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"way of thinking in all respects, know that there "shall be both a resurrection of the flesh, and a "thousand years in Jerusalem, built and adorned " and enlarged, as the prophets Ezekiel, and Isaiah, "and the rest of them, profess. . . . forasmuch too, as among us also, a certain man, called John, one "of the apostles of the Messiah, foretold in a reve"lation which was made to him, that they who

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have believed in our Messiah shall pass a thou"sand years in Jerusalem, and that afterwards the general, and, in one word, everlasting resurrection "of all men at once, with one accord, and judgment, "will take place; what our Lord also said, that they shall neither marry, nor be given in marriage, but shall be equal to angels, being children "of the God of the resurrection f."

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This passage renders a distinct testimony to Justin's belief upon all the principal points, at issue between the millennarians and their opponents; that there will be a resurrection of the faithful dead; a reunion of all, both Jews and Christians, under Christ at Jerusalem; a visible reign of Christ there, for a thousand years; and the like.

Nor does it detract from its value, that he acknowledges the existence of many good Christians, in his own time, who nevertheless did not entertain the same belief in these respects, as himself and others. On the score of an ingenuous candour, it rather

f Cf. Dial. 219. 2-14: 241.17-19: 324. 25-28: 371.12-23: 378.3-379. 1: 408. 6.7: 432. 22–433. 13.—The reader will be pleased to observe on the above translation, and on any other which may occur in the course of the work, that they are purposely made as literal as possible-that the unlearned reader may be the better able to judge of the sense of the original by the version.

adds to its merit, that no attempt is made to exaggerate the real state of the case; or to make the doctrine appear the more incontrovertible, by representing it as universal in the church. The belief in the futurity of the millennium was never indiscriminately entertained, no more than its disbelief: and it is enough for my purpose, if I can shew that in the times immediately after the apostolical, it was the most general and orthodox; and this Justin distinctly asserts it was, while he admits there were some, and those in other respects very sound and unexceptionable Christians, who nevertheless dissented from the popular belief. The doctrine of the millennium shared in this respect the same fortune as the book of Revelation, on which it is mainly founded. There were always some who doubted of the authenticity and authority of that book, even while the majority of the church acknowledged both.

Nor ought it to surprise us that the doctrine in question, though affecting the Jews as much as the Christians, in its personal consequences to either, yet appeared new and unheard-of to Justin's adversary in this dialogue, Trypho the Jew. It could not but have appeared so. The doctrine of a millennium was doubtless a μvoτýpiov or secret, which the church of Christ kept to itself, and did not promiscuously communicate to the Gentile or unbeliever. The futurity of a second advent of Christ is openly avowed in Justin's first Apology, addressed to the Roman emperor, Antoninus Pius ; but there is no such statement of a reign of his upon earth, to ensue on that coming, as we have seen to be plainly asserted in the Dialogue with Trypho.

8 Pag. 76. 7-78. 30.

These secret expectations relating to the future, were the mystical pearls of the Gospel, committed to the keeping of faith, and to be freely circulated, indeed, among the members of the church; but not to be given to dogs, or cast as worthless before swine. What then, was an ignorant and prejudiced Jew, such as Trypho, likely to have known about them, until he heard them for the first time, as they were declared by Justin, in the course of this very dialogue? Lactantius, after descanting at full length upon these mysteries, closes his account of them in the following terms; which abundantly demonstrate that, however confidently believed and generally professed among such as were Christians, they were not less carefully concealed from such as were not b.

"This is the doctrine of the holy prophets, which "we Christians adopt as our sect; this is our wis"dom; which those men, who either worship frail

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things, (idols,) or profess an empty philosophy, "ridicule as folly and delusion, because we are not "wont to maintain and assert it publicly, God com

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manding us, quietly and silently, to keep his secret "in concealment, and within our own conscience; "and not to strive with an obstinate spirit of con"tention against those truly profane persons, who, "not for the sake of learning, but of cavilling and making game, mercilessly assail God and his re

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ligion. A mystery (or secret) indeed, ought to be "hidden and covered up, as faithfully as possible; 66 especially by us, who bear the name of the faith (the faithful). They, however, falsely accuse this "reservedness of ours, as if a consciousness of guilt; "and on that ground, they invent also certain aboh Div. Inst. vii. 26. 673.

"minable opinions concerning the chaste and inno"cent, and greedily assent to their own inventions i."

Let us now proceed to examine the testimony of Irenæus, bishop of Lugdunum in Gaul, in which

It is mentioned by Eusebius, in his Ecclesiastical History, iii. xx. 90. A. that, in the persecution of the Christians by Domitian, (about A. D. 94 or 95,) the grandchildren of Jude, one of the brethren of our Lord, were brought before the emperor, and questioned concerning Christ and his kingdom; of which perhaps Domitian had heard enough, to make him jealous of it. They are said to have answered, that his kingdom was not of this world, nor terrestrial, but heavenly and angelical, being to take place at the consummation of all things, &c.

Without doubting of the truth of this story, (which Eusebius most probably took from Hegesippus, a Christian writer, who lived and wrote very soon after the time when it is supposed to have happened,) I will only observe first, that as to the account of Christ's kingdom, given in the above words, it is Eusebius' version of the answer, in substance, merely; and Eusebius was no millennarian: secondly, that the import of it is just to the same effect as our Lord's declaration to Pilate, that his kingdom was not of this world; which nevertheless I have shewn to be consistent with the fact of a reign of his sometime or other upon earth: thirdly, that the passage produced from Lactantius, proves that the expectation of a millennary reign of Christ upon earth, however confidently entertained, was yet not promiscuously avowed: fourthly, that to such a question as Domitian's, who was anxious to know more of Christ's kingdom, supposing it to be of a political nature, and formidable to his own, no other answer could have been returned: lastly, that so early as A. D. 94. it is very unlikely that the Revelation, though it might have been seen, had yet come to be generally known among Christians; nor consequently any such doctrine as that of the millennium, properly so called, to be a common article of belief in the church: and, therefore, that on all these accounts the above tradition, admitting its truth, furnishes no ground of objection either to the antiquity, or to the fact of the general reception of the doctrine.

office he succeeded to Pothinus upon his martyrdom, an event that took place very probably, as it may be shewn, about A. D. 170.

The whole of the fifth and last extant book of his work against heresies, (adversus hæreses,) from chapter 25 to the end of it, relates to the subject of the unfulfilled prophecies in the book of Revelation, Daniel, and the rest: and it supplies the clearest intimations, that in the expectation of the temporal kingdom of Christ, his opinions agreed with those of Papias and Justin Martyr. I shall produce one passage from it, as sufficient for our present purpose: though in fact almost the whole of it might be transcribed and cited.

First, then, after arguing, as we have done already, that our Lord's promise to drink again of the fruit of the vine, can be fulfilled only during his personal presence in his kingdom on earth; and again, in like manner, that the reward promised in the resurrection of the just, to the sacrifice of temporal good, made in this life, for the sake of deeds of charity done to the poor and impotent, is also to be realised in the same; he proceeds to make some observations on the blessing of Jacob by Isaac, and then continues as follows.

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"The aforesaid blessing therefore, doubtless appertains to the times of the kingdom, when the just shall rise from the dead, and reign: when the "creature (the creation) also, being made new, and "freed, shall produce an abundance of every kind of "food, of the dew of heaven and of the fatness of "the earth :' according as the Elders, who saw John "the disciple of the Lord, have mentioned that they k Chap. v. 33. 453. sqq.

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