2.1.1.1 Parousia
Christ’s Second Coming, or Parousia (Gr. παρουσία, ‘presence’ or ‘arrival’), had been an event divinely promised in the Book of Acts (in the context of Christ’s ascent to heaven),66 and as such it was longed for by almost each generation during times of despair. This magnificent return was also paired by the promise of the establishment of the Kingdom of one thousand years (Chiliasm)—a promise revealed in John’s
65
Olbricht, Ibid.
66 “Then they gathered around him and asked him, ‘Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom
to Israel?’ He said to them: ‘It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.’ After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight. They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. ‘Men of Galilee,’ they said, ‘why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.’” (Acts 1:6–11)
58
Apocalypse.67 Nevertheless, as Christ’s return failed to materialize, the promises of the Apocalypse became subject to further scrutiny (particularly around A.D. 150), when the Apocalypse became subject of tense debates in terms of how this should be read; or even if this should be part of the biblical canon at all. As Jerome famously wrote, “the Apocalypse of John has as many mysteries as it does words” (Apocalypsis Johannis tot habet sacramenta quot verba),68 and so it did for the rest of the Christian history.
Due to political sensibilities—as the early Christians were subject to severe persecution—a kingdom was a concept politically charged, as it theoretically targeted the political structures of the Roman Empire. Therefore, the Apocalypse had been carefully put aside, and never used during rituals as a devotional text.
Nevertheless, the hope for Christ’s return, along with the apocalyptic creativity of the second century, led to the acceptance of John’s Apocalypse as a canonical writing.69 Influential personalities such as Irenaeus of Lyons,70 Hippolytus,71 and Justin the
67
“And I saw an angel coming down out of heaven, having the key to the Abyss and holding in his hand a great chain. He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil, or Satan, and bound him for a thousand years. He threw him into the Abyss, and locked and sealed it over him, to keep him from deceiving the nations anymore until the thousand years were ended. After that, he must be set free for a short time.” (Rev. 20:1–3)
68 Jerome, Epistula 53.8, PL 22:548–49.
69 Bernard McGinn, “Turning Points in Early Christian Apocalypse Exegesis,” in Apocalyptic Thought in
Early Christianity, ed. Robert J. Daily, S.J. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2009), 82–84.
70
Writing in reference to the prophecies about the blessings of Isaac (Gen. 27:27ff), which foretold Christ’s kingdom, Irenaeus stated that, “[i]f any one, then, does not accept these things as referring to the appointed kingdom, he must fall into much contradiction and contrariety, as is the case with the Jews, who are involved in absolute perplexity.” Irenaeus, Against Heresies, trans. A. Cleveland Coxe, in ANF Vol.1 eds. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2004), 562.
71 Hippolytus was definite in teaching that the divine revelation was fulfilled in Jesus Christ, and, as
Bernard McGinn explains, “accepted and helped develop the full-fledged apocalyptic scenario of the events of the end time partly under the influence of Irenaeus, but who did not share the bishop’s chiliasm and broke with tradition by explicitly rejecting an imminent parousia.” See, McGinn, “Turning Points,” 85. As Hippolytus writes, “through the Scriptures we are instructed in two advents of the Christ and Saviour. And the first after the flesh was in humiliation, because He was manifested in lowly estate. So then His second advent is declared to be in glory; for He comes from heaven with power, and angels, and the glory of His Father. His first advent had John the Baptist as its forerunner; and His second, in which He is to come in glory, will exhibit Enoch, and Elias, and John the Divine.” See, Hippolytus, A Discourse, trans. A. Cleveland Coxe, in ANF Vol.5 eds. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2004), 247.
Martyr72 held favorable views, but they were contested by Origen and Augustine73 in their attempts to repudiate the sect of the Montanists.
It is my interpretation that the timing of Christ’s return encountered strong ambivalence simply because—based on the scripture—it was considered a symbol of temptation against God’s intimate knowledge and revelation. When Jesus was asked by His disciples when He was to return to establish His Kingdom, Jesus rebuked their curiosity by saying: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority” (Acts 1:7) Beyond the scripture, my interpretation is also anchored in history, because, during the early Church, any Christian suspected of attempting to calculate Christ’s return, by appealing to mathematics, astronomy, and astrology, was suspected of being a heretic.74
Nevertheless such curiosity prevailed, as by the 4th century, a new religious group called “Priscillianists”75
evolved. Chiliasm survived particularly through the Montanists76 (who also emphasized the superiority of ecstatic prophecy77 over against bishop’s authority), and expected the end of the age;78
a belief that survived until the
72 Justin Martyr’s view of the Millennial Kingdom was deeply charged with imagery. In his Dialogus cum
Tryphone (“Dialogue with Trypho”) chapters 75 to 82, Justin persuades his Jewish friend to follow Christ, because, by all prophetic accounts (particularly those from Isaiah), Jesus Christ was the expected Messiah, and all prophetical gifts of the Jews had been transferred to the Christians. Justin strongly supported the theory of a Double Resurrection and the theory of the Millennial Kingdom to be rebuilt in Jerusalem. See, McGinn, “Turning Points,” 86. As he wrote, “A certain man among us, whose name was John, one of the apostles of Christ, prophesized in a revelation made to him, that those who believed in our Christ would dwell a thousand years in Jerusalem.” See, Miroslav Marcovich, ed. Iustini Martyris: Dialogus cum Tryphone (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1997), 210–212. As quoted by McGinn, “Turning Points,” 86–7.
73
Bowker, The Oxford Dictionary, 642.
74 For instance, Canon 36 of Council of Laodicea (A.D. 363–364), stated that, “Priests and clerics must
not be magicians, or enchanters, or mathematicians, or astrologers, or makers of so-called amulets, which are snares of their own souls. And those who wear them we order to be expelled from the Church.” See, Lewis J. Patsavos, A Noble Task: Entry into the Clergy in the First Five Centuries, trans. Norman Russell, forward by Kallistos Ware (Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2007), 222.
75 E. R. Hardy, review of Priscillian of Avila, The Occult and the Charismatic in the Early Church, by
Henry Chadwick (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976. xiv+ 250 pp.), in Church History 46, no. 01 (1977): 105–106.
76
Frederick Charles Klawiter, The New Prophecy in Early Christianity: The Origin, Nature, and Development of Montanism, AD 165–220: a Dissertation, PhD diss., Chicago: University of Chicago Divinity School, 1975. See also, John C. Poirier, “Montanist Pepuza-Jerusalem and the Dwelling Place of Wisdom,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 7, no. 4 (1999): 491–507.
77 A. Daunton-Fear, “The ecstasies of Montanus,” Studia Patristica 17.2 (1982): 648–651. 78 McGinn, “Turning Points,” 88.
60
ninth century. A strong comeback of Chiliasm was made by the Medieval Cathari (Purifiers),79 who visibly promoted such views.
The Reformation generated new trends of Chiliasm, such as those led by the Anabaptists80 (c.1534), by the Fifth Monarchy Men81 (c.1640), and by the German Pietistic Lutherans82 (17th and 18th centuries); all keen in calculating the return of Christ based on various biblical data, which set the creation of the world in year B.C. 4004.83
During the 18th and 19th centuries, Chiliasm took new contours, as triggered by social and political events such as the American and the French revolutions.
2.1.1.2 Millenarian Movements
American Protestantism had been subjected to various millenarian movements. These movements were groups of Christians who expected the arrival of a period of unparalleled peace on earth, usually associated with the return of Christ. Some of these groups—known as postmillennial—promoted the belief that the present age will be reconstructed incrementally into ‘the millennium’, in an ordinary way, through social reform triggered by religious revival. Other groups—known as premillennial—simply believed that the expected golden age of unparalleled peace will only settle in once the present age will be destroyed through divine fury, which involved Christ’s Second Coming.84
As far as the postmillennial groups are concerned, it has been long argued that American Protestantism had been suspected of millenarian hopes simply because, for example, the Puritans saw themselves being sent by God on an “errand into the
79 R. R. Moore, “The Birth of Popular Heresy: A Millennial Phenomenon?,” Journal of Religious
History 24, no. 1 (2000): 8–25.
80 Crawford Gribben, Evangelical Millennialism in the Trans-Atlantic World, 1500–2000 (London:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 20–36.
81 Leo F. Solt, “The Fifth Monarchy Men: Politics and the Millennium,” Church History: Studies in
Christianity and Culture 30, no. 03 (1961): 314–324.
82 Cf. Douglas Shantz, A Companion to German Pietism, 1660–1800, Leiden: Brill, 2014. 83
Cf. William R. Brice, “Bishop Ussher, John Lightfoot and the age of creation,” Journal of Geological
Education 30, no. 1 (1982): 18–24.
84 Timothy P. Webber “Millenarian Movements” in Daniel G. Reid, coord. ed. Dictionary of Christianity
wilderness” to establish the ideal Christian church and commonwealth. And, as Jonathan Edwards experienced the Great Awakening, Edwards believed that the millennium was immanent and will begin in America. Furthermore, during early nineteenth century, the majority of evangelical missionaries adopted some postmillennial views which they used in their mission in America and abroad, and during the 1830s, revivalists such as Charles G. Finney, predicted that the millennium will arrive within few years. Nevertheless, the arrival of the Civil War, which brought towering religious, economic and social crises, had deflated such expectations for the arrival of the millennium.85
Nevertheless, American postmillennialism generally remained a scattered movement, as its adherents did not establish separate churches or denominations because they came from various denominations and groups which were attempting to revamp their internal efforts for revival, mission and reform. At the same time, some groups succeeded in establishing themselves as precursors of the coming millennium. Such groups included the Shakers, who believed that the Second Advent of Christ already occurred in the person of Mother Ann Lee; or the Oneida Community, founded by John Humphrey Noyes in 1840, who believed that Christ’s Second Coming took place in year A.D.70.; or the Mormons, who believed that God had restored the gospel to them, and Christ’s return will be preceded by tribulations and intense persecution of the saints. Other millenarian groups became famous due to their failed prophecies, such as those of the Baptist minister, William Miller, the founder of Adventism.86