Intimations of Revelation 19–21 in the early North African Christian communities

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to provide a survey of the interpretation of Revelation 19–21 in the early North African Christian communities (II–III century). These chapters refer to one of the most controversial passages of John’s Apocalypse (the eschatological war, the millennial kingdom, and the descent of the New Jerusalem). After a brief methodological reflection, the article will investigate how these chapters were interpreted not only in the early Latin authors but also how this material was employed in martyrdom accounts as well. The study, in fact, will begin with the first Latin document of Christian literature, the Acta Martyrum Scilitanorum, followed by the corpus of Tertullian, the Passio Sanctarum Perpetuae et Felicitatis, and the writings of Cyprian.