[In the following essay, Bovon explains that John's self-definition in Revelation is purposeful in terms of narrative success.]

This paper will not be a historical inquiry into John's personality; nor will it be a philological analysis of the author's style.¹ In line with the tradition of French literary criticism,² I would like to observe what Philippe Lejeune calls the “autobiographical pact,” namely, the implicit agreement which an author or narrator makes with his or her readers about his or her identity.³ There exists a sort of contract governing the manner in which the reader should read the text put forth by a narrator and the commitments which the author has decided to take.⁴ Avoiding scholarly jargon and theoretical abstractions, I will focus on how the narrator speaks in the first person singular, “I,” that is, how John defines himself in Rev 1:9-10.

In everyday life, people express themselves with varying degrees of self-consciousness. The presentation of the “I” in Rev 1:9-10 is highly self-conscious: “I, John, your brother, who shares with you in Jesus, the persecution and the kingdom and the patient endurance, was on the island called Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet.” This presentation and other casual uses of the everyday “I” display a striking contrast in their degree of self-awareness. In many early Christian texts, the narrator is so discreet that she or he never appears explicitly; an example is the Gospel according to Matthew.⁵ In other texts, though, the ἐγώ is omnipresent—in the Pauline epistles, for example.⁶ The degree of self-presentation in the Book of Revelation falls somewhere between those two extremes. What is the narrator's strategy for constructing an image of himself, and how does this self-presentation fit within his overall literary program?⁷

Cicero often uses “I” in his Letters.⁸ So does Augustine in his confessions.⁹ Unlike either of them, John avoids drawing his own portrait as it might have been drawn in ancient autobiography.¹⁰ The reader receives no information about the narrator's past, youth, or education. Nor does the narrator project his own future; neither his name nor his person is presented in the future tense (in contrast, there is a future for the second ἐγώ of the text—the speaking Jesus, who promises to come soon). The narrator is a person of the present and a person of a recent and narrowly defined past, a witness to his own visions (“I saw”) and to divine voices (“I heard”).¹¹

According to Lejeune's typology of autobiographical texts, two major categories can be distinguished. The first, narrative called “autodiégétique” or “homodiégétique” of high degree by Genette, followed by Lejeune,¹² is the simplest autobiographical narrative; in it the “I” is the hero of the narrative. The second, a variation, is “homodiégétique” but of low degree. This second type of narrative interests us most here. It is the type of narrative in which the “I” is present but is not the central figure of the plot.¹³ In it, the function of the “I” is to bring the narrative closer to the reader, or to give witness to the truth, or to manifest the nature of the narrative. This is exactly what happens in the Book of Revelation. Chapter after chapter, John repeats monotonously “and I saw” (καὶ εἶδον; e.g., in Rev 5:1), or “and I heard” (καὶ ἤκουσα; e.g., in Rev 7:4).¹⁴ In contrast to Luke, who is interested in the witness of historical events, John is attentive to pneumatic testimony and to prophetic vision and hearing.¹⁵ He says several times that he was taken “by the Spirit” or “in the Spirit of Jesus,” a conventional way of articulating a religious or ecstatic experience.

The function of the first person singular is to convey to readers the narrator's role as an indispensable link between the divine realm and the human one,¹⁶ so what we have in the Book of Revelation is a divinely directed plot made visible or readable to us by John's mediation. It is carefully orchestrated theater, but it is impossible to understand without a storyteller who is also from time to time a commentator.¹⁷ To use another metaphor, the Book of Revelation is like a computer with two windows open: one for the visions and auditions, and one for John and his comments, with little contact between them. John does not enter the realm of “what shall come soon,” and he does not receive the power to manipulate it. Two striking exceptions actually confirm the rule, when John, like a spectator called by a magician to assist, enters into the vision.¹⁸ If John appears in the vision of Rev 10:8-11, he does so not as an actor to change the path of history but to “eat” the book, namely, to interiorize and understand the visions.¹⁹ Likewise, in Rev 11:1-2 the purpose of the action proposed to him is not to modify the divine program but to measure the dimensions of the temple and so, probably, to obtain a greater knowledge that he will later communicate as a witness.²⁰

The five human senses and their interrelations are depicted in the literature of antiquity.²¹ Origen, for example, gives an allegorical interpretation of the apocalyptic family quarrels mentioned in Luke 13:52-53 (“From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three”).²² He understands this struggle as a tension in the life of Christians who, through their eyes and ears, are close to God. Of the five senses, sight and hearing are the two most likely to accept God's reality, while the other three are reluctant and are opposed to the first two. Therefore, we are not surprised that sight and hearing are precisely the two senses which, according to John, are used for God's purpose.

John's spontaneous “I,” present throughout the Book of Revelation, must be legitimized as a witness and identified as a singular person.²³ This is established in Revelation 1, and the identification is accomplished through the onomastic code: “I” receives a name.²⁴ Our narrator is not an anonymous figure, and his having a name is decisive (remember that Paul's opponents usually do not receive a name; they are scornfully called τινέs, “some people”).²⁵ It is worth noting that after a name has been given, it is not repeated. John's name is vital in chap. 1 but is absent in the rest of the book, even in dialogues with the angel, where a vocative would be welcome. But the name John reappears as a literary inclusio in the last lines of the book, to reassure the readers of the narrator's function: “I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things” (Rev 22:8).²⁶ Here, use of the name John is more significant for the identification of the narrator than for the etymology of the name. John does not care to avoid confusion by distinguishing himself from all the other Johns, particularly the ones with decisive early Christian roles like John the Baptist, John the son of Zebedee, and John Mark.²⁷ John's identity is structured by several portrayals of himself, not by distinctions from others.

Let us follow the formation of John from the very beginning of the Book of Revelation. The first three verses create an extraordinary sequence of communication: a divine manifestation, here called a “revelation” (ἀποκάλυψιs), comes from God and reaches the readers, or the hearers, through three intermediaries: Jesus Christ, John, and the lector.²⁸ Although lector is a minister in the ancient church, in Rev 1:3 ὁ ἀναγινώσκων is probably not yet a title.²⁹ John is connected first with Christ, by the title “servant (ὁ δοῦλοs αὐτοῦ, Rev 1:1), and later in the chapter he will be related to his fellow brothers and sisters.

When we sign a letter which we have written, something strange occurs. After writing in the first person through the body of the letter, suddenly we put our name at the bottom of the page. At the very end of the letter the “I” becomes a personal name. Thus, in each letter we switch surprisingly from the first to the third person or to a mixture of both, because of the necessary task of legitimizing the “I” with our personal name.³⁰ This hesitation between the first and the third person occurs for the same reason in Revelation 1. In the prologue, which also fills the function of title of the book, the name John is used appropriately with a verb in the third person (Rev 1:1). Later, in the opening letter to the seven churches (Rev 1:4), the name John clarifies the identity of the bearer of the subsequent greetings, and the first person (“we,” the first person plural, Rev 1:5-6) is then appropriate. Thus, the first two occurrences of the name John are very close to one another but in syntactically different clauses.

The third occurrence is not far from these two, and it is the most decisive one. It is in v. 9, and it is emphasized by a strong ἐγώ. While John in 1:1 is connected with God and Christ, in 1:9 his relationship to his fellow Christians is underlined. He refuses a hierarchical clerical order and states his communion with them. He is not their father but their brother.³¹ The word was used throughout the churches, but it was not yet banal. One has to remember both the Hebrew emphasis on brotherhood, in which the ideal life was “to remain together” and the Greek appreciation of brothers and sisters. In Sophocles Antigone 891-928, for example, Antigone says that a woman can have another husband, even other children, but is incapable of replacing her deceased brothers.³² This affective and effective union is underlined by a second expression, the redundant συγκοινωνόs (literally, the “one who shares in common with”). In Greek, a κοινωνόs is someone sharing political power, economic responsibility, agricultural goods, or, in a religious association, communal interests.³³ What John is passionate to share with his brothers is particularly impressive. In 1:9, he expresses first the θλῖψιs, the “tribulation” and “persecution,” the suffering, that he experienced (“I was on the island called Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus”).³⁴ Then, he expresses the enigmatic βασιλεία, meaning not only the apocalyptic kingdom of God but also the kingly power in which Christians already partake since Christ's death for them, according to the very clear opening statement that Christ “made us to be a kingdom” (1:6).³⁵ Finally, he expresses the ὑπομονή which is not simply “patience,” with a note of passivity, but is active nonviolent resistance—“endurance” and “perseverance,” but with a subversively anti-Roman element.³⁶

Such is John's conscious definition of himself to his audience in Rev 1:9-10. It is limited to two biographical elements: his concrete situation as a prisoner for religious opinion, and his ecstatic experience as a prophet (note the identical verbal form ἐγένομην in v. 9 and v. 10).³⁷ He keeps company with Christians, but his responsibility as a prophet is also to Jesus Christ and to God. Therefore, we are not surprised to discover beside John's ἐγώ an alter ego, another ἐγώ, that of the divinity in the verse immediately preceding (1:8): ἐγώ εἰμι τὸ ἄλφα καὶ τὸ ὦ. The vicinity of the two “I”s will recur at the end of the book, reinforcing the inclusio mentioned above: to the first “I” at the end of the book, κἀγo 'Ιωάννηs (22:8), corresponds the second, ἐγo 'Ιησοῦs (22:16).³⁸

We can understand the art of John, the visionary of Patmos. On the one hand, he inscribes his life inside a religious community sharing with him a similar kingly privilege and a similar condition as servant. On the other, he emphasizes his personal destiny as a unique destiny separate from the community's. When John defines himself, he draws the picture of a prophet, an instrument of the divine manifestation and a voice of the risen Christ. His highest ambition is to create and communicate the images of witness to the divine mysteries which he narrates and of brother to his Christian companions.

Notes

1. I have written a different, shorter paper, focused on issues that are theological rather than literary: François Bovon, “Jean se présente (Apocalypse 1,9 en particulier),” in 1900th Anniversary of St. John's Apokalypse: Proceedings of the International and Interdisciplinary Symposium (Athens-Patmos, 17-26 September 1995) (Athens: Holy Monastery of Saint John the Theologian in Patmos, 1999) 373-82.

2. See, for example, Roland Barthes, “Introduction à l'analyse structurale des récits,” Communications 8 (1966) 1-27; Gérard Genette, Figures III (Poétique; Paris: Seuil, 1972); idem, Palimpsestes: La littérature au second degré (Poétique; Paris: Seuil, 1982). There are pertinent remarks on the construction of the author in Umberto Eco (with Richard Rorty, Jonathan Culler, and Christine Brooke-Rose), Interpretation and Overinterpretation (ed. Stefan Collini; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), even if Eco's attention is oriented toward the text and the reader.

3. Philippe Lejeune, Le pacte autobiographique (Points, Essais, 326; nouvelle édition augmentée; Paris: Seuil, 1996). On p. 8 he writes: “Dans ‘Le pacte autobiographique’, je montre que ce genre se définit moins par les éléments formels qu'il intègre, que par le ‘contrat de lecture’, et qu'une poétique historique se devrait donc d'étudier l'évolution du système des contrats de lecture et de leur fonction intégrante.” In this new edition the page numbering of the first edition, published by the same publisher in 1975 in the Collection Poétique, is preserved. New are a postface and two bibliographies. See also A. J. Greimas and J. Courtés, Sémiotique: Dictionnaire raisonné de la théorie du langage (2 vols.; Langue, Linguistique, Communication; Paris: Hachette, 1979-86) 1. 242.

4. See “True Confessions: A Special Issue,” New York Times Magazine, May 12, 1996, sec. 6. In this issue the current literary interest in autobiographical writings is underlined.

5. See Matt 4:24 (Syria may be the author's homeland); Matt 9:9 and 10:3 (the author is interested in Matthew, one of the Twelve); also Ulrich Luz, Das Evangelium nach Matthäus (EKKNT [Evangelisch-katholischer Kommentar zum Neuen Testament] 1/1; Zurich: Benziger; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1989) 73-77, 181 n. 16.

6. See Hans Dieter Betz, Der Apostel Paulus und die sokratische Tradition (BHT [Beiträge zur historischen Theologie] 45; Tübingen: Mohr [Siebeck], 1972) esp. 118-37; Hans Dieter Betz, Galatians: A Commentary on Paul's Letter to the Churches in Galatia (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979) 1. Dieter Georgi, The Opponents of Paul in Second Corinthians (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986), is important for the self-understanding, self-designation, and self-consciousness of Paul's opponents in Corinth according to the Second Epistle to the Corinthians; on Paul's own self-awareness, see 315-19.

7. One can consider Rev 1:1-3 as a literary opening in which the author's intention is clear: to offer a divine revelation through the indispensable agencies of Jesus Christ, an angel, John himself, and the lector; see François Bovon, “Le Christ de l'Apocalypse,” RTP [Revue de Theologie et de Philosophie] 3d series 22 (1972) 75-76, reprinted in François Bovon, Révélations et écritures: Nouveau Testament et littérature apocryphe chrétienne: Recueil d'articles (MDB [Monde de la Bible] 26; Geneva: Labor et Fides, 1993) 124-25.

8. See Cicero, Letters to Atticus, trans. E. O. Winstedt (3 vols.; LCL [Loeb Classical Library]; London: Heinemann; New York: Macmillan for the first two vols., Putnam for the third, 1912-18); Cicero, Letters to His Friends, trans. W. Glynn Williams (3 vols.; LCL; London: Heinemann; New York: Putnam, 1927-29).

9. See Pierre Courcelle, Recherches sur les “Confessions” de saint Augustin (new ed; Paris: de Boccard, 1968); idem, Les Confessions de saint Augustin dans la tradition littéraire: Antécédents et postérité (Paris: Etudes augustiniennes, 1963).

10. On ancient biography and autobiography, see Georg Misch, Geschichte der Autobiographie 1: Das Altertum (Bern: Francke, 1949); Arnaldo Momigliano, The Development of Greek Biography (expanded ed.; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993).

11. In an attempt to relate exegesis and linguistics, I have been interested by Reflexive Language: Reported Speech and Metapragmatics (ed. John A. Lucy; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). The contributors examine “the nature and significance of the reflexive aspect of natural language” (p. 1).

12. See Genette, Figures III, 253; Lejeune, Pacte autobiographique, 15.

13. See Genette, Figures III, 252-53; Lejeune, Pacte autobiographique, 16.

14. See Rev 4:1; 5:11; 6:1, 5, 7-8; 8:13; 9:16-17; 14:1-2, 13-14; 21:1-3; 22:8, passages in which the verbs of hearing and seeing appear closely related.

15. See François Bovon, New Testament Traditions and Apocryphai Narratives (PTMS [Pittsburgh (Princeton) Theological Monograph Series] 36; Allison Park, PA: Pickwick, 1995) 56-57.

16. This is already evident in the Hebrew Scriptures; see E. J. Revell, The Designation of the Individual: Expressive Usage in Biblical Narrative (CBET [Contributions to Biblical Exegesis and Theology] 14; Kampen: Kok Pharos, 1996).

17. John's activity is well presented by G. B. Caird, A Commentary on the Revelation of St. John the Divine (BNTC [Black's New Testament Commentaries]; London: Black, 1966) 289-301. We may take Rev 17:9-10 as an example of John's exegetical style: “This calls for a mind that has wisdom: the seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman is seated; also, they are seven kings, of whom five have fallen, one is living, and the other has not yet come; and when he comes, he must remain only a little while.” Rev 6:1-17 may serve as an example of John's storytelling style.

18. There is a possible third exception: Rev 5:4-5; the visionary's tears and the comfort offered him by the elders illustrate his participation in the story.

19. See Pierre Prigent, L'Apocalypse de saint Jean (CNT [Commentaire du Nouveau Testament] 2/14; revised and expanded ed.; Geneva: Labor et Fides, 2000) 257-58; David Frankfurter, “The Magic of Writing and the Writing of Magic: The Power of the Word in Egyptian and Greek Tradition,” Helios 21 (1994) 189-221. I thank my colleague Karen King for this reference.

20. See André Feuillet, “Essai d'interprétation du chapitre XI de l'Apopcalypse,” NTS 4 (1957-58) 183-200; reprinted in André Feuillet, Etudes johanniques (Museum Lessianum, section biblique 4; Bruges: Desclée de Brouwer, 1962) 246-71; Charles Homer Giblin, “Revelation 11.1-13: Its Form, Function, and Contextual Integration,” NTS 30 (1984) 433-59; Michael Bachmann, “Himmlisch: der ‘Tempel Gottes’ von Apk 11.1,” NTS 40 (1994) 474-80. Often the measuring of the temple is understood as a measure of protection; see Giblin, “Revelation 11.1-13,” 455 n. 15.

21. See Michel Serres, Les cinq sens (Philosophie des corps mêlés 1; Paris: Grasset, 1985).

22. Origen, Homilies on Luke frag. 81; see Origène, Homélies sur s. Luc (ed. Henri Crouzel, François Fournier, and Pierre Périchon; SC [Sources chrétiennes] 87; Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1962) 536-39.

23. On passages in the first person singular and their function, see Luke 1:3; Acts 1:1; 11:28 (variant reading); 16:10-17; 20:5-15; 21:1-18; 27:1-28:16 (Jacques Dupont, Les sources du Livre des Actes: Etat de la question [Bruges: Desclée de Brouwer, 1960] 73-107; François Bovon, Das Evangelium nach Lukas [2 vols. so far; EKKNT 3.1-2; Zurich: Benzinger; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1989-96] 1. 37); Protevangelium Jacobi 18:2-19:1 (H. R. Smid, Protevangelium Jacobi: A Commentary [Apocrypha Novi Testamenti; Assen: Van Gorcum, 1965] 176-78); Acta Andreae 65 (11) (Laura Nasrallah, “‘She Became What the Words Signified’: The Greek Acts of Andrew's Construction of the Reader-Disciple,” in The Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles: Harvard Divinity School Studies [ed. François Bovon, Ann Graham Brock, and Christopher R. Matthews; Harvard University Center for the Study of World Religions: Religions of the World; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999] 233-58, esp. 250-58). On the anonymous Liber ad Gregoriam, see Kate Cooper, The Virgin and the Bride: Idealized Womanhood in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996) 129.

24. On the importance of names, see Roland Barthes, “The Struggle with the Angel: Textual Analysis of Genesis 32:23-33,” in Structural Analysis and Biblical Exegesis (ed. Roland Barthes, François Bovon, Franz J. Leenhardt, Robert Martin-Achard, and Jean Starobinski; PTMS 3; Pittsburgh: Pickwick, 1974) 29-30; Greimas and Courtés, Sémiotique, 1. 261.

25. See Rom 3:8; 1 Cor 4:18; 15:12;2 Cor 3:1; 10:2; Gal 1:7; Phil 1:15; also, Pierre Bonnard, L'épître de saint Paul aux Galates (CNT 9; 2d ed.; Neuchâtel: Delachaux et Niestlé, 1972) 24 n. 1.

26. See Charles Brütsch, La clarté de l'Apocalypse (5th ed.; Geneva: Labor et Fides, 1966) 386.

27. See Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel according to John (2 vols.; AB [Anchor Bible] 29-29A; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1966) 1. LXXXVII-XCII; Helmut Koester, Introduction to the New Testament 2: History and Literature of Early Christianity (2d ed.; New York/Berlin: de Gruyter, 2000) 6-7, 75-78, 91, 97, 112, 203-4, 255.

28. See n. 7 above.

29. On the ministry of lectors, see Henri Leclercq, “Lecteur,” in DACL [Dictionnaire d'archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie], 8. 2241-69.

30. I would like to know whether any studies exist on the phenomenology of signing a document.

31. On this equality among the first Christians, see Ernst Troeltsch, Gesammelte Schriften 1: Die Soziallehren der christlichen Kirchen und Gruppen (Tübingen: Mohr [Siebeck], 1912) 60-69.

32. See François Bovon, “The Parable of the Prodigal Son, Luke 15:11-32,” in Exegesis and Exercises in Reading (Genesis 22 and Luke 15) (ed. François Bovon and Grégoire Rouiller; PTMS 21; Pittsburgh: Pickwick, 1978) 51-53, 66.

33. On κοινωνόs and συγκοινωνόs, see Friedrich Hauck, “κοινόs, κτλ.,” in TWNT [Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Neuen Testament], 3. 789-810.

34. On θλῖψιs, see Jacob Kremer, “θλίψιs, etc.,” in EWNT [Exegetisches Wörterbuch zum Neuen Testament], 2. 375-79.

35. On βασιλεία in the Book of Revelation, see Prigent, L'Apocalypse de saint Jean, 90, 96. On the eschatology of the Book of Revelation, see Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, The Book of Revelation: Justice and Judgment (2d ed.; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998) 35-67; this is illustrated by the phylactery on the icon of Saint Athanasios the Athonite at the gate to the monastery of Megali Lavra on Mount Athos, which bears the inscription 'Αδελφοί, κοπιάσωμεν μικρὸν χρόνον, ἵνα βασιλεύσωμεν εἰs αἰῶναs (“Brothers, let us be in pain for a little while, so that we can reign for ever”).

36. On ὑπομονή, see Walter Radl, “ὑπομονή, etc.,” in EWNT, 3. 969-71; Brütsch, Clarté de l'Apocalypse, 33. On the ethics of resistance, see Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, Revelation: Vision of a Just World (Proclamation Commentaries; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991) 129-31.

37. On the prophets in the Book of Revelation, see Akira Satake, Die Gemeindeordnung in der Johannesapokalypse (WMANT  [Wissenschaftliche Monographien zum Alten und Neuen Testament] 21; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1966) 47-86; Schüssler Fiorenza, Book of Revelation: Justice and Judgment, 133-56.

38. On Rev 22:16, see Prigent, L'Apocalypse de saint Jean, 496-97.