Friday, October 25, 2019

Joseph Tixeront on Early Christian Belief in Premillennialism


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)