A Source Book for Ancient Church History - Mirrors

36 A Source Book for Ancient Church Historynot to be regarded as a man of small power simply becausehe held chiliastic ideas is sufficiently refuted by the fact thatJustin Martyr falls but little behind Papias in extravagance ofexpression.[026]“I shall not hesitate, also, to set in order for you with my interpretationswhatsoever things I have ever learned carefully fromthe elders and carefully remembered, guaranteeing the truth ofthem.… For I did not think that what was to be gotten from thebooks would profit me as much as what came from the livingand abiding voice.…” The same writer gives also other accountswhich he says came to him through unwritten traditions, certainstrange parables and teachings of the Saviour and some othermore mythical things. Among these he says that there will bea period of some thousand years after the resurrection of thedead, when the kingdom of Christ will be set up in a materialform on this very earth. I suppose he got these ideas through amisunderstanding of the apostolic accounts, not perceiving thatthe things said by them were spoken mystically in figures. For heappears to have been of very limited understanding, as one cansee from his discourses, though so many of the Church Fathersafter him adopted a like opinion, urging in their support theantiquity of the man; as, for instance, Irenæus and any one elsethat may have proclaimed similar views.(b) Irenæus. Adv. Hæreses, V, 33. (MSG, 7:1213.)The elders who saw John, the disciple of the Lord, relate thatthey heard from him how the Lord used to teach in regard tothose times, and say: “The days will come in which vines shallgrow, each having ten thousand branches, and in each branchten thousand twigs, and in each twig ten thousand shoots, andin each one of the shoots ten thousand clusters, and on everycluster ten thousand grapes, and every grape when pressed willyield five-and-twenty metretes of wine. And when any one of