comnenus in AD 1088. Halfway up the ascent is a cave or grotto where tradition says John received the Revelation, still called "the cave of the Apocalypse" (τὸ σπήλαιον τῆς Ἀποκαλύψεως). The monastery once contained 600 manuscripts, though many have since been dispersed, including a celebrated 9th-century Plato manuscript now in the Bodleian Library. The island, which bore the name Palmosa in the Middle Ages, has remained remarkably undisturbed—the Turks never settled there, no mosque was ever erected, and the inhabitants have lived in relative peace and independence.
☩Literary Significance
Internal evidence suggests the book of Revelation was written amid the sights and sounds of the sea. The word thalassa (sea) appears 25 times in Revelation, and the book is filled with oceanic imagery. The voice described as "many waters" (Revelation 1:15; 14:2; 19:6), the "sea of glass mingled with fire" (Revelation 15:2), and the longing that "the sea be no more" (Revelation 21:1) all reflect the writer's island environment. Nowhere is the voice of many waters more musical than in Patmos; nowhere does the rising and setting sun create a more splendid sea of glass.
Related Verses1 mention
Revelation· 1 verse
References
- 1.John McClintock and James Strong, "Patmos," in Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature, vol. VII (Harper & Brothers, 1867–1887).
- 2.James Orr (ed.), "Patmos," in International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, vol. IV (Howard-Severance Company, 1915).
- 3.James Hastings (ed.), "Patmos," in Dictionary of the Apostolic Church, vol. II (T. & T. Clark, 1915–1918).
- 4.Andrew Robert Fausset, "Patmos," in The Englishman's Critical and Expository Bible Cyclopædia (Hodder & Stoughton, 1878).