Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 177:706 (Apr 2020)
Article: Early Christian Millennialism And The Intermediate State
Author: Craig A. Blaising

BSac 177:706 (April-June 2020) p. 221

Early Christian Millennialism And The Intermediate State

Craig A. Blaising

Craig A. Blaising is Distinguished Research Professor of Theology and the Jesse Hendley Chair of Biblical Theology at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Fort Worth, Texas.

Abstract

Further examination of the evidence, especially from Irenaeus in Adversus haereses, supports recognition of chiliasm in the patristic period and undermines the reconstruction by Charles Hill, who has argued for an amillennialism among orthodox (non-Gnostic) Christians that he maintains has been ignored by scholars. It also undermines Hill’s theory that early premillennialism was adopted for pragmatic reasons from late Judaism, rather than growing from Scripture or dominical teaching.

In his book Regnum Caelorum, Charles Hill takes issue with the longstanding scholarly consensus that chiliasm dominated the church in its earliest history.1 In contrast, Hill argues for an extensive orthodox non-chiliasm which, he believes, has been overlooked or ignored by traditional accounts of that early period. By “orthodox non-chiliasm,” Hill intends to exclude Gnostic amillennial views that denied many orthodox doctrines, such as the resurrection of the dead.

The problem, of course, is that with the exception of the well-known chiliasts, such as Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and Tertullian, much of the extant second-century literature is silent on millennialism.

BSac 177:706 (April-June 2020) p. 222

However, Hill claims to have found a key that unlocks the silence and reveals a previously hidden non-Gnostic amillennialism. He then goes on to argue that actually chiliasm, or premillennialism, was a theological innovation upon this early amillennialism—an innovation based not on Christian sources, but on a pragmatic borrowing from late Judaism.

Hill claims to have discovered his key in the classic work of Irenaeus of Lyons, Adversus haereses (AH), where in book 5, chapters 31–36, the bishop of Lyons sets forth his eschatology. Hill claims to have discovered right at the beginning of this section a necessary logical connection between Irenaeus’s (1) belief in an earthly millennium intervening between the resurrection of the righteous and the eternal state, and (2) his belief in a subterranean intermediate state of the Christian dead before the resurrection.2 The millennium, Hill believes, is for Irenaeus (and by extension for early Christian chiliasm in general) a necessary stage or step in the ascent of a soul from Hades to heaven. If, contrariwise, a soul ...