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)