Bible News Prophecy with Dr Bob Thiel
Continuing Church of God 66
Nepos of Arsinoe, the Forgotten Bishop Who Defended a Literal Millennium Against Origen's Allegorists
Dr. Bob Thiel profiles Nepos of Arsinoe, a little-known third-century Egyptian bishop who defended a literal reading of Revelation's thousand-year reign against the allegorical school of Clement and Origen of Alexandria, and traces the pushback he faced from Dionysius of Alexandria.
Introducing Nepos Of Arsinoe
Dr. Bob Thiel opens the Bible News Prophecy program by introducing a name he says listeners have probably never heard in any Church of God message: Nepos of Arsinoe. He explains that in the early third century Nepos served as an African bishop or overseer in Arsinoe, a region of Egypt, and that the available historical evidence suggests he led Christians who held doctrines characteristic of early Church of God leaders. Thiel sets Nepos against the Alexandrian allegorical school, first led by Clement of Alexandria and then by Origen of Alexandria, and says Nepos openly opposed their habit of reading scripture symbolically rather than literally. Thiel tells listeners he will read from several ancient and more modern sources describing Nepos, presenting him as a largely forgotten figure whose stand for a literal reading of Revelation puts him, in Thiel's view, on the same side as the earliest apostolic teaching about Christ's coming reign on earth.
The Catholic Encyclopedia On Chiliasm
Thiel reads from the 1911 Catholic Encyclopedia, which states that around the middle of the third century Nepos entered the lists against the allegorism of Origen and propounded millenarian ideas, gaining adherents near Arsinoe. He quotes its description of Nepos teaching the chiliastic error, a word Thiel explains means belief in a literal thousand-year reign of Christ, a period of what the encyclopedia calls corporeal delights founded on the book of Revelation. Thiel pushes back on the word error, arguing that Revelation chapter 20, combined with Revelation 5:10, flatly states there will be such a reign. He says Nepos defended this view in a lost work called Refutation of the Allegorisers, arguing against those who claimed the Bible does not mean what it plainly says. Thiel credits Origen of Alexandria with popularizing the opposing, allegorical approach that treated the millennium as symbolic rather than literal.
A Nineteenth Century Scholar Weighs In
Thiel brings in a nineteenth-century anti-millennial Roman Catholic scholar, Giovanni Battista Pagani, who blasted both Nepos and a figure named Apollinaris as principal authors of what he considered an error about the millennium. Thiel disputes the label, repeating that the teaching is not an error but is written in the Bible itself. He also challenges Pagani's framing of the belief as a Judaistic error, pointing out that neither man was Jewish: Apollinaris was Greek, and Nepos was an African from Egypt whose exact ancestry, whether Greek, African, or Arab, is not recorded. Thiel stresses that Nepos drew his teaching directly from scripture rather than from any inherited Jewish tradition, and that labeling the millennial belief Jewish was a way for later critics to dismiss it without engaging its actual grounding in the text of Revelation and other New Testament passages.
Dionysius Answers The Allegorists
Thiel introduces Dionysius of Alexandria, a Greco-Roman bishop born to a wealthy pagan family and trained in Greek philosophy, who wrote a rebuttal called Against the Allegorists in response to Nepos's following in Arsinoe. Thiel reads Dionysius's own words praising Nepos for his faith, his diligent study of scripture, and his hymn writing, while still insisting that truth must be prized above personal affection and that Nepos's writing needed to be examined for soundness. Thiel also cites the historian Eusebius, writing in the fourth century, who claimed Nepos held his view only as a private opinion built on the book of Revelation. Thiel rejects this characterization, arguing that Greco-Roman scholars know early Christians widely taught a literal millennial reign of Christ, and that Eusebius's account minimizes how established and scripturally grounded the belief actually was among the believers in Arsinoe.
Nepos Defended Against Jewish Error Claims
Thiel describes how Dionysius traveled to Arsinoe and gathered the local presbyters and teachers to examine Nepos's teaching directly, after the congregation brought forward his book as though it were a weapon and a fortress supporting their belief. Thiel says Dionysius reported being pleased by their consistency even while opposing the doctrine itself. Thiel again addresses the charge that the millennial belief was a Jewish or Judeo-Christian error, noting that while the earliest Christians were indeed Jewish, that fact does not make a biblical teaching about Christ's reign a foreign error. He adds that despite the dispute, no source accuses Nepos of other heresies, immorality, apostasy, or rejecting Jesus, and that he was widely respected for his scriptural study. Thiel argues Nepos held true apostolic laying on of hands succession, later passed to a figure he names as Macarius of Edessa.
Feast Of Tabernacles And Lost Succession
Thiel quotes Jesus's prayer in John 17:17 that God's word is truth, and Jude 3's call to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints, applying both to Nepos's stand. He notes that Jerome, the Roman Catholic translator of the Latin Vulgate, recorded that some believers in the fourth and fifth centuries still kept the Feast of Tabernacles and understood it as a picture of Christ's coming millennial reign. Thiel explains that early Christians, including the apostle Paul, observed this fall festival, but that by the late third and fourth centuries many Greco-Roman churches abandoned the fall holy days along with belief in a literal millennium. Thiel closes by saying he shared Nepos's story because he is largely forgotten, and signs off as Dr. Bob Thiel for the Continuing Church of God, pointing listeners to biblenewsprophecy.net and ccog.org for further reading.
