It is denied by many that a literal resurrection is here taught; but in so doing they deny the faith of the church in its best and purest ages. In the first two centuries after Christ, there was not an individual, who believed in any resurrection of the dead whose name or memory has survived to the present time, who denied that the resurrection of the just is here taught.
Eusebius, who opposed this view, quotes Papias, who he admits was a disciple of St. John and a companion of Polycarp, as saying that "after the resurrection of the dead the kingdom of Christ shall be established corporeally on this earth." And Jerome, another opposer, quotes from him that "he had the apostles for his authors; and that he considered what Andrew, what Peter said, what Philip, what Thomas said, and other disciples of the Lord."
Polycarp was another of John's disciples; and Irenæus testifies in an epistle to Florinus, that he had seen Polycarp, "who related his conversation with John and others who had seen the Lord, and how he related their sayings, and the things he had heard of them concerning the Lord, both concerning his miracles and doctrine, as he had received them from the Lord of life; all of which Polycarp related agreeable to the scriptures." Following such a teacher, Irenæus taught that at the resurrection of the just, the meek should inherit the earth; and that then would be fulfilled the promise which God made to Abraham.
Justin Martyr, born A. D. 89, says that, "A certain man _among us_, whose name is John, being one of the twelve apostles of Christ, in that Revelation which was shown him, prophesied that those who believe in our Christ shall fulfil a thousand years at Jerusalem." He affirms that himself "and many others are of this mind"--"that Christ shall reign personally on earth;" and that "all who were accounted orthodox so believed."
Tertullian, about A. D. 180, says it was a custom for Christians to pray that they might have part in the first resurrection. And Cyprian, about 220, says that Christians "had a thirst for martyrdom that they might obtain a better resurrection."
Mosheim assures us that the opinion "that Christ was to come and reign 1000 years among men," had, before the time of Origen, about the middle of the 3d century, "met with no opposition." And it is the testimony of ecclesiastical historians, that the first who opposed it, seeing no way of avoiding the meaning of the words in Rev. 20th, denied the authenticity of the Apocalypse, and claimed that it was written by one Cerenthus, a heretic, for the very purpose of sustaining what they called "his fiction of the reign of Christ on earth." This doctrine is not _now_ evaded in this way, but by spiritualizing the language of the Apocalypse, and thus finding a meaning in it which is not expressed by any of the admitted laws of language. Theologians who thus reason make the first resurrection the conversion of the world. But those who are affirmed to be raised, are persons who have lived and are dead. If the resurrection is a mere metaphor, then the martyrs must have metaphorically died, and must have comprised only those who had been previously converted and were fallen away. The rest of the dead must then be understood as persons morally dead, which would be inconsistent with the idea of a converted world. Those who were raised being those who were previously converted, they must have been literally dead, and the only resurrection predicable of such is a literal resurrection.