THE RECOGNITION BY WORTHY HISTORIANS OF THE PLACE CHILIASM (PREMILLENNIALISM) HELD IN THE EARLY CHURCH
The following list with their declarations is taken from the pamphlet, The History of the Doctrine of Our Lord's Return, by Dr. I.M. Haldeman: Eusebius, the early historian of the Church, admits that most of the ecclesiastics of his day were millenarians. That is -- they believed in the coming of Christ before the millennium.
Gieseler, "Church History," Vol. I, p. 166, says
"Millenarianism became the general belief of the time and met with almost no other opposition than that given by the Gnostics."
Dr. Horatius Bonar says, in his "Prophetic Landmarks,"
"Millenarianism prevailed universally during the first three centuries. This is now an assured historical fact and presupposes that chiliasm was an article of the apostolic creed."
Muncher says, p. 415, History of Christian Doctrine, Vol. 11:
"How widely the doctrine of millenarianism prevailed in the first three centuries appears from this, that it was universally received by almost all teachers."
W. Chillingworth says:
"Whatsoever doctrine is believed or taught by the most eminent fathers of any age of the church, and by none of their contemporaries opposed or condemned, that is to be esteemed the Catholic doctrine of the church of those times. But the doctrine of the millenarians was believed, and taught by the most eminent fathers of the age next after the apostles, and by none of that age opposed or condemned, therefore it was the Catholic or universal doctrine of those times."
Stackhouse, in his "Complete Body of Divinity," says:
"The doctrine was once the opinion of all orthodox Christians."
Bishop Thomas Newton says:
"The doctrine was generally believed in the three first and purest ages."
Bishop Russell, Discourse on the Millennium, says:
"On down to the fourth century the belief was universal and undisputed."
Mosheim, Vol. I., p. 185, or his "Ecclesiastical History" says:
"That the Saviour is to reign a thousand years among men before the end of the world, had been believed by many in the preceding century (that is, the second), without offense to any."
Neander, the eminent church historian, says in his Church History, page 650, Vol. I.:
"Many Christians seized hold of an image which had passed over to them from the Jews, and which seemed to adapt itself to their own present situation. The idea of a millennial reign which the Messiah was to set up on the earth at the end of the whole earthly course of his age -- when all the righteous of all times should live together in Holy Communion..."
Gibbon, the author of that immense work, "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," cannot be accused of sympathy with Christianity.... In the first volume of his work, p.532, he writes:
"it was universally believed that the end of the world was at hand. The near approach of this wonderful event had been predicted by the apostles. The tradition of it was preserved by their earliest disciples, and those who understood in their literal sense the discourses of Christ Himself were obliged to expect the Second and glorious Coming of the Son of Man before that generation was totally extinguished."
And now, mark you what he says:
"As long as for wise purposes this error was permitted to exist in the church, it was productive of the most salutary effects on the faith and practice of Christians who lived in the awful expectation of that moment."
... "The ancient and popular," --note, I pray you, the ancient and popular--
"The ancient and popular doctrine of the millennium was intimately connected with the Second Coming of Christ: As the works of creation had been finished in six days their duration in their present state, according to tradition, was fixed to six thousand years. By the same analogy it was inferred that this long period of labor and contention, which was now almost elapsed, would be succeeded by a joyful Sabbath of a thousand years, and that Christ with His triumphant band of the saints and the elect who had escaped death, or who had been miraculously revived, would reign upon the earth till the time appointed for the last and general resurrection."
"The assurance of such a millennium ... was carefully inculcated by a succession of fathers from Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, who conversed with the immediate disciples of the apostles, down to Lactantius, who was preceptor to the son of Constantine. It appears to have been the reigning sentiment of the orthodox believers, and ... it seems so well adapted to the desires and apprehensions of mankind that it must have contributed in a very considerable degree to the progress of the Christian faith."
... "But when the edifice of the church as almost completed the temporary support was laid aside. The doctrine of Christ's reign upon earth was at first heralded as a profound allegory, was considered by degrees as a doubtful and useless opinion, and was at length rejected as the absurd invention of heresy and fanaticism."
Kitto, in his encyclopedia of "Biblical Literature, " under the head of article "Millennium,
" states that the millenarian doctrine was generally prevalent in the second century, and that it received its first staggering blow from Origen, followed by Augustine, Jerome, and others in the fourth century.
In the "Encyclopaedia Britannica," under article "millennium," the writer, a no less distinguished scholar than Adolf Harnack, D.D., Professor of Christian History in the University of Giessen, Germany, says:
"This doctrine of Christ's second advent, and the kingdom, appears so early that it might be questioned whether it ought not be regarded as an essential part of the Christian religion."
Sheldon, "Church History," Vol. I., p. 145, ch. 6, testifies that
"premillenarianism was the doctrine of the Christians in the first and second century. The fathers expected anti-Christ to arise and reign, and meet his overthrow at the personal coming of the Lord. After which the Kingdom of Christ for a thousand years, would be established on the earth."
Crippen, History of Doctrine," P. 231, sec. 12, says that
"the early Fathers live in expectation of our Lord's speedy return";
on p. 232 he remarks:
"They distinguish between a first resurrection of the saints and a second or general resurrection. These they supposed would be separated by a period of a thousand years, during which Christ should reign over the saints in Jerusalem."
... "While the church was alternately persecuted and contemptuously tolerated by the Roman Empire, the belief in Christ's speedy return and his millennial reign was widely entertained."
... "When the Church was recognized and patronized by the state, the new order of things seemed so desirable that the close of the dispensation ceased to be expected or desired."
Smith, "New Testament History," p. 273, says:
"Immediately after the triumph of Constantine, Christianity having become dominant and prosperous, Christians began to lose their vivid expectation of our Lord's speedy advent, and to look upon the temporal supremacy of Christianity as a fulfillment of the promised reign of Christ on earth." --Pp. 14-20,24
