Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol I:
JUSTIN MARTYR: Chapter LXXXI.—He endeavours to...

Chapter LXXXI.—He endeavours to prove this opinion from Isaiah and the Apocalypse.

“For Isaiah spake thus concerning this space of a thousand years: ‘For there shall be the new heaven and the new earth, and the former shall not be remembered, or come into their heart; but they shall find joy and gladness in it, which things I create. For, Behold, I make Jerusalem a rejoicing, and My people a joy; and I shall rejoice over Jerusalem, and be glad over My people. And the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her, or the voice of crying. And there shall be no more there a person of immature years, or an old man who shall not fulfil his days. 2265 For the young man shall be an hundred years old; 2266 but the sinner who dies an hundred years old, 2267 he shall be accursed. And they shall build houses, and shall themselves inhabit them; and they shall plant vines, and shall themselves eat the produce of them, and drink the wine. They shall not build, and others inhabit; they shall not plant, and others eat. For according to the days of the tree of life shall be the days of my people; the works of their toil shall abound. 2268 Mine elect shall not toil fruitlessly, or beget children to be cursed; for they shall be a seed righteous and blessed by the Lord, and their offspring with them. And it shall come to pass, that before they call I will hear; while they are still speaking, I shall say, What is it? Then shall the wolves and the lambs feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox; but the serpent [shall eat] earth as bread. They shall not hurt or maltreat each other on the holy mountain, saith the Lord.’ 2269 Now we have understood that the expression used among these words, ‘According to the days of the tree [of life 2270 ] shall be the days of my people; the works of their toil shall abound’ obscurely predicts a thousand years. For as Adam was told that in the day he ate of the tree he would die, we know that he did not p. 240 complete a thousand years. We have perceived, moreover, that the expression, ‘The day of the Lord is as a thousand years,’ 2271 is connected with this subject. And further, there was a certain man with us, whose name was John, one of the apostles of Christ, who prophesied, by a revelation that was made to him, that those who believed in our Christ would dwell 2272 a thousand years in Jerusalem; and that thereafter the general, and, in short, the eternal resurrection and judgment of all men would likewise take place. Just as our Lord also said, ‘They shall neither marry nor be given in marriage, but shall be equal to the angels, the children of the God of the resurrection.’ 2273

Footnotes

Literally, “time.”

Literally, “the son of an hundred years.”

Literally, “the son of an hundred years.”

Or, as in margin of A. V., “they shall make the works of their toil continue long,” so reading παλαιώσουσιν for πλεονάσουσιν: thus also LXX.

Isa. lxv. 17 to end.

These words are not found in the mss.

Ps. xc. 4; 2 Pet. iii. 8.

Literally, “make.” [A very noteworthy passage, as a primitive exposition of Rev. xx. 4-5. See Kaye, chap. v.]

Luke xx. 35f.