Patristic Premillennialists
Clement of Rome, Barnabas, Hermas, Ignatius, Polycarp, Papias, Pothinus, Justin Martyr, Melito, Heisippus, Tatian, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Hippolytus, Cyprian, Commodian, Coracion, Victorinus, and Lactantius.
Documentation from the Early Saints
Papias (d. 155): According to Eusebius’ “Fragments of Papias,” in ANF, I, 154: “Amongst these he [Papias] says that there will be a millennium after the resurrection from the dead, when the personal reign of Christ will be established on this earth.”
Justin Martyr (d. 162): “But I and whoever are on all points right-minded Christians know that there will be resurrection of the dead and a thousand years in Jerusalem, which will then be built, adorned, and enlarged as the prophets Ezekiel and Isaiah and the others declare” (“Dialogue with Trypho,” in ANF, I, 239).
Irenaeus: “But when this Antichrist shall have devastated all things in this world, he will reign for three years and six months, and sit in the temple at Jerusalem; and then the Lord will come from heaven in the clouds, in the glory of the Father, sending this man and those who follow him into the lake of fire, but bringing in for the righteous the times of the kingdom, that is, the rest, the inheritance, in which kingdom the lord declared, that ‘many coming from the east and from the west should sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob . . . . The predicted blessing, therefore, belongs unquestionable to the times of the kingdom, when the righteous shall bear rule upon their rising from the dead.”
Tertullian: “But we do confess that a kingdom is promised to us upon the earth, although before heaven, only in another state of existence; inasmuch as it will be after their resurrection for a thousand years in the divinely-built city of Jerusalem” (Against Marcion,” in ANF, 3, 343).
Important Antiochene Theological Truth
“Some of the earliest church fathers such as Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Methodius, and Victorinus of Petau all adhered to different dispensations or God’s different dealings with man throughout different ages.
More specifically, they all believed in a literal earthly millennial kingdom where Christ would rule and reign over Israel for 1,000 years, and they all said the church (the body of Christ) was not the same as Israel.
Darby just made an in-depth systematic structure to Dispensationalism.
It actually wasn’t until Origen and Augustine that non-literal and allegorical interpretations began which is what is the basis for covenant theology.
Hippolytus and Eubeus also were in the first and second century and taught dispensationally.
Hippolytus even has writings about a future tribulation that would be 7 years in the future, and coincides with the 70th week of Daniel that has yet to be fulfilled.
And Papias who was a direct disciple of John the Apostle. “
More Antiochene Theological Enlightenment.......
