In the ancient Church of the first three centuries there was always an expectation of the millennium, as they counted, according to the Septuagint Version then current, 6,000 years to end soon after the coming of Christ. The primitive Church of Antioch considered the creation of the world took place 6,000 years before Christ. In the fourth century this period was reduced to 5,500, next to 5,200. The authority of the Vulgate and of the Hebrew text, as accepted by the moderns, fixed 4,004 as the period. The joyful Sabbath of 1,000 years was then to begin, and Christ would reign in the New Jerusalem. The assurance of such millennium was inculcated by a succession of Fathers, from Justin Martyr and Irenæus (130), who conversed with the immediate disciples of the Apostles down to Lactantius, who was the preceptor to the son of Constantine (317). The joys of the millennium were to be balanced by a concurrent conflagration and destruction of Rome, as the mystic Babylon. It was affirmed that those who since the death of Christ had obstinately persisted in the worship of demons would be delivered over to eternal torture. And the Christians of that time were said to enjoy a spiritual pride in witnessing the destruction of their enemies. Tertullian, who died in 240, an energetic Father and champion of the truth, thus alluded to the matter: "You are fond of spectacles: expect the greatest of all spectacles, the last and eternal judgment of the universe. How shall I admire, how laugh, how rejoice, how exult, when I behold so many proud monarchs and fancied gods groaning in the lowest abyss of darkness; so many magistrates who persecuted the name of God liquefying in fiercer fires than they ever kindled against the Christians; so many sage philosophers blushing in red-hot flames with their deluded scholars; so many celebrated poets trembling before the tribunal, not of Minos, but of Christ; so many tragedians declaiming their own sufferings; so many dancers," etc., etc. EARLY CHRISTIANS AND THE COMMUNITY OF GOODS.