that was Origen's "chiliast," one constructed by the Platonizer himself; second, the utopian
imagery seems universal enough not to have required a specific literary source. How else does
one speak of an end to poverty but in terms of gold and jewels? A long life is a universal hope.
Gregory even mentions the correspondence between Phaedo's world made of "twelve pieces
of leather" and the repetitive use of the number twelve in the Apocalypse.
41
I had always
supposed that the Israelite tribal twelve and the Christian apostolic twelve might provide fairly
adequate explanation for the use of "twelve" in Revelation. To conclude from evidence like
this that Justin was attempting to "harmonize his chiliasm with his Platonism" overruns the
evidence.
3.6. Theophilus of Antioch (A.D. 180
185, see text at p. 41)
He calculated the year from creation to the flood, from the flood to Abraham, and so
forth. He concluded, "All the year from the creation of the world amount to a total of 5698
years, and the odd months and days" (Autol. 3.28).
3.7. Irenaeus of Lyon (A.D. 130
202, see text at p. 42)
Irenaeus gave us the first really systematized version, furnishing it with extensive
rationale. He was, above all else, a fighter against heretics. His magnum opus is Detection and
Overthrow of Pretended and False Gnosis, a tract against the leading heretical notion of his
time. The development of his chiliasm came in the context of his efforts to demolish those
heresies. In the fifth book, under a discussion of the resurrection, he spelled out his extensive
chiliast rationale.
42
He said the Apostle John clearly foresaw the first resurrection of the just,
and "the inheritance in the kingdom of the earth" (Haer. 5.36.3). This, he thought, was an
indispensable part of orthodoxy:
Inasmuch, therefore, as the opinions of certain [orthodox persons] are derived from heretical
discourses, they are both ignorant of God's dispensations, and of the mystery of the resurrection
19
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41
Ibid., 250.
42
A. C. Cox, "Introductory Notes to Irenaeus's Against Heresies," The Ante-Nicene
Fathers (10 vols.; eds. A. Roberts and J. Donaldson; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1899
1900) 1.311.