Justin likens the millennium to the proper length of human life:
For as Adam was told that in the day he ate from the tree he would die, we realize that he did
not complete a thousand years. We have also noticed that the expression "the day of the Lord is
as a thousand years," is connected with this subject. (Dial. 81)
Willis Shotwell says Justin was basing his argument on a forced exegesis of Isaiah, which he
interpreted by a specifically chiliastic hermeneutics (Isa 65:1725, esp. v. 20).
34
Largely
ignoring the grammatical-historical sense that the scripture may have had for its original
audience, Justin's interpretation was entirely christocentric; the Old Testament pointed forward
to Christ through predictive prophecy, although veiled.
35
He had no difficulty with a cryptic
approach, wherein Christ was foretold in signs, symbols, and types. In fact, following the lead
of the New Testament, Justin used terms like "mystery" and "parable" as a reference to the
predictive nature of Scripture.
One finds a diverse pattern in other Christian citation of Isaiah 65. Only Irenaeus
follows Justin's interpretation, citing it in the same context as he cites Revelation 20 (Haer.
5.35.2). Tertullian, however, cities it with no reference to the millennium, but rather as proof
that the Law is abrogated (Marc. 5.2). Nowhere in his defense of chiliasm does Tertullian cite
this verse. By the time Jerome comes on the scene, he can cite it reflecting on the possibility of
"a new heaven for reconstituted devils rather than a millennium for saints."
36
In this, he reflects
Origen's universalist speculation that demons might be reconstituted to form another human
race. When Augustine comes along, he uses Isaiah 65 in a direct and explicit repudiation of
chiliasm, possibly having Justin and Irenaeus in mind when he criticizes the misuses of Isaiah
65 as promises of "carnal enjoyment during the thousand years." Augustine insists:
In the manner of prophecy, figurative and literal expressions are mingled, so that a serious mind
may, be useful and salutary effort, reach the spiritual sense; but carnal sluggishness, or the
slowness of an uneducated and undisciplined mind, rests in the superficial letter and thinks there
is nothing beneath to be looked for. (City of God, 20.21)
In Augustine's criticism we hear the common complaint: chiliasm is for those too dumb to read
16
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34
W. A. Shotwell, The Biblical Exegesis of Justin Martyr (London: SPCK, 1965).
35
Ibid., 89, 135.
36
Gregory, "Chiliastic Hermeneutic," 201.