The First to Fourth Century
The earliest notes on Revelation come from early western writers who
assumed that the apostle John was the author. Writers who believed that when
Christ returns he would set up a thousand-year kingdom on earth include Papias
of Hierapolis (d. ca. 130),7 Justin Martyr (d. ca. 165), Irenaeus (d. ca. 200),
Tertullian (d. ca. 225), Hippolytus (d. 235), Commodianus (ca. late third
century), Victorinus of Petau (d. c.304), and Lactantius (d. ca. 325).
The oldest extant commentary on Revelation was written in Latin by Victorinus,
who, though being a chiliast, viewed events as typological and thought
Revelation depicted the same events under different images. Jerome would later
rewrite his commentary changing Victorinus’s futuristic, chiliast interpretations
“to make the church age the millennium.”
These interpreters viewed the future earthly millennial reign beginning when
Christ returns to destroy the political structures.
Some early writers, however, viewed the millennium as an immediate
experience in that the resurrection mentioned in Rev 20:4–6 refers to souls being raised with Christ at the moment of death.
Cyprian (d. 258) saw the millennial kingdom as the blessed state of believers
in heaven. Eastern writers such as Clement of Alexandria (d. ca. 215) framed
the millennium in heavenly-spiritual terms where souls would be instructed for
perfection. Origen (d. 254) made a sharp moral distinction between the physical
and the spiritual, rejecting the notion of a physical kingdom by teaching that
their spiritual resurrection occurred at their death. Methodius (d. ca. 311),
however, affirmed a bodily resurrection. He also linked the material
resurrection of the body with a millenarian hope that is associated with the
Jewish Feast of Tabernacles and a type of “the seventh millennium of creation.”
Dionysius of Alexandria (d. 264) was a loyal student of Origen and continued
his teaching against an earthly millennium and argued that such notions should
be interpreted spiritually. Dionysius attempted to argue that the authors of
the Fourth Gospel and Revelation must have been two different writers based on
different writing styles and theological content, thereby having the effect of
minimizing the credibility of Revelation. He thought the author of Revelation
was another John, an elder. He continued to accept Revelation, but for him and
others in the east it did not hold the authoritative force as did the other New
Testament books. Eusebius (d. 340), bishop of Caesarea, interpreted the prophecies
in the book of Revelation in symbolic terms and loathed the chiliast
interpretation, especially from Papias. The Egyptian bishop Nepos (mid-third
century) was one of the few Eastern writers who affirmed a future thousand-year
kingdom on earth. He wrote against allegorical exegesis and argued for the
literal interpretation of the millennium. (Alan E. Kurschner, A Linguistic Approach
to Revelation 19:11-20:6 and the Millennium Binding of Satan [Linguistic
Biblical Studies 23; Leiden: Brill, 2022], 183-84)
Irenaeus also held to a future millennium where he framed history
according to the seven-day creation account with each day representing a
thousand-year period in history, culminating in a final seventh thousand-year
period of peace and blessedness (Haer. 5.32–36). In addition, by
connecting the Creation account with the future culmination of history, he
attempted to refute Gnosticism, which divorced the God of the Old Testament
from the God of the future. (Ibid., 183 n. 9)
