# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_October 1857_S299
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

The Chiliasm of Certain Distinguished Church Fathers in the First Centuries.   299

the same writer (Papias) has adduced as having come down to him by unwritten tradition, both certain new parables and teachings of the Savior and various other more legendary matters. Among these he also says that after the resurrection from the dead there will be a period of a thousand years, in which the kingdom of Christ will exist bodily upon this earth. This opinion he seems to have conceived through a misunderstanding of apostolic discourses, in that he did not see through what they said in images in a mystical manner. For he was very weak in understanding, as is evident from his writings."

Justin Martyr (who was formerly a Samaritan heathen from Shechem in Samaria, after his conversion made great journeys in Egypt and Asia Minor as an "evangelist in the philosopher's cloak," and finally taught at Rome, where in 163 he died a martyr's death) writes in Dial. c. Tryph. c. 80: (The Jew) Trypho then said: But tell me the truth, whether you confess that this place Jerusalem will be renewed, your people gathered and raised up to joy together with Christ, the patriarchs, the prophets, and those who are of our race, or who have come over to us as proselytes, before you look for the coming of Christ; or do you take refuge in this, that you do not deny it, so that you may seem to overcome us in the disputation? And I answered: I am not so wretched, O Trypho, as to say other than I think. I confessed to you before as well that I and many others believe that this will happen, as indeed you know quite well; but I have also explained to you that, on the other hand, many Christians who have no pure and God-fearing faith do not acknowledge it. For I have told you that some are called Christians but are God-denying and godless heretics, because in every respect they teach blasphemous, God-denying, and senseless doctrine... For if you have conversed with certain persons who are called Christians and do not confess this, but even dare to blaspheme the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, who also say that there is no resurrection of the dead, but that their souls are taken up into heaven immediately upon dying — then do not hold them for Christians... But I, and any who are Christians orthodox in all points, we know that the resurrection of the flesh will take place, and the thousand years in the rebuilt, adorned, and enlarged Jerusalem, as the prophets Ezekiel and Isaiah and the others proclaim.

For Isaiah has spoken thus of the time of the thousand years: "For there shall be a new heaven and a new earth, and the former shall no more be remembered nor taken to heart, but joy and delight shall they find in that which I create. For behold, I make Jerusalem a delight and my people a joy, and I will rejoice over Jerusalem and be glad over my people, and there shall no more be heard therein the voice of weeping, nor the voice of lamentation. And there