Platonism

Paul constantly battled against the encroachment of both pagan and Jewish ideas. After the first apostles passed on, pagan ideas in the church increased. Many of the converts to Christ in the 2nd Century were Greek and were formerly Platonists. They believed that they would win more Greeks if they presented Christianity as a higher form of Platonism, i.e. a fulfilment of their own cultural values.

Thus they brought former Greek ideas into the church and mixed them with the gospel. These early fathers in the church taught that the flesh must be denied. They then led people away from truth with false revelations, including visions of Mary. This led people into asceticism and Mary and saint worship (idolatry). The early church was Hellenized, which means it became Greek in culture.

Montanism

In the 2nd Century Montanism arose. This was a cultic Christian group with some false prophets. They followed several of the Jewish Apocryphal books, adopting from these ascetic and Zionist ideas. They were therefore a pagan/Christian mix. Some of their women would not marry, or would deny their husbands, a similar problem to that which Paul addressed in 1st Corinthians 7.

They had some false prophecies, believing that their tongues and interpretations were inspired on the level of scripture and a continuation of scriptural revelation. They believed that Jesus was going to return in their time and set up His kingdom in a city in Asia Minor. They adopted a form of Zionism known as chiliasm, or more commonly known today as millennialism, i.e. that Jesus was returning to rule in an earthly kingdom.

Early Church Fathers

We can see where the roots of millennialism came from, which began to affect Christians in the 1st and 2nd Centuries. Because early Greek Christians liked asceticism they were drawn to the Zionist ideas of the Essene and other Jewish sects. They developed teaching on “end-times” and millennialism that was not in accord with the mindset of the Hebrew prophets and early apostles.

The earliest church fathers were not millennial. The Didache of around 97AD did not teach a near Second Coming of Christ, but an age of gospel outreach to the end of the earth. The Epistle of Barnabas around 98AD declared an age of dominion for the church in all the world. Clemet of Rome about 99AD declared the same, as did the Pastor of Hermas in 100AD, Ignatius in 107AD and Papias in 145AD.

In 150AD we see millennialism in some of the writings of Justin Martyr, a converted Greek philosopher, where in other passages he spoke against it. In 165AD Tatian was strongly anti millennial, as was Athenagoras in 183AD. Iranaeus in 185AD was millennial in some parts of his writing, but not in other parts. Clement of Alexandria in 190AD and Caius of Rome in 210AD were strongly anti millennial.

We can go on with many cases. It is wrong to say that the early church fathers believed in a return of Christ to reign in Jerusalem. It is also wrong to say that they believed in a very soon return of Jesus. They believed in a period of time, the church age, in which Christ would reign over the nations from heaven and the gospel would go to the ends of the earth.

There is a claim that the church initially held to a pre-millennial view and changed to a-millennialism in 4th Century after Constantine gave the church political power. This theory does not account for the Jewish/pagan roots of pre-millennialism, or the church fathers well before Constantine who opposed it.