The concern for establishing orthodoxy over and against heresy has occupied the minds of theologians for nearly two millennia. Those claiming to possess the orthodox faith argue that their view goes back to the original faith demonstrated by the earliest followers of Jesus. Even today, many churches, denominations, and sects maintain that their particular views are the original beliefs and practices of the church. In other words, they claim authority and theological validity by identifying with what is often called “the apostolic faith.” Modern students of eschatology and prophetic matters are among those who boldly and valiantly hold to a particular scheme or system of interpretations. It is often heard in these circles that their particular views are the very same perspectives held by the earliest Christians, and is therefore the purest form of the faith. All opposing interpretations, it is regularly contended, are deviant, false, or severely misguided.
The purpose of this essay is to ascertain the eschatologies expounded by the earliest Christians, covering the most prominent theologians from the second to the fourth centuries CE. This historical survey will draw from the writings belonging to these early Christians, examine their hermeneutical methods, and group together similar perspectives. My aim is neither to accept nor reject any particular interpretation, but rather to simply record, from the perspective of a historian, what each theologian believed and taught. One of the hopes of such an inquiry is to establish in what sense “orthodoxy” can be pinned to certain figures in the early Christian writings.
While the consensus of biblical scholarship holds that numerology, the belief that there is a special or even perhaps divine relationship between numerals and events, is spurious, one might be surprised to know that it was practiced by many early Christian interpreters of the prophecies in the Book of Daniel. Justin Martyr, the philosopher turned Christian in the middle of the second century CE, is one example of a Christian who practices numerology. When regarding the “time, times, and a half of time” in Daniel 7:25, Justin interprets the phrase as follows:
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Author: Dustin R. Smith
Keywords: early church fathers, Patristic fathers, Justin Martyr, Clement, Origen, Tertullian, Daniel's Seventy Weeks, Seventy weeks, Seventy weeks prophecy, time times and a half time, heptads, sixty-two and a half weeks, APOLLINARIUS, Julius Africanus, Irenaeus, Eschatology, Early church, Clement of Alexandria
Bible reference(s): Daniel 7:25, Dan 9:24-27
Source: “Unity and Diversity in Early Church Interpretations of Eschatology,” Jounral of Biblical Unitarianism, Vol. 1, No. 1, Spring 2015, pp. 7-21.
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