Chapter 33

§ 1.

And with a view to this, when coming to His Passion, that He might preach to Abraham, and those who were with him, that Gospel which revealed their inheritance;—when with the Cup in His Hands He had given thanks, and had drunk of it, and given it to His Disciples, He said to them, Drink ye all of it;¹ This is My Blood of the New Testament, which shall be shed for many for the remission of sins. But I say unto you, I will not henceforth drink of the fruit of this vine,² until that day in which I shall drink it new with you in My Father’s Kingdom. That is, He it is who shall renew the inheritance of the Earth, and shall perfect afresh the mystery of the glory of the sons, as David saith, Who renewed the face of the earth.³ He promised to drink of the fruit of the vine with His disciples, intimating both the inheritance of the Earth wherein is drunk the new fruit of the vine, and the bodily Resurrection of His Disciples. For the flesh which ariseth new, that it is which received the Cup which is also new: since neither can we understand Him as drinking the fruit of the vine when He hath taken His place with His own on high in the region above all Heavens; neither again are they who drink it without flesh: for the drink which is received of the vine is a thing belonging to the flesh and not to the spirit.

§ 2.

And therefore said our Lord,⁴ When thou makest a dinner or a supper, call not rich men, nor friends and neighbours and kinsmen, lest they in turn call thee, and a recompense be made from them: but call the lame, the blind, the beggars; and thou shalt be blessed, for they have not wherewith to recompense thee: for thou shalt be recompensed in the resurrection of the just.⁵ And again He saith, Whosoever shall put away fields, or houses, or parents, or brethren, or children for My sake, shall receive a hundred fold in this world, and in the world to come shall inherit eternal life. For what are in this world the hundred fold recompenses,⁶ and dinners which are given to the poor, and suppers which are repaid? All this is in the times of the Kingdom, i.e., in the seventh day, which is sanctified, wherein God rested from all His works which He made, which is the true Sabbath of the just, wherein they shall do no earthly work, but shall have set by them a Table prepared of God, feeding them with a perfect feast.

§ 3.

As the blessing also of Isaac hath it, wherewith he blessed his younger son Jacob:⁷ See, saith he, the smell of my son is as the smell of a full field, which God hath blessed. but “the field is the world;”⁸ and therefore he added, God give thee of the dew of Heaven,⁹ and of the fatness of the Earth, plenty of wheat and wine. And let nations serve thee and princes worship thee, and be Lord of thy brother, and thy father’s sons shall worship thee. He that curseth thee shall be cursed, and he that blesseth thee shall be blessed. You see that if one receive not all this as of the foreordained things of the Kingdom,¹⁰ he will fall into great contradiction and inconsistency, even as the Jews fall, and find themselves in entire perplexity. For so far from the nations serving Jacob in this life, he himself after the blessing went out and served his uncle Laban the Syrian for twenty years: and so far from his being made Lord of his brother,¹¹ he himself worshipped his brother Esau, when he returned from Mesopotamia to his father;¹² and offered him many gifts. And how did he here inherit plenty of corn and wine, who through the famine which took place in the land where he dwelt, emigrated into Egypt, being made subject unto Pharaoh, who then reigned in Egypt? Wherefore the aforesaid blessing relates unquestionably to the times of the Kingdom, when the Just shall reign, rising again from the dead; when¹³ also the creature, being renewed and delivered, shall bring forth plenty of all kind of nourishment, of the dew of Heaven, and of the fatness of the earth: as the Presbyters who had seen John the Lord’s disciple remembered that they had heard of him, how the Lord used to teach concerning those times, and to say, “Days shall come, wherein vineyards shall grow, having each 10000 main shoots: and in one main shoot 10000 branches and in one main shoot¹⁴ again 10000 sprigs, and upon every sprig 10000 clusters, and in every cluster 10000 grapes, and every grape when pressed shall yield twenty five measures of wine. And when any one of those saints shall lay hold of a cluster, another cluster shall exclaim, I am a better cluster, take me, by me bless the Lord.” In like manner also that a grain of wheat would bear 10000 ears, and that every ear would have 10000 grains, and every grain ten pounds of clear and clean flour: and the fruits too, and seeds, and the grass, in the proportion following on this: and that all animals using as food the things which are received from the earth, should come to be at peace and agreement one with another, submitting themselves to men with entire submission.

§ 4.

And these things Papias also, who was a hearer of John and companion of Polycarp, an ancient man, testifies in writing in the fourth of his books: for there are five books compiled by him. And he added and said, For these things are such as believers may believe. And “when Judas,” saith he, “the traitor, did not believe, and enquired, How then shall produce¹⁵ such as these be brought to pass by the Lord? the Lord said, They shall see who shall come to that state of things.” These times therefore Isaiah is foretelling when he says,¹⁶ And the wolf shall feed with the lamb, and the leopard shall rest with the kid, and the calf and the bull and the lion shall feed together, and a little boy shall lead them! And the ox and the bear shall feed together, and their little ones shall be together: and the lion and the ox shall eat chaff. And the infant boy shall put his hand on the hole of asps, and on the lair of the asp’s brood, and they shall not hurt, nor be able to destroy any one in My holy mountain.¹⁷ And again, summing up, he saith, Then wolves and lambs shall feed together, and the lion shall eat chaff like the ox, and the serpent earth as it were bread, and they shall not hurt nor vex in My holy mountain, saith the Lord.

Now I am aware that some endeavour to transfer all this to wild persons,¹⁸ and to such as believe out of diverse nations and diverse doings, and having believed, are of one mind with the righteous. But although this be now the case among some men, coming out of various nations to one mind concerning the Faith: nevertheless in the resurrection of the Just [it will be so] with those animals, as was said: For God is rich in all things. And it is meet that the creature being recalled, all living things should obey and be subject unto Man, and that, as they were subject unto Adam in their obedience, they should return to the food which was first given of God, i.e., the fruit of the Earth. And besides this, we cannot now point out how that a Lion eateth chaff. Now this was to intimate the greatness and richness of the produce. For if the Lion, the [literal] animal, feedeth on chaff, of what sort will the wheat itself be,¹⁹ whose chaff shall be meet for the food of lions?