View from Patmos

Writing in 1888, J. Theodore Bent described a visit to Patmos, during which he read the Apocalypse. One day, he recounted, “I stood by the sea looking south-west, I distinctly saw Thera, as it was anciently called, rising out of the sea. This island is now also called Thera conjointly with Santorin, or island of St. Irene. Thera, ‘the beast’ . . . was so called in ancient days because it is naught but the cone of a hideous submarine volcano, the slopes of which are arid and composed of black volcanic rocks formed by successive eruptions, awe-inspiring to look upon” (813).

The volcano erupted in AD 60. Putting together the evidence from ancient sources, he concluded that “Thera was in a state of actual eruption during the greater part of the first century of our era, and consequently would be a conspicuous and awe-inspiring object during the whole period of St. John’s exile in Patmos” (815).

Bent suggested that this volcano was the source of John’s imagery. At the second trumpet the sea turns to blood. An Egyptian plague? No, a local event: “Father Richard, in 1573, says: ‘The sea was all tinted, even as far as twenty miles distant; and . . . even when the volcano is quiescent, the sea in the immediate vicinity of the cone is of a brilliant orange colour, from the action of oxide of iron” (817). He claimed, “‘the seven heads’ of his beast are ‘seven mountains,’ further confirming us in our opinion that the pinnacled rocks of Thera were, according to St. John’s imagination, the heads and horns of his beast.”

Not convincing, but does add some coloring to our reading of Revelation.

(Bent, “What St. John Saw on Patmos,” Nineteenth Century 24 [1888] 813–21. Available on GoogleBooks.)