the spiritual meaning in the texts. Eusebius cast doubt on the mental capacities of Papias, now
Augustine implies that the same charges of incompetence rest on Justin and Irenaeus.
37
Of
course, the same pattern is sometimes present in arguments against dispensationalism; so
perhaps dispensationalists can take some comfort in the knowledge that they are members of a
noble company with Papias, Justin, and Irenaeus.
Justin asserts that Isaiah foretold a reign of a thousand years, but his justification for
that comes from connecting "live as long as trees" (v. 22), which in the LXX reads
("for as long as the days of
the tree of life shall be the days of my people"), an interpretive translation that may even to the
LXX translators have been an allusion to the paradise-like millennium.
38
Justin follows a
catchword method of exegesis, linking this with the millennium by connection with the
paradise-like tree of life (Haer. 5.15.1). Even Justin says the passage predicts the millennium
only . Although no patristic writer had yet used this verse in a chiliastic sense, one
can see how appropriate it might be when taken up into eschatological reflection. Indeed
Jubilees had done the same thing with it (Jub. 4:2930). Isaiah's own context speaks of a
radical transformation of human existence that eliminates earth's sorrows; and what better
imagery to apply to millennial expectations? Justin's argument for a thousand-year life for a
tree and therefore of Adam is indeed fanciful, but the passage's general tone certainly provides
useful rationale for chiliasm. It argues for the victory of God's reign in history, the very point
upon which chiliasm hinges.
Justin also turns to Psalm 90:4 and 2 Peter 3:8 to buttress his argument for chiliasm,
making a connection between these two texts and his treatment of Isaiah 65:22.
He connects the statement "according to the days of the tree [of life]" to the lifetime of Adam
who died "the day" he ate from the forbidden tree. Justin then makes the curious hermeneutic
connection: "For as Adam was told in the day he ate of the tree he would die, we know that he
did not complete a thousand years. We have perceived, moreover, that the expression, `The day
of the Lord is as a thousand years,' is connected with this subject."
39
17
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37
E. R. Goodenough, The Theology of Justin Martyr (Jena: Frommann, 1923) 175.
38
Daniélou, The Theology of Jewish Christianity, 393.
39
Gregory, "Chiliastic Hermeneutic," 219220; citing Justin, Dial. 81.