| Summary: | <p>Patristic exegesis of the Apocalypse from Papias to Eusebius falls into three categories. They are (1) chiliastic (or anti-chiliastic), (2) eschatological and (3) christocentric. The interpretations arise in different contexts and are difficult to reconcile with one another. It is sometimes possible to find both the eschatological and the christological exegeses in the same author (Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Methodius, Victorinus). The chiliastic interpretation is interested only in Apoc 20-22. It arises in the Jewish Christian context and firmly professes belief in a one-thousand-year-reign of Christ on earth (Cerinthus, Nepos, Justin). It opts for a `realistic' - i.e. a concrete and historical - future fulfilment of Apoc 20:2-7. It foresees a restoration of the terrestrial Jerusalem and of paradise. The restoration of paradise extends even to the primordial subjection of the animals to man (Irenaeus and perhaps Papias). The second interpretation of the Apocalypse is eschatological. It arises in response to Hellenisers (Gnostics, Marcion, Hermogenes) who spiritualise the Christian theology of the resurrection of the body and discard the Old Testament. As with the first interpretation, its interpretation of the Apocalypse tends towards literalism. It is usually chiliastic (Justin, Irenaeus, Tertullian) but sometimes more ambivalent (Hippolytus). The judaising interpretation emphasized the restoration of the earth and the enjoyment of the afterlife. The eschatological interpretation emphasises rather the sequence of events leading up to the afterlife, including the coming of the Antichrist, the death of the two witnesses, the eschatological wars, and the two resurrections, as well as the final judgement, damnation of the impious, and new Jerusalem (Irenaeus, Tertullian, Hippolytus, Victorinus). An aside by Justin and passages in the Gallican Martyrs and Irenaeus suggest that a nonchiliastic interpretation of the Apocalypse also had its second-century adherents. This third interpretation is christocentric and church-centred. Above all, it reads the Apocalypse as the ongoing self-revelation of Jesus Christ to his saints. It presupposes that the text is a coherent whole: it does not restrict itself to chapter 20-22 like the chiliasts and their opponents, nor to the eschatological passages of chapters 11-20 like the anti-Hellenistic writers. It typically interprets the symbols and events of the Apocalypse figuratively and typologically. It treats the text as a realised - not a future - eschatology, and sees the millennium as beginnning with the first coming of Christ (Irenaeus, The Martyrs of Lyons and Vienne, Cyprian) or even symbolising the Old Economy (Origen).</p>
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