(AN: New chapter)
Banishment
Even in Rome, the elderly and sages were respected as wise and venerable. Therefore, it was strange that the Romans would be treating this elderly man so roughly. Yet it was so: four strong Roman guards held the old man in chains before the audience of the Emperor. Domitian seemed more distinguished than Nero: more "likeable", if that could be said of someone whom history would remember as cruel and paranoid.
"What will it take," he asked the old man. "To make you...cease?"
"In the beginning," the old man said. "There was the Word, the Word was with God and the Word was God, for He was with God from the beginning. Through Him all things were made, and without Him, nothing was made that exists. In Him was light and the light became the light of men."
"You don't understand!" Domitian said. "Your cult has to die! You're too rigid, you won't submit to the gods of Rome!"
"Lux lucet in tenebris," the old man spoke, the Spirit opening his tongue to the words of Rome. "Et tenebrae non vincit."
"I shall conquer you and your dead god!" laughed the Emperor. He turned to one of his servants.
"Bring me a cauldron," he said. "Large enough to fit a man. Set a fire beneath it and fill it with oil. Then, when it is brought to a seething boil, have this old fool thrown inside. Maybe the violence of fire will halt his tongue."
"The LORD Jesus gave us this commandment," the old man said. "'Love one another, even as I loved you.' Though you flay my skin from these old bones, I shall not put my LORD to shame, or return evil with evil."
At this, Domitian's cool exterior exploded and he kicked the old man with his foot.
"You think you're holier than me!" he roared. "You think you're better than the rest of us, John, son of Zebedee, last of the Holy Apostles. Your God is dead! He didn't save Peter, His Chosen Successor, or Paul, His champion, from death: He won't save you either, because He does not exist!"
"'Let God be true and every man a liar!'"
"You slander your Emperor! You will die for this!"
He turned to the soldiers and gave them the order. With strong hands they dragged the elderly John to the edge of the hot cauldron, where a wooden scaffold had been arranged for him to be lowered therein.
"Bind his hands and feet," Domitian ordered. "So he won't try to escape."
The Romans did this, but even as they did, John continued speaking about Jesus and how He was the Son of God, the salvation of the world and the lover of all people, Jews or Gentile, Roman or Greek. At a command from Domitian, he was carried up the scaffold and thrown into the cauldron.
"The LORD has spared me for so many years," a voice cried out, and suddenly an oil-soaked old man came up to the surface of the cauldron, chains and shackles melted off his hands. "So that I may do what my brothers in Jesus had done before me, as I was tending after His flock. But who am I, that the LORD sees fit that I should suffer martyrdom in His name?"
"Shut him up and throw him back in!" Domitian ordered. Several of the Romans rushed to the edge of the cauldron and tried to grab him, but the hot oil that seemed to not harm the old apostle burned their hands as they touched him.
"By Jupiter's mighty phallus!" Domitian roared. "What will it take to silence you?"
"I obey the command of God and His Son Jesus Christ," John continued. "The LORD commanded me to preach His word and be not silent, and I will preach."
"Try preaching from exile, old fool!"
"Great Caesar," an adviser interjected. "Is it such a good plan to waste money and man-power on shipping this aged miscreant into exile? Why not just kill him outright?"
"My predecessors made that mistake," Domitian replied. "The men they killed became heroes among these zealots, and only spread more of their kind with their deaths." He turned back to where the soldiers were now throwing a heavy cloth around the old man so that it would be safe to remove him.
"No," he said. "We must engineer a plan to place him somewhere he will be broken and alone, where he cannot poison anyone with his lies."
In every age, the ruling powers have always found ways to punish those they consider severe criminals: the most lasting of which was isolation. Whole islands would be filled with prisoners in work-camps, spending out the rest of their lives working like a slave. This lasted either until their sentence was completed, or until they died: it was natural that the latter of those two outcomes came first.
So was the island of Patmos, a lonely island in the Mediterranean Sea, the place where Rome exiled prisoners to spend out the rest of their lives slaving away in the mines.
So it happened upon one evening that three men, shrouded in darkness, appeared outside a certain jail-cell with a window that looked out from below. They whispered to the occupant within. After a moment of stirring, the old man looked up.
"Who has come to call on me at this late hour?" he asked.
"We are friends," one of those above whispered. "It is I, John. Your old student, Ignatius."
Those above were John's friends and followers, who had come to the island in secret to look after his well-being. Ignatius he knew from as far back as Antioch: his father was one of the first converts to the faith of Christ and he had raised his son up in that way, with John as a teacher and instructor of the new faith and a loyal friend. He had taken the position of episcopos, 'bishop' or guardian, of the church in Antioch, where they were first called Christians.
The others were much younger. Polycarp, who was the youngest but one, had been born a year before the destruction of Jerusalem. He was a companion to Papias, the third member who was roughly his own age, and the two of them had befriended the Last Apostle, following him from their towns of Smyrna and Laodicea to hear the words of the last man living who had seen, heard and spoken with Jesus the Christ.
"My friends," John greeted. "Forgive me, but I cannot rise. I have spent all day working in the mines, I am quite bereft of strength."
"Is all well?" young Papias queried. "It breaks our hearts to see you broken and forlorn like this."
"Only my body is weak, my friends," John said. "I ask you, all of you, to pray for me. I am beset by hardships for my service to the word of God and the faith of our LORD Jesus. I will need all of your prayers before the end."
"Yes, John." they nodded tearfully one by one.
"Is there anything else you need?" Polycarp asked.
There was a moment where nothing more than wind passed between them, yet, for John, there was something new that came to mind.
"Yes," he said. "I would that you stay here for a while, until I have had time to write."
"We will," Ignatius nodded. He then looked up and nervously returned. "We must go. Hang on, John, for the love of God and His Son, hold on to your faith!"
John chuckled slightly. "I am amazed that I now sit a student at the feet of your wisdom, my old friend and pupil."
"God be with you, brother." Ignatius said with tears streaming down his face and into his beard.
"God bless you, John!" Polycarp whispered. Papias was too shaken up to say any word of farewell before the three of them had departed.
Why did I tell them to stay? John asked himself as he made his way through the mine-shaft. There was precious little light, only a candle placed upon certain points of the wall: not so much that it created enough smoke to suffocate them (they had enough to fear from ancient gas locked within the stones), but barely enough to shed any light.
It wasn't like he had paper or much time to devote to writing. In fact, he didn't even know what to say. After both Maryams had died, he preached among those in Asia, but not to any great degree: the destruction of Jerusalem and the continual slaughter of the faithful drove him into retirement. Or was he hiding? He was starting to doubt even himself. His faith and love in Jesus the Christ had led him into this dark tunnel, at the end of which there was no light, only more darkness.
He now approached the sight and, with weary and wrinkled hands, reached for his pick to begin his assault upon the wall. It was the Sabbath, a day on which he never used to work, but that didn't matter to his pagan captors: he, their prisoner, would work every day for the rest of his life. He raised the ax-pick in his hand, but paid no heed as it fell to the ground behind him. Instead, his mind was turned to that still, small voice that had brought him out of retirement and led him thus far.
It is time to write.
(AN: I have not seen the film Apocalypse, with the late Richard Harris as John, so there will be no influence therefrom. The only influence there may be will be from the New Testament and church history [hence the appearances of Ignatius, Polycarp and Papias, who are said to be followers of the Apostle John].)
(Furthermore, please stop me if I use the word 'Paul' instead of 'John'. I've been focusing on Paul for the past several chapters, I might slip up if I'm not careful.)