June 10, 2023

499 Early Church History 17: The Kingdom of God in Early Christianity

49 minutes

This is part 17 of the Early Church History class.

Throughout the first five hundred years of Christian history, a significant shift occurred in what we believed about our ultimate destiny. The New Testament and the early church fathers repeatedly expressed belief in God’s kingdom coming to earth. Over time, however, this idea gave way to the more recognizable medieval dichotomy of heaven or hell immediately at death. In this episode you’ll learn who the major players were on both sides of this struggle as well as the main reasons why Christianity ultimately rejected the kingdom.

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—— Notes ——

The Kingdom of God is the idea that the Messiah Jesus will come back to earth, resurrect the saved, and initiate an age of restoration, eventually making everything wrong with the world right. We find robust belief in this idea in the New Testament; however, by the Middle Ages, heaven or hell at death had entirely replaced the Kingdom idea.

Kingdom Believers

First Century

Didache 8.2; 9.4; 10.5; 16.7-8

Clement of Rome, 1 Clement 42.3; 50.3

Psuedo-Barnabas, Epistle of Barnabas 1.7; 6.13; 10.11; 15.4-5

Second Century

Ignatius of Antioch, Epistle to the Ephesians 16.1

Polycarp of Smyrna, Epistle to the Philippians 5.2; 11.2

Hermas, Similitude 9.15.2-3; 9.20.2-3

Pseudo-Clement; 2 Clement 5.5; 9.6; 11.7; 12.1, 6; 17.4-5

Papias of Hierapolis, cited in Irenaeus, Against Heresies 5.33.3-4; see also Jerome, Lives of Illustrious Men 18

Justine Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 80

Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies 5.32-5.36

Third Century

Hippolytus, On Genesis Fragment 3; On Daniel 2.4; Scholia of Daniel 7.22; Treatise on Christ and Antichrist 65

Commodian, Instructions 29; 33; 34; 35; 44

Nepos of Egypt, cited in Eusebius, The Church History 7.24.1

Victorinus, Commentary on Revelation 1.5, 15; 14.15; 20.2, 5, 6 (Greek version

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By Sean P Finnegan

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