heaven; do not imagine that they are Christians, even as one, if he would rightly consider it, would not admit that the Sadducees, or similar sects of Genistæ, Meristæ,[1] Galilæans, Hellenists,[2] Pharisees, Baptists, are Jews (do not hear me impatiently when I tell you what I think), but are [only] called Jews and children of Abraham, worshipping God with the lips, as God Himself declared, but the heart was far from Him. But I and others, who are right-minded Christians on all points, are assured that there will be a resurrection of the dead, and a thousand years[3] in Jerusalem, which will then be built, adorned, and enlarged, [as] the prophets Ezekiel and Isaiah and others declare.
Chap. lxxxi.—He endeavours to prove this opinion from Isaiah and the Apocalypse.
"For Isaiah spake thus concerning this space of a thousand years: 'For there shall be the new heaven and the new earth, and the former shall not be remembered, or come into their heart; but they shall find joy and gladness in it, which things I create. For, behold, I make Jerusalem a rejoicing, and my people a joy; and I shall rejoice over Jerusalem, and be glad over my people. And the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her, or the voice of crying. And there shall be no
- ↑ Maranus says, Hieron. thinks the Genistæ were so called because they were sprung from Abraham (γένος), the Meristæ so called because they separated the Scriptures. Josephus bears testimony to the fact that the sects of the Jews differed in regard to fate and providence; the Pharisees submitting all things indeed to God, with the exception of human wills; the Essenes making no exceptions, and submitting all to God. I believe therefore that the Genistæ were so called because they believed the world to be in general governed by God; the Meristæ, because they believed that a fate or providence belonged to each man.
- ↑ Otto says, the author and chief of this sect of Galilæans was Judas Galilæus, who, after the exile of king Archelaus, when the Romans wished to raise a tax in Judæa, excited his countrymen to the retaining of their former liberty.—The Hellenists, or rather Hellenæans. No one mentions this sect but Justin; perhaps Herodians or Hillenæans (from R. Hillel).
- ↑ We have translated the text of Justin as it stands. Commentators make the sense, "and that there will be a thousand years in Jerusalem," or "that the saints will live a thousand years in Jerusalem."
