epudiated chiliasm, but also
rejected the Revelation of John as an untrustworthy book, and subjected
it to sharp criticism. These were the so-called Alogi.[626] But in the
second century such Christians were still in the minority in the Church.
It was only in the course of the third century that chiliasm was almost
completely ousted in the East. This was the result of the Montanistic
controversy and the Alexandrian theology. In the West, however, it was
only threatened. In this Church the first literary opponent of chiliasm
and of the Apocalypse appears to have been the Roman Presbyter Caius.
But his polemic did not prevail. On the other hand the learned bishops
of the East in the third century used their utmost efforts to combat and
extirpate chiliasm. The information given to us by Eusebius (H. E. VII.
24), from the letters of Dionysius of Alexandria, about that father's
struggles with whole communities in Egypt, who would not give up
chiliasm, is of the highest interest. This account shews that wherever
philosophical theology had not yet made its way the chiliastic hopes
were not only cherished and defended against being explained away, but
were emphatically regarded as Christianity itself.[627] Cultured
theologians were able to achieve the union of chiliasm and religious
philosophy; but the "simplices et idiotae" could only understand the
former. As the chiliastic hopes were gradually obliged to recede in
exactly the same proportion as philosophic theology became naturalised,
so also their subsidence denotes the progressive tutelage of the laity.
The religion they understood was taken from them, and they received in
return a faith they could not understand; in other words, the old faith
and the old hopes decayed of themselves and the _authority_ of a
mysterious faith took their place. In this sense the extirpation or
decay of chiliasm is perhaps the most momentous fact in the history of
Christianity in the East. With chiliasm men also lost the living faith
in the nearly impending return of Christ, and the consciousness that the
prophetic spirit with its gifts is a real possession of Christendom.
Such of the old hopes as remained were at most particoloured harmless
fancies which, when allowed by theology, were permitted to be added to
dogmatics. In the West, on the contrary, the millennial hopes retained
their vigour during the whole third century; we know of no bishop there
who would have opposed chiliasm. With this,