Nepos and the Thousand Years

On top of all these, he also worked on the two books On the Promises. The occasion for them was Nepos, a bishop in Egypt, who taught that the promises made to the saints in the divine Scriptures would be fulfilled in a more Jewish way, and who held that there would be a thousand years of bodily luxury on this earth. [a] Thinking, then, that he could support his own view from the Revelation of John, he wrote a book on the subject which he titled Refutation of the Allegorists. [c] Dionysius takes issue with him in his books On the Promises. In the first he sets out his own judgment on the doctrine, and in the second he deals with the Revelation of John. There, mentioning Nepos at the beginning, he writes this about him:

“They bring forward a certain work of Nepos, on which they lean heavily, as though it proved beyond dispute that there will be a kingdom of Christ on earth. Now in many other respects I approve of Nepos and love him, for his faith, his hard work, his study of the Scriptures, and his many hymns, which many of the brothers enjoy to this day. I hold the man in great respect, all the more because he has gone to his rest before us. But the truth is dear to us and is to be valued above everything. We must praise what is rightly said and agree with it without grudging, but we must examine and correct whatever does not appear to have been written soundly. If he were here, setting out his teaching by word of mouth, an unwritten conversation would have been enough, persuading and reconciling the opponents by question and answer. But a book has been published that some find very convincing. Some teachers count the law and the prophets as nothing, neglect to follow the Gospels, and belittle the letters of the apostles, while they make great promises about the teaching of this book, as if it were some great hidden mystery. They do not let our simpler brothers have any high and noble thoughts, whether about the glorious and truly divine appearing of our Lord, or about our resurrection from the dead and our being gathered to him and made like him. Instead they persuade them to hope for small and mortal things in the kingdom of God, things like those we have now. Since this is so, we too must argue with our brother Nepos as if he were here.” Further on he adds: [d]

“When I was in the district of Arsinoe, where, as you know, this doctrine had been widespread for a long time, so much so that there were splits and the falling away of whole churches, I called together the presbyters and teachers of the brothers in the villages, with any of the brothers who wished also present, and I urged them to examine the question in public. [e] They brought me this book as if it were some weapon or wall that could not be taken. I sat with them for three days in a row, from morning until evening, and tried to correct what was written in it. I was greatly impressed by the steadiness, the love of truth, the readiness to follow an argument, and the understanding of the brothers, as we went through the questions, the difficulties raised, and the points agreed, in order and with consideration. We refused to cling at all costs and in a quarrelsome spirit to what we had once thought, if it did not appear to be right. Nor did we dodge the objections. As far as we could, we tried to get to grips with the matters before us and settle them, and if reason won us over, we were not ashamed to change our minds and agree. Instead, with a clear conscience, without pretense, and with our hearts laid open before God, we accepted whatever was established by the proofs and teachings of the holy Scriptures. In the end the founder and leader of this teaching, a man called Coracion, in the hearing of all the brothers present, acknowledged and solemnly declared to us that he would no longer hold to it, nor argue about it, nor mention it, nor teach it, since he had been fully convinced by the arguments against it. And of the other brothers, some were glad of the conference, and of the way everyone had met one another halfway and come to one mind.” [f]