I. Tichonius’ Rules Mold Interpretation for Centuries
1. DONATIST BACKGROUND
Tichonius was a writer of the late fourth century of whom little is known, but who exercised such a profound influence on the prophetic exegesis of the Middle Ages, especially of the Apocalypse, that we must pause long enough to understand his essential positions. Born in Africa, he belonged to the Donatist group—a schismatic reform party insisting on a vigorous church discipline, personal conversion, and pure church worship. Arising after the Diocletian persecution, they were named from Donatus, one of the leaders of the strict party, who were unwilling to readmit into membership those who had compromised during the persecutions; and they believed that the sacraments received at the hands of such were invalid. Failing to obtain civil support, they became opposed to intervention by the state in religious matters, and looked with special disapproval upon the close church-state relationships that had developed since Constantine. They considered this to be the devil’s work, and refused to have any dealings with the general church. That is the religious background of Tichonius. PFF1 465.3
2. TICHONIUS’ REVOLUTIONARY “SEVEN RULES.”
A man of considerable learning and of much originality, Tichonius was probably the first Occidental historical philosopher who based his ideas on the divine revelation of Scripture, making the book of Revelation the basis of his own particular philosophy of church history.PFF1 466.1
Among other works, he wrote a commentary on the Apocalypse, interpreted almost entirely in the spiritual sense, molded somewhat after Origen. In this work he asserted that the Apocalypse does not so much speak of coming events as it depicts the spiritual controversy concerning the kingdom of God. PFF1 466.2
The full text of this commentary has since been lost, but Augustine, Primasius, Bede, and especially Beatus quote sufficiently from it to reconstruct its most essential parts The substance has been preserved in the nineteen homilies appended to the Paris Benedictine edition of Augustine. But the far-reaching influence of this work makes a grasp of its essential positions imperative at this time.PFF1 466.3
To outline his general conceptions, he laid down his oft-quoted “Seven Rules,” which make strange reading today, but which exerted a powerful influence for centuries. We must note them, for they become the governing principles of nearly all expositors for hundreds of years.PFF1 466.4
(1) De domino et corpore ejus, that is, “about the Lord and His body,” or church.PFF1 467.1
(2) De domini corpore bipartitio, or “on the twofold body of the Lord.”PFF1 467.2
(3) De promissis et lege, “on the promises and the law.”PFF1 467.3
(4) De specie et genere, “concerning species and genus”; that is, it is permissible to take a “species” of the text, and to understand thereby the “genus” to which it belongs-to reach the abstract thought from the concrete picture. (This led away from all reality to fanciful, symbolic or mystical interpretations.)PFF1 467.4
(5) De temporibus, or “concerning times,” which, he held, reveal the mystic measure of time in the Bible—a part of time standing for the whole, as in the three days between the death and the resurrection of Christ—or the mystical value of numbers, especially 7, 10, and 12.PFF1 467.5
(6) De recapitulatione, “on recapitulation,” which states, for instance, that in the book of Revelation the narrative is not continuous, but repeats itself and goes over the same ground under new and different symbols. (It was this principle carried to excess, that soon led to the full premise of Augustinianism.)PFF1 467.6
(7) De diabolo et ejus corpore, “on Satan and his body,” an exact analogy to Christ and His body. As Christ is represented in His church, the elect, or righteous, so Satan is represented in the corpus malorum, the evildoers, or the body of the rejected. PFF1 467.7
He therewith laid out the tools which were used in the exegesis of the Apocalypse for centuries to come. The theological concept of history was long based on the Tichonius tradition, and therefore resulted in a sharp division of the world into good and evil. Here are the contrasts:PFF1 467.8
God Satan
Christ Antichrist
Angels demons and evil spirits
Civitas Dei civitas diaboli
church (invisible) totality of the wicked
Jerusalem Babylon
apostles, prophets, learned men, kings and principalities of the wicked
preachers, martyrs, and virgins
the good the evil
the sanctified and just the impious
the saved the damned
the believers the heretics, schismatics, hypocrites, false Christians, heathen, Jews PFF1 468.1
These conceptions, which are largely generalizations, led away from the historical interpretation of the Apocalypse. In his exegesis Tichonius was not so much interested in describing historical events in detail as in describing the ways and means of the attack of the diabolical powers—not “how it has been” and “how it will be,” but “what is the situation at any given time.” He held that, when reading the Apocalypse, the reader should sense the strength of his defense against Satan rather than the location of his particular time. PFF1 468.2
3. SET TIME FOR ADVENT IN A.D. 381
However, despite the fact that Tichonius laid down these generalizing rules, he was convinced that the return of Christ was at hand, and in fact believed that the great day would occur in the year 381. PFF1 468.3
4. MAKES CHURCH “SHADOW PICTURE” OF CHRIST
On Revelation 12 and 13 he remarks that the beast from the bottomless pit is the whole corpus diaboli, among heathen and Christians. And after Satan, because of Christ’s intervention, has failed by persecution to extinguish the true church (the woman of Revelation 12 standing on the moon), he produces his masterpiece of deception—to the seven heads he adds an eighth one. By the woman of Revelation 17, Tichonius means the world church, because she is a simulacrum Christi, a shadow picture of Christ, resembling outwardly the true picture, but in reality leading people away from Him. This is because she does not require real repentance, which is, of course, to the liking of the multitude. This deception of Satan is accomplished by the false priests and prophets, who are symbolized by the beast with two horns. Though dogma may be correct, he says, if it does not produce repentance, it is the devil who is working behind it. PFF1 468.4
5. CHURCH TO SEPARATE RIGHTEOUS FROM WICKED
The last time has now come, he holds, and he calls upon the church in North Africa to arouse the sleeping world by powerful preaching, which would separate the righteous from the wicked, deliver unbelievers to the judgment of God, and lead to persecution at the hands of the wicked. The day of grace is still with us, but after the devil will have entered into his chosen tool, the Antichrist, no one will any longer have a chance. PFF1 469.1
As soon as the complete number of—saints is reached by the work of this last preaching, Tichonius continues, Satan, who has been limited in his work to the wicked, will be freed, and the pride of the human heart will appear. Man will sin without restraint. Terrific persecutions will set in which, if not shortened for the sake of the elect, would destroy all of them. God finally withdraws His hand and leaves man to himself and the devil. The church will be a place of utter destruction. Tichonius calls the church to take up this great work in order to hasten the day when the final separation will occur. PFF1 469.2
6. MAKES FIRST RESURRECTION SPIRITUAL
Tichonius was against chiliasm, which had been the ardent belief of the Christians in the first centuries. However, with the help of his rules of exegesis he could easily overcome this difficulty.PFF1 469.3
Instead of two literal resurrections, Tichonius makes the first resurrection spiritual, that of the soul, as hinted by Origen, and the second corporeal, that of the body. The first is of those awakened by baptism from the deadness of sin to eternal life, and the second is the general, literal resurrection of all flesh. Consequently, he denies the reign of the literally resurrected saints for a thousand years after the second advent. (Revelation 20.) Thus Tichonius spiritualizes the resurrection and secularizes the millennium. This change is so vital that the covering statement of Gennadius, who lived in the fifth century, is here given:PFF1 470.1
“He [Tichonius] also expounded the Apocalypse of John entire, regarding nothing in it in a carnal sense, but all in a spiritual sense. In this exposition he maintained the angelical nature to be corporeal, moreover he doubts that there will be a reign of the righteous on earth for a thousand years after the resurrection, or that there will be two resurrections of the dead in the flesh, one of the righteous and the other of the unrighteous, but maintains that there will be one simultaneous resurrection of all, at which shall arise even the aborted and the deformed lest any living human being, however deformed, should be lost. He makes such distinction to be sure, between the two resurrections as to make the first, which he calls the apocalypse of the righteous, only to take place in the growth of the church where, justified by faith, they are raised from the dead bodies of their sins through baptism to the service of eternal life, but the second, the general resurrection of all men in the flesh.” PFF1 470.2
7. BEGINS MILLENNIUM BACK AT FIRST ADVENT
By the principle of recapitulation—the sixth in his series of Rules- Tichonius ingeniously steps, because Christ’s three and a half days in the tomb were back the thousand years over the entire line of the Christian dispensation, dating it from the time of Christ’s first advent. Thus he makes the end the beginning, and the beginning the end. Moreover this millennial period he shortens from 1,000 to 350 years, because Christ’s three and a half days in the tomb were shortened by employing only parts of the first and third days. This is part of his “Fifth Rule,” which puts the part for the whole. Reviving probably a Jewish conjecture that a “time” possibly signifies a century, Tichonius assumes each prophetic “time” to be 100 years, and thus three and a half times would be about 350 years. Beginning with the resurrection of Christ, this period would be about expired. So he makes his own day the terminus of prophetic time.PFF1 470.3
8. NEW JERUSALEM IS THE PRESENT TRUE CHURCH
Tichonius sees in God and the devil two great powers struggling for mastery of the earth, just as he sees the conflict of mystical Jerusalem and mystical Babylon. But the New Jerusalem, in Revelation 21, is principally the church in its present state, existent, he contends, from the time of Christ’s death onward. And the woman of Revelation 12 was the true church, ever bringing forth Christ in her members, exiled for a thousand years (shortened to the 350) to live among the wicked ones.PFF1 471.1
9. YEAR-DAY PRINCIPLE PROJECTED TO THREE AND A HALF DAYS OF WITNESSES
He interprets the three and a half days of the slaying of the witnesses (Revelation 11:11) to be three and a half years. This makes Tichonius about the first to apply the year-day principle outside of the seventy weeks, irrespective of his interpretation of the events set forth. This was amplified by others to follow.PFF1 471.2
10. BABYLON FIRST APPLIED TO SECULARIZED ROMAN CHURCH
When the Roman emperors employed the secular power to enforce the unity of the church, the Donatists protested against civil interference in matters of religion; calling their persecutors “Babylon,” they considered themselves the remnant, being persuaded that the end was not far off. In fact, Tichonius wrote his commentary on the Apocalypse, portraying its fulfillment in the light of persecutions of the Donatists as a type of the final time of trouble. Thus, while certain Catholics thought to see Antichrist, or his forerunners, in the Arian emperors and bishops of the church, the Donatist Tichonius applied Revelation 13 and 17 to the Roman church and worldly bishops, against whom a decisive stand was to be taken. PFF1 471.3
11. POPULARIZED BY AUGUSTINE
It may seem extraordinary that the Catholic world should have accepted the “work of a schismatic” as a “textbook of exegesis,” but such is the case with the Rules and basic prophetic interpretations of Tichonius. The reason is obviously that they effectively disposed of chiliasm, and indicated a successful course for the theologians of the papal church. PFF1 472.1
Augustine was deeply influenced by Tichonius. He speaks of his own acceptance of the principles, as follows:PFF1 472.2
“One Tichonius, who, although a Donatist himself, has written most triumphantly against the Donatists (and herein showed himself of a most inconsistent disposition, that he was unwilling to give them up altogether), wrote a book which he called the Book of Rules, because in it he laid down seven rules, which are, as it were, keys to open the secrets of Scripture.” PFF1 472.3
Aware, however, that the time set for the judgment hour by Tichonius had already passed, he was anxious to spiritualize the different visions in the Apocalypse even more, and to interpret the tremendous struggle pictured there as a spiritual struggle between the church, which represents the forces of light, and the world, which stands for the forces of evil, with the kingdom of God to be realized by the triumphant church. Through the overshadowing authority of Augustine, the rules of Tichonius were popularized and established, and the commentaries on the Apocalypse throughout the early Middle Ages echo largely what Tichonius had already stated, and lost all the fervor of the expectation of the Lord’s coming and the appearance of the New Jerusalem.PFF1 472.4
The diagram on page 545 will aid in visualizing the tremendous influence which the Rules of Tichonius and his spiritualizing commentary have exercised. This group of medieval expositions forms the connecting link between inter pretations of the early church and the interpretations of later Protestantism and Catholicism.PFF1 472.5