Ancient Christian Witness

"Cerinthus, a traditional opponent of St. John. It will
probably always remain an open question whether his fundamentally Ebionite
sympathies inclined him to accept Jewish rather than gnostic additions. Modern
scholarship has therefore preferred to view his doctrine as a fusing together
and incorporating in a single system tenets collected from Jewish, Oriental, and
Christian sources; but the nature of that doctrine is sufficiently clear, and
its opposition to the instruction of St. John as decided ad that of the
Nicolaitanes. Cerinthus was of Egyptian origin, and in religion a Jew. He
received his education in the Judaeo-Philonic school of Alexandria. On leaving
Egypt he visited Jerusalem Caesarea, and Antioch. From Palestine he passed into
Asia and there developed της αυτου απωλειας βαραθρον (Epiph. xxviii. 2).
Galatia, according to the same authority, was selected as his headquarters,
whence he circulated his errors. On one of his journeys he arrived at Ephesus,
and met St. John in the public baths. The Apostle, hearing who was there, fled
from the place as if for life, crying to those about him: "Let us flee, lest the
bath fall in while Cerinthus, the enemy of the truth, is there."
.....................skipped a paragraph........Unlike Simon Magus and Menander,
Cerinthus did not claim a sacred and mystic power. Caius the Presbyter can only
assert against him that he pretended to angeilic revelations (Eus., Theod.). But
his mind, like theirs, brooded over the co-existence of good and evil, spirit
and matter; and his scheme seems intended to free the "unknown God" and the
Christ from the bare imputation of infection through contact with nature and
man. Trained as he was in the philosophy of Philo, the Gnosis of Cerinthus did
not of necessity compel him to start from -opposition- in the sense of
malignity-of evil to good, matter to spirit. He recognized opposition in the
sense of difference between the one active perfect principle of life-God-and
that lower imperfect passive existence which was dependent upon God; but this
fell far short of malignity. He therefore conceived the material world to have
been formed not by "the First God," but by angelic Beings of an inferior grade
of Emanation (Epiph.). More precisely still he described the main agent as a
certain power (δυναμις) separate and distinct from the "principality" (η υπερ τα
ολα αυθεντεια, V. Suicer, Thes.s.v. αυθ.) and ignorant of τον υπερ
παντα θεον. He refused in the spirit of a true Jew to consider the "God of the
Jews" identical with that author of the material world who was alleged by
Gnostic teachers to be inferior and evil. He preferred to identify him with the
Angel who delivered the Law (Epiph. and Philastr.). Neander and Ewald have
pointed out that these are legitimate deductions from the teaching of Philo. The
conception is evidently that of an age when hereditary and instinctive reverence
for the law served as a check upon the system maker. Cerinthus is a long way
from the bolder and more hostile schools of later
Gnosticism.................skipped a paragraph..............The Chiliastic
eschatology of Cerinthus is very clearly stated by Theodoret, Caius,
Dionysius(Eus.), and Augustine, but not alluded to by Irenaeus. His silence need
perhaps cause no surprise: Irenaeus was himself a chiliast of the spiritual
school, and in his notes upon Cerinthus he is only careful to mention what was
peculiar to his system. The conception of Cerinthus was highly coloured. In his
"dream" and phantasy the Lord shall have an earthly Kingdom in which the elect
are to enjoy pleasures, feasts, marriages, and sacrifices. Its capital is
Jerusalem and its duration 1000 years: thereafter shall ensue the restoration of
all things. Cerinthus derived this notion from Jewish sources. His notions of
eschatology are radically Jewish: they may have originated, but do not
contain, the Valentinian notion of a spiritual marriage between the souls of the
elect and the Angels of the Pleroma.
Other peculiar features of his teaching may be noted.
He held that if a man died unbaptized, another was to be baptized in his stead
and in his name, that at the day of resurrection he might not suffer punishment
nd be made subject to the εξουσια κοσμοποιος (cf. I. Cor. xv. 29). He had
learned at Alexandria to distinguish between the different degrees of
inspiration, and attributed to different Angels the dictation severally of the
words of Moses and of the Prophets; ......................skipped a
paragraph................The Chiliasm of Cerinthus was an exaaeration of
language so ingenuously as the Apocalpse. The conclusion was easy that Cerinthus
had but ascribed the Apocalypse to the Apostle to obtain credit and currency for
his own forgery. The "Alogi" argued upon similar grounds against the Fourth
Gospel. It did not agree with the Synoptists, and though it did not agree with
the Synoptists, and though it disagreed in every possible way with the alleged
doctrines of Cerinthus, yet the false-hearted author of the Apocalypse was, they
asserted, certainly the writer of the Gospel."

"(6) He also wrote a dialogue against the Jews, which he
held at Ephesus with Tryphon, the most distinguished among the Hebrews of his
day. In this he showed how the divine grace stimulated him to this discourse on
the faith, what zeal also he had before evinced in the studies of philosophy,
and what indefatigable research he had applied in the discovery of the
truth."

"(11)The same historian also gave other accounts, which he
said he added as received by him from unwritten tradition, likewise certain
strange parables by him from unwritten tradition, likewise certain strange
parables of our Lord, of his doctrine, and some other matters rather too
incredible. (12) In these he said there would be a millennium after the
resurrection and that there would be a corporeal reign of Christ on this very
earth which things he appeared to have imagined as if they were authorized by
the apostolic narrations, not understanding correctly those matters which they
propounded mystically in their representations. (13) He was very limited in his
comprehension, as is evident from his discourses; yet he was the cause why most
of the ecclesiastical writers, urging the antiquity of the man, were carried
away by a similar opinion, as, for instance, Irenaeus, or any other who adopted
such sentments."

Jason said:
"If there's an eighth day, then the seventh
probably does have a limit on it."

"If any day would be most different from the others, we
would expect it to be the eighth, the last day. Six thousand years, followed by
a millennial kingdom, followed by an eternal eighth day would make sense in a
premillennial framework, and we know that referring to the millennial kingdom as
a seventh day was popular among the ante-Nicene fathers."

"See the other passages I've cited from the ante-Nicene
fathers above."

"I agree that there's some room for reasonable doubt about
the premillennialism of Pseudo-Barnabas, but the weight of probability still
favors it."

"It's doubtful that he was using such a common premillennial
manner of describing world history, at a time when premillennialism was so
popular, yet meant it in a non-premillennial sense."

"The fact that we don't have much to go by doesn't change
the fact that what we have favors a location outside of Asia Minor. Even if we
left the matter undecided, the presence of premillennialism in such an early
source that can't be tied to Asia Minor should caution us against associating
the doctrine with that region to the degree that you've done so."

"The fact that they traveled West doesn't prove that they
had the influence you claim they had in spreading premillennialism when they
traveled. The fact that both were in Asia Minor for part of their life before
traveling West doesn't prove that they derived their premillennialism from Asia
Minor. How do you know that Justin didn't attain his premillennialism in Israel,
prior to going to Ephesus (if he went there, as Eusebius reports)?"

""The fact that a source is later in time than Justin and
Irenaeus doesn't prove that he attained his premillennialism by means of the
influence of Justin and Irenaeus. And you aren't addressing what I said about
the unlikelihood that people in other regions would keep accepting
premillennialism when they already had an established contrary eschatology from
another apostolic source or multiple apostolic sources."

"If premillennialism doesn't require "giving up much", then
why would it be considered a heresy? If it requires "giving up" something, even
if it's not much, you should explain why people who already had an apostolic
eschatology would keep giving that eschatology up in favor of another
eschatology with less apostolic support."

"And you haven't just been arguing that premillennialism had
"extra info" that another apostolic eschatology didn't have. Rather, you
referred to the alleged erroneous nature of premillennialism that people
objected to. You wrote:"

"This is one of the reasons why ancient PM was disliked by
most christians in other regions. They saw it as too carnal.....just like how
Islam is carnal in how it views heaven...Thus the Millenium was
'spiritualized/Allegoricalized' Along with it's carnal understanding of 'super
foods'." (source)

"We were discussing the status of early premillennialism,
not whether anybody was non-premillennial early on. I haven't denied that some
ante-Nicene sources rejected premillennialism."

"But Clement of Rome's belief that "Christ reigns right now
over His enemies" doesn't contradict premillennialism. It's not as though
premillennialists believe that Christ has no rulership before or after the
millennium. The issue is the nature of the rulership at different times in
history."

"That's note 41 of a later commentator, not canon 41 of the
council. Premillennialism continued among some mainstream Christians after First
Constantinople. Augustine, for example, was a premillennialist in his early days
as a Christian. For other examples, see Brian Daley's discussion in Everett
Ferguson, ed., Encyclopedia Of Early Christianity (New York: Garland Publishing,
Inc., 1999), p. 240. The note 41 you've cited claims that a portion of the
council's creed alluding to Luke 1:33 is meant to condemn a particular form of
premillennialism that was different from the form accepted by more orthodox
sources like Papias. Would you explain how you get from those comments in note
41 to the conclusion that this council condemned premillennialism in
general?"

[in regards to me posting my sources] "And you often
don't."

"That's not all you said. You also referred to one apostolic
eschatology "trumping" another, proponents of the different eschatologies
"arguing" and "bumping heads", etc. You compared the alleged differences between
John and the other apostolic sources to the differences between the apostles and
"the Circumcision group" in Acts 15, where contradiction was involved. In this
thread, you've referred to how those going from one apostolic eschatology to
another would have to give something up, though supposedly not "much"."

"How does your citation of that group justify your claim
that Revelation was rejected by most Christians? Does that group qualify as most
Christians of the timeframe we're discussing? No."

"In other words, you can't demonstrate that your earlier
claims about Justin and Irenaeus are probable. All you can do is suggest
possible scenarios in which the claim would be true."

"He also lived in other places and had access to documents
and individuals from other locations, so he could have been influenced by
sources outside of Asia Minor or by some combination of the two."

"Gene has already explained how your earlier claims implied
an error on the part of the apostle John."

"If the Asia Minor tradition doesn't represent what the
apostle John taught, then why are you referring to it as an apostolic
tradition?"

"Why did you use such a comparison if you didn't mean to
suggest that the apostles disagreed with each other? And why did you also cite
the disagreement in Acts 15 between the apostles and those arguing for
circumcision?"

"Why would you relate premillennialism to John's having
lived and died in that region if John didn't teach premillennialism?"

"If there's no apostolic disagreement, then why does one
apostle or group of apostles "trump" another?"

"If your eschatology is "equally ancient" in comparison to
premillennialism, then the implication is that both go back to the
apostles"

"I don't think the problem is that we're being unreasonable
in how we interpret your comments. Rather, you seem to keep changing your
arguments or communicating poorly or both."

"I've explained that I was citing ante-Nicene sources.
Eusebius of Caesarea isn't usually classified as such. And, again, I haven't
denied that there were people who opposed premillennialism, especially as more
time passed."

"I know. I cited the passage where he comments on the
subject. But we have no reason to conclude that those people were a
majority."

"I've acknowledged that some people rejected the canonicity
of Revelation. I'm not asking you for documentation of that fact. Rather, I'm
asking for documentation of your assertion that a majority rejected Revelation's
canonicity. You still haven't provided such documentation."

"I know, but that's irrelevant to the issue at hand. He
accepted the canonicity of the book."

"But you don't explain why. I explained why I view the
document as I do. Why don't you interact with what I wrote on the
subject?"

"How so?

"I didn't say that premillennialism was widespread by that
time. But, since you've brought the issue up, yes, I do believe it was
widespread by that time. Later sources who advocate premillennialism cite
earlier sources who did the same, and some of those earlier sources date to
around the time of The Epistle Of Barnabas. Justin Martyr's Dialogue With Trypho
wasn't written until a little past the middle of the second century, but the
debate he recounts in that document occurred around the year 135. In that
debate, Justin refers to premillennialism as if it's a widely held belief
(Dialogue With Trypho, 80). Trypho's knowledge of premillennialism and Justin's
references to disputes on the subject among professing Christians suggest that
the doctrine was known and discussed for a long time prior to Justin's debate
with Trypho. Similarly, Irenaeus refers to disciples of the apostle John who
advocated the doctrine (Against Heresies, 5:33:3-4)."

"But you haven't given us any good reason to "take the
Epistle of Barnabas out of the picture". And Justin Martyr tells us that the
doctrine was already widely known and discussed, both by Christians and
non-Christians, around the year 135. I cited The Epistle Of Barnabas as an
example of early premillennialism outside of Asia Minor, but it's not the only
example."

"But you haven't given us any good reason to "take the
Epistle of Barnabas out of the picture". And Justin Martyr tells us that the
doctrine was already widely known and discussed, both by Christians and
non-Christians, around the year 135. I cited The Epistle Of Barnabas as an
example of early premillennialism outside of Asia Minor, but it's not the only
example."

"There's no evidence that would lead us to your "decent
guess". It's an unverifiable speculation that you've come up with as a result of
a desire to lessen the significance of the widespread acceptance of
premillennialism. And you still aren't explaining why so many people who
allegedly had a contrary eschatology from other apostles and a larger number of
apostles would give up their eschatology in order to adopt premillennialism.
What does such a scenario, in which Christian leaders in so many locations keep
abandoning their apostolic eschatology in favor of a false eschatology, suggest
about the degree of credibility you've been assigning to the Christians of the
patristic era?"

"Regarding the Quartodeciman controversy, I suspect that
there were differing apostolic traditions on that issue, partly because of what
I mentioned in the other thread. The apostles considered such holiday
observances a matter of freedom (Romans 14:5-6). The differing traditions are
early and credible, and I see no reason to deny that different sources received
different traditions from the apostolic church."

"But premillennialism is a doctrinal matter. The apostolic
documents and the early post-apostolic sources suggest that the apostles were
united in their doctrine."

"You referred to one eschatological tradition coming from
John and another coming from men like Paul and Peter."

"If Revelation was written in the last decade of the first
century, as I believe, then John wrote around 30 years after Paul and Peter had
died. He surely knew what their eschatology was, and what they had taught would
have been widespread by the time John wrote. "

"If he had been proposing an eschatology contrary to theirs,
I would expect to see many and explicit traces of that conflict in the
historical record. Instead, the mainstream approach toward eschatology was to
treat all of the apostolic sources as harmonious. And the disciples of John
speak highly of the other leaders of the apostolic church, such as Paul and
Mark."

"The early opponents of premillennialism don't seem to claim
the same degree of extra-Biblical confirmation of their eschatology as the early
premillennialists claimed for theirs. Papias and Irenaeus refer to men from the
apostolic generation (apostolic leaders or those who knew them) teaching
premillennialism outside of scripture. I'm not aware of any comparable claim
from the early opponents of premillennialism, related to their eschatology. Both
the widespread acceptance of premillennialism early on and the nature of the
claims made about its history by its proponents suggest to me that it's more
likely to be the eschatology of the apostles."

Jason said:
"Jnorm888, an Eastern Orthodox poster, has
been making some dubious, undocumented claims about the history of
premillennialism."

Jason said:
"He's argued that the apostles taught
contradictory views of eschatology, that premillennialism came from John,
whereas men like Paul and Mark taught a different eschatology."

Jason said:
"He's claimed that the canonicity of
Revelation was rejected by most Christians for a while."

Jason said:
"And he's claimed that a sixth-century
ecumenical council condemned premillennialism."

Jason said:
"Premillennialists like Justin Martyr and
Irenaeus lived in multiple locations, so how does Jnorm know where they acquired
their premillennialism, and how does he know that such men had the role he
claims they had in spreading premillennialism?"

Jason said:
"Here are some examples of ante-Nicene
sources who advocated premillennialism while living outside of Asia Minor:

Pseudo-Barnabas (The Epistle Of Barnabas, 15)
Justin Martyr
(Dialogue With Trypho, 80)
Irenaeus (Against Heresies, 5:28:3, 5:33:2-4)
Tertullian (Against Marcion, 3:24)
Hippolytus (On Daniel, 2:4)
Cyprian (section 2 in the preface and chapter 11 in Treatise 11, On the
Exhortation to Martyrdom)
Nepos (Eusebius, Church History, 7:24)
Commodianus (Writings, 44)
Victorinus (On The Creation Of The World)
Lactantius (The Divine Institutes, 7:14"

Elsewhere Jason said:
" The apostle John taught
premillennialism, but he was wrong. The Christians in Asia Minor "had a little
more detail about end time views that other regions didn't have. And they lost
the fight". Apparently, they were mistaken because they accepted the "details"
John gave them. The apostle led them astray."

Jason also said:
" The book of Revelation, which the
large majority of professing Christians today accept as canonical, was rejected
as uncanonical by most of the earliest Christians, and the book taught a false
view of eschatology. It can be reinterpreted in an orthodox manner, but the book
was initially written with the intention of conveying false eschatology."

Jason also said:
" The reason why men like Justin Martyr
and Irenaeus advocated premillennialism and spoke of it as if it was the
mainstream Christian view when they were outside of Asia Minor is because they
were at the forefront of spreading the belief to other regions. Apparently, men
like Tertullian, Hippolytus, and Cyprian accepted premillennialism under the
influence of men like Justin and Irenaeus. We aren't told why premillennialism
would be so widely accepted outside of Asia Minor if it had initially been
rejected in such places. We aren't told how Jnorm888 allegedly knows that the
doctrine was spread in the manner he suggests."

Jason said:
"The apostle John lived in Asia Minor, and
he wrote Revelation to some of the churches there. But premillennialism's origin
and prominence in that region don't imply some of the other conclusions Jnorm
has reached. Premillennialism is found early in Asia Minor (Papias), but also is
found early outside of Asia Minor (The Epistle Of Barnabas)."

Jason said:
"Premillennialism became much less popular
in later centuries, but it was widespread during the ante-Nicene era."

Jason said:
"A smaller number of mainstream ante-Nicene
sources opposed premillennialism, such as Origen and Dionysius of Alexandria,
but not with the sort of argumentation we're getting from Jnorm."

Jason said:
"The tendency was to classify apostolic
books as scripture, so acceptance of the apostolic status of Revelation tends to
suggest acceptance of the book as scripture. I can document that tendency, and I
can give examples of the citation of Revelation as scripture by such sources, if
Jnorm wants to dispute the point."