Chapter LXXIII: Appendix: Annotations (3)

Look the future in the face. As Shelley has put it: “The past is dead, and the future alone is living.” Why not, all of us, permit the ashes to grow over the embers of hate, and let the rawness of all wounds, real or imaginary, heal over? Distance now gives a wider survey and a juster survey to both Jew and Christian.

Waste no time in denying hostility to Jesus nineteen hundred years ago. Who alive to-day is to be blamed for that any more than for the forty years of rebellion in the wilderness? No more are you to be blamed for the death of Jesus than are we to-day to be blamed for Washington having held slaves, and for the slave auction-block in the Nation’s capital, and for the slave lash a generation ago.

3. The Mosaic system of ceremonies, as seen before the destruction of Jerusalem, was beautiful. How mournfully are Jewish eyes still fixed upon the broken shell. Friends, lift your eyes and see what came out of that shell; see in the boughs above, the singing-bird of the civilization of to-day. Claim it all, for God has given it to the world through your people.

From the matrix of the Jewish soul sprang Christianity. Heine, the great Jewish writer of the last century, has wittily put it: Half the civilized world worships a Jew, the other half a Jewess.

4. Come, children of the prophets, your home, for a season at least, is in the West, not in the East. Let not your hearts longer be troubled. Cease dragging about with you that monstrous corpse of memory—the persecutions committed against you, no matter how frightfully you have been misunderstood and wronged.

Above all let it never be truly said that the Jew has suffered so much, and come so far, now only to reap despair and bitterness. There are two Jewish tendencies to-day, one to cold materialism, the motto of which is “make money, eat, drink, be merry, to-morrow ye die”; the other is upward, the path the prophets walked. This latter tendency must be made to dominate. The time will come, with many already here, when the Jew will turn again to his sublime mission and say, like Agassiz, “I have not time to make money.”

Surely, the Jew of America is to be a regenerating educational force to the Jews of all the world, and not to the Jews only. It does not yet appear fully what he shall be; but in some way it will appear that this mass of concentrated human energy will arise above the commercial, the material, the sordid, which so dominates much of the so-called Christian world. The Jewish genius is essentially religious. The Jew will again come to himself and find his center, and God will vindicate His purpose through this wonderful people from Abraham’s time to the present.

The Jew has grown strong by the law of the survival of the fittest. For eighteen centuries he has not known what security is, always living by his resource of keenest wit—the feeblest dying out. Those who were physically strong enough and mentally clever enough, escaped destruction, and these became the parents of the new and stronger generation. Thus the law of compensation works justice. For ages the Jew was compelled to be a money-lender as the business of such an one was held to be disreputable for Christians. Thus the Jew mastered the problems of finance, and now when finance rules the world, the Jew is naturally on the throne. The whirligig of time is twirled by a hand that cares for justice.

5. How unseemly, impossible, that it should prove in the end that they who have been to the world messengers of God, whose feet have been beautiful upon the mountain-tops and who did eat the bread of angels, should now forget their prophets and their God and grovel in materialism, and seek to satisfy their hunger with husks. No; this can not be. This people have done too glorious things for humanity, for such an ending. They have in them the nobility that will assert itself. They are born for great things yet to be; they have been made in large molds. They, like the best of us, have often slipped, but are now coming to themselves. For one I am glad, and thank God for it.

Now will the Christian Church permit a friendly exhortation: You have tried everything to get the Jewish people to understand Jesus of Nazareth, except one thing, _love_. Try that, for they believe in love; and you believe in love. Let both Jew and Christian get on this common ground, and have respect for the honest convictions of one another, and then both may clasp hands and look into each other’s eyes, and repeat the words uttered alike by Moses and by Jesus:

“THE LORD OUR GOD IS ONE GOD. AND THOU SHALT LOVE HIM WITH ALL THY HEART, AND WITH ALL THY SOUL, AND WITH ALL THY MIGHT.”

The lightnings from Mount Sinai and the rays of light and heat from Mount Calvary are one, and will yet fuse into brotherhood all peoples of the earth.

I. K. F.

OTHER TESTIMONY TO JESUS

WILLIAM McKINLEY.

[A Letter. Washington, D.C., 1900.]

The religion which Christ founded has been a mighty influence in the civilization of the human race. If we of to-day owed to it nothing more than this, our debt of appreciation would be incalculable. The doctrine of love, purity, and right-living has step by step won its way into the heart of mankind, has exalted home and family, and has filled the future with hope and promise.

JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU.

[COMPLETE WORKS. (Emilius.) Edinburgh: 1778, vol. ii., pp. 215-218.]

I will confess to you that the majesty of the Scriptures strikes me with admiration, as the purity of the Gospel has its influence on my heart. Peruse the works of our philosophers, with all their pomp of diction; how mean, how contemptible are they, compared with the Scriptures! Is it possible that the sacred personage whose history they contain should be Himself a mere man?… Where is the man, where the philosopher, who could so live and die, without weakness, and without ostentation? When Plato describes his imaginary righteous man, loaded with all the punishments of guilt, yet meriting the highest rewards of virtue, he describes exactly the character of Jesus Christ. The resemblance is so striking that all the Church fathers perceived it.

THOMAS JEFFERSON.

[WORKS. Philadelphia: 1871, vol. iv., p. 479.]

I am a Christian in the only sense in which He [Christ] wishes any one to be: sincerely attracted to His doctrines, in preference to all others; ascribing to Him every human excellence, and believing He never claimed any other.

WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE.

[REVIEW OF ECCE HOMO, from GLEANINGS OF PAST YEARS. New York: 1879, vol. iii., pp. 84, 93.]

Through the fair gloss of His manhood, we perceive the rich bloom of His divinity. If He is not now without an assailant, at least He is without a rival. If He be not the Sun of Righteousness, the Friend that gives His life for His friends and that sticketh closer than a brother, the unfailing Consoler, the constant Guide, the everlasting Priest and King, at least, as all must confess, there is no other to come into His room.

JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE.

[CONVERSATIONS WITH ECKERMANN. London: 1874, pp. 567-569.]

If I am asked whether it is in my nature to pay Him devout reverence, I say, certainly. I bow before Him as the divine manifestation of the highest principles of morality.… Let mental culture go on advancing, let the natural sciences go on gaining in depth and breadth, and the human mind expand as it may, it will never go beyond the elevation and moral culture of Christianity, as it glistens and shines forth in the Gospel.…

RALPH WALDO EMERSON.

[PROSE WORKS. Boston: 1870, vol. i., pp. 69, 70.]

Jesus Christ belonged to the true race of prophets. He saw with open eye the mystery of the soul. Drawn by its severe harmony, ravished with its beauty, He lived in it, and had His being there. Alone in all history, He estimated the greatness of man. One man was true to what is in you and me. He saw that God incarnated Himself in man, and evermore goes forth anew to take possession of His world.…

FRANÇOIS P. G. GUIZOT.

[MEDITATIONS ON THE ESSENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. New York: 1885, p. 320 _et seq._]

The supernatural being and power of Jesus may be disputed; but the perfection, the sublimity of His acts and precepts, of His life and His moral law, are incontestable. And in effect, not only are they not contested, but they are admired and celebrated enthusiastically, and complacently too; it would seem as if it were desired to restore to Jesus as man, and man alone, the superiority of which men deprived Him in refusing to see in Him the Godhead.

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.

[JOHN S. C. ABBOTT’S LIFE OF NAPOLEON, vol. ii, p. 612.]

Alexander, Cæsar, Charlemagne, and myself founded empires. But on what did we rest the creations of our genius? Upon force. Jesus Christ alone founded His empire upon love, and at this hour, millions of men would die for Him.…

This testimony from Napoleon has been much disputed. Dr. Philip
Schaff, weighing the argument for and against, says that he
believes that it is authentic in substance.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.

[LETTER TO PRESIDENT STILES OR YALE COLLEGE, March 9, 1790.]

I think His [Jesus Christ’s] system of morals and religion as He left them to us, the best the world ever saw, or is likely to see.

JEAN PAUL RICHTER.

[DAWNINGS FOR GERMANY. Complete Works, pp. 33, 36.]

It concerns Him who, being the holiest among the mighty, the mightiest among the holy, lifted, with His pierced hands, empires off their hinges, turned the stream of centuries out of its channel, and still governs the ages.

JOHN STUART MILL.

[THREE ESSAYS ON RELIGION. New York: 1874, pp. 253, 255.]

Religion can not be said to have made a bad choice in pitching on this man as the ideal representative and guide of humanity; nor even now would it be easy, even for an unbeliever, to find a better translation of the rule of virtue from the abstract into the concrete than to endeavor so to live that Christ would approve our life.

THOMAS CARLYLE.

[SARTOR RESARTUS, pp. 155, 158.]

If thou ask to what length man has carried it in this manner, look on our divinest symbol, Jesus of Nazareth, and His life and His biography, and what followed therefrom. Higher has the human thought not yet reached: this Christianity and Christendom—a symbol of quite perennial infinite character, whose significance will ever demand to be anew inquired into, and anew made manifest.…

WILLIAM E. LECKY.

[HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. London: 1869, vol. ii., p. 9.]

It may be truly said that the simple record of three short years of active life has done more to regenerate and soften mankind than all the disquisitions of philosophers and all the exhortations of moralists. This has, indeed, been the wellspring of whatever is best and purest in the Christian life. Amid all the sins and failings, amid all the priestcraft and persecution and fanaticism, that have defaced the Church, it has preserved, in the character and example of its Founder, an enduring principle of regeneration.

JOSEPH ERNEST RENAN.

[THE LIFE OF JESUS. New York: 1864, pp. 215, 365, 375, 376.]

He founded the pure worship—of no age, of no clime—which shall be that of all lofty souls to the end of time. Not only was His religion that day (John iv. 24) the benign religion of humanity, but it was the absolute religion; and if other planets have inhabitants endowed with reason and morality, their religion can not be different from that which Jesus proclaimed at Jacob’s well.…

Whatever may be the surprises of the future, Jesus will never be surpassed. His worship will grow young without ceasing; His legend will call forth tears without end; His sufferings will melt the noblest hearts; all ages will proclaim that among the sons of men there is none born greater than Jesus.

THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST—A SUCCINCT HISTORY

BY DANIEL SEELYE GREGORY. D.D., LL.D.

The legend of “The Wandering Jew,” in its various forms, has its basis in the doctrine of the Second Coming of Christ, or of His personal return to this world. This is true of the form of the legend that underlies Croly’s romance, the Lord Himself having given assurance of His return to the hero of the work and the arch-plotter, in the words of doom: “Tarry thou till I come!” The doctrine of the Second Coming has been accepted by the Christian Church and embodied in its creeds in all ages.

The Second Advent finds its analog in many respects in the First Advent, and that, not in its facts only, but in its difficulties as well. According to the Old Testament, a great Redeemer was to appear; he was to be a prophet, priest, and king, and was to deliver his people from their sins and from their oppressors; he was to set up a kingdom that should become universal, absorbing all earthly kingdoms; and he was to exalt his people to the summit of prosperity and glory. These predictions turned the minds of the whole Jewish race toward the future, in confident expectation of the coming Messiah, in whose birth and career they all anticipated their fulfilment. Nevertheless, tho Christ came indeed fulfilling prophecy, it was “in a way which no man did anticipate or could have anticipated.”

So the main features of the Second Advent have been prophetically presented with like fulness, and yet, as of old, the Church has had to remain “satisfied with the great truths which those prophecies unfold, and leave the details to be explained by the event.”

The many theories of the Second Coming of Christ and of the millennium—or the thousand years’ reign of Christ at the end of time, as connecting with that coming—may be reduced to two, one based upon the literal and the other upon the spiritual interpretation of the Scriptures on this subject.

1st. The _literal_, or _Chiliastic_, notion of the millennium, as held by some Christians, was derived from the Jews, and was largely confined originally to the converts from Judaism to Christianity. The Jewish doctrine received its peculiar form from Rabbi Elias, who lived about two centuries before the Christian era. According to this ante-Jewish tradition:

“The world is to last seven thousand years—six thousand to be years of toil and trouble, and the seventh thousand to be a grand SABBATISM. It is to be ushered in by the advent of the Messiah, who is to establish his throne at Jerusalem. The Holy City is to be rebuilt with surpassing magnificence, as described by Tobit (xiii., xiv.); the Jews are to return to Palestine; their pious ancestors are to be raised from the dead and reign in their own land, with their offspring, under the Messiah” (see T. O. Summers, in Johnson’s “Universal Cyclopedia,” article “Millennium”).

* * * * *

Some of the early Christians—like the early Jews, pressed with persecutions and longing for temporal deliverance—adopted this literal view, except that they modified it by recognizing Jesus as the true Messiah, and by acknowledging the equality of Gentile with Jewish believers in the millennial age. The Thessalonian Christians, in particular, early developed a tendency to the literal, Chiliastic interpretation, which was, however, checked and corrected by Paul’s letters to them.

But the first teacher who is clearly recorded as having adopted the crude Jewish notion was Papias, Bishop of Hierapolis, in Phrygia; altho Cerinthus, a heretic of the first century, is said to have held it. According to Irenæus, Papias pretended to have received a glowing tradition direct from the Apostle John embodying and enlarging all the Jewish literalism.

In part it is to this effect: “The days shall come in which there shall be vines which shall severally have ten thousand branches, and every one of these shall have ten thousand lesser branches, and every one of these branches shall have ten thousand twigs, and every one of these twigs shall have ten thousand clusters of grapes, and in every one of these clusters shall be ten thousand grapes, and every one of these grapes being pressed shall give twenty-five _metretas_ of wine; and when a person shall take hold of one of these sacred bunches, another shall cry out, ‘I am a better bunch, take me, and by me bless the Lord.’”

Irenæus reports similar fanciful traditions respecting extraordinary temporal blessings during the millennial period. Papias taught that Christ’s reign on earth should be corporeal. In the main, Justin Martyr, Irenæus, Tertullian, Nepos, and Lactantius agree with Papias, teaching the Christians under their instruction these views, each varying the details according to his own fancy.

The disciples of Papias and their successors naturally pressed into their service Rev. xx. 1-10, interpreting it with the baldest literalness.

The same method has been used by the later followers, who have largely held to a literal, corporeal reign of Christ on earth for a thousand years. There has often been coupled with this view—growing out of Christ’s teaching of the IMMINENCY of his Second Coming—a belief in the IMMEDIACY of that Coming.

2d. The usual or _Catholic_ theory of the millennium has its basis in the spiritual, rather than literal, interpretation of the Scriptures on this subject. It rejects alike Jewish traditions and Patristic fancies.

According to this view, the number 1,000 is often employed in the Scriptures as “denoting a definite number for an indefinite.” It is so used manifestly in Psalm xc. 4, in 2 Peter iii. 8, and in Rev. xx. 1-7. In the last passage, as has been often remarked, it is “evidently a definite number for an indefinite,” indicating a long period. The entire passage is figurative, in keeping with the enigmatical book in which it is found. The angel with the key of the abyss, a chain and a seal to bind and confine the devil, thrones and the souls of martyrs seated upon them, and judgment given to them—these are all “pictorial representations of the circumscription of Satan’s power, the revival of the martyr spirit in the Church, and the general prevalence of truth and righteousness in the earth. This agrees with the figurative style of the Apocalypse, and corresponds with the predictions concerning the prosperity of the Church in the last days. In no other place is there any allusion to a millennium.”

This interpretation, it is held, is agreeable to the style of prophecy, that is elsewhere employed in the Revelation (compare Isa. xxvi. 19; Ezek. xxxvii. 13, 14; Hos. vi. 2; Rev. xi. 7, 11). This spiritual view also agrees with the paracletal work of Christ, while the Judaico-Christian does not; it is favorable to the efforts of the Church for the conversion of the world, and accords with the general teachings of the Scriptures concerning “the last things.”

But while the literal method has been to some extent followed, there has been a common or _Catholic_ Church-doctrine which, as will be seen, has alone been embodied in the creeds of Christendom. That _common_, _creedal_, or _Catholic doctrine_ embraces the teachings that—

1st. The Second Advent of Jesus is to be a personal, visible, and glorious advent as the Son of God.

2d. It is to be preceded by the universal diffusion of the Gospel, the conversion of the Jews and the coming of Antichrist.

3d. It is to be accompanied by the resurrection of the dead, just and unjust, the general judgment, the end of the world, and the consummation of Christ’s kingdom.

The cardinal passages of Scripture on this doctrine are _Matthew xxiv._ and _the two Epistles to the Thessalonians_—the latter of which was apparently rendered necessary by the development of the teachings in the former. It is not possible to enter here into a detailed interpretation of these passages. Had there been no extraneous influences at work, what is claimed to be the simple and natural interpretation of these Scriptures, which has always been in accord with the Catholic doctrine embodied in the creeds, would probably have continued to be the faith of all Christians.

The later-Jewish doctrine of the Messianic kingdom upon earth was a main influence in directing the new development. The disciples being Jews were naturally infected with this view, and did not rise above it till after the experiences of Pentecost.

Millenarianism or Chiliasm naturally arose out of sympathy with this Jewish materialism, and spread to some extent among the Jewish Christians in the early Church. There was also introduced the doctrine of _two resurrections_, based on the literal understanding of Rev. xx., unmodified by the teachings of Jesus in Matt, xxiv. With the Second Advent of Christ, according to this view, is to take place the first resurrection, that of the righteous dead at that time. Then is to follow a personal, corporeal reign of Christ for a thousand years—a millennium—upon the renovated earth. At the close of this millennial period, the second resurrection, that of the righteous and the wicked, is to occur, and the end of the world.

As already hinted, this doctrine at first started and became prevalent among the Jewish, as distinguished from the Gentile, Christians. Persecutions arising from time to time, and the distressed conditions resulting from governmental opposition have, however, extended to the Gentile Christians belief in the corporeal features of Chiliasm. They have likewise resulted at various times in an earnest longing for the _immediate_ return of Christ, in an expectation of His _immediate setting up of His kingdom_ in the place of the earthly kingdoms, and in belief in the _imminence of His advent_.

The conflict between the earlier and Catholic doctrine and this Chiliastic outgrowth may readily be traced in the history of the Church. It appeared in its full development, first of all, early in the apostolic age, in connection with the Church at Thessalonica. The two earliest of the Pauline Epistles—supposed to have been written in A.D. 52 and 53—are largely taken up with the exhibition and refutation of the departures from the Catholic doctrine on this subject.

After their experience at Philippi, Paul and Silas passed on through Amphipolis and Apollonia to Thessalonica. This city—now called in slightly changed form Salonica—was a great maritime city and the capital of the first division of Macedonia, and it always had a large Jewish population. As Antioch was the natural center for Christian work in Asia Minor, so Thessalonica was one of the best strategic points—if not the best—for beginning the conquest of Europe. This was recognized by Paul himself, who, inspired with the great purpose of making the empire of Christ coterminous with that of Rome, wrote, only a few months after leaving Thessalonica (1 Thess. i. 8), that “from them the word of the Lord had sounded forth like a trumpet, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but _in every place_.”

The preaching that led to the expulsion of Paul and Silas from the city (see Acts xvii. 1-10) furnishes the key to the Epistles written a little later. It was the doctrine of the _Kingdom of God_. The accusation brought against them was that they were proclaiming _another King_ than Cæsar (Acts xvii. 7). In writing to them Paul accordingly reminds them of his exhortations and entreaties, that they should “walk worthy of God who called them to his _Kingdom_ and Glory” (1 Thess. ii. 12), and addresses them as those who had “suffered affliction for the sake of that _Kingdom_” (2 Thess. i. 5). Christ’s _Second Coming_ had evidently been a chief topic of Paul’s preaching to them.

The brevity of the Apostle’s stay in the city gave little opportunity for instructing and grounding the Christians, chiefly Gentiles, in the Christian system; but they appear to have continued stedfast in the faith in the severe persecutions and afflictions that followed (1 Thess. ii. 14; iii. 3; 2 Thess. i. 4). Nevertheless there were some peculiar aspects of the doctrine of the Second Coming toward which their trials seemed naturally to push them. Looking upon it as the glorious _coming of the Lord for deliverance_ (1 Thess. i. 10), some came to believe in the _imminency_, if not the _immediacy_, of the Second Advent; and so gave up laboring for their own support, became burdensome to the brethren, and encouraged irregularities by their mode of life. Moreover, there arose a perplexity about the case of those who should fall asleep before the Second Coming.

This state of things led Paul, toward the close of 53 A.D., to write from Athens his _First Epistle_ to the Thessalonians, to give specific instruction regarding these points. His main theme is the _consolation from the hope of the Second Coming of the Lord_. The leading words in the Epistle (as in 2 Thessalonians) are _Parousia_ (advent, or appearing) and _Affliction_. The prominence in it of the coming of the Lord is shown by the fact that each chapter rises to and rests in that Coming as its conclusion (see ch. i. 10; ii. 20; iii. 13; iv. 17, 18; v. 23).

The _Second Epistle_ was written to the Thessalonians in A.D. 53, from Corinth. The former letter had produced salutary results, on which the Apostle congratulates them; but their manifold tribulations on account of the faith had caused the opinion that the Lord’s coming would take place immediately, to gain ground rapidly among them. This hope was fostered by some among them who claimed to have the “spirit of prophecy,” and it was also thought to be favored by Paul’s own teachings (2 Thess. ii. 2). In consequence of this, the habits of idleness and irregularity had increased. Moreover, the false Jewish teachers were beginning to lead the Thessalonian Christians to look upon “the Day of the Lord,” according to the Old-Testament view (Isa. xiii.; Joel ii.; Amos v. 18), as _a Day of Judgment_, rather than of deliverance and glory. The aim of the _Second Epistle_ is to meet the new needs that had arisen.

It will be seen from this outline view that the Epistles to the Thessalonians bear a relation to the Second Advent of Christ similar to that of the Book of Daniel to his First Advent. They were the guidebook for that age and for the Church of the after-ages. In conjunction with the teaching of our Lord Himself in Matt. xxiv., their instructions and directions would appear to be sufficiently full and explicit. For the time being the Chiliastic views seem to have disappeared from the Church, and the Catholic doctrine to have held full sway.

A new development of Chiliasm took place toward the close of the second century. It resulted from the persecuting hand of the government being laid heavily upon the Church.

It is not necessary here to enter into the causes of the persecutions by the Romans. It is enough to note that the ideas of religious freedom in the modern world are quite alien to those of the ancient world. There were none but state religions and national gods. Cicero lays down as the fundamental maxim of legislation in ancient Romanism, that “no man shall have for himself particular gods of his own; no man shall worship by himself any new or foreign gods, unless they are recognized by the public laws.” And so Christianity came necessarily into collision with the laws of the state.

The bloody persecutions, from the last half of the second century onward, were the inevitable outcome of this natural and essential antagonism; but even in the opening half of the second century the Christians were subjected to sore trials such as those from which the Thessalonians suffered. In passing through these, their minds seem to have turned again, says Neander, to “the idea of the millennial reign, which the Messiah was to set up on earth.… In the midst of persecutions, it was a solace and support to the Christians to anticipate that even upon this earth, the scene of their sufferings, the Church was destined to triumph in its perfected and glorified state.” In some regions this view took on a more spiritual form; while in others, as in Phrygia, the natural home of a sensual, enthusiastic religious spirit, “Chiliasm appeared in its crass and grossly conceived form in which the earthly Jewish mind had depicted it.”

Among the Apostolic Fathers, in the second century, the doctrine appears in the writings of Barnabas, Hernias, and Papias, Bishop of Hierapolis, only, the last named teaching it in its grossest form. As Dr. Shedd has said (“History of Christian Doctrine,” vol. ii., p. 390): “There are no traces of Chiliasm in the writings of Clement of Rome, Ignatius, Polycarp, Tatian, Athenagorus, and Theophilus of Antioch.” He adds: “The inference from these facts, then, is that this tenet was not the received faith of the Church certainly down to the year 150. It was held only by individuals.” Among the really masterful scholars, ecclesiastics, and theologians, it had not a single advocate. That it was not the faith of the Apostolic Church is further evident from the fact that it was not embodied in the so-called Apostles’ Creed, which is “undoubtedly the substance of the short confessions of faith which the catechumens of the Apostolic Church were accustomed to make upon entering the Church.”

The period from 150 A.D. to 250 has been called “the blooming age of Millenarianism.” It was in this period of bitter and increased persecution that Irenæus and Tertullian came forward as its advocates, giving glowing descriptions of the millennial reign. “Antichrist, together with all the nations that side with him, will be destroyed. All earthly empires, and the Roman in particular, will be overthrown. Christ will appear, and will reign a thousand years, in corporeal presence on earth, in Jerusalem, which will be rebuilt and made the capital of His kingdom. The patriarchs, prophets, and all the pious, will be raised from the dead, and share in the felicity of this kingdom. The New Jerusalem is depicted in the most splendid colors” (Shedd, “History of Christian Doctrine,” vol. ii.. p. 390).

But even Irenæus and Tertullian, in presenting “brief synoptical statements of the authorized faith of the Church,” in their writings against heretics, make no mention of the Millenarian tenet as belonging to that faith.

The third century, chiefly in its first half, witnessed the strenuous discussion that seems practically to have brought to an end, for the time at least, the tendency in the Church to accept the Chiliastic doctrine. This was conducted in the Alexandrian School, under the lead of three great teachers, Clement of Alexandria, Origen his pupil, and Dionysius the pupil of Origen. They did not reject the Apocalypse, but addressed themselves to opposing the grossly literal interpretations put upon it by the Chiliasts.

The method adopted by Bishop Dionysius of Alexandria is of peculiar interest, as showing what may be accomplished by candid Christian discussion. Neander gives a somewhat detailed account of his course (“Church History,” vol. i., p. 452). Nepos, a pious Egyptian bishop belonging to the region of Arsinoë, and who was a devoted friend of the sensual Chiliasm, wrote a book against the Alexandrian school, entitled “A Refutation of the Allegorists.” “The book seems to have found great favor with the clergy and laity in the above-mentioned district. Great mysteries and disclosures of future events were supposed to be found here; and many engaged with more zeal in the study of the book and theory of Nepos than in that of the Bible and its doctrines.” So zealous did his disciples become for this tenet that they brought the charge of heresy against all who refused to accept it. Whole churches separated themselves from their communion with the mother-church at Alexandria. After the death of Nepos, a country priest, Coracion, took the leadership of this party.

Neander gives an interesting account of the way in which, by instruction and discussion, the good and wise Bishop of Alexandria, Dionysius, led Coracion back to the faith. This happened in the year 255.

“Having restored the unity of faith among his own churches,” Dionysius wrote his work on the Promises, for the instruction of the churches. By the opening of the fourth century Chiliasm seems to have almost disappeared from the Church, as is shown by the statements of Eusebius, the church historian. Describing the writings of Papias, Eusebius remarks that they contain “matters rather too fabulous,” among which he enumerates the opinion of Papias that “there would be a certain millennium after the resurrection, and that there would be a corporeal reign of Christ on this very earth.” The return to the Catholic doctrine on the subject seems therefore to have been quite general before the year 400.

The history of the Chiliastic doctrine from the opening of the fifth century may be briefly summarized, since its manifestations have been only sporadic and temporary.

As the tenth century drew to a close there arose “an undefined fear and expectation among the masses that the year 1000 would witness the advent of the Lord,” but this passed away with the century.

At the time of the Reformation, the doctrine was revived by the fanatical Anabaptists, Münzer and his followers, who attempted to put down all temporal sovereignty and to establish the kingdom of the saints with fire and sword. They were, however, vigorously opposed by Luther, Melancthon, Calvin, and the other great reformers, and their military forces were defeated and crushed and their leaders slain at Mühlhausen in 1525 and at Munster in 1535. Leading symbols of the Reformation period strongly condemn Chiliasm, _e.g._, the Augsburg Confession, the Belgic Confession, and the English Confession of Edward VI.

The history of the doctrine during the nineteenth century is well summarized by Dr. Shedd:

“During the present century, individual minds in England and
America, and upon the Continent of Europe, have attempted
to revive the theory—in some instances in union with an
intelligent and earnest orthodoxy, in others in connection
with an uneducated and somewhat fanatical pietism. The first
class is represented by Delitzsch and Auberlen in Germany, and
by Cumming, Elliott, and Bonar in Great Britain; the second
class by the so-called Adventists and Millerites in the United
States.”

The Millerite movement, started in 1831 by William Miller, an American, who predicted that Christ’s Second Coming and the end of the world would take place in 1843, received what was practically its death-blow in the failure of the prediction to meet with accomplishment at the appointed time. Substantially the same classes of people are, however, to be found among the Adventists, or Second Adventists, of the present time, including a considerable number of immigrant foreigners, especially Scandinavians. Some of these hold to the doctrine of the annihilation of the wicked and to that of the sleep of the dead until the resurrection. The approach of the twentieth century seems to have given an impulse to the Adventist movement, altho it has not changed the character or quality of its advocates.

The survey thus made of the history of the Church, ancient, medieval, and modern, brings out the fact that the _Catholic_ doctrine, as already outlined, has always been the Church doctrine. The _Chiliastic_ views based upon the literal interpretation of the Scriptures bearing upon the subject have never been generally accepted. The facts, as summarized by Dr. Shedd (“History of Christian Doctrine,” vol. ii., p. 398), are as follows:

“1. That Millenarianism was never the ecumenical faith of the Church and never entered as an article into any of the creeds.

“2. That Millenarianism has been the opinion of individuals and parties only—some of whom have stood in agreement with the Catholic faith, and some in opposition to it.”

REASONS FOR THE BELIEF THAT CHRIST MAY COME WITHIN THE NEXT TWENTY YEARS

By ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D.

Is the day of Christ near at hand?

This question is attracting much attention as this new century begins, and wise men are watching for the morning star, which is the herald of the new dawn.

Imminence is a word used for the union of the _certainty of an event with the uncertainty of its time_. One text suffices to show that such imminence is, in the Scripture, characteristic of the Lord’s return: “Be ye also ready; for in such an hour as ye think not, the Son of Man cometh” (Matt, xxiv. 44). Such an exhortation excludes mere argument. The certainty of the event is assured, for “the Son of Man cometh;” the uncertainty of the time is conceded, for it is “in an hour that ye think not” or as verse 36 adds, “of that day and hour knoweth no man.”

In a broader sense, the word imminent is used to express the idea that the event is _impending_—nigh at hand. True, it may be unwise to attempt to fix the very “day and hour,” since these are declared to lie among the divine secrets. Yet it may be both possible and proper to observe carefully the signs which are to precede or accompany Christ’s reappearing, and even the mistakes of those who have made erroneous calculations as to the time may serve only to narrow the circle within which the truth is to be found. We shall therefore inquire briefly whether there is any reason to look for the speedy reappearing of the Son of Man, and, without committing ourselves to all the opinions which follow, we may state the grounds on which such conclusions have been reached by many devout students of the subject.

The appeal must, of course, be to the Holy Oracles, if we are to get any safe response. Seven signs hinted at in the Word of God may be selected, as prominent:

(1) A widespread witness to Christ, with (2) a widespread decline in godliness. (3) A marked movement among the Jews, with (4) the fulness of the Gentiles. (5) A singularly unresting state of society, with (6) a daring development of iniquity and (7) a confident sense of false security. These seven indications must be studied in the light of seven conspicuous passages of Scripture, such as Matt, xxiv., Luke xxi., Rom. xi., 2 Thess. ii., 2 Peter iii., 2 Tim. iii., and Jude.

It may be well to add that, if such conclusion hung upon any one of these signs alone, it might be more than doubtful; but, when all these unite, they serve as far safer guides; as a cable may be unbreakable, any one of whose separate strands would easily part under severe tension.

Thoughtful observers of events, who are at the same time prayerful students of Scripture, have come to feel that there is a manifold and remarkable preparation for the “Parousia” or personal coming of Christ; and that the existing state of both the church and the world seems to demand His coming as the only solution of the problems of prophecy and of history.

The present drift of society is toward _anarchy_, a drift that has been peculiarly rapid during the last quarter-century. Socialism, communism, nihilism, and the hot battle between capital and labor, monopoly and poverty, are the dominant facts and forces in this war, now being waged, with increasing violence and desperateness, against all government. There is also a strong drift in the church toward _apostasy_. Witness the advance of Romanism, ritualism, and rationalism, even in Protestant churches and communities. In society at large there is a corresponding advance of materialism, agnosticism, and infidelity; and the polite disguises of science, culture, and criticism do not hide the true features and forms which they clothe, but can not conceal.

Who can fail to see the trend of the Jews toward national rehabilitation and the colonization of Palestine, while at the same time the church is fettered by secularism on the one hand and skepticism on the other? Side by side with these signs there is the opening of the world to the Gospel, the world-wide circulation of the Bible in over four hundred tongues, the network of missionary societies wrapping the globe, and the uprising of Christian young men and women in an unparalleled crusade of missions. All these are like fingers all pointing in one direction—the Sunrise of the Ages.

Many other Scriptures, besides those already cited, startle us from our apathy, especially when we compare them. Take, for example, Matt, xiii. and Rev. ii.-iii. The seven parables in the former and the seven letters to the churches in the latter appear to correspond chronologically. In Matthew, the last scene shows the _dragnet_—the obvious metaphor for world-wide evangelization. In the Apocalypse, the last rebuke is to _Laodicea_—the self-deceived and self-sufficient church, that shuts in worldliness and shuts out Christ. When in history did those two conditions ever meet as they do now? On one hand a wealthy, self-satisfied, lukewarm Christianity, and on the other a casting of the Gospel net into the world sea, and gathering of every kind of fish! For the first time in this gospel age, ecclesiastical degeneracy and evangelistic activity curiously blending—fulfilling before our eyes our Lord’s paradox—world-wide witness side by side with love waxing cold!

One remark may be added as to the “times of the Gentiles.”

There is a remarkable consensus of opinion that it is from Nebuchadnezzar—the world king and head of gold—that the “times of the gentiles” date. His time was about 600 B.C. If the “seven times” or seven years, of Dan. iv. 25, represent, as is supposed, seven periods of 360 years each (or seven times twelve months of thirty year-days), then the full seven times from Nebuchadnezzar to the end would be 2,520 years, and reckoning from 600 B.C. this brings us to 1920 A.D., or thereabouts. These 2,520 years appear to be divided into two exactly equal periods of 1,260 years each, or “forty and two months,” or “a time, times and half a time” (_i.e._, three and a half of these prophetic years) (Rev. xi. 2, 3., and xii. 14).

As to the filling up of the 1,260 days of the latter half, the historic correspondences are so remarkable that at least ten different methods of computation seem to point to the same precise period—an interval of time lying somewhere between 1880 and 1920, the uncertainty of the exact time of the end resulting from the difficulty of fixing the exact date of the beginning. But it is this convergence of prophetic and historic times at some point within these forty years which has awakened such a widespread interest in the imminence of our Lord’s coming. And, surely, as our Lord has taught us, if it behooves us to observe the signs of the weather, we should not be indifferent to the signs on God’s greater horizon, which to watchful souls indicate the approach of the day of the Lord (Matt. xvi. 1-3).

Upon the ten different methods of computation referred to above, it may be well to expand a little, without committing oneself to the positions taken. No one, however, can appreciate the argument, whatever be its worth, who does not understand the _numerical system_ which manifestly pervades the whole Word of God, and which constitutes a sort of mathematical framework upon which the whole written Revelation is constructed; and not only so, but this same numerical structure pervades also all the works of God in Creation, and all the workings of God in human history. Astronomy, chemistry, botany, biology, theology, all obey one mathematical law, and it must be a prejudiced mind that refuses to recognize this fact. The orbits of the planets and the spiral course of the leaf-buds on the trees, the proportions and dimensions of crystals, the octaves of sound and of color—these and many other operations, forces and forms of nature conform to strict mathematical laws. From Sirius down to the invisible atom there is a uniform system, and it tells of the one Designer and Creator. Once let this fact be admitted and it becomes no novelty to us to find evidences of similar mathematical precision in the periods of history. Let us, therefore, in conclusion, glance at the various positions taken by devout students of history and prophecy, and impartially survey the outlook from their points of view.

1. The first method of computation, already referred to, as fixing the present period as approximately “the time of the end” is known as “the times of the Gentiles,” seven times, or years, each consisting of 360 year-days, or a sum-total of 2,620 years. Of this period, Professor Totten, of New Haven, following the lead of the British Chronological Association, says:

“Nabopolassar shook off the yoke of Assyria, and, by thus assuming the crown of Babylon, commenced the ‘times of the Gentiles.’ His accession took place in the seventh civil (first sacred) month of the year 3377 A.M. The ‘times of the Gentiles’ therefore ran out 2,520 years thereafter, or in March, 5897 A.M. (A.D. 1899).”

Thus by another method of computing the times of the Gentiles, he arrives at the present period as at least the beginning of the end.

“Joshua’s Long Day was the last day in broad prophetic chronology which is to be wholly counted as _solar_ time. Since that day, the millenaries have been ‘shortened’ to _lunar_ years. The sum of the 2,555¼+ ‘long’ or solar years up to that day, and the 3,444¾+ ‘shortened’ or lunar years, from thence to the vernal equinox of 1899 A.D., is exactly 6,000, and accurately terminates the sixth millennary since creation.”

2. Secondly, the _Sabbatic system_, impressed on the whole face of Scripture history, affords, as many think, a very obvious key to the divine chronology. This Sabbatic system reaches back to Eden and characterizes the whole annals of the world. There was first consecrated the seventh _day_, then the seventh _week_, then the seventh _month_, then the seventh _year_, then the seventh _seven_ of years—introducing the “jubilee”—then the seventh _seventy_ of years, the Grand Jubilee. This number 7 × 70, or 490, appears in at least two conspicuous places, 1 Kings vi. 1, where, adding the ten years of the temple building to the 480, between the exodus and the beginning of the work, we have 490; and, in Daniel ix. 24, where again the seven sevens reappear, as the sacred typical number, between the exodus from the captivity and the building of the new spiritual temple of God under the Messiah. This number 490 is doubly a type of completeness: it is not only the product of 7 multiplied by 70, but of 7 times 7 (49), the interval from jubilee to jubilee, multiplied by 10—another sacred number. These jubilee periods must be obviously reckoned from the time of _Moses_, when the law of the jubilee first appears. And, counting the exodus from 2515 A.M., the full seven periods of 490, or 3,430 years, would bring us to 5945 A.M., or somewhere this side of the middle of the next century as its extreme limit; and, if the years are to be reckoned by the _prophetic-year_ standard of 360 days (twelve equal months of thirty days each) the limit would be somewhere about 1898, so that by this method again the “beginning of the end” has already come.

3. A third method of computation, “_The Millennial Standard_,” is thought to point to the same approximate terminus. “One day is with the Lord as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day” (2 Peter iii. 8). This is regarded by many as another not very obscure hint as to God’s chronology, and they therefore reason that the predicted millennium or thousand years of Sabbatic rest, crowning the six millenniums of a world’s toil, can not be far off.

4. The fourth method of computation is “_the historical_.” The number 1,260 (“forty-two months,” “a time, times, and half a time”) is as we have already seen, conspicuous both in Daniel and in Revelation.

Those who accept the “historical” method of interpreting the Apocalypse believe that the beast and the false prophet represent the Papacy and Mohammedanism, or the crucifix and the crescent. They maintain that it is a curious fact, to say the least, that both these systems date from the period between 606 and 620 (the decree of Phocas and the first Hegira) as the _terminus a quo_, and, adding 1,260, they reach again a _terminus ad quem_ somewhere between 1866 and 1886 as “the beginning of the end” of these systems, as world powers or kingdoms.

5. A fifth mode of computation is that of the “_Antichrist Period_.” The number, 666, is divinely given as the number of the _lawless one_ (ὁ ἀνομος, ὁ ἀναρχος) who is to be revealed in the last week of years. This number, thus inseparably linked with the man of sin, in whom personally all the Antichristian systems of history are to “head up,” is thought by many to stand for the period of the race’s rebellion, and to be the symbolic number of perpetual unrest and incompleteness. There is a show of reason in this, for 666 is a repeating decimal that ever approaches, but never reaches, _seven_, the number of completeness and rest. Six times this number 666 gives 3,996, the grand crisis—the year of Christ’s birth, reckoning from creation; and again, reckoning from Abraham’s birth, as father of the faithful, brings us to the beginning of this century as a new crisis in history.

6. A sixth road by which the same terminus is reached is the “condition of _world-witness_” (see Matt, xxiv. 14, Mark xiii. 10). Christ distinctly stated that the Gospel must first be published among all nations, and preached as a witness to all nations, and then would come the END. With no little force many argue that there never was a period of such world-wide evangelism as now. Over three hundred missionary societies at work, about twelve thousand missionary workers, and nearly fifty thousand native helpers, engaged; the Bible translated into over four hundred tongues, etc., and “published to all nations.” It is also very noticeable that the motto of the present“crusade” is “The evangelization of the world in this generation!”

7. A seventh mode of computing is that of the _Laodicean lukewarmness_. By a comparison of Matt. xiii. 47-50 and Rev. iii. 14-22, it will be seen that the last state of the “_kingdom_,” previous to the end, is world-wide evangelism, as indicated by the dragnet; and the last state of the _church_ is deep-seated apathy, as indicated by the Laodicean lukewarmness. And those who hold this view contend that both conditions are to coexist as the end draws nigh. They point us to the startling fact that _never before_ has the church shown signs of such extensive evangelization on the one hand, and such extensive deterioration on the other. Many regard this latter as the “falling away,” which is to precede the end (2 Thess. ii. 3).

8. An eighth road seems to end at the same goal—it is the _development of anarchism_. The hints in the Epistles to the Thessalonians, 2 Peter, Jude, and the Apocalypse, it is contended, all agree in showing us that, as the end approaches, there will be a peculiarly lawless spirit prevailing—an uprising of an organized resistance to all authority in church and state, a combination of forces to supplant all government, and at the same time an arbitrary attempt to compel men to limit even trade and commerce by a certain “mark,” that alone authorizes one to “buy or sell” (Rev. xiii. 16, 17). Those who emphasize this as a sign of the end point triumphantly to the recent and unprecedented growth of communism, socialism, and nihilism; and to the simultaneous growth of trades-unions and protective organizations, monopolies and trusts, which restrict all trade or labor to their “mark.”

9. The ninth argument presented for the near approach of the end is _Irredentism_ or the drift of the Jews toward Palestine, and the rehabilitation of their national life. This is, as the advocates of this view contend, “the blossoming of the fig-tree” (Matt. xxiv. 32, 33), which marks the end as “near, even at the doors.” Certainly there is something very startling in the modern movement known as “Zionism,” and which has developed within the last five years, summoning these great conferences of leading Jews to the European capitals. Never before has the national spirit of the Israelites had such a revival since Christ ascended.