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发帖数: 3781 | 1 Some have tried to malign premillennialism by suggesting that it is a relat
ively novel development of recent times梩hat it is not a view which finds su
pport among the early Church. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fa
ct, in the earliest church, prior to the time of Augustine and Roman Catholi
cism, premillennialism was the dominant view of the Church. While we do not
determine the truth of doctrine from the views of Church Fathers, it can be
helpful to study their views to see how different areas of doctrine develope
d or what caused them to die away or change. In the case of belief in a lite
ral, earthly kingdom, it is particularly interesting to see that the earlies
t Fathers for which we have record梕ven those who were only a generation or
two away from our beloved John whose book we are studying梙eld to the same b
asic view premillennialists espouse. They interpreted God抯 promises literal
ly and understood a coming kingdom of God on earth which did not correspond
with the Church age. The premillennial view was the first view of the Church
The most striking point in the eschatology of the ante-Nicene age is the pro
minent chiliasm, or millenarianism, that is the belief of a visible reign of
Christ in glory on earth with the risen saints for a thousand years, before
the general resurrection and judgment. It was indeed not the doctrine of th
e church embodied in any creed or form of devotion, but a widely current opi
nion of distinguished teachers, such as Barnabas, Papias, Justin Martyr, Ire
naeus, Tertullian, Methodius, and Lactantius; while Caius, Origen, Dionysius
the Great, Eusebius (as afterwards Jerome and Augustine) opposed it. . . .
It distinguishes, moreover, two resurrections, one before and another after
the millennium, and makes the millennial reign of Christ only a prelude to h
is eternal reign in heaven, from which it is separated by a short interregnu
m of Satan. The millennium is expected to come not as the legitimate result
of a historical process but as a sudden supernatural revelation. The advocat
es of this theory appeal to the certain promises of the Lord, but particular
ly to the hieroglyphic passage of the Apocalypse, which teaches a millennial
reign of Christ upon this earth after the first resurrection and before the
creation of the new heavens and the new earth. In connection with this the
general expectation prevailed that the return of the Lord was near, though u
ncertain and unascertainable as to its day and hour, so that believers may b
e always ready for it. This hope, through the whole age of persecution, was
a copious fountain of encouragement and comfort under the pains of that mart
yrdom which sowed in blood the seed of a bountiful harvest for the church.1
The most explicit reference in Scripture to the thousand-year millennial rei
gn of Christ is found in Revelation Rev. 20:1+. It is a significant fact tha
t the early adherents of premillennialism (or chiliasm, as it was first call
ed), either had direct contact with John, the longest living apostle, or wit
h his most famous disciple Polycarp. . . . Papias (ca. 60-130), one of the e
arliest premillennialists, has been called by some the 揻ather of millenaria
nism.Irenaeus affirmed that Papias was 搕he hearer of John, and a companio
n of Polycarp.Papias furnished the earliest extra-biblical witness to the
millennial doctrine taught by the Apocalypse.2
The premillennial fathers of the ante-Nicene age included church leaders who
were contemporary with and in some cases instructed by the apostles and tho
se who were in turn their disciples . . . In this group are: Clement (fl. ca
. 90-100), bishop of Rome; Papias (ca. 60-ca. 130/155), bishop of Hierapolis
; Polycarp (ca. 70-155/160), bishop of Smyrna; and Ignatius (d. ca. 98/117),
bishop of Antioch. . . . Premillennialists of the second century included t
he apologist Justin Martyr (ca. 100-165); the polemicists Irenaeus (ca. 120-
ca. 202), bishop of Lyons, and his disciple Hippolytus (d. ca. 236), presbyt
er and teacher in Rome; and from the African school, Tertullian (150-225), a
pologist, moralist, and theologian.3
Dr. Whitby (Treatise on Tradition) gives us the following often-quoted state
ment: 揟he doctrine of the Millennium, or the reign of the saints on earth f
or a thousand years, is now rejected by all Roman Catholics, and by the grea
test part of Protestants; and yet it passed among the best Christians, for t
wo hundred and fifty years, for a tradition apostolical; and, as such, is de
livered by many Fathers of the second and third century, who speak of it as
the tradition of our Lord and His apostles, and of all the ancients who live
d before them; who tell us the very words in which it was delivered, the Scr
iptures which were then so interpreted; and say that it was held by all Chri
stians that were exactly orthodox. It was received not only in the Eastern p
arts of the Church, by Papias (in Phrygia), Justin (in Palestine), but by Ir
enaeus (in Gaul), Nepos (in Egypt), Apollinaris, Methodius (in the West and
South), Cyprian, Victorinus (in Germany), by Tertullian (in Africa), Lactant
ius (in Italy), and Severus, and by the Council of Nice(about A.D. 323).
George E. Ladd (Crucial Questions About The Kingdom of God [Grand Rapids, Ee
rdmans, 1952] 23) forcefully concludes, 揥ith one exception [Caius] there is
no Church Father before Origen who opposed the millenarian interpretation,
and there is no one before Augustine whose extant writings offer a different
interpretation of Rev. Rev. 20:1-15+ than that of a future earthly kingdom
consonant with the natural interpretation of language.
All three of these fathers of the Western church, Cyprian, Hippolytus, and V
ictorinus, subscribed to the millenarian doctrine.6
Among those who can be cited [in support of chiliasm in the third century] a
re Cyprian (200-258), Commodian (200-270), Nepos (230-280), Coracion (230-28
0), Victorinus (240-303), Methodius (250-311), and Lactantius (240-330).7
Alas, the solid foundation of literal interpretation was about to suffer a d
evastating setback in the wedding of Church and state. With The Rise of Alle
gorical Interpretation and the accommodation of Christianity by the state, b
elief in a literal kingdom on earth faded into the long night of unsound int
erpretation which was to last over a thousand years梐ll the way to the Refor
mation. The worldly success of the Church as it came into power did not jibe
with an expectation of future Tribulation or the need to await the physical
presence of the King to inaugurate the kingdom. The idea arose that the 搑o
d of ironwhich was to be Messiah抯 rule (Rev. Rev. 2:27+; Rev. 19:15+; Rev
. 20:4+) was to be found in the rule of the Church in this present age. Two
powerful forces, allegorical interpretation and the state Church, combined t
o produce a steady decline in the ranks of literal interpreters:
The papacy is a false anticipation of the kingdom during the Church-historic
al period. 揥hen Christianity became a worldly power under Constantine, the
hope of the future was weakened by the joy over present success[Bengel]. B
ecoming a harlot, the Church ceased to be a bride going to meet her Bridegro
om; thus millennial hopes disappeared.8
With the rising popularity of the allegorical method, belief in a literal mi
llennial reign of Christ reached a crossroads in the middle of the third cen
tury. The Egyptian bishop Coracion, Neops抯 successor, buckled under pressur
e from Alexandria and abandoned the premillennialism of his mentor . . . And
Hippolytus, the pupil of Irenaeus, wavered in his stance as well. . . . By
the time the literal method of interpretation reached its apex in the school
at Antioch, premillennialism was virtually dead. Even though literalism nat
urally leads to a belief in premillennialism and the Antiochene school empha
sized that interpretive approach to Scripture, the doctrine was not resurrec
ted or advanced by Theodore of Mopsuestia (ca. 350-428), Chrysostom (354-407
), or Theodoret (386-458), the school抯 three most prominent teachers.9
In summary, millenarianism remained a normative doctrine during the first fo
ur centuries of the Christian era. It was not overthrown until Augustine bro
ught together the concepts of the Church and the kingdom of Christ in such a
way as to almost equivocate the two. However, two important factors had alr
eady set the stage for the transformation of the eschatological hope of a me
ssianic kingdom into an ecclesiastical theocracy. Since the time of Justin,
the prospect of an earthly messianic kingdom had become an altogether Christ
ian hope, to the exclusion of ethnic Israel抯 eschatological hope. The other
factor was the widespread use made of allegorical interpretation of Scriptu
re. [emphasis added]10
It was only in the era of the Reformation (A.D. 1500s), when the darkness of
allegorical interpretation began to be shaken off, that the dawn began in a
return to a literal understanding of the Scriptures. Even then, sound inter
pretation was mainly applied to areas of doctrine other than eschatology. Th
e study of 搇ast thingshad to wait several hundred more years before the s
ame consistency of interpretation was extended to the study of prophecy. Bel
ow, we offer a sampling of the testimony of the early Church concerning a be
lief in a literal, earthly Millennial Kingdom to come. Their writings clearl
y establish the expectation of a Kingdom on earth at Christ抯 return as the
earliest view of the Church and one which we would do well to embrace since
it reflects a plain reading of the text.
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llennial-kingdom-in-the-early-church.html?p=2 |
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