Irenaeus was a disciple of Polycarp of John the Apostle. Can we then assume that Irenaeus had the right view of Revelation 20 as a pre-millennialist? Does that carry more weight? Yeah, I think it carries enormous weight. Now you've got to be careful with that word pre-millennial. Today, that has one meaning. It means what the evangelicals teach about fleshly Israel and all of that. So when you talk about pre-millennialism today, you mean something different than what they meant in the second century.
But if you just mean that there will be a literal millennium that is still ahead, yes, that's definitely what Irenaeus taught. It seems to be what the majority of the second century taught. And the fact that, yes, he was a disciple of Polycarp, who was a disciple of John, that carries a lot of weight. It doesn't make it infallible. But yeah, to me, we should at least have a reasonable expectation that that is the most likely thing to happen. Again, prophecy is best understood once it's been fulfilled.
But yeah, so I personally think there will be some type of literal millennium. It may be a little different than what I'm foreseeing, but it does make sense that if Polycarp, if John saw this revelation and he thought this was symbolic, that Polycarp would have certainly got that from John and would have mentioned it to people who are being taught by him. So yeah, I think a lot of weight is just not infallible.
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