Among the church fathers, Augustine of Hippo (354-430) stands as the most influential interpreter of biblical eschatology in the West. His treatment of Revelation 20 and Matthew 24 in City of God Book XX laid the foundation for what would later be called amillennialism.
Unlike earlier church fathers who had a more chiliastic (millennialist) hope of a literal earthly 1000 year reign of Christ, Augustine applied strong exegetical force to these expectations. His conclusions were decisive: The millennium is not a future earthly golden age but the present on-going reign of Christ through his Church. Augustine affirmed the view that the reign was inaugurated at the Lord’s first coming and extends until a final judgment.
This article will examine Augustine’s reasoning carefully, using direct quotations, to highlight how he carefully interpreted Revelation 20 and Matthew 24 to reject millennialism and embrace the spiritual reading. In addition, the article showcases a hermeneutical tension noted by scholars related to Augustine’s interpretation of Revelation 21-22, and proposes a harmonization that would’ve landed Augustine’s view much closer to a consistent preterist understanding.
For clarity, it helps to define terms: “chiliasm” (from the Greek chilia, thousand) refers to belief in a literal thousand-year reign of Christ on earth. “Millennialism” is the broader expectation of such an age, whether literal or figurative. “Amillennialism” (a label later applied to Augustine) interprets the thousand years symbolically as the present Church age. “Preterism” is the conviction that many biblical prophecies, including those of Revelation, were fulfilled in the first-century events around AD 70. Locating Augustine precisely within these categories allows us to appreciate both his originality and his limits.
Augustine’s Context and the Rise of Chiliasm
Earlier church fathers such as Irenaeus (Against Heresies 5.32-36) had advanced a literal millennial reign on earth.
By Augustine’s time, however, such views had already lost credibility among the church. In 410AD, Alaric I and the Visigoths plundered the Christianized city of Rome (previously converted circa 395 under Theodosius I), which triggered pagan critiques of the Christian rise to power, saying “Where is your God? Didn’t Christ’s reign guarantee security?“
Augustine acknowledged that some believers still had chiliastic expectations, distancing himself from them.
"They who, on the strength of this passage [Rev 20], have suspected that the first resurrection is future and bodily, have been moved chiefly by the thousand years, as if it were fit that the saints should thus enjoy a kind of Sabbath-rest during that period, a holy leisure after the labors of six thousand years since man was created.” (City of God XX.7)
It should also be noted that the chiliastic expectations of the early church were far from uniform. Papias envisioned a very tangible kingdom with abundant agricultural blessings; Irenaeus grounded his hope in the restoration of creation; Tertullian leaned into bodily renewal; while Lactantius painted apocalyptic pictures with philosophical overtones. To say that “the fathers were chiliasts” risks flattening this diversity. Augustine’s rejection of chiliasm is best seen not against a monolithic tradition, but against a broad spectrum of millennial expectations.
Eusebius preserves Papias’ chiliastic expectation:
“There will be a period of some thousand years after the resurrection of the dead, when the kingdom of Christ will be set up in material form on this very earth.” (Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 3.39.12)
Then Papias continues to speak of some abundant fertility:
“The days will come in which vines shall grow, each having ten thousand branches, and on each branch ten thousand twigs, and on each twig ten thousand clusters, and on every one of the clusters ten thousand grapes, and every grape when pressed will give twenty-five measures of wine.” (3.39.13)
Irenaeus describes a renewed creation:
"For it is fitting that the creation itself, being restored to its primeval condition, should without restraint be under the dominion of the righteous… The creation will be renovated, and the fruit of the earth will be made abundant, and all the animals will obey and be subject to man… the predicted blessing will take place, when the earth shall yield fruit of itself, and the mountains shall drop down new wine, and the clouds shall yield the dew." (Against Heresies 5.33.3–4)
Tertullian emphasized bodily renewal, with a focus on resurrection
"We do confess that a kingdom is promised to us upon the earth, although before heaven, only in another state; inasmuch as it will be after the resurrection for a thousand years in the divinely-built city of Jerusalem… After its thousand years are over, within which period is completed the resurrection of the saints, who rise sooner or later according to their deserts, there will ensue the destruction of the world and the conflagration of all things at the judgment: we shall then be changed in a moment into the substance of angels, even by the investiture of an incorruptible nature…" (Against Marcion 3.24)
Augustine’s Rejection of a Literal Thousand Years
Augustine directly addresses Revelation 20:
"But those who assert this [Literal thousand years] do not consider that the first resurrection is that of which the apostle speaks: ‘If you be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above.’" (City of God XX.9, citing Col. 3:1)
For him, the “first resurrection” is spiritual, the passing from death to life in regeneration. The “thousand years” is symbolic:
The thousand years, therefore, may be understood in two ways: either as a long period, or as the whole time of this world’s duration, signified by the number of perfection." (City of God XX.7)
What makes Augustine decisive here is that he was rejecting an older tradition of chiliastic expectation. Earlier writers such as Papias, Justin Martyr, and even Irenaeus had held the idea of a literal reign of Christ on earth following the resurrection. Augustine not only distances himself from such interpretations but also casts them as dangerously “carnal,” prone to reintroducing Jewish hopes of earthly prosperity and material satisfaction. For him, the kingdom of God is spiritual, hidden, and bound up with the church in history rather than a political or visible golden age.
"This opinion would not be objectionable, if it were believed that the joys of the saints in that Sabbath shall be spiritual, and consequent on the presence of God; for I myself, too, once held this opinion. But, as they assert, those who then rise again shall spend their leisure in the most immoderate carnal banquets, furnished with an amount of meat and drink such as not only to shock the feeling of the temperate, but even to surpass the measure of credulity itself. Such assertions can be believed only by the carnal. And they who do believe them are called by the spiritual Chiliasts, which we may literally reproduce by the name Millennarians." (City of God XX.7)
Notably, Augustine himself admits that he once held a more chiliastic position before abandoning it as indefensible: “For I myself, too, once held this opinion” (City of God XX.7). His shift away from this view underscores how eschatological interpretation was still developing in his day, with earlier literal hopes giving way to a more spiritual reading.
This interpretation also reflects Augustine’s broader theological framework. Within the narrative of the two cities, the City of God and the City of Man, the millennium becomes the arena of their coexistence. The church is already reigning with Christ in a spiritual sense, even as it suffers opposition from worldly powers. The “binding of Satan” signifies not his total defeat, but the restriction of his power to deceive the nations during the time of gospel proclamation. In this way, Augustine integrates Revelation 20 into the lived reality of the church’s present struggle rather than projecting it into the future.
Hermeneutical Tension
Now having examined Augustine’s handling of Revelation 20 in the face of Chiliastic expectations, we are inevitably faced with the question: How do we then within this framework handle the consequent final chapters of Revelation where it clearly describes a bound Holy City that receives those who do the commandments of God?
"Blessed are those who do His commandments, that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter through the gates into the city. But outside are dogs and sorcerers and sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and whoever loves and practices a lie" (Rev. 22:14–15)
Here Augustine does not employ the same hermeneutic he used to spiritualize the millennium. Instead, he defaults back to interpret the New Jerusalem directly as the perfected City of God and the “outside” as the eternal state of the damned, forever excluded from its gates (City of God XX.21). Scholarship has noted this hermeneutical tension and attempted to attribute it to a number of reasons, one of them being relevant to the discussion at hand: Augustine was simply pushing back against Chiliastic expectations, and so he applied this interpretation where he saw a clear need while keeping the rest intact.
Modern scholarship continues to debate Augustine’s eschatology. Robert Markus has emphasized Augustine’s break from early chiliastic expectations as a turning point in Western theology. Brian Daley underscores the pastoral dimensions of Augustine’s spiritualizing move. Paula Fredriksen, by contrast, highlights how Augustine’s eschatology reflects his deep struggle with history and empire. Engaging these voices reminds us that Augustine’s interpretation is not only a matter of exegesis but of lived theology in a turbulent pastoral context.
On Revelation 21-22, Augustine writes:
"For to refer this promise to the present time, in which the saints are reigning with their King a thousand years, seems to me excessively barefaced, when it is most distinctly said, ‘God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death….’" (City of God XX.17).
Preterist Harmonization
It is worth clarifying that Augustine cannot be called a “preterist” in the modern sense. He does not identify the New Jerusalem of Revelation 21–22 exclusively with the Church in history, nor does he see all prophecy as past. What his approach offers, however, is a hermeneutical trajectory: by consistently reading apocalyptic texts in light of the Church’s present reality, he opened a door that later interpreters—including preterists—could walk through.
For a consistent preterist, Augustine’s refusal to read Revelation 21–22 as church-age reality overlooks the passage’s own historical signals. The city’s open gates and the nations bringing their glory in (Rev 21:24–26; cf. Isa 60:11) depict ongoing gathering, not a closed eternity; the leaves for the healing of the nations (Rev 22:2) imply a process, not post-historical perfection; and the gospel invitation still sounds, “The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come!’… Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely” (Rev 22:17).
This perfectly aligns with apostolic claims that believers already have come to Mount Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem (Heb 12:22–24), and that God dwells in His people as His temple now (Eph 2:19–22; 2 Cor 6:16). Accordingly, the New Jerusalem is best read as the new-covenant church within history, into which the nations stream, while the unrepentant remain outside (Rev 22:15) in a covenantal sense, preserving the application of salvation through Christ eternally.
The Binding of Satan and the Kingdom of Christ
Augustine interprets the binding of Satan (Rev 20:2-3) as Christ’s victory at His first coming:
"Now the binding of the devil took place when the Church began to spread through all nations… This is not because the devil has no power over believers, but because he is prevented from seducing the nations which belong to Christ." (City of God XX.8)
For Augustine, the “millennium” is the present church age: a long, symbolic period in which Satan is restrained from deceiving the nations that would have been typically held in unified idolatry in the old covenant pagan world, allowing the gospel to advance and the kingdom of Christ to spread. Christ reigns now, spiritually, through His church, seated at the right hand of the Father until a final judgment or consummation. The thousand years, then, signify the fullness of time between the first and second advents, not a literal earthly reign.
Matthew 24 and the Church Age
When interpreting Jesus’ Olivet Discourse, Augustine emphasizes its fulfillment in the events leading up to and including the destruction of Jerusalem:
"All these things which were predicted of the end He fulfilled in the overthrow of that earthly city." (City of God XX.30)
At the same time, he acknowledges a “double fulfillment”, although it was difficult to find a strict textual warrant, likely holding it in accordance with tradition, he believed events in Jerusalem’s fall foreshadow a greater consummation at the end of history. Yet his emphasis is clearly on fulfillment: The tribulations, persecutions and trials of Matthew 24 already characterized the present life of the church.
Augustine’s Method: Exegesis and Reflection
To sum up Augustine’s method, he did not simply dismiss chiliasm as some sort of superstition; he argued exegetically:
- The “first resurrection” is regeneration, not bodily rising (Col. 3:1)
- The “thousand years” = symbolic fullness, not literal chronology.
- The “binding of Satan”= Christ’s victory, not a future restriction.
- Matthew 24 = fulfilled in AD 70, yet typologically pointing forward.
His conclusions are theological, but rooted in solid textual interpretation.
Conclusion
Augustine’s rejection of chiliasm was not a casual dismissal but the result of careful exegesis, and even a personal shift, since he once entertained such hopes himself. By defining the first resurrection as spiritual, the millennium as the present church age, and the tribulations of Matthew 24 as already fulfilled in history, he reframed Christian eschatology around a realized reign of Christ. Consistent preterists can build on Augustine’s own hermeneutic, extending it further into Revelation 21–22, thereby uniting the millennium and the New Jerusalem under one realized vision of Christ’s reign.
