time; the refreshing river 



fallen away. The only other ancient literature which has resemblances 

 to that of the Hebrews in this respect is the Chinese, where remarkable 

 descriptions of social evolution occur in the I-Ching^ the "Book of 

 Changes" (4th or 5th century B.C.). Hesiod, on the other hand, says 

 that if it had not been for the act of Prometheus, who stormed heaven 

 by force, brought thence the gift of fire, and provoked the gods to 

 withhold from men an easy way of life, *'y^^ would have been able to 

 do easily in a day enough work to keep you for a year, to hang up 

 your rudder in the chimney corner, and let your fields run to waste." 



Thus have decayed the first bright hopes and visions of the christians. 

 In a most interesting passage. Bishop Robertson reveals the class 

 character of the opposition to millenniarism. "Intense as was the 

 christian instinct to which millenniarism gave articulate form, it was 

 in some respects in latent antipathy to the ecclesiastical spirit, and 

 waned as that spirit gathered strength. Its rejection by rational the- 

 ology, and by the trained theologians who filled the more important 

 places in the Greek Churches in the third and fourth centuries, had 

 practically the effect of ranging the clergy in opposition to it. In 

 fact, millenniarism, by virtue of its direct appeal to minds of crass 

 simplicity, was a creed for the lay-folk and the simpler sort. When 

 religious interest was concentrated upon it, it would indirectly under- 

 mine the interest felt in doctrines requiring a skilled class to interpret 

 them. The apocalyptic spirit is in fact closely akin to the spirit of 

 unregulated prophesying, and the alliance has been apparent, not only 

 in the second century, but in mediaeval and modem times as well." 

 Crass simplicity — might we not almost say inferior economic position } 

 A skilled class — perhaps a privileged one too } 



Of the hopes of the "simpler sort" we get a glimpse in that very 

 interesting fragment of Papias, preserved by Irenaeus^ and believed 

 to be an authentic saying of Christ himself,^ "The days will come 

 when vines shall grow, each having ten thousand branches, and on 

 each branch ten thousand twigs, and on each twig ten thousand 

 shoots, and on each one of the shoots ten thousand clusters, and on 

 every cluster ten thousand grapes, and every grape when pressed will 

 give twenty-five firkins of wine. And when any one of the saints shall 

 lay hold upon a cluster, another shall cry out, 'I am a better cluster; 

 take me; bless the Lord through me.' And in like manner, that a 



^ See the Apocryphal New Testament, ed. M. R. James (Oxford, 1924, p. 36). 

 ^ "Old men who knew John the Lord's disciple, remember that they heard from 

 him how the Lord taught concerning those times, saying, etc." 



