Note (return) — Chapter V

As regards the details of the eschatological hopes, they were fully set forth by Irenæus himself in Book V. Apart from the belief that the returning Nero would be the Antichrist, an idea spread in the West during the third century by the Sibylline verses and proved from Revelation, the later teachers who preached chiliastic hopes did not seriously differ from the Gallic bishop; hence the interpretation of Revelation is in its main features the same. It is enough therefore to refer to the fifth Book of Irenæus.624 There is no need to show in detail that chiliasm leads to a peculiar view of history, which is as much opposed to that resulting from the Gnostic theory of redemption, as this doctrine itself forbids the hope of a bliss to be realised in an earthly kingdom of glory. This is not the proper place to demonstrate to what extent the two have been blended, and how the chiliastic scheme of history has been emptied of its content and utilised in the service of theological apologetics.