Tarry thou till I come; or, Salathiel, the wandering Jew.

by George Croly

A new development of Chiliasm took place toward the close of the second century. It resulted from the persecuting hand of the government being laid heavily upon the Church.

It is not necessary here to enter into the causes of the persecutions by the Romans. It is enough to note that the ideas of religious freedom in the modern world are quite alien to those of the ancient world. There were none but state religions and national gods. Cicero lays down as the fundamental maxim of legislation in ancient Romanism, that “no man shall have for himself particular gods of his own; no man shall worship by himself any new or foreign gods, unless they are recognized by the public laws.” And so Christianity came necessarily into collision with the laws of the state.

The bloody persecutions, from the last half of the second century onward, were the inevitable outcome of this natural and essential antagonism; but even in the opening half of the second century the Christians were subjected to sore trials such as those from which the Thessalonians suffered. In passing through these, their minds seem to have turned again, says Neander, to “the idea of the millennial reign, which the Messiah was to set up on earth.… In the midst of persecutions, it was a solace and support to the Christians to anticipate that even upon this earth, the scene of their sufferings, the Church was destined to triumph in its perfected and glorified state.” In some regions this view took on a more spiritual form; while in others, as in Phrygia, the natural home of a sensual, enthusiastic religious spirit, “Chiliasm appeared in its crass and grossly conceived form in which the earthly Jewish mind had depicted it.”

Among the Apostolic Fathers, in the second century, the doctrine appears in the writings of Barnabas, Hernias, and Papias, Bishop of Hierapolis, only, the last named teaching it in its grossest form. As Dr. Shedd has said (“History of Christian Doctrine,” vol. ii., p. 390): “There are no traces of Chiliasm in the writings of Clement of Rome, Ignatius, Polycarp, Tatian, Athenagorus, and Theophilus of Antioch.” He adds: “The inference from these facts, then, is that this tenet was not the received faith of the Church certainly down to the year 150. It was held only by individuals.” Among the really masterful scholars, ecclesiastics, and theologians, it had not a single advocate. That it was not the faith of the Apostolic Church is further evident from the fact that it was not embodied in the so-called Apostles’ Creed, which is “undoubtedly the substance of the short confessions of faith which the catechumens of the Apostolic Church were accustomed to make upon entering the Church.”

The period from 150 A.D. to 250 has been called “the blooming age of Millenarianism.” It was in this period of bitter and increased persecution that Irenæus and Tertullian came forward as its advocates, giving glowing descriptions of the millennial reign. “Antichrist, together with all the nations that side with him, will be destroyed. All earthly empires, and the Roman in particular, will be overthrown. Christ will appear, and will reign a thousand years, in corporeal presence on earth, in Jerusalem, which will be rebuilt and made the capital of His kingdom. The patriarchs, prophets, and all the pious, will be raised from the dead, and share in the felicity of this kingdom. The New Jerusalem is depicted in the most splendid colors” (Shedd, “History of Christian Doctrine,” vol. ii.. p. 390).

But even Irenæus and Tertullian, in presenting “brief synoptical statements of the authorized faith of the Church,” in their writings against heretics, make no mention of the Millenarian tenet as belonging to that faith.

The third century, chiefly in its first half, witnessed the strenuous discussion that seems practically to have brought to an end, for the time at least, the tendency in the Church to accept the Chiliastic doctrine. This was conducted in the Alexandrian School, under the lead of three great teachers, Clement of Alexandria, Origen his pupil, and Dionysius the pupil of Origen. They did not reject the Apocalypse, but addressed themselves to opposing the grossly literal interpretations put upon it by the Chiliasts.

The method adopted by Bishop Dionysius of Alexandria is of peculiar interest, as showing what may be accomplished by candid Christian discussion. Neander gives a somewhat detailed account of his course (“Church History,” vol. i., p. 452). Nepos, a pious Egyptian bishop belonging to the region of Arsinoë, and who was a devoted friend of the sensual Chiliasm, wrote a book against the Alexandrian school, entitled “A Refutation of the Allegorists.” “The book seems to have found great favor with the clergy and laity in the above-mentioned district. Great mysteries and disclosures of future events were supposed to be found here; and many engaged with more zeal in the study of the book and theory of Nepos than in that of the Bible and its doctrines.” So zealous did his disciples become for this tenet that they brought the charge of heresy against all who refused to accept it. Whole churches separated themselves from their communion with the mother-church at Alexandria. After the death of Nepos, a country priest, Coracion, took the leadership of this party.

Neander gives an interesting account of the way in which, by instruction and discussion, the good and wise Bishop of Alexandria, Dionysius, led Coracion back to the faith. This happened in the year 255.

“Having restored the unity of faith among his own churches,” Dionysius wrote his work on the Promises, for the instruction of the churches. By the opening of the fourth century Chiliasm seems to have almost disappeared from the Church, as is shown by the statements of Eusebius, the church historian. Describing the writings of Papias, Eusebius remarks that they contain “matters rather too fabulous,” among which he enumerates the opinion of Papias that “there would be a certain millennium after the resurrection, and that there would be a corporeal reign of Christ on this very earth.” The return to the Catholic doctrine on the subject seems therefore to have been quite general before the year 400.