Catholic
dogmatic theologian Joseph Tixeront (1856-1925) wrote a 3-volume work, History of Dogmas. While an opponent of
premillennialism, he did write the following; apart from showing a great level
of intellectual integrity in how widespread (though, as he correctly notes, it
was not “unanimous”) the belief was
in early Christianity, he also admits that based on a “narrow” reading of the
book of Revelation (Apocalypse), it is a plausible eschatology to read out of
it:
Millenarianism was a legacy from Judaism. The
Jews, as it is well known, expected a temporal Messianic rule, the duration of
which was sometimes said to be 1000 years. As Jesus had not fulfilled this
expectation in His first advent, many Christians placed its fulfilment at the
time of His second coming. The Son of man was to come down upon earth in a
glorious state and rule for a thousand years with the just over a renewed
Jerusalem; and this period would be followed by the general resurrection, the
judgment at the end of all things, the everlasting happiness of the elect and
the eternal loss of the wicked. It should be observed that in this opinion the
retribution that follows death was only temporary, and that the definitive
retribution was to take place after the last judgment.
In fact, this
is very nearly what we read in the Apocalypse, and there is no doubt that
Millenarianism owed its success chiefly to that book, too narrowly interpreted.
Moreover, certain calculations, based on the data of the Bible, and determining
the ages of the world and their consummation, helped probably in the same
direction . . Millenarianism prevailed probably chiefly in Western Asia, where St.
John’s memory was carefully preserved. St. Irenaeus was a native of that
province and the Montanists dwelt not far from it. With these names we may also
associate those of Methodius of Olympus (Symposium,
IX, 5), Apollinaris of Laodicea (St Basil, Epist.
CCLXIII, 4). The error spread as far as Egypt. In the first half of the third
century, we find it maintained there by a bishop, Nepos, under its coarsest form,
in a work entitled ‘Ελεγχος αλληγοριστων, and by a certain Coracion, who had on his
side whole dioceses (Euseb., H.E.,
VII, 24). As regards the rest of Africa, Tertullian’s authority probably helped
to spread and maintain the doctrine there. We find it fully displayed in the
poems of Commodian (Carmen Apologeticum,
verses 975, ff.; Instructiones, II,
3, 39) and at the beginning of the fourth century, in the Divine Institutions of Lactantius (Institut. Divinae, VII, 22, 24) In Syria, about the same tie,
Victorinus, bishop of Pettau (+303), held it also, as St. Jerome relates (De Viris illust., 18). (Joseph Tixeront,
History of Dogmas, Vol. 1: The Antenicene
Theology [St. Louis, Miss.: B. Herder, 1910; repr., Westminster, Md.:
Christian Classics, Inc., 1984], 199-201, emphasis added)
Elsewhere,
speaking of Irenaeus’ eschatology (which was premillennial), Tixeront wrote:
This is decidedly primitive in character, and
is inspired chiefly by the Apocalypse. (Ibid., 239)
