II. The Second Advent and the Millennial Hope
II. The Second Advent and the Millennial Hope The early Christians were taught to look for the return of Jesus
Christ, and it is evident even from the New Testament that some of them expected a speedy return. The literal interpretation of Rev.
20:1–6 led some of the early Church Fathers to distinguish between a first and a second resurrection, and to believe in an intervening millennial kingdom. Some of them dwelt very fondly on these millennial hopes and pictured the enjoyments of the future age in a crassly materialistic manner. This is true especially of Papias and Irenæus. Others such as Barnabas, Hennas, Justin, and Tertullian, while teaching the doctrine, avoided its extravagances. The millennial doctrine also found favor with Cerinthus, the Ebionites, and the Montanists. But it is not correct to say, as Premillenarians do, that it was generally accepted in the first three centuries. The truth of the matter is that the adherents of this doctrine were a rather limited number. There is no trace of it in Clement of Rome, Ignatius,
Polycarp, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Dionysius, and other important Church Fathers.
The Millenarianism of the early Church was gradually overcome.
When centuries rolled by without the return of Jesus Christ, when persecutions ceased, and when Christianity received a sure footing in the Roman Empire and even became the State religion, the passionate longing for the appearance of Jesus Christ very naturally gave way for an adaptation of the Church to its present task. The allegorical interpretation of Scripture, introduced by the Alexandrian school, and sponsored especially by Origen, also had a chilling effect on all millennial hopes. In the West the powerful influence of Augustine was instrumental in turning the thoughts of the Church from the future to the present by his identification of the Church and the Kingdom of God. He taught the people to look for the millennium in the present Christian dispensation.
During the Middle Ages Millenarianism was generally regarded as heretical. There were, it is true, here and there transient and sporadic buddings of the millennial hope in the sects, but these exercised no profound influence. In the tenth century there was a widespread expectation of the approaching end of the world, but this was not accompanied with chiliastic hopes, though it was associated with the idea of the speedy coming of Antichrist. Christian art often chose its themes from eschatology. The hymn Dies Irae sounded the terrors of the coming judgment, painters depicted the end of the world on the canvass, and Dante gave a vivid description of hell in his Divina Comoedia.
At the time of the Reformation the doctrine of the millennium was rejected by the Protestant Churches, but revived in some of the sects, such as that of the more fanatical Anabaptists, and that of the Fifth
Monarchy Men. Luther scornfully rejected "the dream" that there would be an earthly kingdom of Christ preceding the day of judgment. The Augsburg Confession condemns those "who now scatter Jewish opinions, that, before the resurrection of the dead, the godly shall occupy the kingdom of the world, the wicked being everywhere suppressed." Art. XVII. And the Second Helvetic
Confession says: "Moreover, we condemn the Jewish dreams, that before the day of judgment there shall be a golden age in the earth, and the godly shall possess the kingdoms of the world, their wicked enemies being trodden under foot." Chapter XI.
A certain form of Millenarianism made its appearance, however, in the seventeenth century. There were several Lutheran and Reformed theologians who, while rejecting the idea of a visible reign of Christ on earth for a thousand years, advocated a more spiritual conception of the millennium. Their view of the matter was that, before the end of the world and the return of Jesus Christ, there will be a period in which the spiritual presence of Christ in the Church will be experienced in an unusual measure and a universal religious awakening will ensue. The Kingdom of Jesus Christ will then stand