far more important to apocalyptic minds in the second century than the Gospels – and Irenaeus was again keen to stress to his readers that such passages should be taken literally, not as some sort of metaphor. In his reading of Revelation, Irenaeus found an explanation for the delay in the Second Coming. For first, the book predicted, there must be a battle between good and evil on earth. The struggle of the Christians with their Roman persecutors was, for Irenaeus, just that. The many martyrs were therefore the preface to a second coming and the establishment of a messianic kingdom. ‘For it is just,’he wrote in
Against Heresies, ‘that in the very creation in which they toiled or were afflicted, being proved in every way of suffering, they should receive the reward of their suffering. In the creation in which they were slain because of their love of God, in that they should be revived again.’
