This brings us back to the same argument we have been involved in the past when we were discussing these things. That being, apparently Justin Martyr did not have access to Revelation 20:7-10 at the time, then. That's what you seem to be arguing, or that you are arguing that Justin Martyr simply wasn't intelligent enough to see that if satan is cast into the lof at the 2nd coming, and the fact that he took the thousand years to be meaning after the 2nd coming, how he then thought satan would be able to fulfill his little season after the thousand years? Yet today, pretty much every single person alive, whether Premil or Amil has enough sense to realize that satan has to not already be in the lof before he fulfills verses 7-9, since it's at the end of that when he is cast into the lof.
This is pretty much what you are saying about Justin Martyr and his interpretation of the 2nd coming and the thousand years. When the 2nd coming happens, satan is cast into the lof at that time, followed by the thousand years, followed by the great white throne judgment. IOW, what about satan's little season after the thousand years? What about satan being in the pit during the thousand years rather than already in the lof?
How can he fulfill the little season if he is already in the lof at the beginning of the thousand years, assuming Justin Martyr's position? And not only that, I guess Revelation 20:1-3 was missing from Justin Martyr's Bible as well, or that maybe he simply wasn't intelligent enough to grasp that during the thousand years it records satan in the pit not the lof, therefore he can't be cast into the lof if the thousand years follows the 2nd coming, except you have Justin Martyr having him already in the lof during the thousand years rather than in the pit like Revelation 20:1-3 has him.
This is a total cop-out and glaring admission that Premil only existed in heretical circles. When we look for the true origin of modern-day Premillennialism we arrive at two shadowy figures in early church history -
Cerinthus of Asia Minor and Apollinarius of Laodicea. The first is
Cerinthus who lived in the first century, who was a noted heretic. Cerinthus was from Western Asia Minor (now Turkey) and lived around A.D. 100. Cerinthus was a shady first-century figure who promoted his peculiar form of Judaic Christianity. Two issues that seem to stand out more than anything else in his writings are his heretical Gnostic beliefs and his eschatological Premillenialism. I am not saying Premil is heretical, it is not! Notwithstanding, both subjects are the focus of early church criticism of him.
The second was
Apollinarius from the fourth century, who was also viewed as a heretic. He is believed to have departed from orthodoxy in his belief that divinity and humanity could not be united and reconciled in one person. He thought that Jesus did not have a human consciousness, but only a divine one. Apollinarius also came from Asia Minor, from the city of Laodicea in. He is said to have lived 310 AD - 390 AD. He too advocated Premillenialism.
These two seem to have been the first to formulate and propagate many of the main fundamentals of the school of thought that is popularly known today as Premillennialism.
Their ethos
Origen sums up the ethos of those that held to a future millennium saturated in mortals (including the wicked) and who promoted the return of the old covenant arrangement as
“understand the divine Scriptures in a sort of Jewish sense.”
This is what modern Premils teach in their writings and advocate on this board today.
Christ reigning in an earthly millennial kingdom
Caius speaks of this early view as believing that
“after the resurrection the kingdom of Christ will be set up on earth.”
Dionysius describes this future paradigm as
“the kingdom of Christ will be an earthly one.”
He later expands,
“For the doctrine inculcated by Cerinthus is this: that there will be an earthly reign of Christ.”
Jerome simply explains it as
“an earthly reign of a thousand years.”
This is what modern Premils teach in their writings and advocate on this board today.
Centered in Jerusalem and ruling over the Gentiles
Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa, talks about lowering
“men's hopes again to the Jerusalem below, imagining its rebuilding with stones of a more brilliant material.”
Origen speaking about those that follow Cerinthus,
“imagining to themselves that the earthly city of Jerusalem is to be rebuilt.”
He continues,
“they think that the natives of other countries are to be given them as the ministers of their pleasures, whom they are to employ either as tillers of the field or builders of walls, and by whom their ruined and fallen city is again to be raised up; and they think that they are to receive the wealth of the nations to live on, and that they will have control over their riches.”
This is what modern Premils teach in their writings and advocate on this board today.
Mortals
Caius exposed their belief of mortals living in Jerusalem after the second coming, saying:
“the flesh dwelling in Jerusalem will again be subject to desires and pleasures.”
Gregory the Theologian, concludes:
“for the sake of the flesh, they explain all the rest in a gross and carnal manner.”
Theodoret contends,
“Those men create for themselves in imagination a period of a thousand years, and luxury that will pass, and other pleasures, and along with them.”
This is what modern Premils teach in their writings and advocate on this board today.
Marrying and procreation continue along with the abundance of surfeiting and gluttony
The early writers then put meat on the bones by describing what these heretics saw emanating from mortal life in the millennium.
Dionysius explains how Cerinthus
“fancied that that kingdom would consist in those kinds of gratifications on which his own heart was set,-to wit, in the delights of the belly, and what comes beneath the belly, that is to say, in eating and drinking, and marrying.”
He then enlarges:
“the pleasures of the body and altogether sensual in his nature, he dreamed that that kingdom would consist in those things which he desired, namely, in the delights of the belly and of sexual passion, that is to say, in eating and drinking and marrying.”
Basically, with the existence of mortality comes all the natural fleshly desires that come with that.
Origen similarly sums up their beliefs as
“after the resurrection there will be marriages, and the begetting of children.”
He too enlarges, by saying,
“the indulgence of their own desires and lusts, being disciples of the letter alone, are of opinion that the fulfilment of the promises of the future are to be looked for in bodily pleasure and luxury; and therefore they especially desire to have again, after the resurrection, such bodily structures as may never be without the power of eating, and drinking, and performing all the functions of flesh and blood.”
Augustine talks about this theology of these extremists as:
“those who then rise again shall enjoy the leisure of immoderate carnal banquets.”
He continues:
“furnished with an amount of meat and drink such as not only to shock the feeling of the temperate, but even to surpass the measure of credulity itself, such assertions can be believed only by the carnal.”
Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa, talks about the
“gluttony of the Millennium.”
Caius condemns this alleged future millennium as
“a period of a thousand years for marriage festivals.”
This is what modern Premils teach in their writings and advocate on this board today.
Resurrections
Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa informs us that they believe in
“three Resurrections.”
Basil the Great describes their view as looking at
“the resurrection, from a mythical, or rather Jewish, point of view.”
This is what modern Premils teach in their writings and advocate on this board today.
Sinners on the new earth
Origen confirms that they believed that the wicked continued into the millennium, albeit, they pay the consequences for their disobedience. These heretics believed that
“they who serve the Lord shall eat and drink, but that sinners shall hunger and thirst; that the righteous shall be joyful, but that sorrow shall possess the wicked.”
This is what modern Premils teach in their writings and advocate on this board today.
Animal-sacrifices
Cerinthus of Asia Minor and Apollinarius of Laodicea promoted the restoration of the old covenant arrangement, believing that the earthly Jewish temple would be rebuilt, the old covenant Aaronic priesthood revived and sin offerings restarted.
Dionysius describes their millennial belief as a return to
“festivals and sacrifices and the slaying of victims.”
Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa confirms that their theology maintained that
“the Jewish animal-sacrifices shall be restored.”
Basil the Great explains how they believed that
“we shall return again to the worship of the Law, be circumcised, keep the Sabbath, abstain from meats, offer sacrifices to God, worship in the Temple at Jerusalem, and be altogether turned from Christians into Jews.”
Gregory the Theologian criticized this school of thought that is now popular today in Premil as reintroducing
“a second Judaism, a second circumcision, and a second system of sacrifices.”
Theodoret depicts their millennial kingdom as
“sacrifices and Jewish solemnities.”
This is what modern Premils teach in their writings and advocate on this board today.
Conclusion
What I have discovered is that whilst the above is all widely-accepted standard Premil beliefs today, none of the early Chiliasts taught this. In fact, it seems like the early Chiliasts distanced themselves especially from Cerinthus. By the time of Apollinarius in the 4th century, Chiliasm was globally minuscule. Rather, the early Chiliasts held views that were more akin to modern-day Amil.
So here we have indisputable irrefutable proof that the origins of Modern-day-type Premil are not found in Holy Writ or Rev 20 but in apostate Judaism.
For a moment I thought “inch thick and mile wide“ was referring to the Irish dialect, then I realised you meant the US Bible Belt.
