And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little while.
All Commentaries on Revelation 20:3 Go To Revelation 20
Bede
AD 735
loosed: "Then," as St. Augustine says, "he will be loosed, when also the time will be short. For, as we read, he will rage three years and a-half with all his own powers, and the powers of his own, and they with whom he will make war will be such, that his violence and wiles, great as they are, will not be able to overcome them. But if he was never loosed, his malignant power would the less appear, the most faithful patience of the holy city the less be proved, the less finally would it be discerned, how well the Almighty God made use of his great evil." THE REIGN OF A THOUSAND YEARS <a
