History and Doctrine of the Millennium

DOWNFALL OF THE MILLENARIES IN THE FOURTH CENTURY

The doctrine comes forth in a fallen state through the pages of Lactantius, A. D. 310. He was tutor to Constantine’s heir. In the seventh book of his Institutes he discourses freely on this topic. A cursory perusal of that book strikes me like the songs of the Roman Sibyl he loves to quote, rather than the word and counsel of the holy God, to whose word he makes less appeal. I am amazed at the mixture of truth and fable it contains, and I gaze with wonder on the image it reflects of the very spirit of Constantine’s reign; the first christian autocrat of the world, and Pontifex Maximus of pagan Rome, who regulated the worship of images and demons, while he lived in the name of Christ, and was himself deified and worshipped, as a demon, after his death. Through the imperial gate corruption burst upon the church in a flood, and the millenary doctrine of Lactantius assimilated more to a sensual paradise than the kingdom of heaven. No wonder the christian fathers of that century took the alarm at length, and wholly discarded and formally rejected the fruitful source of error: for not only did the sensual abuse it; but the holy were sometimes misled, through subtilty and craftiness, to seize on all the glorious promises and prophecies and gospel of the kingdom of heaven and to appropriate them to the thousand years’ reign; and thus the holy word was stealthily plundered of its eternal import, and the gracious assurances of the Most High were unwarily limited to the millennium, and all beyond that thousand years was left a blank, or at least an unexplored heaven; spending many words on the Lord’s giving up his kingdom at the end of that period, and on the many multitudes who would be in a natural way born into that kingdom, without trials of faith, and persecuting pains, or cares, or any tribulation. HDM 20.2

The millenary doctrine passed unnoticed in the great council of Nice; but it was denounced in a council at Rome under Pope Damascus, A. D. 373; and so effectual was the condemnation, that “the heresy, however loquacious before, was silenced then; and since that time has hardly been heard of.” ¹ Such was the testimony of Baronies in the 16th century. He adds: “Moreover, the figments of the millenaries being now rejected everywhere, and derided by the learned with hisses and laughter, and being also put under the ban, were entirely extirpated.” ² HDM 20.3

St. Jerome was an unmerciful scoffer at the doctrine of the millenaries, not always regarding fairness in his laughter at their Jewish temple, victims, feasts, houses, lands, wives, and children, with much of the same sort, all for a thousand years. On Ezekiel 16:35, “And thy sister Sodom,” etc., St. Jerome observes: HDM 21.1

“The Jews, among other fables, and figments, and endless genealogies which they invent, fancy this also: that in the advent of their Messiah, (whom we know to be Antichrist,) and in the thousand years’ reign, Sodom is to be restored to its ancient state, like the garden of God, and like the land of Egypt, and Samara is to recover her former felicity, when they shall return from Assyria to the land of Judea; and Jerusalem also is to be rebuilt, etc. But we, leaving the more perfect knowledge of these things to the judgment of God, are perfectly sure, that after the second advent of our Lord nothing will be base, nothing terrestrial; but then will be the celestial kingdom which was first promised in the gospel.” HDM 21.2

This is sound doctrine, worthy of profound attention. We agree with Jerome to defer all questions of strife to the final tribunal, believing the coming of our Lord in “the celestial kingdom which was first promised in the gospel,” to be near at hand; and being fully persuaded that nothing base, or sensual, or temporal, or hurtful, or sorrowful, will be allowed in that kingdom. If it please the Lord, while this world is burnt up, to rescue and save the carnal Jews in the blood of the first Adam, though we cannot understand it now, we shall then, and adore his mercy; if it please him to restore the temple and sacrifices of blood at Jerusalem of the world to come, we shall know it then, and praise him, though it is utterly repugnant to our conception of his purpose now; if it please him then to chasten his saints with the assault of the hosts of our great adversary, we borrow no trouble about it, for our Savior, Joshua, will be with us; we will not be afraid; for Him we look in his kingdom, and defer all hard questions to “that day.” HDM 21.3

Sts. Cyril, Basil, Chrysostom, Ambrose, Augustine, and a great company, held with the views of Jerome to the primitive faith, and gave no countenance, but often reproof, to those sentiments, which gathered all divine promises into the enjoyment of a temporal state, and spent the hope of them chiefly upon natural Jews in the flesh, degrading the heavenly throne to a terrestrial city, and limiting the reign and kingdom of the Lord to the definite period of a thousand years. Into so palpable errors the later millenaries fell, by separating the hope of that time from the kingdom of heaven, preached in the evangelists, with which Justin, Tertullian, and Jerome connected it. HDM 22.1

I conclude this division of my subject with a summary of the doctrine of the fathers, taken from the Exposition of the Parables, in five volumes, by Ed. Greswell, D. D., Fellow of Oxford, Eng.:- HDM 22.2