Tractatus de divina traditione et Scriptura

The opinion concerning the millennial kingdom of Christ among the Fathers before the fourth century, compared with the opposing agreement of the later Fathers.

« Although many Fathers down to the beginnings of the fourth century followed the view of a kingdom of Christ on earth for a thousand years before the universal resurrection of bodies, yet this was the private opinion of individuals, never a common agreement as in a doctrine of faith. This is established 1. from the subsequent contrary agreement; 2. from the certain principles by which apostolic Tradition is governed; 3. from the very origin and entire history of that opinion. »

It could sometimes happen that several Fathers adopted the private opinion of one man; whence it then comes about that, especially if this happened in the most ancient time, which through the lack of records is obscure to us, what flourished seems to have been, and is trumpeted by some as, the unanimous view of the earlier Fathers, against which nevertheless the contrary agreement of subsequent ages prevailed. But this subsequent contrary agreement, even taken by itself alone, suffices so that, from the theological principle, and also philosophically from the principles on which the Fathers always relied (th. VIII, IX), it is certain that that antecedent agreement cannot have been universal in a ratified and firm judgment, but was merely the opinion of individual teachers. For the rest, it will be the task of theologians to demonstrate this very thing historically as well.

To demonstrate the great difference between a private opinion however widely diffused and an agreement truly catholic, many examples would indeed be at hand, but none more apt to the present matter than the opinion of the chiliasts, whom Augustine (City of God XX. 7.) calls milliarii, who teach that before the universal resurrection the just are to be raised, who, with the city of Jerusalem restored, are to reign with Christ on earth for a thousand years. A diligent inquiry into the history of this opinion, of which even in our time mention not rarely occurs among good and learned men, ought not to be judged a digression from our present scope; for the manner in which that doctrine arose in the most ancient times, flourished, and perished, will excellently illustrate the character and marks of genuine Tradition as against spurious traditions.

I. The names of those who in the second and third centuries had embraced the view of that thousand-year kingdom interposed between the first resurrection of the just and the second universal resurrection can be heaped up: Papias (in Eusebius H. E. III. 39. and in Irenaeus V. 33.), Justin (Dialogue with Trypho n. 80.), Irenaeus (bk V. cc. 31-36.), Tertullian (Against Marcion bk III. c. 24.), Methodius (Banquet of the Virgins IX. n. 5.), Nepos the Egyptian bishop (in Eusebius bk VII. c. 24.), Victorinus of Pettau (on the testimony of Jerome On Illustrious Men c. 18. and on Ezekiel XXXVI.), Commodian (Instructive Lessons Against the Pagans cc. 43. 44. 80.), Lactantius (Institutes bk VII. cc. 24. 26.), Quintus Julius Hilarion (On the Duration of the World, Max. Bibl. vol. VI. p. 376.), Sulpicius Severus ¹.

After Lactantius at the beginning of the fourth century no further author of weight who is Catholic, down to the most recent age, made mention of this view without at the same time disapproving and rejecting it. They disapprove and reject it: Eusebius in the cited places; Basil ep. 265. al. 293. to Eulogius; Gregory Nazianzen bk II. poem 31. al. 133. v. 175. sq. vol. II. p. 876; Epiphanius heresy 77. n. 26. vol. I. p. 1031; Theodoret, Fables of Heretics bk III. c. 6; Nicephorus H. E. bk VI. c. 21; Jerome On Illustrious Men on Papias; on Isaiah XX. 23; XXV. 1. sq.; XXX. 26; XXXV. at the end; and in the Preface to bk XVIII. on Isaiah (cf. on Jeremiah XX. 10.); on Ezekiel XXXVI; ep. 120. q. 2. to Hedibia and elsewhere; Augustine City of God bk XX. c. 7; Philastrius heresy 59; Gennadius On Church Dogmas c. 25. (in the appendix to the Works of Augustine vol. VIII.). Hither belong those who in their commentaries on Apocalypse XX. interpreted the first resurrection and the thousand years there mentioned plainly against the explanation of the chiliasts with unanimous agreement: Andrew of Caesarea Max. Bibl. vol. V; Aretas ib. vol. IX.; Primasius ib. vol. X.; Ambrose Autpert ib. vol. XIII; Bede Works vol. V.; Berengaud in the Appendix to the works of St Ambrose; the Anselm of the common edition (who is not the Canterbury Anselm but probably the Laon one).

Now although some of the Fathers directly condemn the millennial kingdom as the heretics Cerinthus and, in the fourth century, Apollinaris asserted it, yet there is included the disapproval of the whole of this opinion, even under forms less absurd than the Cerinthians had devised. This is evident from this very fact, that the Fathers disapprove not only the manner but the thing itself, and most expressly join with the chiliasm of the heretics that assertion by certain ancient Catholics as accidentally, not in the thing itself, diverse. So almost always Jerome. « For we do not expect, according to the Jewish fables which they call δευτερωσεις ², a Jerusalem jeweled and golden from heaven, nor shall we again suffer the injury of circumcision, nor offer sacrifices of bulls and rams, nor sleep in the idleness of the Sabbath. Which (not indeed according to the same form of the Jewish ceremonies but as to the substance of the matter under another form) both many of ours promise, and especially Tertullian's book On the Hope of the Faithful (lost, but the third Against Marcion survives), and the seventh volume of Lactantius's Institutes, and the frequent expositions of Victorinus Bishop of Pettau, and lately our Severus in the dialogue entitled Gallus; and to name Greeks and join first and last, Irenaeus and Apollinaris » Jerome on Ezek. XXXVI. (vol. V. p. 422.). Augustine openly alludes to the manner of exposition of Papias and Irenaeus; Philastrius places universally among heretics the chilionetitae (millenarians), Gennadius expressly after the heretics names and rejects the opinion of Papias, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Lactantius, Nepos; Eusebius, Theodoret, Nicephorus reprove, and the last two recount among heresies the opinion of Nepos, which as expounded by Dionysius of Alexandria (in Eusebius VII. 24.) seems to differ in nothing from that of Irenaeus ³.

Furthermore, what the common view was in subsequent time, we learn from the unanimous doctrine of the theologians. The Scholastics constantly, without contradiction, with certain affirmation and most in the gravest words reject the opinion of chiliasm. St Thomas says: « it must be said that on the occasion of those words (Apoc. XX. 4.), as Augustine relates in bk XX. of the City of God (c. 7.), certain heretics posited that the first resurrection of the dead would be such that they would reign with Christ a thousand years on earth (behold the substance of the opinion, which he says was that of heretics); whence they were called chiliasts, as millenarians, and Augustine there shows that those words are to be understood otherwise, namely of the spiritual resurrection » St Thomas 4. dist. 43. q. 1. a. 3. sol. 1. ad 4. St Bonaventure: « concerning the resurrection according to Catholic faith it must be held that all bodies of men will rise in the general judgment, with no distance existing in them (morally long, much less of a thousand years) as to the order of time, but rather as to the order of dignity » Bonaventure Centiloquium P. IV. sect. 2. cf. on 4. dist. 43. a. 1. q. 3; Breviloquium P. VII. c. 5. Dominic Soto has it thus: « seduced by those words of John (Apoc. XX.) Papias his disciple ⁴ devised two bodily resurrections; by which error Lactantius and others were afterwards stained... but this fable did not long persist in the Church » Soto 4. dist. 43. q. 2. a. 1. ad 3. Bellarmine, having related the opinion of Lactantius concerning the double resurrection, the former of the just, the latter of the reprobate, and concerning the millennial kingdom, adds: « this opinion was also that of many ancients, as Papias, Justin, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Apollinaris... but it has now long been exploded as a proven error » Bellarmine On the Roman Pontiff bk III. c. 17. Suarez in On the Incarnation vol. II. disp. 50. with studied effort refutes that view in the whole of section 8. After commemorating the millenarian doctrine of Papias, Irenaeus, Justin and the rest, whose foundation they themselves placed in Apoc. XX. concerning the double resurrection, Suarez speaks thus. « It must be said, however, that the resurrection of the just will not be until the day of judgment, and on that day all men will rise; wherefore no great interval will intervene between the resurrection of the just and of the unjust. This assertion is certain, and insofar as it is opposed to the cited error (the millenarian), I judge it to be of faith. » We conclude with the words of Cornelius a Lapide on Apoc. XX. 2. « Here then, he says, is the error of the millenarians; I dare not call it heresy, because I do not have open Scriptures or decrees of Councils by which this view is condemned as heretical. Whence St Augustine also in the cited place (City XX. 7.) did not dare condemn it. Yet it is sufficiently convicted of error, and could be condemned by the Church as heretical, as our Father Salas and others condemn it... Finally the later Fathers and the sense of the Church reprobated this view, whence it now seems to have vanished. »

Therefore concerning the universal, constant and ratified agreement of the Fathers and doctors from at least the fifth century down to our own age in rejecting that opinion there can be no doubt; although the denial is not such that the disapproved opinion, before a definition of the Church intervenes, can be called heretical. But from this very fact, according to the principles so often demonstrated and declared by us, it is evident that that commentation of some Fathers of the second and third centuries is not a view handed down by the Apostles, nor can it display a universal agreement, or the « Catholic understanding » of the places of Scripture on which they relied; but it is the private understanding and interpretation of individual teachers of the doctrine whether written or handed down, in which private interpretation, destitute of agreement, they certainly could err and did err, as the subsequent universal sense and opposing agreement demonstrates.

II. Indeed if the state of the question be considered, and that view more widely diffused in the second and third centuries be compared with the contrary agreement gaining force in subsequent centuries, the very principles by which Tradition and the custody of the deposit are governed demonstrate that that view is not contained in the deposit of revelation, nor was derived from apostolic Tradition. Which assertion of ours is not only not weakened by the wider diffusion of that doctrine in the first centuries, by the authority of the Fathers who defended it, by the very clarity of the words of Scripture if understood in the immediate sense, but on the contrary these very reasons, compared with the subsequent contrary agreement, shed clearer light on the demonstration.

For let us suppose for a little what the chiliasts affirm, that the doctrine concerning that millennial kingdom is revealed by God and handed down by the Apostles to the Church, and contains the genuine understanding of the sense of Scripture, and let us see what follows thence. The written word of God taken in the obvious, first-presenting, immediate, that is, non-tropical sense most clearly exhibits this view. « And I saw an angel... and he laid hold of the dragon... who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years... and I saw seats... and the souls of those beheaded for the testimony of Jesus... and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. The rest of the dead lived not, till the thousand years be finished; this is the first resurrection, » and the rest which follow, Apoc. XX. 1-15. This glorious advent of Christ and this reign of His on earth with the resuscitated saints for a thousand years, or at least for a long time before the universal resurrection and the last judgment, is such that many oracles of the psalms, prophets, Gospels, apostolic epistles taken in the obvious and immediate sense seem to describe this very kingdom; whereas if it is not admitted, the interpretation is rendered more difficult, and a transferred sense must be substituted in very many places (for I grant the millenarians this). Further, on this hypothesis, Scripture to be understood in the obvious sense in so many places was handed down by the Apostles to the Church, and this same sense was expressed compendiously by the Apostles and the first faithful in the very Apostles' Creed in those words: « He will come to judge the living and the dead »; for so the revived millenarians assert. Certainly this (on the hypothesis) apostolic Tradition, and this sense of the Scriptures, the Catholic teachers of the second and third centuries most clearly held and expressed; whose number is ample enough that we may judge many of the faithful also to have thought according to the doctrine of those same Fathers. But from the time when the understanding of Christian doctrines and dogmas was most unfolded and cultivated, from the beginning of the fourth century and the fifth century in which nearly all the greatest teachers of the Church flourished, this supposed apostolic Tradition and the true obvious sense of the Scriptures, of the revealed doctrine itself and of the Creed⁵ would have been more and more not only obscured and consigned to oblivion, but impugned and rejected by all the teachers in whose surviving works any mention of this matter occurs. The teachers with unanimous accord would have conspired to twist Scripture, not in one or another place only but in many books of the Old and New Testament, whenever the last days are treated of, from the clear and obvious sense into more difficult, transferred and (on the hypothesis) false explanations; in the whole Church, whether in catecheses and instructions of the people or in schools, while the second advent of Jesus Christ, the resurrection of the dead, the last judgment are explained, the truth handed down by the Apostles would constantly and everywhere from at least the fourth century have been hidden, and things would have been taught which cannot be reconciled with that truth. But how all these things can stand with the economy of Tradition and with the promised assistance of the Holy Spirit preserving the Catholic understanding from error and leading into all truth, no one may understand. There can without doubt be, and there are, truths which, handed down implicitly and more obscurely in the preaching of the Apostles, or embraced at first more by practical custom than by theoretical doctrine, were at some time called into controversy within the very bounds of the Church; but with this arisen, they were gradually unfolded and more lucidly declared, until they passed into the universal agreement of the whole Church, concerning which unfolding of revealed doctrine we shall speak elsewhere. But it never happened, nor from the economy of Tradition can it happen, that in inverted order an article of faith, first explicitly, embraced in a clear and obvious sense in ecclesiastical preaching and in the Catholic understanding, afterwards when controversy perchance arose should be wrapped in obscurity, pass into dissent, and at last an opposing and negating agreement should prevail against it, which negation should reign without contradiction in the whole Church of God through many centuries, through a thousand and five hundred years. Therefore from the very first principle of Catholic interpretation it is demonstrated that that clarity of the Scriptures boasted by the chiliasts is only apparent, but in reality beneath that very apparent clarity there lies in those places a great obscurity; and no less is demonstrated what we are presently treating, namely that that ancient doctrine before the fourth century was not a Catholic agreement.

III. But for us it does not suffice to have asked whether there was such an agreement; it must be demonstrated how there was not a Catholic agreement. Necessarily therefore we must inquire into the manner and origin of that ancient millenarian doctrine, so that it may also be historically established that its source is not apostolic Tradition but another.

1°. From the very manner of its defense and impugnation it appears that that view was never universal. Justin and Irenaeus in the cited places defend together two heads of doctrine, the resurrection of the dead and the kingdom of Christ on earth for a thousand years, but in a far different manner. Heretics who deny the resurrection, says Justin, are not Christians but atheists and impious; but the doctrine concerning the millennial kingdom he reckons not among certain dogmas but among free opinions. « I both confessed to you before that I myself and many others so think, as also (you Jews) altogether know that this will come to be ⁶; but I signified to you that many even of Christians who are of pure and pious judgment do not acknowledge this. So also the argumentation of Irenaeus bk V. c. 31. n. 1; c. 33. n. 4; c. 35. n. 1. must be understood. His view namely comes to this, that those denying the millennial kingdom he holds indeed in the number of Catholics, yet he judges that they furnish arms to heretics for denying the very resurrection of the dead. Further, in the third century chiliasm was so far from being approved in the Alexandrian Church that those who had adopted that opinion from Nepos the bishop lapsed into schism, and were reconciled again only when, at the persuasion of St Dionysius, it was rejected. The sum of the opinion proposed by Nepos and impugned by himself Dionysius reports in these words: « they bring forward a certain book of Nepos (those schismatics)... as though in it it were most certainly demonstrated that the kingdom of Christ will be on earth ». This very view he then signifies to be false and to be refuted. In the special characters also of this kingdom, as reported by Dionysius, there is nothing to show that the opinion of Nepos was diverse from that of Papias or Irenaeus. Nepos therefore did not depict the kingdom as filled with impure pleasures or Jewish ceremonies, as was done by heretics; for if so, Dionysius would not extol with such praises the « faith and zeal for the Scriptures » of this man, nor say that « he follows him with great reverence ». That very view, therefore, such as it was in Papias, Irenaeus, Justin, already in the third century in the Churches of Egypt did not seem tolerable; so far was it from being common in the Church. Indeed, precisely because the millenarians, and namely the Nepotians, so confidently appealed to the Apocalypse, this sacred book itself came with some Catholics, wrongly indeed as we shall say in its place, under suspicion of being a supposititious book — but by a manifest argument how greatly very many of the faithful abhorred the opinion of the chiliasts. Before Dionysius, Origen fought against the millenarians bk II. On Principles c. 11; Preface to the Canticle and elsewhere. That the opinion was ever admitted in the Roman Church, no vestige appears. The contrary can be shown from what Caius the presbyter disputed at Rome at the beginning of the third century against Cerinthus; for although Cerinthus had rendered the opinion more detestable by impure inventions, Caius nevertheless condemns not only these adjuncts but also does not acknowledge the thing itself of that kingdom. « Cerinthus, he says, introduces portents, affirming that after the resurrection the kingdom of Christ will be on earth, and again the flesh at Jerusalem will serve lusts » etc. in Eusebius H. E. III. 28.

2°. If we consider the authors and origin of the opinion more carefully, the opinion never seems to have been most widely diffused or of great esteem. The source whence it flowed to Catholics is narrated by Eusebius bk III. c. 39. « Papias brings forward into the midst some other things, as though they had come to him from unwritten tradition, namely certain strange (ξενάσ) parables of the Saviour and His doctrines, and some other things nearer to fables (μυθικώτερα). Among which he also says that there will be a space of a thousand years after the resurrection from the dead, with the kingdom of Christ established bodily on this earth. These things I judge he himself supposed from apostolic narratives perversely understood, since he had not perceived what was mystically said by them in figures ⁷ . For he appears to have been of quite mediocre mind, as can be conjectured from his books. But he was also the author of the same opinion for very many ecclesiastical (writers) after him, who fortified themselves with the antiquity of the man, as for instance Irenaeus and if any other seemed to think the same. » From this explanation of Eusebius, therefore, Papias did not receive the very doctrine concerning the millennial kingdom from the presbyters or disciples of the Apostles; but he had heard from them, and indeed had read in the Scriptures, some things to be understood symbolically, from which, understood by himself in the proper and immediate sense, he fashioned his own opinion concerning the kingdom of Christ, which he then by his authority persuaded upon Irenaeus and others as though handed down from the presbyters. The revived millenarians explode this narration of Eusebius as calumny. But if the doctrine itself were apostolic, how did the distinguished Fathers of the fourth century and thereafter, how did all subsequent theologians either despise it or obliterate it by oblivion and by a contrary sense and agreement? For the rest, whoever shall have read the exposition of Papias in Irenaeus V. 33. will easily understand that Eusebius said nothing that is not most true. The presbyters, and with them or from them Papias, report these things there n. 3. as said by the Lord Himself. « There will come days in which vineyards will spring up, each having ten thousand shoots, and on one shoot ten thousand branches, and on one branch indeed ten thousand twigs, and on each twig ten thousand clusters (sic), and on each cluster ten thousand grapes, and each grape when pressed will give twenty-five measures of wine; and when any of the saints shall lay hold of a cluster, another cluster will cry out: I am better, take me and bless the Lord through me. » Similar things are said concerning ears and grains of wheat⁸. Now who does not see that these things are symbolic? Papias nevertheless accepted and handed them down as to be understood in the immediate and proper sense, as also those things which are said in the prophets concerning lions and other beasts tamed and feeding on grass and chaff.

It is therefore sufficiently established that the opinion, insofar as it was adopted by Catholics, had its origin in Asia Minor; for Papias was bishop of Hierapolis in Phrygia. Hence we see that the Fathers of this opinion, whose authority is otherwise grave, almost all cohere with Asia Minor; Justin held the dialogue with Trypho, in which he asserts chiliasm, at Ephesus (Eusebius IV. 18.). Irenaeus was born and educated in the same province, Methodius had first been bishop of Olympus in Lycia. Of the rest who survive, the authority in this question is altogether none. Tertullian wrote the books against Marcion already lapsed into the sect of Montanus⁹ who certainly belongs to the chiliasts. Hence he expressly appeals for the millennial kingdom to the testimony of the new prophecy, by which name he is wont to designate the ravings of Montanus, Priscilla and Maximilla (cf. Against Praxeas c. 1. 30; On Fasting c. 1; On the Resurrection of the Flesh c. 11.). « We confess, he says, that a kingdom is promised to us on earth... after the resurrection for a thousand years in the city of divine work, Jerusalem brought down from heaven.... This both Ezekiel knew, and John saw, and the word of the new prophecy which is with our faith testifies » ¹⁰ bk III. c. 24. Concerning Nepos, refuted by Dionysius of Alexandria, after what I said above nothing needs to be added. « The little works of Lactantius, of Posthumian and Gallus (i.e. the dialogue of Sulpicius Severus with Posthumian and Gallus), of Commodian, of Victorinus of Pettau, » as also « the little book called of Nepos » in the decree of Pope Gelasius published in the Roman Council of 70 bishops are all reckoned among the apocrypha, that is, which are not received into authority as writings of the holy Fathers (Mansi, Collection of Councils vol. VIII. p. 151. 170.)¹¹. There still remains Q. Julius Hilarion, an ignoble writer named by none of the ancients¹².

These things demonstrate that there is absolutely no Latin writer or Father of the Church received into authority who defended that opinion; that there are indeed three or four Greek Fathers asserting the millennium, but almost Asians or certainly cohering with Asians, so that this whole opinion appears to have drawn its origin chiefly from the false understanding of one most holy man, Papias. Which indeed not only Eusebius but also Jerome confirms. « He (Papias) is said to have published a Jewish δευτερωσιν of a thousand years, whom Irenaeus and Apollinaris and the rest followed, who say that after the resurrection the Lord will reign in the flesh with the saints » Jerome On Illustrious Men c. 18. Not only therefore was that view never in common agreement and the « Catholic understanding »; but indeed if compared with the multitude thinking and teaching otherwise, it must be said to have been of few; although taken in itself and above all in view of its falsity it can be said to have had many followers. In this sense St Jerome complains of many ancients, of many ecclesiastical men, of many of ours, who so thought, and of the very great multitude of ours who « in this point at least followed Apollinaris, » when that heretic revived the same opinion in the fourth century.

But the veneration toward those holy Fathers and martyrs must not be judged approval of the doctrine, when Jerome in one place (on Jeremiah XX. 10.) says: « we cannot condemn, because many ecclesiastical men and martyrs said these things; and let each abound in his own sense, and let all things be reserved to the judgment of the Lord. » For in many other places he everywhere calls that very thing which those ecclesiastical men had said « a Jewish error, a Jewish dogma, a Jewish fable, dreams, the doctrine of Judaizers. » For the rest, that opinion, on account of the contrary sense and agreement of all theologians down to this most recent age, is now without doubt in a far worse condition than it had been in the fourth and fifth centuries in the time of Jerome and Augustine.

Yet I would not have all these things, perhaps disputed by us at rather great length, so understood as though I thought it lawful for me to brand with any censure the opinion of the recent millenarians (for that is not ours); but all things aim at this, that what in this matter is the agreement or disagreement of the Fathers, and thence the historical and theological state of the question, may be known, lest by the trumpeted authority of the ancient Fathers we suffer ourselves to be deceived. I conclude with the most modest words of Alfonso Muzzarelli (Selected Dissertations, diss. 3. on the Millennial Kingdom p. 324.): « I answer that I do not traduce the tempered view of the millenarians as heretical, but I contend that in the present time it is at minimum improbable, because on the one hand it is destitute of all grave authority, and on the other it has against it authorities most grave and ineluctable. »

Perhaps someone will object that concerning the chief authority to which the millenarians appeal, and which, if it contains their view, alone suffices — concerning the testimonies of Scripture, I say — nothing has here been said, and so the whole difficulty remains unsolved. I answer: a) the scope proposed to us and the matter we directly treat neither demands nor permits an exegesis of the places of Scripture which they abuse. Yet b) he who demonstrates the Catholic understanding concerning some head of revealed doctrine has thereby demonstrated, at least negatively, that the sense of Scripture cannot be that which contradicts this Catholic understanding. Whence c) we could confess that we do not know what is signified singly and in ultimate determination by certain prophecies of Scripture not yet fulfilled, and namely Apocalypse XX, and at the same time affirm that we know what those prophecies according to « the authority of ecclesiastical understanding » do not signify. For the rest, according to the same Catholic understanding, which is the chief canon of the interpretation of the Scriptures, we know sufficiently also positively, as regards the sum of the matter, what genuine sense underlies those prophecies and namely Apocalypse XX. Read Augustine City of God XX. 7. sqq. and the other interpreters cited above. And so d) to the millenarians asserting that they have sacred Scripture for their view, we answer by distinguishing: you have the letter of Scripture to be explained, we grant; you have the sense of Scripture explained according to the chief rule of Catholic interpretation, we deny. Cf. Suarez On the Incarnation vol. II. disp. 50. sect. 8; Le Nourry, Apparatus to the Max. Bibl. of the Fathers vol. I. bk II. diss. 1. c. 2; Muzzarelli in the cited place.