End Time Prophecy - Clement of Alexandria

The purpose of this article is to show the end-time viewpoint in the writing of Clement of Alexandria who wrote in the early third century A.D.

Known in church history as Clement of Alexandria to distinguish him from Clement of Rome. Date of birth unknown; died about the year 215.

He appears to support a 1,000 year millennium but doesn't specify any details about it. It is even possible that he had the amillennial view in mind.

Clement of Alexandria

Elucidations III

It is important to observe that "the patriarchal dispensation," as we too carelessly speak, is pluralized by Clement. He clearly distinguishes the three patriarchal dispensations, as given in Adam, Noah, and Abraham; and then comes the Mosaic.

The editor begs to be pardoned for referring to his venerated and gifted father's division (sustained by Clement's authority), which he used to insist should be further enlarged so as to subdivide the first and the last, making seven complete, and thus honouring the system of sevens which runs through all Scripture. Thus Adam embraces Paradise, and the first covenant after the fall; and the Christian covenant embraces a millennial period.

So that we have:

(1) Paradise

(2) Adam

(3) Noah

(4) Abraham

(5) Moses

(6) Christ

(7) A millennial period, preluding the Judgment and the Everlasting Kingdom.

Exhortation to the Heathen

Chapter XI -- How Great Are The Benefits Conferred On Man Through The Advent Of Christ

But it has been God's fixed and constant purpose to save the flock of men: for this end the good God sent the good Shepherd. And the Word, having unfolded the truth, showed to men the height of salvation, that either repenting they might be saved, or refusing to obey, they might be judged. This is the proclamation of righteousness: to those that obey, glad tidings; to those that disobey, judgment. The loud trumpet, when sounded, collects the soldiers, and proclaims war. And shall not Christ, breathing a strain of peace to the ends of the earth, gather together His own soldiers, the soldiers of peace? Well, by His blood, and by the word, He has gathered the bloodless host of peace, and assigned to them the kingdom of heaven. The trumpet of Christ is His Gospel. He hath blown it, and we have heard. "Let us array ourselves in the armour of peace, putting on the breastplate of righteousness, and taking the shield of faith, and binding our brows with the helmet, of salvation; and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God,"

Elucidations XIII

The melancholy example of Tatian is next instanced, in his departures from orthodox encraty. Against poor Tatian's garrulity, he proves the sanctity of marriage, alike in the New and the Old Testaments. A curious argument he adduces against the ceremonial washing prescribed by the law (Lev 15:18), but not against the same as a dictate of natural instinct. He considers that particular ceremonial law a protest against the polygamy which God tolerated, but never authorized, under Moses; and its abrogation (i.e., by the Synod of Jerusalem), is a testimony that there is no uncleanness, whatever, in the chaste society of the married pair, in Christ. He rescues other texts from the profane uses of the heretics, proving that our duty to abstain from laying up treasures here, merely layouts the care of the poor and needy; and that the saying, that "the children of the kingdom neither marry nor are given in marriage," respects only their estate after the resurrection.