Irenaeus of Lyons · a new plain-English translation from the original language
He confirms his thesis by the promises in which Christ vowed he would once more taste the vine's fruit within his Father's kingdom, and likewise promised a hundredfold reward and a banquet — things that the blessing of Jacob had long before foreshadowed, as Papias and the Elders interpreted it.
For this reason, when he came to his passion, so as to announce to Abraham and his company the good news that the inheritance was now opening, having given thanks over the cup, drunk from it, and passed it to his disciples, he told them: 'Take this and drink, all of you. This cup holds my blood, sealing the new covenant, poured out on behalf of many, for release from sins. I tell you, from here on I will not taste this vine's fruit again until the day I drink it anew, together with you, within my Father's kingdom.' He will indeed make the earth's inheritance new again and bring back the hidden glory owed his children, exactly as David states: 'the one who renews the surface of the earth.' In vowing to share the vine's fruit with his disciples he pointed to two realities at once: the inherited earth, where that renewed fruit of the vine is tasted, and the rising again of his disciples' flesh. For it is that very risen flesh which takes hold of the new cup. One cannot picture him tasting the vine's fruit while enthroned above, in some realm beyond the heavens, together with his own; nor can those who partake be fleshless, since wine drawn from the vine is proper to flesh, not to spirit.
And for this reason the Lord said: 'When you give a dinner or a supper, do not invite the rich, nor friends and neighbors and kinsmen, lest they in turn invite you and repayment be made to you; but invite the lame, the blind, the poor, and you will be blessed, because they have nothing with which to repay you — for your repayment will come once the just are raised.' And again he said: 'Whoever has left fields, or houses, or parents, or brothers, or children for my sake will receive a hundredfold in this age, and in the age to come will inherit eternal life besides.' For it is not in this age that the hundredfold reward is found, and banquets given to the poor, and suppers repaid. These belong to the times of the Kingdom, that is, to the seventh day, which has been sanctified, on which God rested from all the works that he made — which is the true sabbath of the just, on which they will do no earthly work at all; but they will have a table set beside them, prepared by God, feeding them with every delicacy.
So too the blessing that Isaac gave, when he blessed his younger son Jacob, contains this: 'See,' he said, 'my son's scent is the scent of a lush meadow the Lord has blessed. May God grant you heaven's moisture and earth's richness, plentiful grain and new wine. Let nations be your servants, let rulers bend before you; rule over your brother, and let your father's sons kneel to you. Whoever curses you is cursed, and whoever blesses you is blessed.' Now unless one applies these words to the promised era of the Kingdom, one lands in flat contradiction and confusion, exactly as the Jews stumble at every turn trying to make sense of them. For not only did no nation serve this Jacob during his lifetime, but having received the blessing he went and worked for twenty years under his uncle Laban the Syrian; and far from ruling his brother, it was Esau who bowed before him on his return from Mesopotamia to their father, bringing many gifts. And how did he come to inherit plentiful grain and wine, when famine in his own land forced him down into Egypt, under Pharaoh's rule at that time? This blessing, then, plainly belongs to the era of the Kingdom, when the just, raised from death, will govern; when creation, made new and released, will yield food of every kind in abundance from heaven's moisture and earth's richness — just as the elders who had known John, disciple of the Lord, recalled hearing from him how the Lord taught concerning that era, saying: 'Days are coming when vines will sprout, each bearing ten thousand boughs, and on every bough ten thousand shoots, and on every shoot ten thousand twigs, and on every twig ten thousand bunches, and on every bunch ten thousand grapes, and each grape pressed will give twenty-five measures of wine. And when a saint reaches to grasp one bunch, a neighboring bunch will call out: Take me instead, I am the finer bunch; through me give thanks to the Lord. So too a kernel of wheat will yield ten thousand ears, each ear ten thousand grains, and each grain five double-pound measures of clean, fine flour; and the remaining fruits, seeds, and plants will bear in the same proportion; and every animal, living off this food the earth provides, will grow gentle and live at peace with the others, entirely obedient to mankind.'
Papias, who had heard John and kept company with Polycarp, a man of the old generation, sets down his testimony to these matters in the fourth of his books, of which five survive in all. And he adds: 'These matters can be trusted by those who trust.' When Judas the traitor doubted and asked how the Lord could bring about such things, he reports the Lord's answer: 'Those who live to see those days will witness it.' Speaking beforehand of that era, Isaiah says: 'Wolf and lamb shall feed side by side, leopard shall rest with young goat, calf and young bull and lion shall be fed as one, and a small child shall guide them. Cow and bear shall graze together, their offspring shall lie down as one; the lion shall take straw for food, like cattle. And a nursing child shall reach a hand into the viper's hole, into the den where young serpents lie, and come to no harm, for nothing on my sacred mountain will bring ruin on anyone.' And summarizing this again he says: 'Wolves then, with lambs, shall graze as one, the lion, like an ox, shall eat straw, and the snake shall feed on soil as though it were bread; nothing shall harm or ruin anything on my sacred mountain, declares the Lord.' I am aware that some read these words allegorically, applying them to savage and varied sorts of people — different nations, different trades — who upon coming to believe grow gentle alongside the righteous. Yet even granting this is already so, in some drawn from every nation into a single faith, still, once the just are raised, these words will hold true of the animals themselves as well, exactly as it is written: 'God abounds in every good thing.' It follows that, when creation is set right again, every animal must submit and answer to mankind, returning to the diet God originally gave — the produce of the earth — just as they answered to Adam in obedience. There is no way, otherwise, to show a lion literally grazing on straw in the present age; rather this pointed toward the vastness and richness of what is coming. For if a lion, a flesh-eating beast, is to live on straw, what quality must the wheat itself have, if even its straw becomes food fit for lions?