Postmillennialism - Amillennialism On Steroids
Bad Eschatology - Part 10
After AD 1000, Augustine's Amillennialism started to look a bit frayed at the edges. Many of his predictions remained unfulfilled and some Amillennialists were beginning to ask questions. Premillennialists weren't able to answer any of those, because they were too busy being burned at the stake by the Roman Catholic Church. And anyway, the RCC was skilled at redefining 'what God actually meant' and keeping the peasants in line.
Then came the Protestant Reformation, which meant that the Pope began losing control of the debate. So, Rome launched a counter attack - unleashing every kind of dirty trick possible. They created Preterism and even an early form of pretrib rapture - which the Pope didn't like very much. The Pontiff also unleashed the Jesuits against European monarchies, which was so successful that Europe started pushing back hard - leading to the temporary disbanding of the Jesuits by the 'Holy See' in 1773. But, let's get back to Postmillennialism.
The questions about Amillennialism never went away, and some tried to put a positive spin on this eschatology by saying that Amillennialism wasn't wrong because the symbolic Millennium taught by Augustine hadn't started yet. And it was an Anglican Priest, Daniel Whitby, that set the ball in motion in his book, A Paraphrase and Commentary on the New Testament - first published in 1703 in two volumes. (And yes, that is a link to Walmart.)
It was at the end of the second volume of this commentary, where Whitby proposed a 'New Hypothesis' about the Millennium. I was able to find a downloadable copy of that book and skimmed through what he said about this new idea. His commentary on the subject starts at page 1698 of the pdf.
FULL ARTICLE AT: Postmillennialism - Amillennialism On Steroids Bad Eschatology - Part 10
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