HEBREW DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE LIFE.
ON the one extreme, a large majority of Christian scholars have
asserted that the doctrine of a retributive immortality is clearly
taught throughout the Old Testament. Able writers, like Bishop
Warburton, have maintained, on the other extreme, that it says
nothing whatever about a future life, but rather implies the total
and eternal end of men in death. But the most judicious,
trustworthy critics hold an intermediate position, and affirm that
the Hebrew Scriptures show a general belief in the separate
existence of the spirit, not indeed as experiencing rewards and
punishments, but as surviving in the common silence and gloom of
the under world, a desolate empire of darkness yawning beneath all
graves and peopled with dream like ghosts.1
A number of important passages have been cited from different
parts of the Old Testament by the advocates of the view first
mentioned above. It will be well for us to notice these and their
misuse before proceeding farther.
The translation of Enoch has been regarded as a revelation of the
immortality of man. It is singular that Dr. Priestley should
suggest, as the probable fact, so sheer and baseless a hypothesis
as he does in his notes upon the Book of Genesis. He says, "Enoch
was probably a prophet authorized to announce the reality of
another life after this; and he might be removed into it without
dying, as an evidence of the truth of his doctrine." The gross
materialism of this supposition, and the failure of God's design
which it implies, are a sufficient refutation of it. And, besides
the utter unlikelihood of the thought, it is entirely destitute of
support in the premises. One of the most curious of the many
strange things to be found in Warburton's argument for the Divine
Legation of Moses an argument marked, as is well known, by
profound erudition, and, in many respects, by consummate ability
is the use he makes of this account to prove that Moses believed
the doctrine of immortality, but purposely obscured the fact from
which it might be drawn by the people, in order that it might not
interfere with his doctrine of the temporal special providence of
Jehovah over the Jewish nation. Such a course is inconsistent with
sound morality, much more with the character of an inspired
prophet of God.
The only history we have of Enoch is in the fifth chapter of the
Book of Genesis. The substance of it is as follows: "And Enoch
walked with God during his appointed years; and then he was not,
for God took him." The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews,
following the example of those Rabbins who, several centuries
before his time, began to give mystical interpretations of the
Scriptures, infers from this statement that Enoch was borne into
heaven without tasting death. But it is not certainly known who
the author of that epistle was; and, whoever he was, his opinion,
of course, can have no authority upon a subject of criticism like
1 Boettcher, De Inferis Rebusque post mortem futuris ex Hebraorum
et Gracoram Opinionibus.
this. Replying to the supposititious argument furnished by this
passage, we say, Take the account as it reads, and it neither
asserts nor implies the idea commonly held concerning it. It says
nothing about translation or immortality; nor can any thing of the
kind be legitimately deduced from it. Its plain meaning is no more
nor less than this: Enoch lived three hundred and sixty five
years, fearing God and keeping his commandments, and then he died.
Many of the Rabbins, fond as they are of finding in the Pentateuch
the doctrine of future blessedness for the good, interpret this
narrative as only signifying an immature death; for Enoch, it will
be recollected, reached but about half the average age of the
others whose names are mentioned in the chapter. Had this
occurrence been intended as the revelation of a truth, it would
have been fully and clearly stated; otherwise it could not answer
any purpose. As Le Clerc observes, "If the writer believed so
important a fact as that Enoch was immortal, it is wonderful that
he relates it as secretly and obscurely as if he wished to hide
it." But, finally, even admitting that the account is to be
regarded as teaching literally that God took Enoch, it by no means
proves a revelation of the doctrine of general immortality. It
does not show that anybody else would ever be translated or would
in any way enter upon a future state of existence. It is not put
forth as a revelation; it says nothing whatever concerning a
revelation. It seems to mean either that Enoch suddenly died, or
that he disappeared, nobody knew whither. But, if it really means
that God took him into heaven, it is more natural to think that
that was done as a special favor than as a sign of what awaited
others. No general cause is stated, no consequence deduced, no
principle laid down, no reflection added. How, then, can it be
said that the doctrine of a future life for man is revealed by it
or implicated in it?
The removal of Elijah in a chariot of fire, of which we read in
the second chapter of the Second Book of Kings, is usually
supposed to have served as a miraculous proof of the fact that the
faithful servants of Jehovah were to be rewarded with a life in
the heavens. The author of this book is not known, and can hardly
be guessed at with any degree of plausibility. It was
unquestionably written, or rather compiled, a long time probably
several hundred years after the prophets whose wonderful
adventures it recounts had passed away. The internal evidence is
sufficient, both in quality and quantity, to demonstrate that the
book is for the most part a collection of traditions. This
characteristic applies with particular force to the ascension of
Elijah. But grant the literal truth of the account: it will not
prove the point in support of which it is advanced, because it
does not purport to have been done as a revelation of the doctrine
in question, nor did it in any way answer the purpose of such a
revelation. So far from this, in fact, it does not seem even to
have suggested the bare idea of another state of existence in a
single instance. For when Elisha returned without Elijah, and told
the sons of the prophets at Jericho that his master had gone up in
a chariot of fire, which event they knew beforehand was going to
happen, they, instead of asking the particulars or exulting over
the revelation of a life in heaven, calmly said to him, "Behold,
there be with thy servants fifty sons of strength: let them go, we
pray thee, and seek for Elijah, lest peradventure a whirlwind, the
blast of the Lord, hath caught him up and cast him upon one of the
mountains or into one of the valleys. And he said, Ye shall not
send. But when they urged him till he was ashamed, he said, Send."
This is all that is told us. Had it occurred as is stated, it
would not so easily have passed from notice, but mighty
inferences, never to be forgotten, would have been drawn from it
at once. The story as it stands reminds one of the closing scene
in the career of Romulus, speaking of whom the historians say, "In
the thirty seventh year of his reign, while he was reviewing an
army, a tempest arose, in the midst of which he was suddenly
snatched from the eyes of men. Hence some thought he was killed by
the senators, others, that he was borne aloft to the gods."2 If
the ascension of Elijah to heaven in a chariot of fire did really
take place, and if the books held by the Jews as inspired and
sacred contained a history of it at the time of our Savior, it is
certainly singular that neither he nor any of the apostles allude
to it in connection with the subject of a future life.
The miracles performed by Elijah and by Elisha in restoring the
dead children to life related in the seventeenth chapter of the
First Book of Kings and in the fourth chapter of the Second Book
are often cited in proof of the position that the doctrine of
immortality is revealed in the Old Testament. The narration of
these events is found in a record of unknown authorship. The mode
in which the miracles were effected, if they were miracles, the
prophet measuring himself upon the child, his eyes upon his eyes,
his mouth upon his mouth, his hands upon his hands, and in one
case the child sneezing seven times, looks dubious. The two
accounts so closely resemble each other as to cast still greater
suspicion upon both. In addition to these considerations, and even
fully granting the reality of the miracles, they do not touch the
real controversy, namely, whether the Hebrew Scriptures contain
the revealed doctrine of a conscious immortality or of a future
retribution. The prophet said, "O Lord my God, let this child's
soul, I pray thee, come into his inward parts again." "And the
Lord heard the voice of Elijah, and the soul of the child came
into him again, and he revived." Now, the most this can show is
that the child's soul was then existing in a separate state. It
does not prove that the soul was immortal, nor that it was
experiencing retribution, nor even that it was conscious. And we
do not deny that the ancient Jews believed that the spirits of the
dead retained a nerveless, shadowy being in the solemn vaults of
the under world. The Hebrew word rendered soul in the text is
susceptible of three meanings: first, the shade, which, upon the
dissolution of the body, is gathered to its fathers in the great
subterranean congregation; second, the breath of a person, used as
synonymous with his life; third, a part of the vital breath of
God, which the Hebrews regarded as the source of the life of all
creatures, and the withdrawing of which they supposed was the
cause of death. It is clear that neither of these meanings can
prove any thing in regard to the real point at issue, that is,
concerning a future life of rewards and punishments.
One of the strongest arguments brought to support the proposition
which we are combating at least, so considered by nearly all the
Rabbins, and by not a few modern critics is the account of the
vivification of the dead recorded in the thirty seventh chapter of
the Book of Ezekiel. The prophet "was carried in the spirit of
Jehovah" that is, mentally, in a prophetic ecstasy into a valley
full of dry bones. "The bones came together, the flesh
2 Livy, i. 16; Dion. Hal. ii. 56.
grew on them, the breath came into them, and they lived and stood
on their feet, an exceeding great army." It should first be
observed that this account is not given as an actual occurrence,
but, after the manner of Ezekiel, as a prophetic vision meant to
symbolize something. Now, of what was it intended as the symbol? a
doctrine, or a coming event? a general truth to enlighten and
guide uncertain men, or an approaching deliverance to console and
encourage the desponding Jews? It is fair to let the prophet be
his own interpreter, without aid from the glosses of prejudiced
theorizers. It must be borne in mind that at this time the prophet
and his countrymen were bearing the grievous burden of bondage in
a foreign nation. "And Jehovah said to me, Son of man, these bones
denote the whole house of Israel. Behold, they say, Our bones are
dried, and our hope is lost, and we are cut off." This plainly
denotes their present suffering in the Babylonish captivity, and
their despair of being delivered from it. "Therefore prophesy, and
say to them, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Behold, I will open your
graves and cause you to come up out of your graves, O my people,
and bring you into the land of Israel." That is, I will rescue you
from your slavery and restore you to freedom in your own land. The
dry bones and their subsequent vivification, therefore, clearly
symbolize the misery of the Israelites and their speedy
restoration to happiness. Death is frequently used in a figurative
sense to denote misery, and life to signify happiness. But those
who maintain that the doctrine of the resurrection is taught as a
revealed truth in the Hebrew Scriptures are not willing to let
this passage pass so easily. Mr. Barnes says, "The illustration
proves that the doctrine was one with which the people were
familiar." Jerome states the argument more fully, thus: "A
similitude drawn from the resurrection, to foreshadow the
restoration of the people of Israel, would never have been
employed unless the resurrection itself were believed to be a fact
of future occurrence; for no one thinks of confirming what is
uncertain by what has no existence."
It is not difficult to reply to these objections with convincing
force. First, the vision was not used as proof or confirmation,
but as symbol and prophecy. Secondly, the use of any thing as an
illustration does by no means imply that it is commonly believed
as a fact. For instance, we are told in the ninth chapter of the
Book of Judges that Jotham related an allegory to the people as an
illustration of their conduct in choosing a king, saying, "The
trees once on a time went forth to anoint a king over them; and
they said to the olive tree, Come thou and reign over us;" and so
on. Does it follow that at that time it was a common belief that
the trees actually went forth occasionally to choose them a king?
Thirdly, if a given thing is generally believed as a fact, a
person who uses it expressly as a symbol, of course does not
thereby give his sanction to it as a fact. And if a belief in the
resurrection of the dead was generally entertained at the time of
the prophet, its origin is not implied, and it does not follow
that it was a doctrine of revelation, or even a true doctrine.
Finally, there is one consideration which shows conclusively that
this vision was never intended to typify the resurrection; namely,
that it has nothing corresponding to the most essential part of
that doctrine. When the bones have come together and are covered
with flesh, God does not call up the departed spirits of these
bodies from Sheol, does not bring back the vanished lives to
animate their former tabernacles, now miraculously renewed. No: he
but breathes on them with his vivifying breath, and straightway
they live and move. This is not a resurrection, but a new
creation. The common idea of a bodily restoration implies and,
that any just retribution be compatible with it, it necessarily
implies the vivification of the dead frame, not by the
introduction of new life, but by the reinstalment of the very same
life or spirit, the identical consciousness that before animated
it. Such is not represented as being the case in Ezekiel's vision
of the valley of dry bones. That vision had no reference to the
future state.
In this connection, the revelation made by the angel in his
prophecy, recorded in the twelfth chapter of the Book of Daniel,
concerning the things which should happen in the Messianic times,
must not be passed without notice. It reads as follows: "And many
of the sleepers of the dust of the ground shall awake, those to
life everlasting, and these to shame, to contempt everlasting. And
they that are wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament,
and they that turn many to righteousness, as the stars for ever
and ever." No one can deny that a judgment, in which reward and
punishment shall be distributed according to merit, is here
clearly foretold. The meaning of the text, taken with the
connection, is, that when the Messiah appears and establishes his
kingdom the righteous shall enjoy a bodily resurrection upon the
earth to honor and happiness, but the wicked shall be left below
in darkness and death.3 This seems to imply, fairly enough, that
until the advent of the Messiah none of the dead existed
consciously in a state of retribution. The doctrine of the
passage, as is well known, was held by some of the Jews at the
beginning of the Christian era, and, less distinctly, for about
two centuries previous. Before that time no traces of it can be
found in their history. Now, had a doctrine of such intense
interest and of such vast importance as this been a matter of
revelation, it seems hardly possible that it should have been
confined to one brief and solitary text, that it should have
flashed up for a single moment so brilliantly, and then vanished
for three or four centuries in utter darkness. Furthermore, nearly
one half of the Book of Daniel is written in the Chaldee tongue,
and the other half in the Hebrew, indicating that it had two
authors, who wrote their respective portions at different periods.
Its critical and minute details of events are history rather than
prophecy. The greater part of the book was undoubtedly written as
late as about a hundred and sixty years before Christ, long after
the awful simplicity and solitude of the original Hebrew theology
had been marred and corrupted by an intermixture of the doctrines
of those heathen nations with whom the Jews had been often brought
in contact. Such being the facts in the case, the text is
evidently without force to prove a divine revelation of the
doctrine it teaches.
In the twenty second chapter of the Gospel by Matthew, Jesus says
to the Sadducees, "But as touching the resurrection of the dead,
have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, I
am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?
God is not the God of the dead, but of the living." The passage to
which reference is made is written in the third chapter of the
Book of Exodus. In order to ascertain the force of the Savior's
argument, the extent of meaning it had in his mind, and the amount
of knowledge attributed by it to Moses, it will be necessary to
determine first the definite purpose he had
3 Wood, The Last Things, p. 45.
in view in his reply to the Sadducees, and how he proposed to
accomplish it. We shall find that the use he made of the text does
not imply that Moses had the slightest idea of any sort of future
life for man, much less of an immortal life of blessedness for the
good and of suffering for the bad. We should suppose, beforehand,
that such would be the case, since upon examining the declaration
cited, with its context, we find it to be simply a statement made
by Jehovah explaining who he was, that he was the ancient national
guardian of the Jews, the Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
This does not seem to contain the most distant allusion to the
immortality of man, or to have suggested any such thought to the
mind of Moses. It should be distinctly understood from the outset
that Jesus did not quote this passage from the Pentateuch as
proving any thing of itself, or as enabling him to prove any thing
by it directly, but as being of acknowledged authority to the
Sadducees themselves, to form the basis of a process of reasoning.
The purpose he had in view, plainly, was to convince the Sadducees
either of the possibility or of the actuality of the resurrection
of the dead: its possibility, if we assume that by resurrection he
meant the Jewish doctrine of a material restoration, the reunion
of soul and body; its actuality, if we suppose he meant the
conscious immortality of the soul separate from the body. If the
resurrection was physical, Christ demonstrates to the Sadducees
its possibility, by refuting the false notion upon which they
based their denial of it. They said, The resurrection of the body
is impossible, because the principle of life, the consciousness,
has utterly perished, and the body cannot live alone. He replied,
It is possible, because the soul has an existence separate from
the body, and, consequently, may be reunited to it. You admit that
Jehovah said, after they were dead, I am the God of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob: but he is the God of the living, and not of the
dead, for all live unto him. You must confess this. The soul,
then, survives the body, and a resurrection is possible. It will
be seen that this implies nothing concerning the nature or
duration of the separate existence, but merely the fact of it.
But, if Christ meant by the resurrection of the dead as we think
he did the introduction of the disembodied and conscious soul into
a state of eternal blessedness, the Sadducees denied its reality
by maintaining that no such thing as a soul existed after bodily
dissolution. He then proved to them its reality in the following
manner. You believe for Moses, to whose authority you implicitly
bow, relates it that God said, "I am the God of Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob," and this, long after they died. But evidently he
cannot be said to be the God of that which does not exist:
therefore their souls must have been still alive. And if Jehovah
was emphatically their God, their friend, of course he will show
them his loving kindness. They are, then, in a conscious state of
blessedness. The Savior does not imply that God said so much in
substance, nor that Moses intended to teach, or even knew, any
thing like it, but that, by adding to the passage cited a premise
of his own, which his hearers granted to be true, he could deduce
so much from it by a train of new and unanswerable reasoning. His
opponents were compelled to admit the legitimacy of his argument,
and, impressed by its surpassing beauty and force, were silenced,
if not convinced. The credit of this cogent proof of human
immortality, namely, that God's love for man is a pledge and
warrant of his eternal blessedness a proof whose originality and
significance set it far beyond all parallel is due to the dim
gropings of no Hebrew prophet, but to the inspired insight of the
great Founder of Christianity.
The various passages yet unnoticed which purport to have been
uttered by Jehovah or at his command, and which are urged to show
that the reality of a retributive life after death is a revealed
doctrine of the Old Testament, will be found, upon critical
examination, either to owe their entire relevant force to
mistranslation, or to be fairly refuted by the reasonings already
advanced. Professor Stuart admits that he finds only one
consideration to show that Moses had any idea of a future
retribution; and that is, that the Egyptians expressly believed
it; and he is not able to comprehend how Moses, who dwelt so long
among them, should be ignorant of it.4 The reasoning is obviously
inconsequential. It is not certain that the Egyptians held this
doctrine in the time of Moses: it may have prevailed among them
before or after, and not during, that period. If they believed it
at that time, it may have been an esoteric doctrine, with which he
did not become acquainted. If they believed it, and he knew it, he
might have classed it with other heathen doctrines, and supposed
it false. And, even if he himself believed it, he might possibly
not have inculcated it upon the Israelites; and the question is,
what he did actually teach, not what he knew.
The opinions of the Jews at the time of the Savior have no bearing
upon the point in hand, because they were acquired at a later
period than that of the writing of the records we are now
considering. They were formed, and gradually grew in consistency
and favor, either by the natural progress of thought among the
Jews themselves, or, more probably, by a blending of the
intimations of the Hebrew Scriptures with Gentile speculations,
the doctrines of the Egyptians, Hindus, and Persians. We leave
this portion of the subject, then, with the following proposition.
In the canonic books of the Old Dispensation there is not a single
genuine text, claiming to come from God, which teaches explicitly
any doctrine whatever of a life beyond the grave. That doctrine as
it existed among the Jews was no part of their pure religion, but
was a part of their philosophy. It did not, as they held it, imply
any thing like our present idea of the immortality of the soul
reaping in the spiritual world what it has sowed in the physical.
It simply declared the existence of human ghosts amidst unbroken
gloom and stillness in the cavernous depths of the earth, without
reward, without punishment, without employment, scarcely
with consciousness, as will immediately appear.
We proceed to the second general division of the subject. What
does the Old Testament, apart from the revelation claimed to be
contained in it, and regarding only those portions of it which are
confessedly a collection of the poetry, history, and philosophy of
the Hebrews, intimate concerning a future state of existence?
Examining these writings with an unbiased mind, we discover that
in different portions of them there are large variations and
opposition of opinion. In some books we trace an undoubting belief
in certain rude notions of the future condition of souls; in other
books we encounter unqualified denials of every such thought. "Man
lieth down and riseth not," sighs the despairing Job. "The dead
cannot praise God, neither any that go down into darkness," wails
the repining Psalmist. "All go to one place,"
4 Exegetical Essays, (Andover, 1830,) p. 108.
and "the dead know not any thing," asserts the disbelieving
Preacher. These inconsistencies we shall not stop to point out and
comment upon. They are immaterial to our present purpose, which is
to bring together, in their general agreement, the sum and
substance of the Hebrew ideas on this subject.
The separate existence of the soul is necessarily implied by the
distinction the Hebrews made between the grave, or sepulchre, and
the under world, or abode of shades. The Hebrew words bor and
keber mean simply the narrow place in which the dead body is
buried; while Sheol represents an immense cavern in the interior
of the earth where the ghosts of the deceased are assembled. When
the patriarch was told that his son Joseph was slain by wild
beasts, he cried aloud, in bitter sorrow, "I will go down to Sheol
unto my son, mourning."
He did not expect to meet Joseph in the grave; for he supposed his
body torn in pieces and scattered in the wilderness, not laid in
the family tomb. The dead are said to be "gathered to their
people," or to "sleep with their fathers," and this whether they
are interred in the same place or in a remote region. It is
written, "Abraham gave up the ghost, and was gathered unto his
people," notwithstanding his body was laid in a cave in the field
of Machpelah, close by Hebron, while his people were buried in
Chaldea and Mesopotamia. "Isaac gave up the ghost and died, and
was gathered unto his people;" and then we read, as if it were
done afterwards, "His sons, Jacob and Esau, buried him." These
instances might be multiplied. They prove that "to be gathered
unto one's fathers" means to descend into Sheol and join there the
hosts of the departed. A belief in the separate existence of the
soul is also involved in the belief in necromancy, or divination,
the prevalence of which is shown by the stern laws against those
who engaged in its unhallowed rites, and by the history of the
witch of Endor. She, it is said, by magical spells evoked the
shade of old Samuel from below. It must have been the spirit of
the prophet that was supposed to rise; for his body was buried at
Ramah, more than sixty miles from Endor. The faith of the Hebrews
in the separate existence of the soul is shown, furthermore, by
the fact that the language they employed expresses, in every
instance, the distinction of body and spirit. They had particular
words appropriated to each. "As thy soul liveth," is a Hebrew
oath. "With my spirit within me will I seek thee early." "I,
Daniel, was grieved in my spirit in the midst of my body:" the
figure here represents the soul in the body as a sword in a
sheath. "Our bones are scattered at the mouth of the under world,
as when one cutteth and cleaveth wood upon the earth;" that is,
the soul, expelled from its case of clay by the murderer's weapon,
flees into Sheol and leaves its exuvioe at the entrance. "Thy
voice shall be as that of a spirit out of the ground:" the word
"Lhere used signifies the shade evoked by a necromancer from the
region of death, which was imagined to speak in a feeble whisper.
The term rephaim is used to denote the manes of the departed. The
etymology of the word, as well as its use, makes it mean the weak,
the relaxed. "I am counted as them that go down into the under
world; I am as a man that hath no strength." This faint, powerless
condition accords with the idea that they were destitute of flesh,
blood, and animal life, mere umbroe. These ghosts are described as
being nearly as destitute of sensation as they are of strength.
They are called "the inhabitants of the land of stillness." They
exist in an inactive, partially torpid state, with a dreamy
consciousness of past and present, neither suffering nor enjoying,
and seldom moving. Herder says of the Hebrews, "The sad and
mournful images of their ghostly realm disturbed them, and were
too much for their self possession." Respecting these images, he
adds, "Their voluntary force and energy were destroyed. They were
feeble as a shade, without distinction of members, as a nerveless
breath. They wandered and flitted in the dark nether world." This
"wandering and flitting," however, is rather the spirit of
Herder's poetry than of that of the Hebrews; for the whole tenor
and drift of the representations in the Old Testament show that
the state of disembodied souls is deep quietude. Freed from
bondage, pain, toil, and care, they repose in silence. The ghost
summoned from beneath by the witch of Endor said, "Why hast thou
disquieted me to bring me up?" It was, indeed, in a dismal abode
that they took their long quiet; but then it was in a place "where
the wicked ceased from troubling and the weary were at rest."
Those passages which attribute active employments to the dwellers
in the under world are specimens of poetic license, as the context
always shows. When Job says, "Before Jehovah the shades beneath
tremble," he likewise declares, "The pillars of heaven tremble and
are confounded at his rebuke." When Isaiah breaks forth in that
stirring lyric to the King of Babylon,
"The under world is in commotion on account of thee, To meet thee
at thy coming; It stirreth up before thee the shades, all the
mighty of the earth; It arouseth from their thrones all the kings
of the nations; They all accost thee, and say, Art thou too become
weak as we?"
he also exclaims, in the same connection,
"Even the cypress trees exult over thee, And the cedars of
Lebanon, saying, Since thou art fallen, No man cometh up to cut us
down."
The activity thus vividly described is evidently a mere figure of
speech: so is it in the other instances which picture the rephaim
as employed and in motion. "Why," complainingly sighed the
afflicted patriarch, "why died I not at my birth? For now should I
lie down and be quiet; I should slumber; I should then be at
rest." And the wise man says, in his preaching, "There is no work,
nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in Sheol." What has already
been said is sufficient to establish the fact that the Hebrews had
an idea that the souls of men left their bodies at death and
existed as dim shadows, in a state of undisturbed repose, in the
bowels of the earth.
Sheol is directly derived from a Hebrew word, signifying, first,
to dig or excavate. It means, therefore, a cavity, or empty
subterranean place. Its derivation is usually connected, however,
with the secondary meaning of the Hebrew word referred to, namely,
to ask, to desire, from the notion of demanding, since rapacious
Orcus lays claim unsparingly to all; or, as others have fancifully
construed it, the object of universal inquiry, the unknown mansion
concerning which all are anxiously inquisitive. The place is
conceived on an immense scale, shrouded in accompaniments of
gloomy grandeur and peculiar awe: an enormous cavern in the earth,
filled with night; a stupendous hollow kingdom, to which are
poetically attributed valleys and gates, and in which are
congregated the slumberous and shadowy hosts of the rephaim, never
able to go out of it again forever. Its awful stillness is
unbroken by noise. Its thick darkness is uncheered by light. It
stretches far down under the ground. It is wonderfully deep. In
language that reminds one of Milton's description of hell, where
was
"No light, but rather darkness visible,"
Job describes it as "the land of darkness, like the blackness of
death shade, where is no order, and where the light is as
darkness." The following passages, selected almost at random, will
show the ideas entertained of the place, and confirm and
illustrate the foregoing statements. "But he considers not that in
the valleys of Sheol are her guests." "Now shall I go down into
the gates of Sheol." "The ground slave asunder, and the earth
opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, and their houses, and all
their men, and all their goods: they and all that appertained to
them went down alive into Sheol, and the earth closed upon them."
Its depth is contrasted with the height of the sky. "Though they
dig into Sheol, thence shall mine hand take them; though they
climb up to heaven, thence will I bring them down." It is the
destination of all; for, though the Hebrews believed in a world of
glory above the solid ceiling of the dome of day, where Jehovah
and the angels dwelt, there was no promise, hope, or hint that any
man could ever go there. The dirge like burden of their poetry was
literally these words: "What man is he that liveth and shall not
see death? Shall he deliver his spirit from the hand of Sheol?"
The old Hebrew graves were crypts, wide, deep holes, like the
habitations of the troglodytes. In these subterranean caves they
laid the dead down; and so the Grave became the mother of Sheol, a
rendezvous of the fathers, a realm of the dead, full of eternal
ghost life.
This under world is dreary and altogether undesirable, save as an
escape from extreme anguish. But it is not a place of retribution.
Jahn says, "That, in the belief of the ancient Hebrews, there were
different situations in Sheol for the good and the bad, cannot be
proved."5 The sudden termination of the present life is the
judgment the Old Testament threatens upon sinners; its happy
prolongation is the reward it promises to the righteous. Texts
that prove this might be quoted in numbers from almost every page.
"The wicked shall be turned into Sheol, and all the nations that
forget God," not to be punished there, but as a punishment. It is
true, the good and the bad alike pass into that gloomy land; but
the former go down tranquilly in a good old age and full of days,
as a shock of corn fully ripe cometh in its season, while the
latter are suddenly hurried there by an untimely and miserable
fate. The man that loves the Lord shall have length of days; the
unjust, though for a moment he flourishes, yet the wind bloweth,
and where is he?
We shall perhaps gain a more clear and adequate knowledge of the
ideas the Hebrews had of the soul and of its fate, by marking the
different meanings of the words they used to
5 Biblical Archeology, sect. 314.
denote it. Neshamah, primarily meaning breath or airy effluence,
next expresses the Spirit of God as imparting life and force,
wisdom and love; also the spirit of man as its emanation,
creation, or sustained object. The citation of a few texts in
which the word occurs will set this in a full light. "The Lord God
formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his
nostrils the spirit of existence, and man became a conscious
being." "It is the divine spirit of man, even the inspiration of
the Almighty, that giveth him understanding." "The Spirit of God
made me, and his breath gave me life."
Ruah signifies, originally, a breathing or blowing. Two other
meanings are directly connected with this. First, the vital
spirit, the principle of life as manifested in the breath of the
mouth and nostrils. "And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two
and two of all flesh in whose nostrils was the breath of life."
Second, the wind, the motions of the air, which the Hebrews
supposed caused by the breath of God. "By the blast of thine anger
the waters were gathered on an heap." "The channels of waters were
seen, and the foundations of the world were discovered, O Lord, at
the blast of the breath of thy nostrils." So they regarded the
thunder as his voice. "The voice of Jehovah cutteth out the fiery
lightnings," and "shaketh the wilderness of Kadesh." This word is
also frequently placed for the rational spirit of man, the seat of
intellect and feeling. It is likewise sometimes representative of
the character and disposition of men, whether good or bad. Hosea
speaks of "a spirit of vile lust." In the Second Book of
Chronicles we read, "There came out a spirit, and stood before
Jehovah, and said, I will entice King Ahab to his destruction. I
will go out and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his
prophets." Belshazzar says to Daniel, "I know that the spirit of
the holy gods is in thee." Finally, it is applied to Jehovah,
signifying the divine spirit, or power, by which all animate
creatures live, the universe is filled with motion, all
extraordinary gifts of skill, genius, strength, or virtue are
bestowed, and men incited to forsake evil and walk in the paths of
truth and piety. "Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created,
and thou renewest the face of the earth; thou takest away their
breath, they die and return to their dust." "Jehovah will be a
spirit of justice in them that sit to administer judgment." It
seems to be implied that the life of man, having emanated from the
spirit, is to be again absorbed in it, when it is said, "Then
shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall
return unto God who gave it."
Nephesh is but partially a synonym for the word whose
significations we have just considered. The different senses it
bears are strangely interchanged and confounded in King James's
version. Its first meaning is breath, the breathing of a living
being. Next it means the vital spirit, the indwelling life of the
body. "If any mischief follow, thou shalt take life for life." The
most adequate rendering of it would be, in a great majority of
instances, by the term life. "In jeopardy of his life [not soul]
hath Adonijah spoken this." It sometimes represents the
intelligent soul or mind, the subject of knowledge and desire. "My
soul knoweth right well.". Also the heart, is often used more
frequently perhaps than any other term as meaning the vital
principle, and the seat of consciousness, intellect, will, and
affection. Jehovah said to Solomon, in answer to his prayer, "Lo,
I have given thee a wise and an understanding heart." The later
Jews speculated much, with many cabalistic refinements, on these
different words. They said many persons were supplied with a
Nephesh without a Ruah, much more without a Neshamah. They
declared that the Nephesh (Psyche) was the soul of the body, the
Ruah (Pneuma) the soul of the Nephesh, and the Neshamah (Nous) the
soul of the Ruah. Some of the Rabbins assert that the destination
of the Nephesh, when the body dies, is Sheol; of the Ruah, the
air; and of the Neshamah, heaven. 6
The Hebrews used all those words in speaking of brutes, to denote
their sensitive existence, that they did in reference to men. They
held that life was in every instance an emission, or breath, from
the Spirit of God. But they do not intimate of brutes, as they do
of men, that they have surviving shades. The author of the Book of
Ecclesiastes, however, bluntly declares that "all have one breath,
and all go to one place, so that a man hath no pre eminence above
a beast." As far as the words used to express existence, soul, or
mind, legitimate any inference, it would seem to be, either that
the essential life is poured out at death as so much air, or else
that it is received again by God, in both cases implying
naturally, though not of philosophic necessity, the close of
conscious, individual existence. But the examination we have made
of their real opinions shows that, however obviously this
conclusion might flow from their pneumatology, it was not the
expectation they cherished. They believed there was a dismal
empire in the earth where the rephaim, or ghosts of the dead,
reposed forever in a state of semi sleep.
"It is a land of shadows: yea, the land
Itself is but a shadow, and the race
That dwell therein are voices, forms of forms.
And echoes of themselves."
That the Hebrews, during the time covered by their sacred records,
had no conception of a retributive life beyond the present, knew
nothing of a blessed immortality, is shown by two conclusive
arguments, in addition to the positive demonstration afforded by
the views which, as we have seen, they did actually hold in regard
to the future lot of man. First, they were puzzled, they were
troubled and distressed, by the moral phenomena of the present
life, the misfortunes of the righteous, the prosperity of the
wicked. Read the Book of Ecclesiastes, the Book of Job, some of
the Psalms. Had they been acquainted with future reward and
punishment, they could easily have solved these problems to their
satisfaction. Secondly, they regarded life as the one blessing,
death as the one evil. Something of sadness, we may suppose, was
in the wise man's tones when he said, "A living dog is better than
a dead lion." Obey Jehovah's laws, that thy days may be long in
the land he giveth thee; the wicked shall not live out half his
days: such is the burden of the Old Testament. It was reserved for
a later age to see life and immortality brought to light, and for
the disciples of a clearer faith to feel that death is gain.
There are many passages in the Hebrew Scriptures generally
supposed and really appearing, upon a slight examination, not
afterwards to teach doctrines different from those here stated. We
will give two examples in a condensed form. "Thou wilt not leave
6 Tractatus de Anima a R. Moscheh Korduero. In Kabbala Denudata.
tom. i. pars ii.
my soul in Sheol: . . . at thy right hand are pleasures for
evermore." This text, properly translated and explained, means,
Thou wilt not leave me to misfortune and untimely death: . . . in
thy royal favor is prosperity and length of days. "I know that my
Redeemer liveth:. . . in my flesh I shall see God." The genuine
meaning of this triumphant exclamation of faith is, I know that
God is the Vindicator of the upright, and that he will yet justify
me before I die. A particular examination of the remaining
passages of this character with which erroneous conceptions are
generally connected would show, first, that in nearly every case
these passages are not accurately translated; secondly, that they
may be satisfactorily interpreted as referring merely to this
life, and cannot by a sound exegesis be explained otherwise;
thirdly, that the meaning usually ascribed to them is inconsistent
with the whole general tenor, and with numberless positive and
explicit statements, of the books in which they are found;
fourthly, that if there are, as there dubiously seem to be in some
of the Psalms, texts implying the ascent of souls after death to a
heavenly life, for example, "Thou shalt guide me with thy
countenance, and afterward receive me to glory," they were the
product of a late period, and reflect a faith not native to the
Hebrews, but first known to them after their intercourse with the
Persians.
Christians reject the allegorizing of the Jews, and yet
traditionally accept, on their authority, doctrines which can be
deduced from their Scriptures in no other way than by the absurd
hypothesis of a double or mystic sense. For example, scores of
Christian authors have taught the dogma of a general resurrection
of the dead, deducing it from such passages as God's sentence upon
Adam: "From the dust wast thou taken, and unto the dust shalt thou
return;" as Joel's patriotic picture of the Jews victorious in
battle, and of the vanquished heathen gathered in the valley of
Jehoshaphat to witness their installation as rulers of the earth;
and as the declaration of the God of battles: "I am he that kills
and that makes alive, that wounds and that heals." And they
maintain that the doctrine of immortality is inculcated in such
texts as these: when Moses asks to see God, and the reply is, "No
man can see me and live;" when Bathsheba bows and says, "Let my
lord King David live forever;" and when the sacred poet praises
God, saying, "Thou hast delivered my soul from death, mine eyes
from tears, and my feet from falling." Such interpretations of
Scripture are lamentable in the extreme; their context shows them
to be absurd. The meaning is forced into the words, not derived
from them.
Such as we have now seen were the ancient Hebrew ideas of the
future state. To those who received them the life to come was
cheerless, offering no attraction save that of peace to the weary
sufferer. On the other hand, it had no terror save the natural
revulsion of the human heart from everlasting darkness, silence,
and dreams. In view of deliverance from so dreary a fate, by
translation through Jesus Christ to the splendors of the world
above the firmament, there are many exultations in the Epistles of
Paul, and in other portions of the New Testament.
The Hebrew views of the soul and its destiny, as discerned through
the intimations of their Scriptures are very nearly what, from a
fair consideration of the case, we should suppose they would be,
agreeing in the main with the natural speculations of other early
nations upon the same subject. These opinions underwent but little
alteration until a century or a century and a half before the dawn
of the Christian era.
This is shown by the phraseology of the Septuagint version of
the Pentateuch, and by the allusions in the so called
Apocryphal books. In these, so far as there are any relevant
statements or implications, they are of the same character as
those which we have explained from the more ancient writings. This
is true, with the notable exceptions of the Wisdom of Solomon and
the Second Maccabees, neither of which documents can be dated
earlier than a hundred and twenty years before Christ. The former
contains the doctrine of transmigration. The author says, "Being
wise, I came into a body undefiled."7 But, with the exception of
this and one other passage, there is little or nothing in the book
which is definite on the subject of a future life. It is difficult
to tell what the author's real faith was: his words seem rather
rhetorical than dogmatic. He says, "To be allied unto wisdom is
immortality;" but other expressions would appear to show that by
immortality he means merely a deathless posthumous fame, "leaving
an eternal memorial of himself to all who shall come after him."
Again he declares, "The spirit when it is gone forth returneth
not; neither the soul received up cometh again." And here we find,
too, the famous text, "God created man to be immortal, and made
him to be an image of his own eternity. Nevertheless, through envy
of the devil came death into the world, and they that hold of his
side do find it."8 Upon the whole, it is pretty clear that the
writer believed in a future life; but the details are too
partially and obscurely shadowed to be drawn forth. We may,
however, hazard a conjecture on the passage last quoted,
especially with the help of the light cast upon it from its
evident Persian origin. What is it, expressed by the term "death,"
which is found by the adherents of the devil distinctively?
"Death" cannot here be a metaphor for an inward state of sin and
woe, because it is contrasted with the plainly literal phrases,
"created to be immortal," "an image of God's eternity." It cannot
signify simply physical dissolution, because this is found as well
by God's servants as by the devil's. Its genuine meaning is, most
probably, a descent into the black kingdom of sadness and silence
under the earth, while the souls of the good were "received up."
The Second Book of Maccabees with emphasis repeatedly asserts
future retribution and a bodily resurrection. In the seventh
chapter a full account is given of seven brothers and their mother
who suffered martyrdom, firmly sustained by faith in a glorious
reward for their heroic fidelity, to be reaped at the
resurrection. One of them says to the tyrant by whose order he was
tortured, "As for thee, thou shalt have no resurrection to life."
Nicanor, bleeding from many horrible wounds, "plucked out his
bowels and cast them upon the throng, and, calling upon the Lord
of life and spirit to restore him those again, [at the day of
resurrection,] he thus died."9 Other passages in this book to the
same effect it is needless to quote. The details lying latent in
those we have quoted will soon be illuminated and filled out when
we come to treat of the opinions of the Pharisees. 10
7 Cap. viii. 20.
8 Cap. ii. 23, 24.
9 Cap. xiv. 46.
10 See a very able discussion of the relation between the ideas
concerning immortality, resurrection, judgment, and retribution,
contained in the Old Testament Apocrypha, and those in the New
Testament, by Frisch, inserted in Eichhorn's Allgemeine Bibliothek
der Biblischen Literatur, band iv. stuck iv.
There lived in Alexandria a very learned Jew named Philo, the
author of voluminous writings, a zealous Israelite, but deeply
imbued both with the doctrines and the spirit of Plato. He was
born about twenty years before Christ, and survived him about
thirty years. The weight of his character, the force of his
talents, the fascinating adaptation of his peculiar philosophical
speculations and of his bold and subtle allegorical expositions of
Scripture to the mind of his age and of the succeeding centuries,
together with the eminent literary position and renown early
secured for him by a concurrence of causes, have combined to make
him exert according to the expressed convictions of the best
judges, such as Lucke and Norton a greater influence on the
history of Christian opinions than any single man, with the
exception of the Apostle Paul, since the days of Christ. It is
important, and will be interesting, to see some explanation of his
views on the subject of a future life. A synopsis of them must
suffice.
Philo was a Platonic Alexandrian Jew, not a Zoroastrian
Palestinian Pharisee. It was a current saying among the Christian
Fathers, "Vel Plato Philonizat, vel Philo Platonizat." He has
little to say of the Messiah, nothing to say of the Messianic
eschatology. We speak of him in this connection because he was a
Jew, flourishing at the commencement of the Christian epoch, and
contributing much, by his cabalistic interpretations, to lead
Christians to imagine that the Old Testament contained the
doctrine of a spiritual immortality connected with a system of
rewards and punishments.
Three principal points include the substance of Philo's faith on
the subject in hand. He rejected the notion of a resurrection of
the body and held to the natural immortality of the soul. He
entertained the most profound and spiritual conceptions of the
intrinsically deadly nature and wretched fruits of all sin, and of
the self contained welfare and self rewarding results of every
element of virtue, in themselves, independent of time and place
and regardless of external bestowments of woe or joy. He also
believed at the same time in contrasted localities above and
below, appointed as the residences of the disembodied souls of
good and of wicked men. We will quote miscellaneously various
passages from him in proof and illustration of these statements:
"Man's bodily form is made from the ground, the soul from no
created thing, but from the Father of all; so that, although man
was mortal as to his body, he was immortal as to his mind."11
"Complete virtue is the tree of immortal life."12 "Vices and
crimes, rushing in through the gate of sensual pleasure, changed a
happy and immortal life for a wretched and mortal one."13
Referring to the allegory of the garden of Eden, he says, "The
death threatened for eating the fruit was not natural, the
separation of soul and body, but penal, the sinking of the soul in
the body."14 "Death is twofold, one of man, one of the soul. The
death of man is the separation of the soul from the body; the
death of the soul is the corruption of virtue
11 Mangey's edition of Philo's works, vol. i. p. 32.
12 Ibid. p. 38.
13 Ibid. p. 37.
14 Ibid. p. 65.
and the assumption of vice."15 "To me, death with the pious is
preferable to life with the impious. For those so dying, deathless
life delivers; but those so living, eternal death seizes."16 He
writes of three kinds of life, "one of which neither ascends nor
cares to ascend, groping in the secret recesses of Hades and
rejoicing in the most lifeless life."17 Commenting on the promise
of the Lord to Abram, that he should be buried in a good old age,
Philo observes that "A polished, purified soul does not die, but
emigrates: it is of an inextinguishable and deathless race, and
goes to heaven, escaping the dissolution and corruption which
death seems to introduce."18 "A vile life is the true Hades,
despicable and obnoxious to every sort of execration." 19
"Different regions are set apart for different things, heaven for
the good, the confines of the earth for the bad."20 He thinks the
ladder seen by Jacob in his dream "is a figure of the air, which,
reaching from earth to heaven, is the house of unembodied souls,
the image of a populous city having for citizens immortal souls,
some of whom descend into mortal bodies, but soon return aloft,
calling the body a sepulchre from which they hasten, and, on light
wings seeking the lofty ether, pass eternity in sublime
contemplations."21 "The wise inherit the Olympic and heavenly
region to dwell in, always studying to go above; the bad, the
innermost parts of Hades, always laboring to die."22 He literally
accredits the account, in the sixteenth chapter of Numbers, of the
swallowing of Korah and his company, saying, "The earth opened and
took them alive into Hades."23 "Ignorant men regard death as the
end of punishments, whereas in the Divine judgment it is scarcely
the beginning of them."24 He describes the meritorious man as
"fleeing to God and receiving the most intimate honor of a firm
place in heaven; but the reprobate man is dragged below, down to
the very lowest place, to Tartarus itself and profound
darkness."25 "He who is not firmly held by evil may by repentance
return to virtue, as to the native land from which he has
wandered. But he who suffers from incurable vice must endure its
dire penalties, banished into the place of the impious until the
whole of eternity."26
Such, then, was the substance of Philo's opinions on the theme
before us, as indeed many more passages, which we have omitted as
superfluous, might be cited from him to show. Man was made
originally a mortal body and an immortal soul. He should have been
happy and pure while in the body, and on leaving it have soared up
to the realm of light and bliss on high, to join the angels.
"Abraham, leaving his mortal part, was added to the people of God,
15 Ibid. p. 65.
16 Ibid. p. 233.
17 Ibid. p. 479.
18 Ibid. p. 513.
19 Ibid. p. 527.
20 Ibid. p. 555.
21 Ibid. p. 641, 642.
22 Ibid. p. 643.
23 Ibid. vol. ii. p. 178.
24 Ibid. p. 419.
25 Mangey's edition of Philo's Works, vol. ii. p. 433.
26 Ibid. vol. i. p. 139.
enjoying immortality and made similar to the angels. For the
angels are the army of God, bodiless and happy souls."27 But,
through the power of evil, all who yield to sin and vice lose that
estate of bright and blessed immortality, and become discordant,
wretched, despicable, and, after the dissolution of the body, are
thrust down to gloom and manifold just retribution in Hades. He
believed in the pre existence, and in a limited transmigration, of
souls. Here he leaves the subject, saying nothing of a
resurrection or final restoration, and not speculating as to any
other of the details. 28
We pass on to speak of the Jewish sects at the time of Christ.
There were three of these, cardinally differing from each other in
their theories of the future fate of man. First, there were the
skeptical, materialistic Sadducees, wealthy, proud, few. They
openly denied the existence of any disembodied souls, avowing that
men utterly perished in the grave. "The cloud faileth and passeth
away: so he that goeth down to the grave doth not return."29 We
read in the Acts of the Apostles, "The Sadducees say there is no
resurrection, neither angel nor spirit." At the same time they
accepted the Pentateuch, only rejecting or explaining away those
portions of it which relate to the separate existence of souls and
to their subterranean abode. They strove to confound their
opponents, the advocates of a future life, by such perplexing
questions as the one they addressed to Jesus, asking, in the case
of a woman who had had seven successive husbands, which one of
them should be her husband in the resurrection. All that we can
gather concerning the Sadducees from the New Testament is amply
confirmed by Josephus, who explicitly declares, "Their doctrine is
that souls die with the bodies."
The second sect was the ascetical and philosophical Essenes, of
whom the various information given by Philo in his celebrated
paper on the Therapeuta agrees with the account in Josephus and
with the scattered gleams in other sources. The doctrine of the
Essenes on the subject of our present inquiry was much like that
of Philo himself; and in some particulars it remarkably resembles
that of many Christians. They rejected the notion of the
resurrection of the body, and maintained the inherent immortality
of the soul. They said that "the souls of men, coming out of the
most subtle and pure air, are bound up in their bodies as in so
many prisons; but, being freed at death, they do rejoice, and are
borne aloft where a state of happy life forever is decreed for the
virtuous; but the vicious are assigned to eternal punishment in a
dark, cold place." 30 Such sentiments appear to have inspired the
heroic Eleazar, whose speech to his followers is reported by
Josephus, when they were besieged at Masada, urging them to rush
on the foe, "for death is better than life, is the only true life,
leading the soul to infinite freedom and joy above."31
27 Ibid. p. 164.
28 See, in the Analekten of Keil and Tzschirner, band i stuck
ii., an article by Dr. Schreiter, entitled Philo's Ideen uber
Unsterblichkeit, Auferstehung, und Vergeltung.
29 Lightfoot in Matt. xxii. 23.
30 Josephus, De Bell. lib. ii. cap. 8.
31 Ibid. lib. vii. cap. 8.
But by far the most numerous and powerful of the Jewish sects at
that time, and ever since, were the eclectic, traditional,
formalist Pharisees: eclectic, inasmuch as their faith was formed
by a partial combination of various systems; traditional, since
they allowed a more imperative sway to the authority of the
Fathers, and to oral legends and precepts, than to the plain
letter of Scripture; formalist, for they neglected the weightier
spiritual matters of the law in a scrupulous tithing of mint,
cumin, and anise seed, a pretentious wearing of broad
phylacteries, an uttering of long prayers in the streets, and the
various other hypocritical priestly paraphernalia of a severe
mechanical ritual.
From Josephus we learn that the Pharisees believed that the souls
of the faithful that is, of all who punctiliously observed the law
of Moses and the traditions of the elders would live again by
transmigration into new bodies; but that the souls of all others,
on leaving their bodies, were doomed to a place of confinement
beneath, where they must abide forever. These are his words: "The
Pharisees believe that souls have an immortal strength in them,
and that in the under world they will experience rewards or
punishments according as they have lived well or ill in this life.
The righteous shall have power to live again, but sinners shall be
detained in an everlasting prison."32 Again, he writes, "The
Pharisees say that all souls are incorruptible, but that only the
souls of good men are removed into other bodies."33 The fragment
entitled "Concerning Hades," formerly attributed to Josephus, is
now acknowledged on all sides to be a gross forgery. The Greek
culture and philosophical tincture with which he was imbued led
him to reject the doctrine of a bodily resurrection; and this is
probably the reason why he makes no allusion to that doctrine in
his account of the Pharisees. That such a doctrine was held among
them is plain from passages in the New Testament, passages which
also shed light upon the statement actually made by Josephus.
Jesus says to Martha, "Thy brother shall rise again." She replies,
"I know that he shall rise in the resurrection, at the last day."
Some of the Pharisees, furthermore, did not confine the privilege
or penalty of transmigration, and of the resurrection, to the
righteous. They once asked Jesus, "Who did sin, this man or his
parents, that he was born blind?" Plainly, he could not have been
born blind for his own sins unless he had known a previous life.
Paul, too, says of them, in his speech at Casarea, "They
themselves also allow that there shall be a resurrection of the
dead, both of the just and of the unjust." This, however, is very
probably an exception to their prevailing belief. Their religious
intolerance, theocratic pride, hereditary national vanity, and
sectarian formalism, often led them to despise and overlook the
Gentile world, haughtily restricting the boon of a renewed life to
the legal children of Abraham.
But the grand source now open to us of knowledge concerning the
prevailing opinions of the Jews on our present subject at and
subsequent to the time of Christ is the Talmud. This is a
collection of the traditions of the oral law, (Mischna,) with the
copious precepts and comments (Gemara) of the most learned and
authoritative Rabbins. It is a wonderful monument of myths and
fancies, profound speculations and ridiculous puerilities, antique
32 Antiq. lib. xviii. cap. 1.33 De Bell. lib. ii. cap. 8.
legends and cabalistic subtleties, crowned and loaded with the
national peculiarities. The Jews reverence it extravagantly,
saying, "The Bible is salt, the Mischna pepper, the Gemara balmy
spice." Rabbi Solomon ben Joseph sings, in our poet's version,
"The Kabbala and Talmud hoar Than all the Prophets prize I more;
For water is all Bible lore, But Mischna is pure wine."
The rambling character and barbarous dialect of this work have
joined with various other causes to withhold from it far too much
of the attention of Christian critics. Saving by old Lightfoot and
Pocock, scarcely a contribution has ever been offered us in
English from this important field. The Germans have done far
better; and numerous huge volumes, the costly fruits of their
toils, are standing on neglected shelves. The eschatological views
derived from this source are authentically Jewish, however closely
they may resemble some portion of the popular Christian
conceptions upon the same subject. The correspondences between
some Jewish and some Christian theological dogmas betoken the
influx of an adulterated Judaism into a nascent Christianity, not
the reflex of a pure Christianity upon a receptive Judaism. It is
important to show this; and it appears from several
considerations. In the first place, it is demonstrable, it is
unquestioned, that at least the germs and outlines of the dogmas
referred to were in actual existence among the Pharisees before
the conflict between Christianity and Judaism arose.Secondly, in
the Rabbinical writings these dogmas are most fundamental, vital,
and pervading, in relation to the whole system; but in the
Christian they seem subordinate and incidental, have every
appearance of being ingrafts, not outgrowths. Thirdly, in the
apostolic age Judaism was a consolidated, petrified system,
defended from outward influence on all sides by an invulnerable
bigotry, a haughty exclusiveness; while Christianity was in a
young and vigorous, an assimilating and formative, state.
Fourthly, the overweening sectarian vanity and scorn of the Jews,
despising, hating, and fearing the Christians, would not permit
them to adopt peculiarities of belief from the latter; but the
Christians were undeniably Jews in almost every thing except in
asserting the Messiahship of Jesus: they claimed to be the genuine
Jews, children of the law and realizers of the promise. The Jewish
dogmas, therefore, descended to them as a natural lineal
inheritance. Finally, in the Acts of the Apostles, the letters of
Paul, and the progress of the Ebionites, (which sect included
nearly all the Christians of the first century,) we can trace step
by step the actual workings, in reliable history, of the process
that we affirm, namely, the assimilation of Jewish elements into
the popular Christianity.