Posted on Tuesday, September 29, 2009 - 7:28 pm:

"'And its ten horns are ten kings which shall arise; and after them shall arise another, who shall surpass in evil deeds all that were before him, and shall overthrow three kings; and he shall speak words against the most high God, and wear out the saints of the most high God, and shall purpose to change times and laws; and [everything] shall be given into his hand until a time of times and a half time,' that is, for three years and six months, during which time, when he comes, he shall reign over the earth. Of whom also the Apostle Paul again, speaking in the second [Epistle] to the Thessalonians, and at the same time proclaiming the cause of his advent, thus says: 'And then shall the wicked one be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus shall slay with the spirit of His mouth, and destroy by the presence of His coming.' And then he points out the time that his tyranny shall last, during which the saints shall be put to flight, they who offer a pure sacrifice unto God: 'And in the midst of the week,' he says, 'the sacrifice and the libation shall be taken away, and the abomination of desolation [shall be brought] into the temple: even unto the consummation of the time shall the desolation be complete.' Now three years and six months constitute the half-week." - Against Heresies, Book 5, section 25 about 170AD (definitely after 100 and before 200 AD)

Posted on Tuesday, September 29, 2009 - 7:42 pm:

The first instance is a Papias fragment - appx. AD100. He knew John, or a follower of John's also named John, but called the presbyter, who was thought by some later fathers to have been the actual author. The fragment is criticized for its literalism and worldly extravagance, where grapes cry out to be chosen for a banquet and where vines produce in abundance and wheat does the same. But the criticism belongs really to the non-Christian apocalypticists who were truly looking for a worldly kingdom. Papias, I think, needs to be understood as referring to a literal millennium, perhaps, but still as an allegorist. He is simply following up on the parable of the sower.

There is no indication that he is a preterist. Not enough fragment. But he is futurist in his implication regarding the coming millennium. And that is probably why he was criticised by Eusebius and the mentor of Eusebius, Dionysius of Alexandria, who are the first recorded amillennialists. All other early fathers (300AD or earlier) either said nothing about the millennium that we have preserved, or they seem to have favored it.

Generally there was discussion of the millennium that went along the lines of history is now 6000 years old and the final millennium is right around the corner. We see this first with (Pseudo?)Barnabas. And then of 35 or so subsequent writers we find it in about 17.

The first lengthy exposition of the whole book of Revelation outside of these more vague references to the coming millennium is in Hyppolitus, a literalist.

Commodian was a N. African bishop who was clearly a millennialist too. And you don't find any of the Bacchinaleanism of the apocalypticists elsewhere criticised.

Tertullian was a millennialist literalist (Against Marcion 3:25) but became a Montanist by the time he wrote about it, so his thoughts on this would not necessarily have been mainstream (RE:Catholic), or we might say this if it were not for the fact that there is no early source showing any amillennialism.

I will confidently assert that Cyprian, a student of Tertullian was a millennialist, despite what some have said to argue against this. He was a literalist, quoting the whole apocalyptic discourse of Mt24 in his Treatise:Exhortation to Martyrdom. There, and in another place, he gives the example of the woman with seven children who was martyred, making much of the number seven, not excluding the seven millennia of history, by which he counts that in his own day he was on the verge of the seventh and final millennium, showing a Catholic consistency traceable to (Pseudo?)Barnabas. Additionally he makes many references to AntiChrist, anticipating him in his own day. This was at heart his reason for exhorting his own followers to martyrdom. No one should fail to read this.

Eusebius also records a dispute between Dionysius of Alexandria, his personal mentor, and a N. African bishop named Nepos, who had written a treatise, Allegorists Refuted. The fact that there were allegorists that needed to be refuted indicates that there was a contingency of amillennialists and others not accepting the book of Revelation literally in his day - (cerca 240 A.D.). This would represent a strand of unnamed church members that would go back as far as Justin, who mentions that all in the church did not agree with his own literal interpretation of the coming millennium, but describes that "most" right thinking Christians taught as he did - that which was according to (Pseudo?)Barnabas. Justin, of course, provides much more detail than Barnabas.

Eusebius still had a minority view in his own day and sought through his history to change that. The mentor of Constantine was Lactantius, not Eusebius, however, and Eusebius' rewriting of history doesn't stand up under scrutiny. Lactantius was clearly a millennialist. See Divine Institutes 7:24-27 for his literalist interpretation of Revelation.

Full Preterism was not a part of anyone's writing. Partial Preterism might be thought to be found in any writer who equated the destruction of Jerusalem with the fulfillment of the Book of Revelation and Mt 24. While many equated it with parts of Mt 24, none equated it with the Apocalypse, and certainly not the resurrection and return of Christ.

Others in this forum will probably give you the gnostic texts. And "modern scholars" will of course tell you everything that we all once thought is totally wrong and scramble it as they see fit. In my view, the gnostic texts were written later, not earlier than the four Gospels. And the Apocalypse was written while John, (who was the same as the evangelist, elder, Gospel writer, presbyter, John of Patmos), was exiled on Patmos. And by the content and the situation, it is self-evident that it was written after the destruction of Jerusalem (that is why John was no longer in Jerusalem) and after the persecutions of Nero (that is why the number 666 and 616 makes reference to him explicitly using the Hebrew Gamaton).

John himself may have thought that the coming antichrist, (concerning whom he also wrote in his epistles) would be Diocletian, who drove the next round of persecutions. It was probably at the rise of Diocletian that he had been exiled and hearing rumors. So I place this document somewhere between 70-90 AD, probably late 80s or as late as 90AD. And I do not believe that there were many redactions of Biblical texts, either of epistles, of the Gospels or of the Apocalypse. We do not possess enough variant readings in isolated locations where we might find ancient codices to justify that type of opinion.

It stands to reason that if the book was not written until 20 years after the destruction of Jerusalem that it cannot internally be referring to that destruction as a future event. Yet its entire tone is futurist. So preterists need to adequately explain where in the destruction of Jerusalem the Euphrates River is dried up and many other matters, if they do not dismiss the book in its entirety. That, or I suppose, they may simply be allegorists, in which case we are back to the same old arguments, concerning which I would submit that the earliest church fathers were literalists, futurists and millennialists. And that this is the best indication we have of what the apostles actually taught and what the teaching of Christ Himself is.

None of this takes away from the value of allegorist interpretations in terms of highlighting spirituality. In most cases, my approach is both/and rather than either/or. History is an icon of Christ. The heavens are declaring the glory of God. Past, present and future declare Him. He has dignified us with the divine royalty of the eternal Logos. Kingdom now and Kingdom future bring the future to the present and the present to the future in the true Catholicity of the all permeating Logos, the Immutable, in Whom we commune. The coming Millennium is thus anticipated in the eucharistic wedding feast.

Moreover, if I say that a father was "literalist" please know that I do not exclude that he may also appreciate allegorism. And on the whole, most early and late fathers pay little attention to the Apocalypse, though parts are obviously taken into the liturgy, and possibly the other way around.

One of my favorite allegorists was not even a Christian but a Pharisee - Philo of Alexandria. And it seems that it was from the tradition of Philo that Origen became quite the allegorist. Allegory does not simply dismiss reality. It enhances it with lessons. Sometimes these can be confusing, because reality is multifaceted. As an example, there are thus two types of second death. The first is the death of the soul after the corruption of the body. The second is the physical death after the resurrection of the body. The first is allegorical. The second is literal. Both are true.

There is, therefore, no reason to negate Augustine in order to accept Hyppolitus. Augustine himself said that he would have accepted a literal interpretaition of the Millennium if it were not described as worldly. On this point, I am in complete agreement with him. Rather the feasting in the millennium is according to the restoration of Paradise, which Hyppolitus states is a part of the earth, now inaccessible. To access it requires a restoration of what was lost, which is made possible in Christ. It is a love relationship between ourselves and God in Christ that is not simply spiritual, but corporal, in which creation is digified with its perfect end, Christ Himself, where all things are placed under His feet. First and foremost, this is the will of the flesh, which in incorruptibility, is wholley submitted to God. There is nothing worldly about it. The world becomes heavenly, not the heavens worldly.

The earliest fathers gave interpretations of Daniel and Zechariah before they gave interpretations of the Apocalypse. Check out Hyppolitus.

Posted on Tuesday, September 29, 2009 - 7:50 pm:

My E-mail to him - Ken, I am attending a Revelation Study with [my friend] at the gym led by [group leader]. Perhaps you know him. He's a retired Baptist guy who is going to Beale now, I think. This is a mixed-denom group. I decided to attend because I wanted the group study. I started out at the beginning of Revelation.

As you may know, SDA draws much unique doctrine from Revelation. I have to admit that in SDA I only learned enough of this to pass the tests that I had to to get through church school -> college. I avoided Daniel and Rev classes like the plague. Much of whatever I learned I seem to have immediately blocked from my mind. I think it was the only way I could survive.

Well, my goal in joining this study was to have a reason to look into a part of Scripture that I would never consider of my own accord. We are finishing ch. 7. I very much dislike the style of the leader. His approach is to ask this list of subjective questions about a chapter; What do you think this chapter seems to be about? Who do you think is the main character(s)? What lessons do you learn from it? What is your favorite verse? etc. Then the next week to go over it sort of verse by verse, but mainly jumping around. He is very dogmatic, and I haven't been able to really identify much in way of support of his conclusions. It seems like he just says it. Likely this is in part because I have never been exposed to other (non-SDA) approaches to eschatology.

No matter, I am finding that this study is accomplishing my goal of forcing me to look at what I have considered aversive Scripture and to explore differing views in an attempt to come to my own conclusions. I have been quite blessed (to my great surprise) by the Scripture itself to this point. I see the testimony of a high and holy and amazingly loving and connected God.

Right now I am trying to find out what the very earliest Christians (to whom this letter would have been written) made of it. I want to know how they interpreted the symbology. For instance, when they read about the red horse (ch 6) I want to know if they thought they should apply it to a war that was happening then or maybe had just happened or something that would happen in the very near future and claim that as a sign of the approaching of their Lord, or if they more generally thought that they were being told that there would be increasing unrest and wars more and more until their Lord would come back.

Someone online put me onto a commentary from Victorinus - about 300 AD. Others have given me some fragments of thought from earlier folks but I can't make out a clear meaning. Do you know anything about this? I don't particularly want to figure out all the ins and outs of the eschatology of Revelation. I think that if God had wanted us to do that He would have given it to us in straightforward language and not cloaked, as He chose to do. I just want to learn enough to draw my own conclusions rather than relying on what someone else has taught me is the truth about it. Do you think that makes sense? Do you think it's possible?

His reply to me - Revelation, yeah. Actually, I have been seriously considering taking up Revelation in a sermon series. I did so once before, but it was many, many years ago.

I think I know [group leader], but I can't place his face. A lot of Baptists are as dogmatic about eschatology as your SDAs, I'm afraid. Many of them are quite dogmatic about a lot of things. No room for disagreement. No stomach for admitting that they just don't know something. Frankly, I've found that, sometimes, the less certain a person is about a subject, the louder and more dogmatic they are in their words. Maybe to scare off anybody who might ask them to go into more detail?

In any case, Revelation is a book which is extremely difficult to interpret. The fact that it contains so many symbols and figures makes it so. My teachers insisted that it was written about the author's own time, or about what his readers could expect to experience in the very near future. Don't forget, the expectation among the earliest Christians was that Jesus was coming back very soon. One theory as to why the Gospels were not written until several decades after Jesus' death is that they were not written until many of those who had actually walked with Jesus and heard his words began dying off. Until that time, there was no urgency, no thought that "future generations" might need to have written records.

As I've said sometimes from the pulpit and in Sunday School classes, when the Old Testament prophets and writers looked into the future they glimpsed the "Age to Come." Their sight was not perfectly clear. But they saw the Age to Come, the Last Days, beginning with the coming of the Messiah. The Messiah would usher in the Kingdom of God, and a time of great reversal for the people of God. The wicked and the godless would no longer oppress. The blind would see, the lame walk, etc. Well, this, I believe, is what Jesus announces in Mark 1: "The time has come, the kingdom of God is at hand, repent and believe the good news." It seems clear to me that Jesus believed he was ushering that long awaited Age to Come, the Last Days. That certainly seems to be the point of view of the Apostles and other writers of the New Testament. The writer to the Hebrews says, after all, "In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but IN THESE LAST DAYS he has spoken to us by his Son..." John himself says that what he is describing are events which "will soon take place."

I say all of this just to suggest that John probably did not imagine that 2000, 5000, 10,000 years might pass before the End came. Now, some people do not take this approach. For them God is the author, and the writers of Scripture are doing little more than taking dictation. This is usually not just true of visionary stuff like Revelation, but of every word of Scripture. There is no need to examine context, whether it be historical or literary or cultural or whatever. The Bible becomes a giant magical wordbook, parts of which can be taken out of context and combined with any other parts to form entirely new approaches, new ideas, new doctrines, new interpretations. I reject that approach. Or, at least, I try not to fall into that method.

We have to admit, however, that because the Revelation is supposed to relate visions which John received from God, it might be quite possible that even HE did not entirely understand what he had seen, what it meant, how it could be applied, and when the things he saw might take place. One thing seems clear to me, however, and that is that he would NOT have assumed that the events he described were going to take place literally. He would have understood them as symbols which were meant to describe "ordinary" people, places, events.

I do think that John thought he was providing his own readers, in their own time, with warnings which would do THEM some good. Did he think that his document might be passed around from person to person, church to church, place to place, and that others -maybe even future generations- might benefit from hearing the same warnings? Who knows?

Did John think that he was describing, in figurative terms, things which had already taken place, or were taking place at the time of his writing? I think it is safe to say that, yes, he did. Look at the passage about the dragon or beast or whatever waiting to destroy the child as soon as the young woman delivers -but the child is saved out of his clutches. Don't remember what chapter that is. That, to me, is a pretty clear reference to the birth of Jesus, the threat from Herod, and Jesus' flight into Egypt. Past events. What place do they have in the whole book of Revelation? I have no idea. But things like that give me pause before I just make the grand pronouncement that all of the events, all of the symbols, have to do with people and events of a very remote and distant future.

I do not understand the book of Revelation. I understand and deeply appreciate certain parts of it. The first three chapters, giving specific, personal warnings to the 7 churches. The depictions of Jesus as the conquering Divine Warrior. The martyrdom of the saints. The description (and, with it, the glorious hope) of the End, the Consummation. The offer of life and peace to anyone who is thirsty.

All the stuff about the seals and horns and beasts and dragons? No.

-Ken