Millennium: Historical & Exegetical Debate

by Martin Erdmann

The belief in a literal millennium was an important aspect in the Christian eschatology of the ante-Nicene age. Most of the Asiatic Church Fathers derived their chiliastic convictions not only from the millennial passage of Revelation, but also from the Jewish concept of a Golden Age, as described by the Hebrew Prophets and further developed by Jewish apocalyptic writers. The chiliastic doctrine was challenged, on exegetical and philosophical grounds, by the Alexandrian school of theology in the third century. The Church's elevation to imperial favour by Constantine was followed by a further shift in the understanding of the millennium. The chiliastic hope of a future earthly reign of Christ was substituted with the view of a realized millennium constituting the secular dominion of the Roman Church. The factor which most contributed to this change was Augustine's spiritualized interpretation of the first resurrection. He understood it to mean a resurrection of those dead in sin, raised to spiritual life. In his book, De civitate dei, he advanced the opinion that the kingdom of God was already set up at Christ's first coming and nothing remained to be accomplished before the final judgment except the brief reign of the Antichrist. Thus the teaching of a literal millennium became discredited because it was perverted by some of its friends and misrepresented by its opponents.

242 pages, Paperback

Published January 20, 2016

Reviews

[Alan Fuller · Rating 2 out of 5]

The contention of this book is that the earliest church was premillennial. The author is a devoted premillennialist.

One of the favorite arguments of the author is that the word used for resurrection in Revelation 20:5 means bodily resurrection. He would agree with Nicodemus that a man must enter his mother’s womb again in John 3:4.

Some millenarians believe that almost all of the Fathers before Augustine were chillasts. This author focuses on Papias, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Barnabas, and Tertullian. He admits it is more about hermeneutics than doctrine (p. 100).

“All Church Fathers, to a greater or lesser degree, employed the principles of a spiritualizing interpretation.” p.94

If all church fathers used spiritual interpretation then how could they be chilasts? Justin Martyr most probably used Philo of Alexandria’s idea of spiritual life and death related to Genesis 2:17. Barnabas interpreted the millennium allegorically (p.129). He seems mystified by the Sabbath of Rest. He should have checked Hebrews 4:4-5. I think there is one mention of Hebrews in the whole book. Hebrews and the New Jerusalem are the concepts that most millennium study should be based on.

Irenaeus’ dislike of allegory was mainly about that of the Gnostics (p.112). Tertullian believed the first resurrection was spiritual. Papias was identified as an allegorizer of scripture in regards to “Hexameron.”

Revelation 20:9 and the “camp of the saints” is not an earthly attack even though Gog and Magog gather the nations of the earth. The city He loves should be compared to Rev 14:1, Heb 12:22 in heaven, Dan 7:21, 25, 8:10-12, 25.