Continuity of the hope of the millennium in the first centuries of the Church

Abstract

This article aims to show the development in the exegesis of Rev: 20 about the possibility of an intrahistorical kingdom from the notion of the “millennium”. Excluding carnal and explicitly millenarian interpretations, especially with Papias de Hierapolis and then with Irenaeus of Lyons, the question of an intrahistorical millennium gains strength. In spite of the animosity of Jerome of Stridon and Augustine of Hippo, it is directed in particular to the carnal and millenarian deviations of some authors who did not faithfully reflect the tradition of the Church. In general, the possibility of an intrahistoric plenitude of spiritual nature has been supported or at least never flatly denied in the first centuries of the Church.