The Nicene Council Endorsed Chiliasm!

(from The Quarterly Journal of Prophecy, Vol. 2, 1850)

“The Council of Nice which met in the year 325, promulgated among its “forms of ecclesiastical doctrine, according to which all teachers in the church were to frame their discourse,” a declaration which brings out the decided Chiliasm of that assembly.  It is to the following effect:

“I shall conclude this evidence by a quotation from Acts of the Council of Nice, called by Constantine the Great, so late as the year 325.  This council, besides their definitions of faith and canons ecclesiatical, did set forth certain “diatuposeis,” or Forms of Ecclesiastical Doctrines; according to which all teachers in the church were to frame their discourse and direct their opinion.  And if these forms were not then first composed, they were at least so moderated, that both parties might accept them, being (as you may see) delivered in the language of Scripture.  Some of these forms are recorded by Gelasius Cyzicenus; among which is this, for the doctrine of the state of the resurrection, beginning, ‘Mikroteros ho kosmos,’ etc. 

“The world was made more minute, or viler, because of foreknowledge.  For God saw that man would sin: therefore we expect new heavens and a new earth, according to the Holy Scriptures, when shall shine forth the appearance and kingdom of the great God, and our Savior Jesus Christ.  And then as Daniel saith (Dan. 7: 18), ‘the saints of the Most High shall take the Kingdom, and there shall be a pure earth, holy, a land of the living, not of the dead,’ which David foreseeing, by the eye of faith, cries out (Psalm 27: 13), ‘I believe to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living,’ a land of the meek and humble: for Christ saith (Matt. 5: 5), ‘Blessed are the meek, for they shall possess the earth.’  And the prophet saith (Isaiah 26: 6), ‘the feet of the meek and humble shall tread upon it.’ ”

On this passage Mr. Mede says, ‘This, you see, was the opinion of the whole orthodox Christian church, in the age immediately following the death of St. John, (when yet Polycarp, and many disciples of the Apostles were living,) as Justin Martyr expressly affirms: a testimony absolute without all comparison to persuade such as rely upon authority and antiquity.  And therefore it is to be admired (saith Mr. Mede) that an opinion once so generally received in the Church, should ever have become cried down and buried.  But those times which extinguished this, brought in also other alterations; and perhaps something in lieu of that, and relating to it, (which perhaps few observe, that have knowledge enough of the rest,) namely, prayers for the dead, which were then conceived after this manner; that they may have their part in the first resurrection.’”

Charles Spurgeon- Between The Two Appearings

(1891)

“THE two great links between earth and heaven are the two advents of our Lord: or, rather, he is the great bond of union, by these two appearings. When the world had revolted, and God had been defied by his own creatures, a great gulf was opened between God and man. The first coming of Christ was like a bridge which crossed the chasm and made a way of access from God to man, and then from man to God. Our Lord’s second advent will make that bridge far broader, until heaven shall come down to earth, and ultimately earth shall go up to heaven. At these two points a sinful world is drawn into closest contact with a gracious God. Jesus herein is seen as opening the door which none can shut, by means of which the Lord is beheld as truly Emmanuel, God with us.

“Here, too, is the place for us to build a grand suspension bridge, by which, through faith, we ourselves may cross from this side to the other of the stormy river of time. The cross, at whose feet we stand, is the massive column which supports the structure on this side; and as we look forward to the glory, the second advent of our Lord is the solid support on the other side of the deep gulf of time. By faith we first look to Jesus, and then for Jesus; and herein is the life of our spirits. Christ on the cross of shame, and Christ on the throne of glory, we dwell between these two boundaries: these are our Dan and Beersheba, and all between is holy ground.”

Hippolytus- On The Day of Judgment

(from Discourse On the End of the World, and On Antichrist, and On the Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, c. 210 A.D.)

For at that time the trumpet shall sound, and awake those that sleep from the lowest parts of the earth, righteous and sinners alike. And every kindred, and tongue, and nation, and tribe, shall be raised in the twinkling of an eye; and they shall stand upon the face of the earth, waiting for the coming of the righteous and terrible Judge, in fear and trembling unutterable. For the river of fire shall come forth in fury like an angry sea, and shall burn up mountains and hills, and shall make the sea vanish, and shall dissolve the atmosphere with its heat like wax. The stars of heaven shall fall, the sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood. The heaven shall be rolled together like a scroll: the whole earth shall be burnt up by reason of the deed done in it, which men did corruptly, in fornications, in adulteries, in lies and uncleanness, and in idolatries, and in murders, and in battles. For there shall be the new heaven and the new earth.

Rev. Arthur Cushman McGiffert, Ph.D–On Chiliasm In The Early Church

(from Notes on Eusebius’s Church History, 1890)

Chiliasm, or millennarianism,–that is, the belief in a visible reign of Christ on earth for a thousand years before the general judgment,–was very widespread in the early church. Jewish chiliasm was very common at about the beginning of the Christian era, and is represented in the voluminous apocalyptic literature of that day. Christian chiliasm was an outgrowth of the Jewish, but spiritualized it, and and fixed it upon the second, instead of the first, coming of Christ.

The chief Biblical support for this doctrine is Rev. 20: 1-6; and the fact that this book was appealed to so constantly by chiliasts in support of their views was the reason why Dionysius, Eusebius, and others were anxious to disprove its apostolic authorship. Chief among the chiliasts of the Ante-Nicene age were the author of the epistle of Barnabas, Papias, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and Tertullian; while the principle opponents of the doctrine were Caius, Origen, Dionysius of Alexandria, and Eusebius. After the time of Constantine, chiliasm was more and more widely regarded as a heresy, and received its worse blow from Augustine, who framed in its stead the doctrine, which from his time on was commonly accepted in the church, that the Millennium is the present reign of Christ, which began with His resurrection.

It is interesting to note, that although chiliasm had long lost its hold wherever the philosophical theology of the third century had made itself felt, it still continued to maintain its sway in other parts of the Church, especially in outlying districts in the East, which were largely isolated from the great centers of thought, and in the greater part of the West. By such Christians it was looked upon, in fact, as the very kernel of Christianity,–they lived as most Christians of the second century had, in the constant hope of a speedy return of Christ to reign in power upon the earth. The gradual exclusion of this remnant of early Christian belief involved the same kind of consequences as the disappearance of the belief in the continued possession by the church of the spirit of prophecy, and marks another step in the progress of the church from the peculiarly enthusiastic spirit of the first and second, to the more formal spirit of the third and following centuries.