Hey, word of the day time! This is the specific heresy of "chiliasm."
Chiliasm (from ci>lia e[th, a thousand years, Rev. 20:2, 3) is the
Greek, millennarianism or millennialism (from mille anni), the Latin
term for the same theory. The adherents are called Chiliasts, or
Millennarians, also Pre-millennarians, or Pre-millennialists (to
indicate the belief that Christ will appear again before the millennium),
but among them many are counted who simply believe in a golden age
of Christianity which is yet to come. Post-millennarians or Anti-millennarians
are those who put the Second Advent after the millennium.
Rev. 20:1-6. This is the only strictly millennarian passage in the whole
Bible. Commentators are still divided as to the literal or symbolical
meaning of the millennium, and as to its beginning in the past or in the
future. But a number of other passages are drawn into the service of.
the millennarian theory, as affording indirect support, especially Isa.
11:4-9; Acts 3:21; Rom. 11:15. Modern Pre-millennarians also appeal
to what they call the unfulfilled prophecies of the Old Testament
regarding the restoration of the Jews in the holy land. But the ancient
Chiliasts applied those prophecies to the Christian church as the true
Israel.
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The most striking point in the eschatology of the ante-Nicene age is the
prominent chiliasm, or millennarianism, that is the belief of a visible reign
of Christ in glory on earth with the risen saints for a thousand years, before
the general resurrection and judgment.
It was indeed not the doctrine
of the church embodied in any creed or form of devotion, but a widely
current opinion of distinguished teachers, such as Barnabas, Papias, Justin
Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Methodius, and Lactantius; while Caius,
Origen, Dionysius the Great, Eusebius (as afterwards Jerome and
Augustin) opposed it.
The Jewish chiliasm rested on a carnal misapprehension of the Messianic
kingdom, a literal interpretation of prophetic figures, and an overestimate
of the importance of the Jewish people and the holy city as the centre of
that kingdom. It was developed shortly before and after Christ in the
apocalyptic literature, as the Book of Enoch, the Apocalypse of Baruch,
4 th Esdras, the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, and the Sibylline
Books. It was adopted by the heretical sect of the Ebionites, and the
Gnostic Cerinthus.
The Christian chiliasm is the Jewish chiliasm spiritualized and fixed upon
the second, instead of the first, coming of Christ. It distinguishes,
moreover, two resurrections, one before and another after the millennium,
and makes the millennial reign of Christ only a prelude to his eternal reign
in heaven, from which it is separated by a short interregnum of Satan. The
millennium is expected to come not as the legitimate result of a historical
process but as a sudden supernatural revelation.
The advocates of this theory appeal to the certain promises of the Lord,
but particularly to the hieroglyphic passage of the Apocalypse, which
teaches a millennial reign of Christ upon this earth after the first
resurrection and before the creation of the new heavens and the new
earth.HISTORY
OF THE
CHRISTIAN CHURCH
BY PHILIP SCHAFF
VOLUME 2.
Is. 44:8 Do not tremble, do not be afraid. Did I not proclaim this and
foretell it long ago? You are my witnesses. Is there any God
besides me? No, there is no other Rock; I know not one."
xeni>a, <truth@YeshuaHaMashiach>