Nathan Betz: Beyond the Millennium: Surprising Conceptions of the New Jerusalem in Justin’s Dial. 80-81 and Irenaeus's Adv. Haer. 5.35-56

Despite, or perhaps because of, its status as a commonplace in Christian discourse from apostolic times, the idea of the New Jerusalem (NJ) in its patristic reception has received scant focused scholarly attention. This presentation marks the second stage in a sustained study meant to map the patristic interpretations of the sign through the early 600s. In the mid-second century, Justin Martyr describes the NJ in literal and millennial terms (Dial.80-81). Several decades later, Irenaeus follows Justin’s lead (Adv. Haer.5.35-36)—but only in part. Purporting to draw on a yet earlier tradition, Irenaeus asserts asecondNew Jerusalem that appears after the millennial Jerusalem (5.35.2)—a final soteriological reality that stands distinct from the millennial teaching for which Irenaeus would become infamous.Bearing these things in mind, I have set forth three tasks for this presentation. (1) I will compare Justin’s and Irenaeus’s interpretations of the NJ in these texts, demonstrating how they elucidate two competing normative early Christian conceptions of the NJ. (2) I will show that both authors make a theological connection between the NJ and what later would be calledtheosis. (3) I will demonstrate that this mystical conception of the NJ seems to have been espoused and developed in the Greek Revelation commentaries of Oecumenius (In Apoc.11.15—12.7) and Andrew of Caesarea (In Apoc.22.65—23.68), both from c. 600, likely revealing Justin and Irenaeus to be the wellspring of what would become one of several characteristic interpretations of the NJ in the patristic era.