Chapter 33. The Promises to the Patriarchs Will Be Fulfilled in the New Earth.
Chapter 33
1. In keeping with this, when he came to his passion, in order to announce the good news of the inauguration of the inheritance to Abraham and to those with him, he gave thanks over the cup, drank from it and gave it to his disciples, the while saying to them: Drink of it, all of you; for this is my blood of the new covenant, which is being poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. I tell you, I shall not drink again of the fruit of this vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom. He himself will renew the inheritance of the earth and restore the mystery of the glory of the sons of God, as David says, Who will renew the face of the earth. In that [inheritance] he promised to drink of the fruit of the vine with his disciples. Thus he manifested two things: the inheritance of the earth in which the new fruit of the vine is drunk, and the bodily resurrection of his disciples. For the flesh that rises new is the one that receives the new cup. Nor can we understand that he would drink the fruit of the vine in the supercelestial place on high; nor, on the other hand, that those who would drink it would be without flesh, for it is characteristic of the flesh, not of the spirit, to receive the drink of the wine.
2. With this in mind the Lord said: When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends, or your brethren or your kinsmen or your rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return, and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind; and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just. This, too, he said: Everyone who has left lands or houses or parents or brothers or children for my sake, will receive a hundredfold in this world, and inherit eternal life in the next. Now, what are the hundredfold of this world and the dinners given to the poor and the banquets offered? These things will take place in the times of the kingdom, that is, on the seventh day which was sanctified, on which God rested from all the works he had made. This is the true Sabbath of the just, on which they will not do any wearisome work but will have at hand a table prepared by God, who will feed them with every kind of food.
3. Isaac’s blessing, with which he blessed Jacob, the younger son, has the same meaning. See, he said, the smell of my son is as the smell of a plentiful field, which the Lord has blessed. But the field is the world; and so he added: May God give to you of the dew of heaven, and of the fatness of the earth, and plenty of grain and wine. Let peoples serve you, and nations bow down to you. Be lord over your brothers, and may your mother’s sons bow down to you. Cursed be everyone who curses you, and blessed be every one who blesses you. Now if anyone does not refer these things to the times of the “kingdom” mentioned before, he will fall into a great contradiction and opposition, just as the Jews fell and are involved in every perplexity. For not only in this life do the Gentiles not serve this Jacob, but after the blessing he himself went forth and served Laban his Syrian uncle for twenty years. And he was not only not made the lord of his brother, but even reverenced Esau his brother when he returned to his father from Mesopotamia and offered Esau many gifts.
And how did he who, on account of the famine in the land in which he dwelt, emigrate to Egypt and become subject to Pharaoh who then reigned in Egypt?How did he inherit here below the abundance of wheat and wine? The aforementioned blessing, then, belongs indubitably to the times of the “kingdom” when the just will rise from the dead and will reign, and will have been honored by God through the very resurrection, when the creation, after it has been renewed and liberated, will produce an abundance of every kind of food because of the dew of heaven and the fertility of the land, as the Presbyter, who had seen John, the Lord’s disciple, recalled that they had heard from him that the Lord taught these things about the times, and said: “Days will come when the vine will sprout, each one having ten thousand branches and every branch ten thousand twigs, and on each branch ten thousand shoots, and on each shoot ten thousand clusters, and on each cluster ten thousand grapes, and in each grape when pressed twenty-five measures of wine. And when any of the saints will take hold of a cluster, another cluster will cry out, ‘I am a better cluster, take me, and bless the Lord through me.’ In like manner, a grain of wheat will sprout ten thousand ears of wheat, and each ear will have ten thousand grains, and each grain will furnish ten pounds of clean white flour. Likewise, the rest of the fruits and the seeds and the herbs will produce in proportion to these; and all the animals who use these foods which are gotten from the earth will live in peace and harmony among themselves, completely subject to men.”
4. Papias, who was an old man, John’s auditor, and Polycarp’s companion, testifies in writing to the same things in the fourth of his books. (He wrote five books.) This is what he added: “These things are credible to believers,” he said, “Judas, the traitor, who did not believe, and who asked, ‘How, then, can things that will produce so plentifully be made by the Lord?’ got this answer from the Lord: ‘Those who come to them, will see.’”
Prophesying of these times, Isaiah said: The wolf shall pasture with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the bull and the lion shall pasture together, and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall pasture together, and their young shall be together, and the lion shall eat straw like an ox. The suckling child shall be over the hole of the asp; and shall thrust his hand into the den of the young asps; and they shall not hurt, nor shall they be able to destroy anyone in my holy mountain. He summed it up again this way: The wolves and the lambs shall pasture together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox; and ground shall be food for the serpent. They shall not hurt or destroy in my holy mountain, says the Lord.
I am not unaware that certain people try to transfer these things to wild men, who, coming from various nations and diverse occupations, became believers and once they believed they lived in concord with the just. But even though at present this happens among certain people, who from various nations unite in the one doctrine of faith; nevertheless, in the resurrection of the dead it will happen to those animals, exactly as it was said. For God is rich in all things. And it is proper that, once creation has been renewed, all the animals obey and be subject to man, and return to the first food that was given by God, just as before the disobedience they were subject to Adam, eating the fruit of the earth. For the rest, it is not possible at present to point to any lion who feeds on straw. But by this he pointed out the size and richness of the fruits. For if that animal, the lion, feeds on straw, what will the wheat itself be like, if its straw will be suitable food for lions?