ARTICLE VII.

HISTORICAL SKETCH OF CHILIASM, OR THE DOCTRINE OF A MILLENNIUM.

THE doctrine of a personal reign of Christ on earth, seems to have originated in the earliest ages of antiquity, and has always existed in the world. We can go up even to the fountain-head, and follow the stream down through all its windings, not, indeed, in every case, with positive historical certainty, but yet sufficiently so, for all practical purposes.

The germ of Chiliasm,* we take it, is to be found in the promise of God to our first parents, that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head. This laid the foundation for hope; and hope, having once taken possession of the human breast, would immediately begin to show her fine pictures of what was to come; and, calling to her aid all the riotings of imagination, would spread out her fields, construct her castles, and erect her bowers of pleasure, all, in accordance with her fond anticipations. As Chiliasm had its origin in a real promise of God, so also it derived its nutriment from his promises of future good for his people, repeated from age to age. It was no vain fancy that engendered its principal idea, and kept it in existence. It was a reality, which has already blessed the world in the triumphs of the cross; and which has unspeakable treasures of future good in store for the human family. Hold of this reality the mind of man has seized with avidity; and out of it, been able, by the aid of false hermeneutics, vague conjectures, venerable traditions, and supposed inspirations and visions from God, to make whatever was regarded as desirable. Such, in general terms, has been the origin of Chiliasm, as it has ever existed in the world, and especially in the church, -from the grossest to the most refined. It was a living fountain, in the outset. Its waters are still sweet and good, wherever you can find them clear; but they run through swamps, and spread themselves over muddy soils, whence

* We use the word Chiliasm, from the Greek ziliás, rather than Millennarianism, from the Latin, as being shorter and easier.

they issue, at last, in great impurity.* The statements now made, might be amply illustrated from history, were there time and space for the purpose. To throw out a few hints is all

that can here be attempted.†

The heathen, retaining some vague recollections of a former golden age, in connection with this first promise, would, especially under the influence of earthly calamities, look forward to its return, and sing, in their poems, of a glorious age yet to come. In this way it is easy to account for the origin of the fables among them respecting a glorious future, the expected dwelling of the gods upon the earth, and pictures of a similar nature.

It was among the Jews, however, that Chiliasm received its largest development. They seized hold of the various prophecies of the Bible respecting the coming of a Messiah,

for instance, the words of Jacob on his death-bed respecting Shiloh, the prophecy of Balaam, the promises made to David and Solomon respecting the permanency of their throne through all ages, and a variety of others. The very obscurity in which these prophecies were involved, was adapted to this purpose. Their philosophy, derived from simple reflection rather than from scientific investigation, furnished them with no correctives. Their fundamental principles of interpretation, at the same time, gave an unlimited range to their fancies. Not only were they accustomed to allegorize every thing; but they openly maintained that the Scriptures mean all they can be made to mean; that, on every point of the divine word, hang mountains of sense; and that it is impossible truly to understand the law of God, without the aid of tradition, or the

National pride must also be taken into the account, as well as all the extravagance of oriental imagination, and probably, also, a spirit of romance, which loved to blend truth and fiction together, until the dividing lines of the two could

*Chiliasm has very aptly been divided into crassus, subtilis, and subtilissimus, according to the proportion in which enthusiastic and visionary conceptions are mingled with the scriptural idea of the future kingdom of the Messiah. The lowest kind is characterized by the belief of the visible appearance and reign of Christ upon the earth, a resurrection of the saints before the general judgment, etc. The more refined excludes this idea. See Knapp's Theol., II, p. 638. + Various persons have written on Chiliasm, to a greater or less extent. For a list of them, see Hahn's Lehrbuch des Christl. glaubens, § 153. We follow Corrodi as our principal guide, in the 1st ed. of his Krit. Geschichte des Chiliasmus, Leipz. 1781-3.

Knapp's Theol., II, § 89.

no longer be discovered, and the word of God could, in their minds, hardly be separated from the additions which it had received at the hand of man. More than all the rest, their religion, so admirably adapted, in its purity, to elevate them above every thing earthly and sensual, had become sadly perverted, and reduced mainly to external acts of worship, such as praying and fasting, and to various ceremonial observances. All its prescriptions fell under one of the six heads of seeds, festivals, women, property, things sacred and things clean and unclean. It considered the punctilious observance of ceremonial laws as so meritorious, that no other atonement for sin was necessary. It knew nothing of

the new birth; it made little or no account of moral conduct. The ideas it embraced of God were of the most childish and unworthy description. He was conceived of, as having a visible form, of vast dimensions, which some went so far as even to indicate. He had abundance of good and bad angels under him, through whom, with the exception of his own peculiar people, he governed the nations of the earth. He passed his time chiefly in studying the law, instructing the souls of deceased children, and attending to the affairs of his dominions. The evenings of every day, he spent in playing with leviathan, the most distinguished of all the creatures he had made on earth. He often repented of what he had done, and that he had sworn to engage in particular undertakings. Indeed, he was scarcely elevated, in their apprehensions, above the ideas which the Greeks had of their Jupiter Olympus.

As to the human family, all souls had been brought into existence during the six days of the creation, and reserved (or as others say, only those of the righteous) in a repository of what is denominated the heavenly . Every man has three souls. Every Jew, on the Sabbath, had a superfluous soul, which left him as soon as the day of rest was over. According to some, the soul, after death, wandered into other bodies. The most part, however, supposed that it passed directly, either into paradise, or hell.

As to paradise, some believed it had been created 1365, and others, 2000 years before the world. It was not situated on the earth. That it was of great extent, all admitted ; many supposed it immeasurable. In it, there were seven palaces, each of which was a hundred and twenty thousand

miles long, and as many wide. To this paradise there were two gates of ruby, upon which six hundred thousand angels, whose faces shone as the firmament, were in constant attendance.

As to hell, it was sixty times larger than paradise, or, as others will have it, of unlimited extent. It contained seven apartments, and had three gates through which it could be entered; the first at Jerusalem, according to Isa. 31: 9; the second in the Arabian desert, where Korah, Dathan and Abiram were swallowed up alive; and the third in the sea, according to Jonah 2: 2; "I cried unto thee out of the belly of hell." On this subject, however, as on almost every point of religion among the Jews, there were different opinions, some supposing hell had seven gates, others fifty, and others fifty thousand. That justice was poorly executed among a people in such a condition, and with but little regard for the principles of right, may well be conjectured; but enough, for the present purpose. The whole may be summed up with saying, that the moral and religious state of the Jews, at the time of Christ, was exactly what it is described to be in the New Testament, and that this had been their state for a long time previous. Where could gross Chiliasm find a better soil? It was here, in particular, that it took root and flourished most abundantly.

In proof of this, we have ample authority. The views of the Jews on this subject are still extant in apocryphal and rabbinical works, especially the Talmud, some of them written before the time of Christ, but the most of them soon afterwards, all of them, however, as there is every reason to think, embodying traditions of a much higher antiquity, than the age in which they were committed to writing.*

As then the heathen looked forward to the coming of a golden age, a return of the primeval happiness of the world, so also did the Jews. This expectation, however, with the latter was peculiar, and distinguished from that of other nations in this respect, that this period was placed by them in the times when the Messiah should appear. These happy times they denominated the ny, or age to come.† Especially was this idea developed among them during the

* See Corrodi; also Buxtorf. De Abbreviaturis Hebr.; Prideaux's Con.; Bib. Repos., Oct., 1839, p. 261, etc.

f Knapp's Theol., II, § 89.

Babylonish captivity. The unhappy condition in which they found themselves at this period constrained them to seize hold of every thing, which encouraged them with the hopes of future deliverance. The oppression which they experienced under the Romans had a similar influence upon them, compelling them to look forward to a day, when a king should arise among them, and, conquering all their enemies, establish them again in their own land, and bless them on every side. That there were many among the Jews at the time of Christ, who had no such gross anticipations, but depended on the all-subduing Spirit of God alone for relief from the various calamities with which they were afflicted, and were expecting a more exalted kingdom of God, a spiritual and holy kingdom, to arise out of Judaism, which should bless not only themselves, but all nations, and who, as the times grew darker and iniquity abounded, became more and more ardent in their aspirations for the speedy appearance of this kingdom, the advent of the Messiah, this manifestation of God, and the actual redemption of the world from sin, there can be no question. The large mass of them, however, had far different views of the subject, and were looking for a kingdom of worldly aggrandizement, of sensual happiness, and the realization of that system of things which had long been taught by their teachers in oral traditions, the great outlines of which were embodied in the Mishnah, about the middle of the second century.*

As to the period when the Messiah should come, the more ancient Jews relied upon the prophecies of Daniel for proof. They would seem to have regarded the fourth kingdom spoken of by this sacred writer, as the Grecian monarchy. According to this view, as developed by Corrodi, the Messiah was to come soon after the times of Antiochus Epiphanes, or 490 years from the destruction of the first temple. This was the earliest opinion held on the subject. Those Jews, however, who lived subsequently to Antiochus Epiphanes, and at the commencement of the Roman dominion over them, suppose the fourth kingdom of which Daniel speaks to consist of this power. This is clear, from hints on the subject to be found in Josephus. Of course they made a corresponding disposition of other circumstances. Every thing that had been prophesied of the fourth beast, and * Bibl. Repos., July, 1839, p. 182.