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Church History
Eusebius of Caesarea, NPNF II.1
Book 6, 7. The Writer, Judas
At this time another writer, Judas, discoursing about the seventy weeks in Daniel, brings down the chronology to the tenth year of the reign of Severus. He thought that the coming of Antichrist, which was much talked about, was then near.1 So greatly did the agitation caused by the persecution of our people at this time disturb the minds of many.
Notes
- It was the common belief in the Church, from the time of the apostles until the time of Constantine, that the second coming of Christ would very speedily take place. This belief was especially pronounced among the Montanists, Montanus having proclaimed that the parousia would occur before his death, and even having gone so far as to attempt to collect all the faithful (Montanists) in one place in Phrygia, where they were to await that event and where the new Jerusalem was to be set up (see above, Bk. V. chap. 18, note 6). There is nothing surprising in Judas’ idea that this severe persecution must be the beginning of the end, for all through the earlier centuries of the Church (and even to some extent in later centuries) there were never wanting those who interpreted similar catastrophes in the same way; although after the third century the belief that the end was at hand grew constantly weaker.