THOUSAND, in Hebrew, Eleph; in Greek, Chilion; in Latin, Mille; a Number of ten Hundred, but it is often taken for a very great and indefinite Number. For example, the Lord sheweth Mercy to a thousand generations: A day in thy courts is Deut. v. 10. vii. 9. Psal. lxxxiv. 10. Psal. cv. 8. Rev. xx. 1, 2, 3, &c.better than a thousand. And again, He hath remembred his covenant for ever, the word which he commanded to a thousand generations. St. John, in his Revelation, says, And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit, and a great chain in his hand; and he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil and Satan, and bound him a thousand years. And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled; and after that he must be loosed a little season. And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them; and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded, for the witness of Jesus, and worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection.
Vide Euseb. Hist. Eccles. l. 3. c. 39. Apud. Euseb. Hist. Eccles. l. 3. c. 28.From these Passages, ill understood, proceeded the Opinion of the Millenaries, who thought that Jesus Christ was to reign with his Saints upon Earth for a thousand Years, before the Day of the Final Judgment. Those that maintained this Opinion, were not a Sect of Hereticks, or Schismaticks from the Church; but were some of the ancient Fathers of the Church, famous for their Learning, and venerable for their Sanctity, who in good earnest, and without Obstinacy, maintained an Opinion, that they thought was clearly deliver’d in the Scriptures. This Opinion came at first from the Jews, who under the Messiah expected a Reign of a thousand Years upon Earth, as may be seen in 2 Esdras iv. 35, &c. vi. 18. But he that gave most Reputation to this Hypothesis was Papias, the Disciple of St. John the Evangelist, who pretended to have received from the Apostles and their Disciples, the Doctrine of the Millenium, or our Saviour’s personal Reign upon Earth for a thousand Years. Caius, a Priest of the Church of Rome, who lived in the second Age of the Church, treats the Opinion of the Millenaries as a Fable invented by Cerinthus.
As the Word Millennium, or Millenary, is not read in the Scripture, we do not think our selves obliged to treat of it at large. The Reader may have recourse to the Dissertation that M. Du Pin has composed upon this Subject, before his Work upon the Revelation, and our Commentary upon Rev. xx. 2.; St. Austin, St. Gregory the Great, Andreas Cretensis, Berengaudus, Ribera, and many other learned Commentators Aug. de Civit. l. 20. c. 7. &c. Greg. magn. Moral. l. 4. c. 12.upon the Apocalypse, understood by a thousand years, not any fixed and determinate number of Years, but the whole time that shall pass from the Resurrection of our Saviour, which is the Beginning of his Reign over the Church, till the end of the World, and the final Consummation of all things.