Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 16.djvu/333

Rh MILLENNIUM 315 be established. On the other hand, it must be admitted that this expectation was a prominent feature in the earliest proclamation of the gospel, and materially contributed to its success. If the primitive churches had been under the necessity of framing a &quot; Confession of Faith,&quot; it would certainly have embraced those pictures by means of which the near future was distinctly realized. But then these pictures and dreams and hopes were just the things that made systematized doctrine impossible ; it is possible to formulate the mythological ideas, but not the shifting imagery of the imagination. In the anticipations of the future prevalent amongst the early Christians (c. 50-150) it is necessary to distinguish a fixed and a fluctuating element. The former includes (1) the notion that a last terrible battle with the enemies of God was impending ; (2) the faith in the speedy return of Christ ; (3) the conviction that Christ will judge all men, and (4) will set up a kingdom of glory on earth. To the latter belong views of the Antichrist, of the heathen world-power, of the place, extent, and duration of the earthly kingdom of Christ, itc. These remained in a state of solution ; they were modified from day to day, partly because of the changing circumstances of the present by which forecasts of the future were regulated, partly because the indications real or supposed of the ancient prophets always admitted of new combinations and constructions. But even here certain positions were agreed on in large .sections of Christendom. Amongst these was the expecta tion that the future kingdom of Christ on earth should have a fixed duration, according to the most prevalent opinion, a duration of one thousand years. From this fact the whole ancient Christian eschatology was known in later times as &quot;chiliasm,&quot; a name which is not strictly accurate, since the doctrine of the millennium was only one feature in its scheme of the future. 1. This idea that the Messianic kingdom of the future on earth should have a definite duration has like the whole eschatology of the primitive church its roots in the Jewish apocalyptic literature, where it appears at a com paratively late period. At first it was assumed that the Messianic kingdom in Palestine would last for ever (so the prophets ; cf. Jerem. xxiv. 6 ; Ezek. xxxvii. 25 ; Joel iv. 20 ; Daniel vi. 27 ; Sibyll. iii. 49 sq., 766 ; Psalt. Salom. xvii. 4 ; Enoch Ixii. 14), and this seems always to have been the most widely accepted view (John xii. 34). But from a comparison of prophetic passages of the Old Testa ment learned apocalyptic writers came to the conclusion that a distinction must be drawn between the earthly appearance of the Messiah and the appearance of God Himself amongst His people and in the Gentile world for the final judgment. As a necessary consequence, a limited period had to be assigned to the Messianic kingdom. It is not altogether improbable that the mysterious references to the sufferings of the Messiah had also an influence on some minds. This, however, is doubtful. It is certain at all events that the whole conception marks the beginning of the dissolution of realistic and sensuous views of the future. The age was too advanced to regard the earthly Messianic kingdom as the end. There was an effort to find a place among the hopes of the future for those more spiritual and universal anticipations, according to which eternal and heavenly blessedness will be the portion of the faithful, this earth and heaven will pass away, and God will be all in all. As to the period to be assigned to this earthly kingdom, no agreement was ever reached in Judaism, any more than in the detailed descriptions of its joys and pleasures. According to the Apocalypse of Baruch (xl. 3) this kingdom will last &quot;donee finiatur mundus corruptionis.&quot; In the Book of Enoch (xci. 12) &quot;a week&quot; is specified, in the Apocalypse of Ezra (vii. 28 sq.) four hundred years. This figure, corresponding to the four hundred years of Egyptian bondage, occurs also in the Talmud (Sanhedrin 99a). But this is the only passage ; the Talmud has no fixed doctrine on the point. The view most frequently expressed there (see Von Otto in Hilgtnf eld s Zeitschrift, 1877, p. 527 sq.) is that the Messianic kingdom will last for &quot;one thousand (some said two thousand) years. &quot; In six days God created the world, on the seventh He rested. But a day of God is equal to a thousand years (Ps. xc. 4). Hence the world will last for six thousand years of toil and labour ; then will come one thousand years of Sabbath rest for the people of God in the kingdom of the Messiah.&quot; This idea must have already been very common in the first century before Christ. The combination of Gen. i., Dan. ix., and Ps. xc. 4 was peculiarly fascinating. 2. Jesus Himself speaks of only one return of the Son of Man His return to judgment. In speaking of it, and of the glorious kingdom He is to introduce, He makes use of apocalyptic images (Matt. viii. 11, xxvi. 29 ; Luke xxii. 16; Matt. xix. 28); but nowhere in the discourses of Jesus is there a hint of a limited duration of the Messianic kingdom. The apostolic epistles are equally free from any trace of chiliasm (neither 1 Cor. xv. 23 sq. nor 1 Thess. iv. 16 sq. points in this direction). In the Apocalypse of John, however, it occurs in the following shape (chap. xx.). After Christ has appeared from heaven in the guise of a warrior, and vanquished the antichristian world-power, the wisdom of the world, and the devil, those who have remained steadfast in the time of the last catastrophe, and have given up their lives for their faith, shall be raised up, and shall reign with Christ on this earth as a royal priest hood for one thousand years. At the end of this time Satan is to be let loose again for a short season ; he will prepare a new onslaught, but God will miraculously destroy him and his hosts. Then will follow the general resurrection of the dead, the last judgment, and the creation of new heavens and a new earth. That all believers will have a share in the first resurrection and in the Messianic kingdom is an idea of which John knows nothing. The earthly kingdom of Christ is reserved for those who have endured the most terrible tribulation, who have withstood the supreme effort of the world-power, that is, for those who are actually members of the church of the last days. The Jewish expectation is thus considerably curtailed in the hands of John, as it is also shorn of its sensual attractions. &quot; Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection ; on such the second death hath no power ; but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years.&quot; More than this John does not say. But other ancient Christian authors were not so cautious. Accepting the Jewish apocalypses as sacred books of venerable antiquity, they read them eagerly, and transferred their contents bodily to Christianity. Nay more, the Gentile Christians took possession of them, and just in proportion as they were neglected by the Jews who, after the war of Bar-Cochba, became indiffer ent to the Messianic hope and hardened themselves once more in devotion to the law they were naturalized in the Christian communities. The result was that these books became &quot; Christian &quot; documents ; it is entirely to Christian, not to Jewish, tradition that we owe their preservation. The Jewish expectations are adopted, for example, by Papias, by the writer of the epistle of Barnabas, and by Justin. Papias actually confounds expressions of Jesus with verses from the Apocalypse of Baruch, referring to the amazing fertility of the days of the Messianic kingdom (Papias in Iren. v. 33). Barnabas (Ep., 15) gives us the Jewish theory (from Gen. i. and Ps. xc. 4) that the present condition of the world is to last six thousand years