In light of this modern spiritual darkness over much of what was Christendom in earlier times, it is so stupid to say the dragon is chained just because the Eucharist is on earth. Jesus reigns in Apocalypse 12 from heaven, but the dragon is not chained. Hence, that Jesus reigns in His Church and in the Eucharist does not have to mean the dragon is chained. The dragon can be actively attacking the Woman, pursuing her, as in the dark ages, spewing a flood after her, as in Protestantism and Enlightenment, or even raising up a beast to persecute her and deceive the world, as in the twentieth century till now with secular godlessness. but Christ is still reigning.
With this in mind, perhaps we need to see the scenes of the dragon and of the Christ as expressing DEGREES of the reign of Christ in His Church's history, and not that simply because the Eucharist is on earth, Christ's reign is wonderful.
If the mystics are correct, after our modern crisis of apostasy, a severe tribulation looms, and, afterwards, the world will repent; Christians will be reunited. The faith will be gloriously renewed and there will be spiritual peace for a great time. This will be more like a time when the dragon is chained, for then, since men will let God's peace and love rest in their hearts for a long time, Jesus' Kingdom will no longer be in turmoil, like the first 2000 years. Hence, the dragon will be chained, and Jesus' love will come to rest on earth, figuratively, in a much more practical way than the period between 300 and 2000.
Hence, just as the sun set when Christ left the earth and the darkness of pagan Rome and persecution descended, and just as the sun began to rise with Constantine and was bright in the afternoon in the Middle Ages, so the sun began to set again with Protestantism, a cloudy day with rain, but still a supernatural light. Then, the sun went into a mere natural twilight in the Enlightenment, a retention of only Reason, a basic religion without supernatural intervention or revelation (deism, rationalism). Finally, with the last generation or so, with the modern minor secular apostasy, the sun is down, and only little luminaries shine in the former Christian world.
So does it still make sense that we are in a figurative millennium and the dragon is chained with Jesus ruling spiritually between pagan Rome and the Great Apostasy, where there is this huge dark night of the soul in the middle?
Wouldn't it better to say the Millennium is a symbol of the coming age of Our Lady's Triumph and Peace, when the near whole world will come back to Catholic Christendom or enter it, and most men will love God as best as they can?
Maybe the Church needs to rethink Augustine and go with his first solution to Apocalypse 20: a spiritual rest TOWARD the end of the world, and not the whole period between the Two Comings.
The eight kings and days support it: Here is more support:
Several Fathers suggest the interpretation of the days of creation as ages of the renewal of man. It turns out that St Augustine affirms the days as ages of the world up to six days, and St Methodious of Olympus through all eight. ages. As it stands, if Our Lady of Fatima and most other approved Private Revelation are true, then God's salvific plan is indeed eight stages of alternating spiritual darkness and light from the Fall to the New Creation inclusive.
Evening came, a stage of sin arises, morning followed, a Redemptive phase of light:
Five are the ages of the Old Law, St Methodius, Five ages of the world have now transpired, there has entered the sixth, St Augustine:
1.Darkness: Fall and Noahs' Day, Light: The Flood
2. Darkness: Babel, Light: Confounding of Tongues and formation of Hebrew People
3. Darkness: Egypt Enslaves, Light: Exodus and OT kingdom
4. Darkness: Intermediate Jewish Apostasy, Light: Exile, Repentance, Restoration to Holy Land
5. Darkness: Maccabees, Light: First Coming of Christ
6. Darkness: Pagan Rome persecutes, Light: Catholic Christendom
7. Modern Minor Apostasy of today, Light: [future] Minor Tribulation, Reunion of Christians, Renewal Of Gentiles, Our Lady's Triumph and Age of Catholic Peace
8.Darkness: Great Apostasy and Antichrist, Light: Second Coming of Christ.
See also the kings of the beast, Apocalypse 17, startng at verse nine:
"And the heads are seven kings. FIve have fallen, one is, and the other has not yet come. And the beast which was and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goes into perdtion."
Hence, quite probably, a profound parallel between the days of Creation in the beginning of Scripture, and the heads of the beast at the end of Scripture, exists. The seven days of light, extended to eight by Christ's Resurrection, look forward to the eight great stages of light of the REcreation of the world that would succeed the first creation.
Then, the seven kings of the beast, extended to eight, look behind human history from the standpoint of the final stage of darkness: the eight primary stages of sin that stretched from the Fall to the Great Apostasy inclusive.
With Augustine's interpretation of only two darknesses of Church history, the analogy is missing a day, or a king.
Too, we have seen the argument in several former writings of mine, that the three ages of the Jews, their three ages, were the way of the saint apocalyptically. We also saw that not only the Jews but ANY people of God must walk that way, hence, also, the Church. Hence, with Augustine, the Church only walks two ways, not three. This makes sense in Augustine's day: In Augusitne's day, the Church thought that the illuminative and unitive ways were fully intertwined. They did not know about a dark night of the soul that separates a primary illuminative way from a primary untiive way. This explains why more theologians and Catholics are growing impatient with the Catholics that trumpet blast amill in the face of the Fundamentalists. After all, isn't the Cathoilc Church a middle religion? Hence, if it is true that chilasm, the extreme of conservative Protestants, is on the right, it is equally true that amill is left minded, all but allegorizing away the Millennium. The Church, in fact, is closer to the right than to the left, since she values the other world to this one, like conservatives, just not so harshly. Hence, we can surmise God intended us to take chiliasm and rather than swinging all the way into the water, just add a little water to the hard wine of the chalice of literalism.
In this view, there really will be a period of glory toward the end of the world for the Church, like the millennium insinuates. The world will go through a great crisis of darkness and tribulation and will almost end. But wait, it doesn't end. Christ conquers it and brings peace a reign. The only difference here is, unlike chiliasm, and like amill, Jesus's reign is NOT literal. He doesn't LITERALLY come back to reign LITERALLy on earth. Rather, His Kingdom "comes to life again" in the martyrs who purchase the conversion of the world. Then the dragon is really chained. Then there is only physical evil, and not much moral evil. Only later does the final end come, the great apostasy.
Any way you cut it, just as Augustine's day did not know about the dark night of the soul making three great darknesses for the way instead of just two, so our renewed knowledge of this, and how it is making itself evident in great ages of history, means that Augustine is fading out in eschatology, and the plethora of approved mystics are entering in. You decide.
