(This instructive article by Gary Vaterlaus was written for Parousia magazine on the origins of Amillennialism in the early church.)
The early church fathers were very prolific in their writing. Many of these early documents have been preserved for us today. Their writings give us a picture of the beliefs, lifestyle and struggles of the early church. While not all of the early church fathers wrote on the return of Christ and His subsequent kingdom to follow, those that did left us a clear picture of the eschatological hope of the early church. In reading the earliest fathers, one quickly learns that regarding the temporal kingdom of Christ, the fathers were chiliastic. Chiliasm (pronounced