Friday, January 1, 2021

Robert Sungenis (Amillennial) on the Early Christian Witness Favouring Premillennialism

That the earliest Christian witness about the Millennium is one that reflected a form of “pre-millennialism” (AKA Chiliasm) is admitted even by critics of this understanding. Note the following from one proponent of the Amillennial view:

 

To begin the analysis, since Tertullian was one of the more vocal proponents of both Chiliasm and the Enoch/Elijah theory, we will begin with him. He writes the following:

 

. . . for Christ is the proper and legitimate High Priest of God. He is the Pontiff of the priesthood of the uncircumcision, constituted such, even then, from the Gentiles, by whom he was to be more fully received, although at his last coming he will favor with his acceptance and blessing the circumcision also, even the race of Abraham, which by and by is to acknowledge him. (Tertullian Against Marcion, Book 5, Ch. 9, ANF, p. 448)

 

Although Tertullian was quite prolific, this is the only statement in his writings that addresses the issue of a future Jewish conversion. Similar to many other Fathers who speak on this passage, however, Tertullian does not offer any detailed exegesis of the key passage in question, Romans 11:25-27; rather, he seems to be reiterating an idea that came prior to him. As it stands, Tertullian is writing the above lines from his Adversus Marcionem between 207 and 212 A.D., hence, he is very close to the time of Papias (c. 130 A.D.); Irenaeus (140-202 A.D.), Justin Martyr (100-165 A.D.) and later Lactantius (250-317 A.D.), who were all promoting the Chiliastic view of eschatology, i.e., that Christ would reign on earth for a 1,000-year period after his Second Coming; and that the Jews would be converted and reign in the millennium.

 

Justin Martyr: “But I and such other Christians as judge rightly in everything believe that there will be . . . a thousand years in which Jerusalem will be built up, adorned and enlarged, as the prophets Ezechiel and Isaias and the other declare.” (Dialogue with Trypho, 80, JR, vol. 1, p. 61)

 

Irenaeus: “that it behooves the righteous first to receive the promise of the inheritance which God promised to the fathers, and to reign in it, when they rise again to behold God in this creation which is renovated, and that the judgment should take place afterwards.” (Against Heresies, 5:21:1, ANF)

 

“The predicted blessing, therefore, belongs unquestionably to the times of the kingdom, when the righteous shall bear rule upon their rising from the dead; when also the creation, having been renovated and set free, shall fructify with an abundance of all kinds of food, from the dews of heaven, and from the fertility of the earth: as the elders who saw John, the disciple of the Lord, related that they had heard from him how the Lord used to teach in regard to these times, and say: The days will come, in which vines shall grow, each having ten thousand branches . . . And these things are borne witness to in writing by Papias, the hearer of John, and a companion of Polycarp, in his fourth book; for there were five books compiled by him. And he says in addition, ‘Not these things are credible to believers.’” (Against Heresies, 5:33:3-4, ANF)

 

Lactantius: “But He when He shall have destroyed unrighteousness, and executed His great judgment, and shall have recalled to life the righteous, and shall have recalled to life the righteous, who have lived from the beginning, will be engaged among men a thousand years, and will rule them with most just command. While the Sibyl proclaims in another place, as she utters her inspired predictions . . . Then they who shall be alive in their bodies shall not die, but during those thousand years shall produce an infinite multitude, and their offspring shall be holy, and beloved by God; but they who shall be raised from the dead shall preside over the living as judges . . . About the same time also the prince of the devils, who is the contriver of all evils, shall be bound with chains, and shall be imprisoned during the thousand years of the heavenly rule in which righteousness shall reign in the world, so that he may contrive no evil against the people of God. After His coming the righteous shall be collected from al the earth, and the judgment being completed, the sacred city shall be planted in the middle of the earth, in which God Himself the builder may dwell together with the righteous, being rule in it.” (Divine Institutes, Book 7, Ch. 24, ANF)

 

Tertullian had been promoting Chiliasm in his own writings, and it is only natural to expect that he would attempt to fit a conversion of the Jews into his Chiliastic end-time scenario. In the very book from which Tertullian says at, at the Second Coming, he expects Christ “will favor with his acceptance and blessing the circumcision,” he writes of his belief in a future kingdom on earth:

 

As for the restoration of Judaea, however, which even the Jews themselves, induced by the names of places and countries, hope for just as it is described, it would be tedious to state at length how the figurative interpretation is spiritually applicable to Christ and His church, and to the character and fruits thereof; besides, the subject has been regularly treated in another work, which we entitle De Spe Fidelium. At present, too, it would be superfluous for this reason, that our inquiry relates to what is promised in heaven, not on earth. But we do confess that a kingdom is promised to us upon the earth, although before heaven, only in another state of existence; inasmuch as it will be after the resurrection for a thousand years in the divinely-built city of Jerusalem, “let down from heaven,” which the apostle also calls “our mother from above,” which the apostle also calls “our mother from above;” and, while declaring that our politeuma, or citizenship, is in heaven, he predicates of it that it is really a city in heaven. This both Ezekiel had knowledge of and the Apostle John beheld. . . . Of the heavenly kingdom this is the process. After its thousand years are over, within which period of completed the resurrection of the saints, who rise sooner or later according to their deserts there will ensue the destruction of the world and the conflagration of all things at the judgment: we shall then be changed in a moment into the substance of angels, even by the investiture of an incorruptible nature, and so be removed to that kingdom in heaven of which we have now been treating, just as if it had not been predicated by the Creator. (Tertullian Against Marcion, Book 3, Ch. 25, ANF).

 

Combining Tertullian’s two above quotes, we can see that he envisioned a future 1000-year kingdom that would house the Jews who had been converted to Christianity. But Tertullian was not the first to espouse this unique viewpoint. The earliest was probably Papias (c. 130 A.D.). The historian Eusebius (263-340 A.D.) writes about the eschatological views of Papias in his famous book on Church history:

 

And Papias, of whom we are now speaking, confesses that he received the words of the apostles form those that followed them . . . The same writer gives also other accounts which he says came to him through unwritten tradition, certain strange parables and teachines of the Savior, and some more mythical things. To these belong in his statement that there will be a period of some thousand years after the resurrection of the dead, and that the kingdom of Christ will be set up in material form on this very earth. I suppose he got these ideas through a misunderstanding of the apostolic accounts, not perceiving that the things said by them were spoken mystically in figures. For he appears to be of very limited understanding, as one can see from his discourses. (Ecclesiastical History, Book 3, Ch. 9, “The Writings of Papias,” ANF)

 

Origen is also suspected to have accepted the Chiliastic view, although his words on this matter are rather obscure for us to know precisely what he believed. From his testimony we can at least understand why there were many divergent views on eschatology. He writes:

 

But what existed before this world, or what will exist after the world, has not become certain knowledge among the man; for no clear statement in this matter is to be found in ecclesiastical teaching. (The Fundamental Doctrines, 1, Preface, 7, JR, vol. 1, p. 192. Origen also doubts other important details. On the meaning of “all Israel,” he writes: “What all Israel means or what the fullness of the Gentiles will be only God knows . . .” [Commentary on Romans, 4:304])

 

In any case, we can see rather easily where the combined prospects for a future millennial kingdom and an en masse conversion of the Jews to inhabit that kingdom originated. It did not originate with a thorough and detailed exegesis of Rm 11:25-27 or any other passage of Scripture, but with a idiosyncratic tradition passed down by Papias to which other Fathers in his era gloomed on. This anomaly is not surprising if we consider that even in St. Paul’s day there were various erroneous propositions circulating in the churches concerning the end of time. At one point, the bodily resurrection was being doubted (1Co 15:1-9). At another point it was believed that Christ would return in the first century (2Th 2:1-4). Paul squelched both of those movements. Somehow, however, the idea of a future millennial kingdom persisted beyond the middle of the second century until about the late third century. So prevalent was this teaching that two thousand years later modern evangelical and fundamentalist Protestants refer to the eschatology espoused by Papias, Justin, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Lactantius and Origen to support their Dispensational Premillennial views of a future millennial reign of Christ on earth in which the Jews will convert to Christianity and rule over the Gentiles for 1,000 years. They also use this early patristic testimony to undercut the Catholic Church’s dependence on Augustine, et al. and the Amillennial view of eschatology—the view that rejects a future millennial kingdom for the Jews. (Robert Sungenis, Catholic/Jewish Dialogue: Controversies and Corrections [State Line, Pa.: Catholic Apologetics International Publishing, Inc., 2010], 638-43)