A description of a typical meeting of believers in the second century tells us that the New Testament and “the writings of the prophets” were read as the primary part of the service. Then following the reading, the presiding brother gave instruction from these Scriptures (Justin Martyr: First Apology, ch. lxvii). There are many other indications that Old Testament prophecy and the Apocalypse were regularly read and studied in the post-apostolic period.
There are, as we have already indicated, a good number of references to the return of Christ, the resurrection, and the millennial reign. Detailed exposition of prophecy leading up to the Second Coming is somewhat rare, however. Writers were more adept at presenting those prophecies which led to the first coming of the Messiah.
For early believers, the apostolic age was recent history. They had before them the hope of the near return of Christ. There was little time, from their perspective, for the unfolding of an extended panorama of prophecy. It would have been discouraging for them to know that 2000 years would elapse before the coming of God’s Kingdom.
God’s 7000 Year Plan
Writers were able to see the parallel between the days of creation and the years of preparation for the thousand-year reign of peace. The author of The Epistle of Barnabas puts it very well.
“Attend, my children, to the meaning of this expression, ‘He finished in six days.’ This implies that the Lord will finish all things in six thousand years, for a day is with Him a thousand years. And He Himself testifies, saying, ‘Behold, to-day will be as a thousand years.’ Therefore, my children, in six days, that is, in six thousand years, all things will be finished. ‘And He rested on the seventh day.’ This means: when His Son, coming again, shall destroy the time of the wicked man, and judge the ungodly, and change the sun, and the moon, and the stars, then shall He truly rest on the seventh day. Moreover, He says, ‘Thou shalt sanctify it with pure hands and a pure heart.’ …when we ourselves, having received the promise, wickedness no longer existing, and all things being made new by the Lord…” (ch. xv).
Irenaeus writes in a similar vein. “For in as many days as this world was made, in so many thousand years shall it be concluded. ..at which time, Christ, the stone which is cut out without hands, shall destroy temporal kingdoms, and introduce an eternal one” (Against Heresies, V, xxvi).
The same writer also recognized that Daniel was foreseeing the breakup of the Roman empire (which was seemingly invincible in his time). “…the ten kings who shall then arise, among whom the empire which now rules the earth shall be partitioned… shall be destroyed by the coming of our Lord.”
A Commentary on Daniel
A number of the writings of this period indicate a good understanding of some basic prophecies. In particular there are references to the prophecy of Daniel, and some of these display a remarkable comprehension of the history involved. They also reveal a belief in the ultimate fulfillment of prophecy in the reign of Christ and the saints. The following example is from a commentary on Daniel, written by Hippolytus (A.D. 170-236).
“The ‘golden head of the image’ is identical with the ‘lioness,’ by which the Babylonians were represented. ‘The arms of silver’ are the same with the ‘bear,’ by which the Persians and Medes are meant. ‘The belly and thighs of brass’ are the ‘leopard,’ by which the Greeks who ruled from Alexander onwards were intended. The ‘legs of iron’ are the ‘dreadful and terrible beast,’ by which the Romans who hold the empire now are meant. ‘The toes of clay and iron ‘…tum out to be democracies.” Translators have remarked at the writer’s application of the term democracies to the ten-toe kingdoms. It appears to be an unusually perceptive comment, considering the time of writing. “The stone that ‘smites the image and breaks it in pieces,’ and that filled the whole earth, is Christ, who comes from heaven and brings judgment on the world…the stone ‘smote the image’ and shivered it, and subverted all the kingdoms, and gave the kingdom to the saints of the Most High” (On Daniel).
The Antichrist
The term “antichrist,” has stirred the imagination of writers down to the present time. In the second century, the term was linked (properly, we think) to the “little horn” of Daniel 7:8. Irenaeus makes this connection (Against Heresies, V, xxxv), and in the same book (ch. xxviii), he writes that the antichrist will be associated with the apostasy. He will be destroyed by Christ at his coming as “John has described in the Apocalypse.”
Hippolytus has these comments on the subject: “As Daniel says, ‘I considered the beast; and, lo, there were ten horns behind, among which shall come up another little horn springing from them;’ by which none other is mean than the antichrist that is to rise; and he shall set up the kingdom of Judah…And when he has conquered all, he will prove himself a terrible and savage tyrant, and will cause tribulation and persecution to the saints, exalting himself again& them” (On Daniel).
The idea that the antichrist would be a Jew seems to have originated with this writer. We believe the notion came from a misunderstanding of 2 Thess 2:4. The “man of sin” is there seer exalting himself in the “temple of God,” which Hippolytus assumed to be a new temple in Jerusalem. Neither an unauthorized Jewish temple nor the Seal of the Pope could, strictly speaking, be called “the temple of God.” The term, in our view, is used by the apostle metaphorically, with reference to the seat of Christendom.
A fourth century witness
The prophecy of Daniel and the Apocalypse served as the basis for Christian understanding of fulfilling prophecy for some time. As late as the time of Constantine, the writer Lactantius (A.D. 260-330) verifies this fact.
“Therefore peace being made, and every evil suppressed, that righteous King and Conqueror will institute a great judgment on the earth respecting the living and the dead, and will deliver all the nations into subjection to the righteous who are alive, and will raise the righteous dead to eternal life, and will Himself reign with them on the earth, and will build the holy city, and this kingdom of the righteous shall be for a thousand years” (Epitome of the Divine Institutes, ch. lxxii).
A misconception
The meaning of some of the prophecies, which seem obvious to us, seem to fade from the view of writers after the second century. In spite of clear predictions concerning the restoration of the nation of Israel, and the apostle Paul’s confirmation in Romans 11, scant reference is made to the subject. At the end of the second century Justin Martyr understood this doctrine. He writes: “And what the people of the Jews shall say and do, when they see him coming in glory, has been thus predicted by Zechariah the prophet: ‘I will command the north wind to bring them, and the south wind, that it keep not back. And then in Jerusalem there shall be great lamentation…” (First Apology, ch. lii).
Considerable efforts had been made by Christians to distinguish themselves as a movement apart from the Jews. The idea of the restoration of Jewry did not appeal to them. There was also the desire, commendable at first, but overworked in the end, to disavow the Judaizing of the late first century. The result was a spiritualizing of prophecy as seen in the writings of Origen, and later, in the works of Augustine.
The prophecy of the valley of dry bones (Ezk. 37) is often cited by writers in these early centuries as proof of the resurrection. Few of them appear to see in the prophecy the obvious application to the revival of natural Israel. After the second century, Old Testament prophecies relating to Israel’s restoration were applied “spiritually” to the Church. Irenaeus, though not entirely consistent himself, had warned against the “endeavor to allegorize prophecies” (Against Heresies, V, xxxv).
The Apocalypse
Early Christian writers accepted the Apocalypse and believed its millennial concept. Irenaeus identifies the beast with Paul’s Man of Sin, and he offers as one reading of the number of the beast (Rev. 13:18) the word Lateinos — pertaining to the Latin power of Rome. From Rev. 17:12, he taught that the empire would be broken up into ten kingdoms, and Babylon — Rome -would be reduced to ashes (Against Heresies, Book V, 26:1; 28:3,30; 35.2).
Hippolytus (A.D. 170-236) wrote along these lines. He thought that the woman with child (Rev. 12) represented the Church and that Babylon is Rome (On Christ and Antichrist). With Justin and Irenaeus, Hippolytus held the millennial hope, which he based upon Rev. 20. Tertullian regarded Babylon as Rome. He also expected a kingdom of the saints which would be preceded by the resurrection (Against Marcion, iii.24).
The Alexandrian influence
The teachers in Alexandria who would have such a strong impact on Catholic theology, tended to interpret the Apocalypse in a mystical sense. Origen repudiates as “Jewish” the idea that the Revelation teaches a millennial reign of Christ on earth (De Principiis, ii.11,12). The same is true of the writers who came after him.
Later Catholic theologians generally taught that the Babylon of the Apocalypse represented pagan Rome and that the thousand-year period was the ascension of the Church upon the destruction of paganism (Swete: Apocalypse, “History and Methods of Interpretation”).
Lessons for the last days
A study of the post-apostolic writers would be a profound disappointment if we were seeking from them a better understanding of the Word of God.
There are points of interest, but in the main, true insight of the prophetic word is rarely found in those works.
What we do have to gain from them is a warning for our own time. It is obvious that in the beginning, shortly after the time of the apostles, there was a clear vision of the return of Christ and a longing for the coming of God’s Kingdom. The prophets were avidly read with this expectation in view. As enthusiasm for this hope waned, the prophecies of the Old Testament, and of the Apocalypse, were lost in obscurity.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One