BIBLE TOPICS

No doctrine could illustrate this contrast more graphically than that of the immortal soul. Old and New Testament alike teach that man is mortal, destined for oblivion and extinction apart from the grace of God. The Greek Platonists and the main body of the Christian Church teach that man possess immortality as an innate part of his being, a doctrine profoundly flattering to man's ego, and nothing less than a perpetuation of the first lie recorded in the Bible, "Ye shall not surely die" (Genesis 3 v 4).

It was this anti-Christian doctrine of the immortality of the soul which undermined another vital Bible doctrine, namely that of the Millennium. The expectation of the Millennium, a divine political kingdom on earth to last for a thousand years, was the corner stone of the first-century faith. As the historians record:

'That the Saviour is to reign a thousand years among men before the end of the world, has been believed by many in the preceding century ... In this (third) century the Millennarian doctrine fell into disrepute through the influence especially of Origen, who opposed it because it contravened some of his opinions' (Mosheim, Cent. 3, Pt 2 ch 3, sect.12).

'The ancient and popular doctrine of the Millennium was immediately connected with the second coming of Christ ... Though it might not be universally received, it appears to have been the reigning sentiment of the orthodox believers ... But when the edifice of the church was almost completed, the temporary support was laid aside. The doctrine of Christ's reign upon earth was at first treated as a profound allegory, was considered by degrees as a doubtful and useless opinion, and was at length rejected as the absurd invention of heresy and fanaticism' (Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ch 15).

This doctrine, known as millenarianism or chiliasm (from the Latin and Greek words for one thousand respectively) has cropped up again and again throughout western history among minorities condemned by the church as heretical, notably among Anabaptists of the sixteenth century. Churchmen have admitted its explicit New Testament foundation (' ... the expectation of the New Testament is still that of a return of Christ to the earth, a heavenly kingdom to come on earth ...' - Bishop Gore, 'Belief in Christ') and dismissed it as 'part of the hocus pocus of Christian doctrine' (Bishop Barnes). Intimately connected with the hope of resurrection, the doctrine of the millennium cannot be reconciled with the concept of immediate reward at death, in some extra-terrestrial sphere. Significantly enough, Mosheim attributes the initial decline of this doctrine to 'the influence especially of Origen' (the champion of Platonism) 'who opposed it because it contravened some of his opinions'.

Christian Life in the First Century