The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 1

II. Augustine, Reviser of the Millennial Position

AUGUSTINE (Aurelius Augustinus) (354-430), most illustrious of the Latin fathers, was born in Numidia, North Africa, his father being still a pagan but his mother a Christian. After attending the schools of Madaura and Carthage, he became a teacher of rhetoric, practicing his profession in Rome and Milan. His mother’s Christian influence had followed him all through his life of licentious dissipation and afterward into Platonic idealism and Manichaean excesses. Academic skepticism, speculation on man’s beginning and the origin of evil, as well as the study of astrology and divination dissatisfied him, until finally he turned to the Scriptures to see what they were like. PFF1 473.1

This last step he took after he had been elected to a professorship of rhetoric at Milan, in 384, shortly after the Visigothic hosts had crossed the Danube and begun ravaging-Roman soil. In Milan, Augustine went to hear Bishop Ambrose preach. In 387, after passing through violent struggles of mind and having tried out the various schools of thought, he was notably converted through the message of the Scriptures, and, as a changed man with changed views, was baptized by Ambrose at Milan at the age of thirty-three. He broke radically with the world, and abandoned his lucrative vocation as a teacher of rhetoric. Then he spent a period in Rome, returning next to Africa, where he spent three years in contemplative study. In 391 he was made a presbyter against his choice, and in 395- the year of Theodosius’ death—was chosen bishop of Hippo, continuing as such for thirty-five years. Combining a clerical life with the monastic, he became “unwittingly the founder of the Augustinian order,” whence later came Luther. ²³ PFF1 473.2

It was in the midst of Augustine’s episcopate that Rome began to break up—the sack of the city by the Goths coming in 410, after eleven centuries of triumphal progress, with many Christians believing the end of the world to be at hand. Augustine’s life was, therefore, cast in a transition period of history, when the old Roman civilization was passing away, before the sweeping flood of barbarians had completed the destruction and the new order of things had been formed. Near the close of Augustine’s life, Genseric, king of the Vandals, advanced from Spain to North Africa. Augustine died in 430, during the siege of Hippo, in the midst of the Vandal invasion. Soon after this Africa was lost to the Romans, and within a few decades the Western empire had completely crumbled. PFF1 473.3

Picture 1: AUGSTINE, BISHOP OF HIPPO, OUTSTANDING LATIN FATHER
The influence of Augustine’s writings on the church has been profound, particulary that of his City of God. For a thousand years it dominated Christian thought (see pages 473 to 490).
Page 475

1. CREATES A NEW PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY

Augustine had many controversies with the Pelagians, Manichaeans, and Donatists, ²⁴ standing against them all as the champion of so-called orthodoxy. It was thus that he formed his contact with Tichonius, whose rules of exegesis he later adopted. “In him [Augustine] was concentrated the whole polemic power of the Catholicism of the time against heresy and schism. ²⁵ The intellectual head of North Africa and the Western church, Augustine produced extensive works, which fill sixteen volumes in the Migne collection. PFF1 475.1

Pre-eminent among these is Augustine’s great theodicy and philosophy of history, De Civitate Dei (On the City of God). The expression “city,” however, scarcely conveys the meaning of civitas, which is a community or state made up of its citizens. Thus the “City of God” was the commonwealth, or kingdom, of God as distinguished from the commonwealth of the world in constituency, character, privileges, present state, and destiny—the relationship of its citizens in this world being that of pilgrims and strangers. ²⁶ This was begun in 413, shortly after Alaric’s capture of Rome. The pagans were attributing the collapse of Rome to the abolition of pagan worship. Augustine wrote to answer their taunts and to create a new concept of history—the two antagonistic governments, the realm of God and that of the devil—embodying a new interpretation of prophecy, to explain the history of God and the church in the world. PFF1 475.2

This remarkable treatise, discussing the “kingdom of this world,” as doomed to destruction, and the “kingdom of God,” as destined to last forever, consumed thirteen years in the making, during the most mature period of his life. PFF1 476.1

The effect of this treatise is hard to estimate. It projected a new era into prophetic interpretation. Its popularity in pre-Reformation times is disclosed, however, by the fact that between 1467 and 1500, no fewer than twenty editions were published. ²⁷ This was the philosophy of history accepted throughout Europe during the Middle Ages, adopted and used by Catholic writers, and finally officially endorsed by Leo XIII. PFF1 476.2

2. STRANGE COMBINATION OF STRONG OPPOSITES

Augustine was a strange combination of strong opposites. Marked flashes of genius light up his work, marred by glaring defects and puerilities. In his clear position on sin and grace, he was nearest of all the fathers to evangelical Protestantism, the Reformers, particularly Luther, being strongly influenced by him. ²⁸ And through his influence the canon of Scripture was listed at the councils of Hippo (393) and Carthage (397). ²⁹ PFF1 476.3

Though at first an advocate of religious liberty, and of purely spiritual means of opposing error, Augustine later asserted the fatal principle of forcible coercion, and lent the weight of his name to civil persecution, the bloody fruits of which appeared in the Middle Ages, when his writings became the “Bible of the Inquisition.” ³⁰ He was perhaps the first to champion the cause of persecution and intolerance by misusing the words, “Compel them to come in,” in appealing to the secular arm to suppress the Donatists. ³¹ Thus he flung a dark shadow over the church, his intolerance being mainly the result of his distorted views of Scripture interpretation. His name was later adduced to justify the murder of Michael Servetus and to sanction the massacre of Saint Bartholomew’s Day and the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. ³² PFF1 477.1

Repelled by the literal interpretation of the Scripture, Augustine snatched up the Philonic and rabbinical rule that everything that appears to be unorthodox must be interpreted mystically. And his acceptance of the Rules of Tichonius led to a system of multiple interpretation that blurred the original sense. Augustine so draws upon Tichonius and so borrows his arguments that portions of his writings “seem an echo” of Tichonius’ Book of Rules—rules “as baseless as Philo’s, and even more so than those of Hillel. ³³ PFF1 477.2

Under Augustine the allegorical method degenerated into a means of displaying ingenuity and supporting ecclesiasticism. Once this principle is adopted, a passage may say one thing but mean another. Thus the Bible is emptied of significance, and the reader is at the mercy of the expositor. Unhappily, allegorism became completely victorious under Augustine. ³⁴ But even more serious, he laid down the sinister rule that the Bible must be interpreted with reference to church orthodoxy. ³⁵ To Augustine is due the “extravagant exaltation of ‘the Church,’ as represented by an imperious hierarchy,” as an extravagant reliance upon external authority substituted a dominant church and an imperious hierarchy for an ever-present Christ. ³⁶ PFF1 477.3

Augustine exerted doubtless the most powerful, permanent, and extensive influence of all ecclesiastical writers since the days of the apostles. ³⁷ He turned the generations after his time into the channels of his own thinking, becoming pre-eminently their teacher and molder in his concept of the nature of the church. ³⁸ PFF1 478.1

3. PANORAMIC PREVIEW OF ESSENTIAL POSITIONS

Before noting in detail Augustine’s various positions—on the prophecies, the resurrection, the millennium, and the kingdom—let the eye sweep in panoramic view over the entire range of the Augustinian scheme, the more easily to discern the relation of part to part through a composite picture. PFF1 478.2

A new theory of the millennium is here presented—asserted as a present fact, with Revelation 20 referring to the first instead of to the second advent. Tichonius’ Rules and his essential exposition are adopted—the thousand years slipped back by recapitulation to the beginning of the Christian dispensation, and dated from Christ’s ministry. The first resurrection is made spiritual, taking place in this life; the second is that of the body, at the end of the world. The description in Revelation 20 of Satan’s being bound and cast into the bottomless pit (the abyss), is identified with the casting down of the dragon of chapter 12, and is considered as already accomplished. The abyss is the “non-Christian nations.” The thrones of judgment are present ecclesiastical sees. Thus the emphasis is shifted back to the first advent and away from the second, which is increasingly relegated to the background. PFF1 478.3

The church militant is the church triumphant. The camp of the saints is the church of Christ extending over the whole world. The 144,000 are the church, or saints, or city of God; and the Jews are to be converted. The imperial Catholic Church is the stone shattering all earthly kingdoms, until it fills the entire earth. The Old Testament prophecies are claimed for the new ecclesiastical empire. He assents to the four standard empires of Daniel, but makes Antichrist come, nevertheless, at the end of the thousand years. Thus the union of church and state becomes a caricature of the millennial kingdom before its time. A new era in prophetic interpretation is thus introduced; this specious Augustinian theory of the millennium, spiritualized into a present politico-religious fact, fastens itself upon the church for about thirteen long centuries. Note the particulars of the substantiating evidence. PFF1 479.1

4. AUGUSTINE ON THE SECOND ADVENT

After discussing Christ’s coming in judgment he also refers to certain “ambiguous” texts, which seem to refer to the judgment, but may refer to- PFF1 479.2

“that coming of the Saviour which continually occurs in His Church, that is, in His members, in which He comes little by little, and piece by piece, since the whole Church is His body.” ³⁹ PFF1 479.3

5. FIRST RESURRECTION SPIRITUAL; SECOND CORPOREAL

The theory of the spiritual, allegorical first resurrection lies at the foundation of Augustine’s structure—the resurrection of dead souls from the death of sin to the life of righteousness. Discussing the nature of the first and second resurrections, Augustine builds upon Matthew 8:22—“Let the dead bury their dead”—which he interprets thus: PFF1 479.4

“He does not speak of the second resurrection, that is, the resurrection of the body, which shall be in the end, but of the first, which now is. It is for the sake of making this distinction that He says, ’The hour is coming, and now is.’ Now this resurrection regards not the body, but the soul.... Let those who are dead in soul bury them that are dead in body. It is of these dead, then—the dead in ungodliness and wickedness—that He says,’The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and they that hear shall live.’” ⁴⁰ PFF1 479.5

“So are there also two resurrections,—the one the first and spiritual resurrection, which has place in this life, and preserves us from coming into the second death; the other the second, which does not occur now, but in the end of the world, and which is of the body, not of the soul, and which by the last judgment shall dismiss some into the second death, others into that life which has no death.” ⁴¹ PFF1 480.1

So, according to Augustine, there is a single, simultaneous physical resurrection of all men at the last day, instead of a first and a second literal resurrection. Once this thesis was accepted, the historic millennialism was, of course, vanquished. PFF1 480.2

6. Two RESURRECTIONS AND THE THOUSAND YEARS

Discussing the relationship of the resurrections to the thousand years, Augustine refers to the misunderstandings of some concerning the first resurrection, and then says, with reference to Revelation 20:1-6 : PFF1 480.3

“Those who, on the strength of this passage, have suspected that the first resurrection is future and bodily, have been moved, among other things, specially by the number of a thousand years, as if it were a fit thing that the saints should thus enjoy a kind of Sabbath-rest during that period, a holy leisure after the labors of the six thousand years since man was created, and was on account of his great sin dismissed from the blessedness of paradise into the woes of this mortal life, so that thus, as it is written, ‘One day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day’ [2 Peter 3:8], there should follow on the completion of six thousand years as of six days, a kind of seventh-day Sabbath in the succeeding thousand years; and that it is for this purpose the saints rise, viz., to celebrate this Sabbath. PFF1 480.4

“And this opinion would not be objectionable, if it were believed that the joys of the saints in that Sabbath shall be spiritual, and consequent on the presence of God; for I myself, too, once held this opinion. But, as they assert that those who then rise again shall enjoy the leisure of immoderate carnal banquets, furnished with an amount of meat and drink such as not only to shock the feeling of the temperate, but even to surpass the measure of credulity itself, such assertions can be believed only by the carnal. They who do believe them are called by the spiritual Chiliasts, which we may literally reproduce by the name Millenarians.” ⁴² PFF1 480.5

Be it noted that Augustine had previously been a chiliast, but turned against chiliasm because of the “carnal” positions of some of its adherents. The extremism of some has been the bane of the church in all ages. PFF1 480.6

7. ALTERNATIVE INTERPRETATIONS OF THOUSAND YEARS

Augustine’s concepts of the thousand years are couched in these words, citing Tichonius’ Fifth Rule: PFF1 481.1

“Now the thousand years may be understood in two ways, so far as occurs to me: either because these things happen in the sixth thousand of years or sixth millennium (the latter part of which is now passing), as if during the sixth day, which is to be followed by a Sabbath which has no evening, the endless rest of the saints, so that, speaking of a part under the name of the whole, he calls the last part of the millennium—the part, that is, which had yet to expire before the end of the world—a thousand years; or he used the thousand years as an equivalent for the whole duration of this world, employing the number of perfection to mark the fullness of time.” ⁴³ PFF1 481.2

It should be borne in mind that, following Tichonius, Augustine regarded the thousand years as a figurative numeral expressive of the whole period intervening between Christ’s earthly ministry and the end of the world—a round number, for an indeterminate time, some saying that “four hundred, some five hundred, others a thousand years, may be completed from the ascension of the Lord until His final coming.” ⁴⁴ It is well to know that Augustine followed the Septuagint chronology; he believed that the sixth millennium was more than half gone, and it is natural that he would expect the end in less than a thousand years. ⁴⁵ However, the thousand-year idea later came to prevail. PFF1 481.3

8. THOUSAND YEARS SPANS THE TWO ADVENTS

The crux of Augustine’s argument is that the millennium of Satan’s binding dates from Christ’s first advent to His second coming. PFF1 481.4

“From the first coming of Christ to the end of the world, when He shall come the second time, ... during this interval, which goes by the name of a thousand years, he shall not seduce the Church.” ⁴⁶ PFF1 481.5

The millennium was therefore no longer a desideratum; it was already a realization. Augustine laid “the ghost” of millenarianism so effectually that for centuries thereafter the subject was practically a closed question. ⁴⁷ PFF1 482.1

9. DEVIL Is BOUND NOW UNTIL THE END

“Now the devil was thus bound not only when the Church began to be more and more widely extended among the nations beyond Judea, but is now and shall be bound till the end of the world, when he is to be loosed.” ⁴⁸ PFF1 482.2

Note particularly Augustine’s definition of the abyss, and Satan’s binding as expulsion from the hearts of the believers. PFF1 482.3

“By the abyss is meant the countless multitude of the wicked whose hearts are unfathomably deep in malignity against the Church of God; not that the devil was not there before, but he is said to be cast in thither, because, when prevented from harming believers, he takes more complete possession of the ungodly.... PFF1 482.4

“‘Shut him up,’i.e., prohibited him from going out, from doing what was forbidden. And the addition of ‘set a seal upon him’ seems to me to mean that it was designed to keep it a secret who belonged to the devil’s party and who did not. For in this world this is a secret, for we cannot tell whether even the man who seems to stand shall fall, or whether he who seems to lie shall rise again. But by the chain and prison-house of this interdict the devil is prohibited and restrained from seducing those nations which belong to Christ, but which he formerly seduced or held in subjection.” ⁴⁹ PFF1 482.5

10. DEVIL LOOSED FOR THREE AND A HALF YEARS AT END

But Satan is to be loosed at the end for a short time. PFF1 482.6

“For he shall rage with the whole force of himself and his angels for three years and six months; and those with whom he makes war shall have power to withstand all his violence and stratagems.... And he [“the Almighty”] will in the end loose him, that the city of God may see how mighty an adversary it has conquered, to the great glory of its Redeemer, Helper, Deliverer.” ⁵⁰ PFF1 482.7

Immediately following this, Augustine says it is questionable whether there will be any conversions during this three-and-a-half-year period, and again states that the binding began at “the time o£ His first coming.” ⁵¹ He raises the question whether this last persecution by Antichrist, lasting for three years and a half, is comprehended in the thousand years, and concludes that it is neither deducted from the whole time of Satan’s imprisonment, nor added to the whole duration of the reign of the saints. ⁵² PFF1 482.8

11. PRESENT CHURCH IS KINGDOM OF CHRIST

He contends that the heavenly kingdom is now in existence. PFF1 483.1

“Therefore the Church even now is the kingdom of Christ, and the kingdom of heaven. Accordingly, even now His saints reign with Him.” ⁵³ PFF1 483.2

“But while the devil is bound, the saints reign with Christ during the same thousand years, understood in the same way, that is, of the time of His first coming.” ⁵⁴ PFF1 483.3

12. CHURCH RULERS SITTING ON JUDGMENT SEATS NOW

Augustine applies the text, “And I saw seats and them that sat upon them, and judgment was given” to the rulers by whom the church is now governed, for “what ye bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and what ye loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” ⁵⁵ PFF1 483.4

13. “BEAST” Is UNGODLY CITY OF WORLD

What this beast is requires a more careful investigation. It is the ungodly city, the community of unbelievers, as opposed to the city of God and the faithful. PFF1 483.5

” ‘His image’ seems to me to mean his simulation, to wit, in those men who profess to believe, but live as unbelievers. For they pretend to be what they are not, and are called Christians, not from a true likeness, but from a deceitful image. For to this beast belong not only the avowed enemies of the name of Christ and His most glorious city, but also the tares which are to be gathered out of His kingdom, the Church, in the end of the world.” ⁵⁶ PFF1 483.6

“We have already said that by the beast is well understood the wicked city. His false prophet is either Antichrist or that image or figment of which we have spoken in the same place.” ⁵⁷ PFF1 483.7

The mark in forehead or hand, discussed by Augustine, in another section, is interpreted as freedom from the world’s pollutions. ⁵⁸ PFF1 484.1

14. GOG AND MAGOG ARE DEVIL’S NATIONS

Gog and Magog, says Augustine, are not to be understood of “barbarous nations in some part of the world ... not under the Roman government,” but are “spread over the whole earth.” ⁵⁹ hey were a then—present reality, and would break forth against the church in the future. PFF1 484.2

15. “CAMP OF THE SAINTS” Is THE CHURCH

The full significance of the following assertion from Augustine should not be lost: PFF1 484.3

“This camp is nothing else than the Church of Christ extending over the whole world. And consequently wherever the Church shall be,—and it shall be in all nations, as is signified by ‘the breadth of the earth,’—there also shall be the camp of the saints and the beloved city, and there it shall be encompassed by the savage persecution of all its enemies.” ⁶⁰ PFF1 484.4

Quoting in substance and approving the Rules of Tichonius, Augustine, under the Fifth Rule, says of the strange principle of multiplying numbers to get “time universal,” “One hundred and forty-four [thousand], which last number is used in the Apocalypse to signify the whole body of the saints.” ⁶¹ PFF1 484.5

Augustine includes the Jews among those who will be converted. ⁶² PFF1 484.6

16. DEVOURING FIRE Is BURNING ZEAL

The “fire out of heaven” which consumes the wicked is the firm refusal of the saints to yield obedience to those who would draw them away to the party of Antichrist. PFF1 484.7

“This is the fire which shall devour them, and this is ‘from God;’ for it is by God’s grace the saints become unconquerable, and so torment their enemies. For as in a good sense it is said, ‘The zeal of Thine house hath consumed me’ [Psalm 69:9], so in a bad sense it is said, ‘Zeal hath possessed the uninstructed people, and now fire shall consume the enemies.’” ⁶³ PFF1 484.8

17. “NEW JERUSALEM” Is CHURCH’S PRESENT GLORY

Unequivocal is Augustine’s declaration that the New Jerusalem has “indeed descended from heaven from its commencement, since its citizens during the course of this world grow by the grace of God, which cometh down from above through the laver of regeneration in the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven.” ⁶⁴ PFF1 485.1

18. MYSTICAL BABYLON APPLIED TO ROME

On the other hand, Augustine clearly applies the term “Babylon” to Rome as “western Babylon,” and “mystical Babylon,” thus: PFF1 485.2

“Babylon, like a first Rome, ran its course along with the city of God.... Rome herself is like a second Babylon.” ⁶⁵ PFF1 485.3

“Such a city has not amiss received the title of the mystic Babylon. For Babylon means confusion, as we remember we have already explained.” ⁶⁶ PFF1 485.4

“The city of Rome was founded, like another Babylon, and as it were the daughter of the former Babylon, by which God was pleased to conquer the whole world, and subdue it far and wide by bringing it into one fellowship of government and laws.” ⁶⁷ PFF1 485.5

19. UNCERTAIN WHETHER ANTICHRIST SITS IN CHURCH

Setting forth different views held on the identity of Antichrist, or the apostate Man of Sin, and the temple in which he will sit, Augustine inclines toward understanding it to be the apostate body appearing in the church. PFF1 485.6

“It is uncertain in what temple he shall sit, whether in that ruin of the temple which was built by Solomon, or in the Church; for the apostle would not call the temple of any idol or demon the temple of God. And on this account some think that in this passage Antichrist means not the prince himself alone, but his whole body, that is, the mass of men who adhere to him, along with him their prince; and they also think that we should render the Greek more exactly were we to read, not ‘in the temple of God,’ but ‘for’ or ‘as the temple of God,’ as if he himself were the temple of God, the Church.” ⁶⁸ PFF1 485.7

20. ROMAN EMPIRE PROBABLY THE WITHHOLDING POWER

Augustine avoided making an explicit statement as to the withholding power of 2 Thessalonians, because as he expressed it, we “have not their knowledge” of what Paul had told the Thessalonians. Therefore he says: PFF1 485.8

“I frankly confess I do not know what he means. I will nevertheless mention such conjectures as I have heard or read. PFF1 486.1

“Some think that the Apostle Paul referred to the Roman empire, and that he was unwilling to use language more explicit, lest he should incur the calumnious charge of wishing ill to the empire which it was hoped would be eternal.... However, it is not absurd to believe that these words of the apostle, ‘Only he who now holdeth, let him hold until he be taken out of the way,’ refer to the Roman empire, as if it were said, ‘Only he who now reigneth, let him reign until he be taken out of the way.’ ‘And then shall the wicked be revealed:’ no one doubts that this means Antichrist.” ⁶⁹ PFF1 486.2

21. FOUR PROPHETIC KINGDOMS FOLLOWED BY ANTICHRIST

Of the four standard prophetic world powers, Augustine goes no further than to state, “Some have interpreted,” and to commend the reading of Jerome. PFF1 486.3

“In prophetic vision he [Daniel] had seen four beasts, signifying four kingdoms, and the fourth conquered by a certain king, who is recognized as Antichrist, and after this the eternal kingdom of the Son of man, that is to say, of Christ.... Some have interpreted these four kingdoms as signifying those of the Assyrians, Persians, Macedonians, and Romans. They who desire to understand the fitness of this interpretation may read Jerome’s book on Daniel, which is written with a sufficiency of care and erudition.” ⁷⁰ PFF1 486.4

22. UNCERTAINTY AS TO THE TEN KINGS

Augustine was also unsettled as to the ten kings, doubting whether they would be found simultaneously in the Roman world at the coming of Antichrist, and suggesting that “ten” could merely symbolize totality. ⁷¹ PFF1 486.5

23. ALLOTTED TIME OF ANTICHRIST’S ASSAULT

Augustine expects Antichrist to reign three years and a half. PFF1 486.6

“But he who reads this passage, even half asleep, cannot fail to see that the kingdom of Antichrist shall fiercely, though for a short time, assail the Church before the last judgment of God shall introduce the eternal reign of the saints. For it is patent from the context that the time, times, and half a time, means a year, and two years, and half a year, that is to say, three years and a half. Sometimes in Scripture the same thing is indicated by months. For though the word times seems to be used here in the Latin indefinitely, that is only because the Latins have no dual, as the Greeks have, and as the Hebrews also are said to have. Times, therefore, is used for two times.” ⁷² PFF1 486.7

24. DAYS OF CREATION PARALLELED BY AGES OF THE WORLD

Augustine did not regard the six days of creation as literal, but as a step-by-step revelation to the angels of the various phases of a creation which really occurred all at once. ⁷³ But he symbolized the events of the six days by the ages of the world. His enumeration of these ages was followed by later writers through the Middle Ages and into modern times; they were used, with slight modification, by Ussher and incorporated into various Bible chronologies. These periods of Augustine are: 1) Adam to Noah, (2) Noah to Abraham, (3) Abraham to David, (4) David to the Captivity, (5) The Captivity to Christ, (6) Christ to the end, (7) The second advent and the eternal rest. ⁷⁴ PFF1 487.1

This “world-week” theory was based on earlier sources, but “Augustine, steeped in Neoplatonism and Pythagoreanism, really prescribed the doctrine for the Middle Ages.” ⁷⁵ He exerted the greatest influence of any of the early church writers. PFF1 487.2

25. EXACT DATE OF PASSION FORETOLD BY DANIEL

It is interesting to observe that Augustine evidently holds to the seventy weeks as employing the year-day principle, for he extends the period to Christ’s death. PFF1 487.3

“Daniel even defined the time when Christ was to come and suffer by the exact date. It would take too long to show this by computation, and it has been done often by others before us.” ⁷⁶ PFF1 487.4

Hesychius, bishop of Salona, made them end with the second advent, which he believed near at hand. ⁷⁷ Augustine condemned such a view, declaring: PFF1 487.5

“For, with respect to the Hebdomads of Daniel, I think that this especially must be understood according to time which is now past: for I do not dare to enumerate the years [times] concerning the advent of the Saviour, who is awaited in the end; nor do I think that any prophet has fixed the number of years concerning this thing, but that this rather prevails which the Lord Himself says, ‘No one can know the times which the Father has put in His own power (Acts 1:7).’” ⁷⁸ PFF1 488.1

Augustine then comments upon the generally accepted Scriptures referring to the second advent, and denominates as a false theory the concept that the weeks of Daniel relate to this event. PFF1 488.2

26. CHURCH-SHATTERING STONE FILLING WHOLE EARTH

In his refutation of the Donatist Petilianus, Augustine applies the prophesied eternal reign of Christ to the present reign of the Roman church, and contends that the stone has already become a mountain and is even now filling the earth. PFF1 488.3

“But you are so bent upon running with your eyes shut against the mountain which grew out of a small stone, according to the prophecy of Daniel, and filled the whole earth, that you actually tell us that we have gone aside into a part, and are not in the whole among those whose communion is spread throughout the whole earth.” ⁷⁹ PFF1 488.4

The significance of this revolutionary position based on Tichonius’ Rules, can scarcely be overemphasized. By this application the eyes of men were turned back from the second advent to the first, as the time of the initial smiting of the image. Such an exposition of the stone kingdom was a direct challenge to the interpretation of the Christian scholarship of the first four centuries. PFF1 488.5

Similarly, in one of his tractates on the Gospel of John, Augustine discourses on the stumbling of the Jews over Christ as a “small stone” that had already been “cut out” of the “mountain” of the Jewish nation, citing Daniel 2. But now, he avers, the Christian church has already become the world-filling mountain in his day. Thus he says: PFF1 488.6

“The stone was cut out from thence, because from thence was the Lord born on His advent among men. And wherefore without hands? Because without the cooperation of man did the Virgin bear Christ. Now then was that stone cut out without hands before the eyes of the Jews; but it was humble. Not without reason; because not yet had that stone increased and filled the whole earth: that He showed in His kingdom, which is the Church, with which He has filled the whole face of the earth.” ⁸⁰ PFF1 488.7

Rather excusing the Jews for their lesser occasion for stumbling and being broken, Augustine emphasizes the seriousness of denying the mountain church which is filling the earth, and which is to grind men to powder when Christ appears “in His exaltation.” So he concludes: PFF1 489.1

“But the Jews were to be pardoned because they stumbled at a stone which had not yet increased. What sort of persons are those who stumble at the mountain itself? Already you know who they are of whom I speak. Those who deny the Church diffused through the whole world, do not stumble at the lowly stone, but at the mountain itself: because this the stone became as it grew. The blind Jews did not see the lowly stone: but how great blindness not to see the mountain!” ⁸¹ PFF1 489.2