Jews they went to the Gentiles.  This dispersion was in the first year of the Jewish war, when the Jews, as Josephus tells us, began to be tumultuous and violent in all places.  For all agree that the Apostles were dispersed into several regions at once; and Origen has set down the time, [35] telling us that in the beginning of the Judaic war, the Apostles and disciples of our Lord were scattered into all nations; Thomas into Parthia, Andrew into Scythia, John into Asia, and Peter first into Asia, where he preacht to the dispersion, and thence into Italy. [36] Dionysius Corinthius saith, that Peter went from Asia by Corinth to Rome, and all antiquity agrees that Peter and Paul were martyred there in the end of Nero’s reign. Mark went with Timothy to Rome, 2 Tim. iv. 11. Colos. iv. 10. Sylvanus was Paul’s assistant; and by the companions of Peter, mentioned in his first Epistle, we may know that he wrote from Rome; and the Antients generally agree, that in this Epistle he understood Rome by Babylon.  His second Epistle was writ to the same dispersed strangers with the first, 2 Pet. iii. 1. and therein he saith, that Paul had writ of the same things to them, and also in his other Epistles, ver. 15, 16.  Now as there is no Epistle of Paul to these strangers besides that to the Hebrews, so in this Epistle, chap. x. 11, 12. we find at large all those things which Peter had been speaking of, and here refers to; particularly the passing away of the old heavens and earth, and establishing an inheritance immoveable, with an exhortation to grace, because God, to the wicked, is a consuming fire, Heb. xii. 25, 26, 28, 29.

Having determined the time of writing the Apocalyse, I need not say much about the truth of it, since it was in such request with the first ages, that many endeavoured to imitate it, by feigning Apocalypses under the Apostles names; and the Apostles themselves, as I have just now shewed, studied it, and used its phrases; by which means the style of the Epistle to the Hebrews became more mystical than that of Paul’s other Epistles, and the style of John’s Gospel more figurative and majestical than that of the other Gospels.  I do not apprehend that Christ was called the word of God in any book of the New Testament written before the Apocalypse; and therefore am of opinion, the language was taken from this Prophecy, as were also many other phrases in this Gospel, such as those of Christ’s being the light which enlightens the world, the lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world, the bridegroom, he that testifieth, he that came down from heaven, the Son of God, &c. Justin Martyr,