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 G.o.d, 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 pa.s.s 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 pa.s.seth 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 a.s.signed 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 a.n.a.lekten of Keil and Tzschirner, band i stuck ii., an article by Dr. Schreiter, ent.i.tled 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 t.i.thing of mint, c.u.min, 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 ent.i.tled "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 pa.s.sages in the New Testament, pa.s.sages 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 h.o.a.r 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 Poc.o.c.k, 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 a.s.similating 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 a.s.serting 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 a.s.similation of Jewish elements into the popular Christianity.
CHAPTER IX.
RABBINICAL DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE LIFE.
THE starting point in the Talmud on this subject is with the effects of sin upon the human race. Man was made radiant, pure, immortal, in the image of G.o.d. By sin he was obscured, defiled, burdened with mortal decay and judgment. In this representation that misery and death were an after doom brought into the world by sin, the Rabbinical authorities strikingly agree. The testimony is irresistible. We need not quote confirmations of this statement, as every scholar in this department will accept it at once. But as to what is meant precisely by the term "death," as used in such a connection, there is no little obscurity and diversity of opinion.
In all probability, some of the Pharisaical fathers perhaps the majority of them conceived that, if Adam had not sinned, he and his posterity would have been physically immortal, and would either have lived forever on the earth, or have been successively transferred to the home of Jehovah over the firmament. They call the devil, who is the chief accuser in the heavenly court of justice, the angel of death, by the name of "Sammael." Rabbi Reuben says, "When Sammael saw Adam sin, he immediately sought to slay him, and went to the heavenly council and clamored for justice against him, pleading thus: "G.o.d made this decree, "In the day thou eatest of the tree thou shalt surely die." Therefore give him to me, for he is mine, and I will kill him; to this end was I created; and give me power over all his descendants." When the celestial Sanhedrim perceived that his pet.i.tion was just, they decreed that it should be granted."1 A great many expressions of kindred tenor might easily be adduced, leaving it hardly possible to doubt as indeed we are not aware that any one does doubt that many of the Jews literally held that sin was the sole cause of bodily dissolution. But, on the other hand, there were as certainly others who did not entertain that idea, but understood and explained the terms in which it was sometimes conveyed in a different, a partially figurative, sense. Rabbi Samuel ben David writes, "Although the first Adam had not sinned, yet death would have been; for death was created on the first day." The reference here is, as Rabbi Berechias explains, to the account in Genesis where we read that "darkness was upon the face of the deep," "by which is to be understood the angel of death, who has darkened the face of man."2 The Talmudists generally believed also in the pre existence of souls in heaven, and in a spiritual body investing and fitting the soul for heaven, as the present carnal body invests and fits it for the earth. Schoettgen has collected numerous ill.u.s.trations in point, of which the following may serve as specimens.3 "When the first Adam had not sinned, he was every way an angel of the Lord, perfect and spotless, and it was decreed that he should live forever like one of the celestial ministers."
"The soul cannot ascend into Paradise except it be first invested with a
1 Schoettgen, Dissertatio de Hierosolyma Coelesti, cap. iii. sect.
9.
2 Schoettgen, Hora Biblica et Talmudica, in Rom. v. 12, et in Johan. iii. 19.
3 Ibid. in 2 Cor. v. 2.
clothing adapted to that world, as the present is for this world."
These notions do not harmonize with the thought that man was originally destined for a physical eternity on this globe. All this difficulty disappears, we think, and the true metaphorical force often intended in the word "death" comes to view, through the following conception, occupying the minds of a portion of the Jewish Rabbins, as we are led to believe by the clews furnished in the close connection between the Pharisaic and the Zoroastrian eschatology, by similar hints in various parts of the New Testament, and by some quite explicit declarations in the Talmud itself, which we shall soon cite in a different connection. G.o.d at first intended that man should live for a time in pure blessedness on the earth, and then without pain should undergo a glorious change making him a perfect peer of the angels, and be translated to their lofty abode in his own presence; but, when he sinned, G.o.d gave him over to manifold suffering, and on the destruction of his body adjudged his naked soul to descend to a doleful imprisonment below the grave. The immortality meant for man was a timely ascent to heaven in a paradisal clothing, without dying. The doom brought on him by sin was the alteration of that desirable change of bodies and ascension to the supernal splendors, for a permanent disembodiment and a dreaded descent to the subterranean glooms. It is a Talmudical as much as it is a Pauline idea, that the triumphant power of the Messiah would restore what the unfortunate fall of Adam forfeited. Now, if we can show as we think we can, and as we shall try to do in a later part of this article that the later Jews expected the Messianic resurrection to be the prelude to an ascent into heaven, and not the beginning of a gross earthly immortality, it will powerfully confirm the theory which we have just indicated. "When," says one of the old Rabbins, "the dead in Israelitish earth are restored alive," their bodies will be "as the body of the first Adam before he sinned, and they shall all fly into the air like birds."4
At all events, whether the general Rabbinical belief was in the primitive destination of man to a heavenly or to an earthly immortality, whether the "death" decreed upon him in consequence of sin was the dissolution of the body or the wretchedness of the soul, they all agree that the banishment of souls into the realm of blackness under the grave was a part of the penalty of sin.
Some of them maintained, as we think, that, had there been no sin, souls would have pa.s.sed to heaven in glorified bodies; others of them maintained, as we think, that, had there been no sin, they would have lived eternally upon earth in their present bodies; but all of them agreed, it is undisputed, that in consequence of sin souls were condemned to the under world. No man would have seen the dismal realm of the sepulchre had there not been sin. The earliest Hebrew conception was that all souls went down to a common abode, to spend eternity in dark slumber or nerveless groping. This view was first modified soon after the Persian captivity, by the expectation that there would be discrimination at the resurrection which the Jews had learned to look for, when the just should rise but the wicked should be left.
The next alteration of their notions on this subject was the subdivision of the underworld into Paradise and Gehenna, a conception known among them probably as early as a century before Christ, and very prominent with them in the apostolic age. "When Rabbi
4 Schoettgen, in 1 Cor. xv. 44.
Jochanan was dying, his disciples asked him, "Light of Israel, main pillar of the right, thou strong hammer, why dost thou weep?"
He answered, "Two paths open before me, the one leading to bliss, the other to torments; and I know not which of them will be my doom.""5 "Paradise is separated from h.e.l.l by a distance no greater than the width of a thread."6 So, in Christ"s parable of Dives and Lazarus, Abraham"s bosom and h.e.l.l are two divisions. "There are three doors into Gehenna: one in the wilderness, where Korah and his company were swallowed; one in the sea, where Jonah descended when he "cried out of the belly of h.e.l.l;" one in Jerusalem, for the Lord says, "My furnace is in Jerusalem.""7 "The under world is divided into palaces, each of which is so large that it would take a man three hundred years to roam over it. There are distinct apartments where the h.e.l.l punishments are inflicted. One place is so dark that its name is "Night of Horrors."8 "In Paradise there are certain mansions for the pious from the Gentile peoples, and for those mundane kings who have done kindness to the Israelites."9 "The fire of Gehenna was kindled on the evening of the first Sabbath, and shall never be extinguished."10 The Egyptians, Persians, Hindus, and Greeks, with all of whom the Jews held relations of intercourse, had, in their popular representations of the under world of the dead, regions of peace and honor for the good, and regions of fire for the bad. The idea may have been adopted from them by the Jews, or it may have been at last developed among themselves, first by the imaginative poetical, afterwards by the literally believing, transference below of historical and local imagery and a.s.sociations, such as those connected with the ingulfing of Sodom and Gomorrah in fire and sulphur, and with the loathed fires in the valley of Hinnom.
Many of the Rabbins believed in the transmigration or revolution of souls, an immemorial doctrine of the Fast, and developed it into the most ludicrous and marvellous details.11 But, with the exception of those who adopted this Indian doctrine, the Rabbins supposed all departed souls to be in the under world, some in the division of Paradise, others in that of h.e.l.l. Here they fancied these souls to be longingly awaiting the advent of the Messiah.
"Messiah and the patriarchs weep together in Paradise over the delay of the time of the kingdom."12 In this quotation the Messiah is represented as being in the under world, for the Jews expected that he would be a man, very likely some one who had already lived. For a delegation was once sent to ask Jesus, "Art thou Elias? art thou the Messiah? art thou that prophet?" Light is thus thrown upon the Rabbinical saying that "it was doubted whether the Messiah would come from the living, or the dead."13 Borrowing some Persian modes of thinking, and adding them to their own inordinate national pride, the Rabbins soon began
5 Talmud, tract. Berachoth.
6 Eisenmenger, Entdecktes Judenthum, th. ii. cap. v. s. 315.
7 Lightfoot, in Matt. v. 22.
8 Schroder, Satzungen and Gebrauche des Talmudisch Rabbinischen Judenthums, s. 408.