Christ alone, by virtue of his perfect holiness, was not subject to any part of this fate. But, in fulfilment of the Father"s gracious designs, he willingly submitted, upon leaving the body, to go among the dead, that he might declare the good tidings to them, and burst the bars of darkness, and return to life, and rise into heaven as a pledge of the future translation of the faithful to that celestial world, instead of their banishment into the dismal bondage below, as. .h.i.therto. The death of Christ, then, was the redemption of sinners, in that his death implied his ascent, "because it was not possible that he should be holden of death;"
and his ascension visibly demonstrated the truth that G.o.d had forgiven men their sins and would receive their souls to his own abode on high.
Three very strong confirmations of the correctness of this interpretation are afforded in the declarations of Peter. First, he never even hints, in the faintest manner, that the death of Christ was to have any effect on G.o.d, any power to change his feeling or his government. It was not to make a purchasing expiation for sins and thus to reconcile G.o.d to us; but it was, by a revelation of the Father"s freely pardoning love, to give us penitence, purification, confidence, and a regenerating piety, and so to reconcile us to G.o.d. He says in one place, in emphatic words, that the express purpose of Christ"s death was simply "that he might lead us to G.o.d." In the same strain, in another place, he defines the object of Christ"s death to be "that we, being delivered from sins, should live unto righteousness." It is plain that in literal reality he refers our marvellous salvation to the voluntary goodness of G.o.d, and not to any vicarious ransom paid in the sacrifice of Christ, when he says, "The G.o.d of all grace hath called us unto his eternal glory by Jesus Christ." The death of Christ was not, then, to appease the fierce justice of G.o.d by rectifying the claims of his inexorable law, but it was to call out and establish in men all moral virtues by the power of faith in the sure gift of eternal life sealed to them through the ascension of the Savior.
For, secondly, the practical inferences drawn by Peter from the death of Christ, and the exhortations founded upon it, are inconsistent with the prevailing theory of the atonement. Upon that view the apostle would have said, "Christ has paid the debt and secured a seat in heaven for you, elected ones: therefore believe in the sufficiency of his offerings, and exult." But not so. He calls on us in this wise: "Forasmuch as Christ hath suffered for us, arm yourselves with the same mind." "Christ suffered for you, leaving an example that ye should follow his steps." The whole burden of his practical argument based on the mission of Christ is, the obligation of a religious spirit and of pure morals. He does not speak, as many modern sectarists have spoken, of the "filthy rags of righteousness;" but he says, "Live no longer in sins," "have a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of G.o.d of great price," "be ye holy in all manner of conversation," "purify your souls by obedience to the truth,"
"be ye a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices," "have a good conscience," "avoid evil and do good," "above all, have fervent love, for love will cover a mult.i.tude of sins." No candid person can peruse the epistle and not see that the great moral deduced in it from the mission of Christ is this: Since heaven is offered you, strive by personal virtue to be prepared for it at the judgment which shall soon come. The disciple is not told to trust in the merits of Jesus; but he is urged to "abstain from evil," and "sanctify the Lord G.o.d in his heart," and "love the brethren," and "obey the laws," and "do well,"
"girding up the loins of his mind in sobriety and hope."
This is not Calvinism.
The third fortification of this exposition is furnished by the following fact. According to our view, the death of Christ is emphasized, not on account of any importance in itself, but as the necessary condition preliminary to his resurrection, the humiliating prelude to his glorious ascent into heaven. The really essential, significant thing is not his suffering, vicarious death, but his triumphing, typical ascension. Now, the plain, repeated statements of Peter strikingly coincide with this representation. He says, "G.o.d raised Christ up from the dead, and gave him glory, [that is, received him into heaven,] that your faith and hope might be in G.o.d." Again he writes, "Blessed be G.o.d, who according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead unto an incorruptible inheritance in heaven." Still again, he declares that "the figure of baptism, signifying thereby the answer of a good conscience toward G.o.d, saves us by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who is gone into heaven." According to the commonly received doctrine, instead of these last words the apostle ought to have said, "saves us by the death of him who suffered in expiation of our sins." He does not say so. Finally, in the intrepid speech that Peter made before the Jewish council, referring to their wicked crucifixion of Jesus, he says, "Him hath G.o.d raised up to his own right hand, to be a Leader and a Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins." How plainly remission of sins is here predicated, not through Christ"s ignominious suffering, but through his heavenly exaltation! That exaltation showed in dramatic proof that by G.o.d"s grace the dominion of the lower world was about to be broken and an access to the celestial world to be vouchsafed.
If Christ bought off our merited punishment and earned our acceptance, then salvation can no more be "reckoned of grace, but of debt." But the whole New Testament doctrine is, "that sinners are justified freely through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." "The redemption that is in Christ"! Take these words literally, and they yield no intelligible meaning. The sense intended to be conveyed or suggested by them depends on interpretation; and here disagreement arises. The Calvinist says they mean the redemption undertaken, achieved, by Christ. We say they mean the redemption proclaimed, brought to light, by Christ.
The latter explanation is as close to the language as the former.
Neither is unequivocally established by the statement itself. We ought therefore to adopt the one which is at once most rational and plausible in itself, and most in harmony with the peculiar opinions and culture of the person by whom, and of the time when, the doc.u.ment was written. All these considerations, historical, philosophical, and moral, undeniably favor our interpretation, leaving nothing to support the other save the popular theological belief of modern Protestant Christendom, a belief which is the gradual product of a few great, mistaken teachers like Augustine and Calvin.
We do not find the slightest difficulty in explaining sharply and broadly, with all its niceties of phraseology, each one of the texts urged in behalf of the prevalent doctrine of the atonement, without involving the essential features of that doctrine. Three demonstrable a.s.sertions of fact afford us all the requisite materials. First, it was a prevalent belief with the Jews, that, since death was the penalty of sin, the suffering of death was in itself expiatory of the sins of the dying man.12 Lightfoot says, "It is a common and most known doctrine of the Talmudists, that repentance and ritual sacrifice expiate some sins, death the rest.
Death wipes off all unexpiated sins."13 Tholuck says, "It was a Jewish opinion that the death of the just atoned for the people."14 He quotes from the Talmud an explicit a.s.sertion to that effect, and refers to several learned authorities for further citations and confirmations.
Secondly, the apostles conceived Christ to be sinless, and consequently not on his own account exposed to death and subject to Hades. If, then, death was an atonement for sins, and he was sinless, his voluntary death was expiatory for the sins of the world; not in an arbitrary and unheard of way, according to the Calvinistic scheme, but in the common way, according to a Pharisaic notion. And thirdly, it was partly a Jewish expectation concerning the Messiah that he would,15 and partly an apostolic conviction concerning Christ that he did, break the bolts of the old Hadean prison and open the way for human ascent to heaven. As Jerome says, "Before Christ Abraham was in h.e.l.l, after Christ the crucified thief was in paradise;"16 for "until the advent of Christ all alike went down into the under world, heaven being shut until Christ threw aside the flaming sword that turned every way."17
These three thoughts that death is the expiatory penalty of sin, that Christ was himself sinless, that he died as G.o.d"s envoy to release the prisoners of gloom and be their pioneer to bliss leave nothing to be desired in explaining the sacrificial terms and kindred phrases employed by the apostles in reference to his mission.
Without question, Peter, like his companions, looked for the speedy return of Christ from heaven to judge all, and to save the worthy. Indications of this belief are numerously afforded in his words. "The end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober and watch unto prayer." "You shall give account to him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead." Here the common idea of that time namely, that the resurrection of the captives of the
12 Witsius, Dissertatio de Seculo hoc et futuro, sect. 8.
13 Lightfoot on Matt. xii. 32.
14 Comm. on John i. 29.
15 "G.o.d shall liberate the Israelites from the under world."
Bertholdt"s Christologia Judaorum, sect. x.x.xiv., (De descensu Messia ad Inferos,) note 2. "The captives shall ascend from the under world, Shechinah at their head." Schoettgen de Messia, lib.
vi. cap. 5, sect. 1.
16 See his Letter to Heliodorus, Epiat. x.x.xV., Benedict. ed.
17 Comm. in Eccles. cap. iii. 21, et cap. ix.
under world would occur at the return of Christ is undoubtedly implied. "Salvation is now ready to be revealed in the last time."
"That your faith may be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ." "Be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ." "Be ye examples to the flock, and when the chief Shepherd shall appear ye shall receive an unfading crown of glory." "G.o.d shall send Jesus Christ, . . . whom the heavens must receive until the times of the rest.i.tution of all things." It is evident that the author of these pa.s.sages expected the second coming of the Lord Jesus to consummate the affairs of his kingdom.
If the apostle had formed definite conclusions as to the final fate of unbelieving, wicked, reprobate men, he has not stated them. He undeniably implies certain general facts upon the subject, but leaves all the details in obscurity. He adjures his readers with exceeding earnestness he over and over again adjures them to forsake every manner of sinful life, to strive for every kind of righteous conversation, that by faith and goodness they may receive the salvation of their souls. He must have supposed an opposite fate in some sort to impend over those who did otherwise, rejecting Christ, "revelling in lasciviousness and idolatry."
Everywhere he makes the distinction between the faithful and the wicked prominent, and presents the idea that Christ shall come to judge them both, and shall reward the former with gladness, crowns, and glory; while it is just as clearly implied as if he had said it that the latter shall be condemned and punished. When a judge sits in trial on the good and the bad, and accepts those, plainly the inference is that he rejects these, unless the contrary be stated. What their doom is in its nature, what in its duration, is neither declared, nor inferrible from what is declared. All that the writer says on this point is substantially repeated or contained in the fourth chapter of his epistle, from verses 12 to 19. A slight explanatory paraphrase of it will make the position clear so far as it can be made clear. "Christian believers, in the fiery trials which are to try you, stand firm, even rejoicing that you are fellow sufferers with Christ, a pledge that when his glory is revealed you shall partake of it with him.
See to it that you are free from crime, free from sins for which you ought to suffer; then, if persecuted and slain for your Christian profession and virtues, falter not. The terrible time preceding the second advent of your Master is at hand. The sufferings of that time will begin with the Christian household; but how much more dreadful will be the sufferings of the close of that time among the disobedient that spurn the gospel of G.o.d! If the righteous shall with great difficulty be s.n.a.t.c.hed from the perils and woes encompa.s.sing that time, surely it will happen very much worse with unG.o.dly sinners. Therefore let all who suffer in obedience to G.o.d commit the keeping of their souls to him in well doing."
The souls of men were confined in the under world for sin. Christ came to turn men from sin and despair to holiness and a reconciling faith in G.o.d. He went to the dead to declare to them the good tidings of pardon and approaching deliverance through the free grace of G.o.d. He rose into heaven to demonstrate and visibly exhibit the redemption of men from the under world doom of sinners. He was soon to return to the earth to complete the unfinished work of his commissioned kingdom. His accepted ones should then be taken to glory and reward. The rejected ones should Their fate is left in gloom, without a definite clew.
CHAPTER II.
DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE LIFE IN THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.
THE Epistle to the Hebrews was written by some person who was originally a Jew, afterwards a zealous Christian. He was unquestionably a man of remarkable talent and eloquence and of lofty religious views and feelings. He lived in the time of the immediate followers of Jesus, and apparently was acquainted with them. The individual authorship it is now impossible to determine with certainty. Many of the most learned, unprejudiced, and able critics have ascribed it to Apollos, an Alexandrian Jew, a compeer of Paul and a fellow citizen of Philo. This opinion is more probable than any other. Indeed, so numerous are the resemblances of thoughts and words in the writings of Philo to those in this epistle, that even the wild conjecture has been hazarded that Philo himself at last became a Christian and wrote to his Hebrew countrymen the essay which has since commonly pa.s.sed for Paul"s.
No one can examine the hundreds of ill.u.s.trations of the epistle gathered from Philo by Carpzov, in his learned but ill reasoned work, without being greatly impressed. The supposition which has repeatedly been accepted and urged, that this composition was first written in Hebrew, and afterwards translated into Greek by another person, is absurd, in view of the masterly skill and eloquence, critical niceties, and felicities in the use of language, displayed in it. We could easily fill a paragraph with the names of those eminent in the Church such as Tertullian, Hippolytus, Erasmus, Luther, Le Clerc, and Neander who have concluded that, whoever the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews was, he was not Paul. The list of those names would reach from the Egyptian Origen, whose candor and erudition were without parallel in his age, to the German Bleek, whose masterly and exhaustive work is a monument of united talent and toil, leaving little to be desired. It is not within our present aim to argue this point: we will therefore simply refer the reader to the thorough and unanswerable discussion and settlement of it by Norton.1
The general object of the composition is, by showing the superiority of the Christian system to the Hebrew, to arm the converts from Judaism to whom it is addressed against the temptations to desert the fulfilling faith of Christ and to return to the emblematic faith of their fathers. This aim gives a pervading cast and color to the entire treatment to the reasoning and especially to the chosen imagery of the epistle. Omitting, for the most part, whatever is not essentially interwoven with the subject of death, the resurrection, and future existence, and with the mission of Christ in relation to those subjects, we advance to the consideration of the views which the epistle presents or implies concerning those points. It is to be premised that we are forced to construct from fragments and hints the theological fabric that stood in the mind of the writer. The suggestion also is quite obvious that, since the letter is addressed solely to the Hebrews and describes Christianity as the completion of
1 Christian Examiner, vols. for 1827 29.
Judaism, an acquaintance with the characteristic Hebrew opinions and hopes at that time may be indispensable for a full comprehension of its contents.
The view of the intrinsic nature and rank of Christ on which the epistle rests seems very plainly to be that great Logos doctrine which floated in the philosophy of the apostolic age and is so fully developed in the Gospel of John: "The Logos of G.o.d, alive, energetic, irresistibly piercing, to whose eyes all things are bare and open;" "first begotten of G.o.d;" "faithful to Him that made him;" inferior to G.o.d, superior to all beside; "by whom G.o.d made the worlds;" whose seat is at the right hand of G.o.d, the angels looking up to him, and "the world to come put in subjection to him." The author, thus a.s.suming the immensely super human rank and the pre existence of Christ, teaches that, by the good will of G.o.d, he descended to the world in the form of a man, to save them that were without faith and in fear, them that were lost through sin. G.o.d "bringeth in the first begotten into the world." "When he cometh into the world he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared for me." "Jesus was made a little while inferior to the angels." "Forasmuch, then, as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise partook of the same;" that is, in order to pa.s.s through an experience like that of those whom he wished to deliver, he a.s.sumed their nature. "He taketh not hold of angels, but he taketh hold of the seed of Abraham:" in other words, he aimed not to a.s.sist angels, but men. These pa.s.sages, taken in connection with the whole scope and drift of the doc.u.ment in which they are found, declare that Jesus was a spirit in heaven, but came to the earth, taking upon him a mortal frame of flesh and blood.
Why he did this is the question that naturally arises next. We do not see how it is possible for any person to read the epistle through intelligently, in the light of an adequate knowledge of contemporary Hebrew opinions, and not perceive that the author"s answer to that inquiry is, that Christ a.s.sumed the guise and fate of humanity in order to die; and died in order to rise from the dead; and rose from the dead in order to ascend to heaven; and ascended to heaven in order to reveal the grace of G.o.d opening the way for the celestial exaltation and blessedness of the souls of faithful men. We will commence the proof and ill.u.s.tration of these statements by bringing together some of the princ.i.p.al pa.s.sages in the epistle which involve the objects of the mission of Christ, and then stating the thought that chiefly underlies and explains them.
"We see Jesus who was made a little while inferior to the angels, in order that by the kindness of G.o.d he might taste death for every man through the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor." With the best critics, we have altered the arrangement of the clauses in the foregoing verse, to make the sense clearer. The exact meaning is, that the exaltation of Christ to heaven after his death authenticated his mission, showed that his death had a divine meaning for men; that is, showed that they also should rise to heaven. "When he had by himself made a purification of our sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high." "For this cause he is the Mediator of the new covenant, that, his death having occurred, (for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant,) they which are called might enter upon possession of the promised eternal inheritance." The force of this last pa.s.sage, with its context, turns on the double sense of the Greek word for covenant, which likewise means a will. Several statements in the epistle show the author"s belief that the subjects of the old dispensation had the promise of immortal life in heaven, but had never realized the thing itself.2 Now, he maintains the purpose of the new dispensation to be the actual revelation and bestowment of the reality which anciently was only promised and typically foreshadowed; and in the pa.s.sage before us he figures Christ the author of the Christian covenant as the maker of a will by which believers are appointed heirs of a heavenly immortality. He then following the a.n.a.logy of testamentary legacies and legatees describes those heirs as "entering on possession of that eternal inheritance" "by the death of the Testator." He was led to employ precisely this language by two obvious reasons: first, for the sake of that paronomasia of which he was evidently fond; secondly, by the fact that it really was the death of Christ, with the succeeding resurrection and ascension, which demonstrated both the reality of the thing promised in the will and the authority of the Testator to bestow it.
All the expressions thus far cited, and kindred ones scattered through the work, convey a clear and consistent meaning, with sharp outlines and coherent details, if we suppose their author entertained the following general theory; and otherwise they cannot be satisfactorily explained. A dreadful fear of death, introduced by sin, was tyrannizing over men. In consequence of conscious alienation from G.o.d through transgressions, they shuddered at death. The writer does not say what there was in death that made it so feared; but we know that the prevailing Hebrew conception was, that death led the naked soul into the silent, dark, and dreary region of the under world, a doleful fate, from which they shrank with sadness at the best, guilt converting that natural melancholy into dread foreboding. In the absence of any evidence or presumption whatever to the contrary, we are authorized, nay, rather forced, to conclude that such a conception is implied in the pa.s.sages we are considering. Now, the mission of Jesus was to deliver men from that fear and bondage, by a.s.suring them that G.o.d would forgive sin and annul its consequence. Instead of banishing their disembodied spirits into the sepulchral Sheol, he would take them to himself into the glory above the firmament. This aim Christ accomplished by literally exemplifying the truths it implies; that is, by personally a.s.suming the lot of man, dying, rising from among the spirits of the dead, and ascending beyond the veil into heaven. By his death and victorious ascent "he purged our sins," "redeemed transgressions," "overthrew him that has the power of death," in the sense that he thereby, as the writer thought, swept away the supposed train of evils caused by sin, namely, all the concomitants of a banishment after death into the cheerless subterranean empire.
It will be well now to notice more fully, in the author"s scheme, the idea that Christ did locally ascend into the heavens, "into the presence of G.o.d," "where he ever liveth," and
2 xi. 13, 16, et al. See chap. x. 36,
where to receive the promise most plainly means to obtain the thing promised, as it does several times in the epistle.
So Paul, in his speech at Antioch, (Acts xiii. 32, 33,) says, "We declare unto you glad tidings, how that the promise which was made unto the fathers, G.o.d hath fulfilled the same unto us their children, in that he hath raised up Jesus again" that by this ascent he for the first time opened the way for others to ascend to him where he is, avoiding the doom of Hades.
"We have a great High Priest, who has pa.s.sed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of G.o.d." "Christ is not entered into the most holy place, made with hands, the figure of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of G.o.d for us."
Indeed, that Jesus, in a material and local sense, rose to heaven, is a conception fundamental to the epistle and prominent on all its face. It is much more necessary for us to show that the author believed that the men who had previously died had not risen thither, but that it was the Savior"s mission to open the way for their ascension.
It is extremely significant, in the outset, that Jesus is called "the first leader and the bringer to the end of our faith;" for the words in this clause which the common version renders "author"
and "finisher"3 mean, from their literal force and the latent figure they contain, "a guide who runs through the course to the goal so as to win and receive the prize, bringing us after him to the same consummation." Still more striking is the pa.s.sage we shall next adduce. Having enumerated a long list of the choicest worthies of the Old Testament, the writer adds, "These all, having obtained testimony through faith, did not realize the promise,4 G.o.d having provided a better thing for us, that they without us should not be perfected," should not be brought to the end, the end of human destiny, that is, exaltation to heaven. Undoubtedly the author here means to say that the faithful servants of G.o.d under the Mosaic dispensation were reserved in the under world until the ascension of the Messiah. Augustine so explains the text in hand, declaring that Christ was the first that ever rose from the under world.5 The same exposition is given by Origen,6 and indeed by nearly every one of the Fathers who has undertaken to give a critical interpretation of the pa.s.sage. This doctrine itself was held by Catholic Christendom for a thousand years; is now held by the Roman, Greek, and English Churches; but is, for the most part, rejected or forgotten by the dissenting sects, from two causes. It has so generally sunk out of sight among us, first, from ignorance, ignorance of the ancient learning and opinions on which it rested and of which it was the necessary completion; secondly, from rationalistic speculations, which, leading men to discredit the truth of the doctrine, led them arbitrarily to deny its existence in the Scripture, making them perversely force the texts that state it and wilfully blink the texts that hint it.
Whether this be a proper and sound method of proceeding in critical investigations any one may judge. To us it seems equally unmanly and immoral. We know of but one justifiable course, and that is, with patience, with earnestness, and with all possible aids, to labor to discern the real and full meaning of the words according to the understanding and intention of the author. We do so elsewhere, regardless of consequences. No other method, in the case of the Scriptures, is exempt from guilt.
The meaning (namely, to bring to the end) which we have above attributed to the word [NAC](translated in the common version to make perfect) is the first meaning and the
3 Robinson"s Lexicon, first edition, under [NAC]; also see Philo, cited there.
4 Ch. x. 36.
5 Epist. CLXIV. sect. ix., ed. Benedictina.
6 De Principiis, lib. ii. cap. 2.
etymological force of the word. That we do not refine upon it over nicely in the present instance, the following examples from various parts of the epistle unimpeachably witness. "For it was proper that G.o.d, in bringing many sons unto glory, should make him who was the first leader of their salvation perfect [reach the end] through sufferings;" that is, should raise him to heaven after he had pa.s.sed through death, that he, having himself arrived at the glorious heavenly goal of human destiny, might bring others to it. "Christ, being made perfect," (brought through all the intermediate steps to the end,) "became the cause of eternal salvation to all them that obey him; called of G.o.d an high priest." The context, and the after a.s.sertion of the writer that the priesthood of Jesus is exercised in heaven, show that the word "perfected," as employed here, signifies exalted to the right hand of G.o.d. "Perfection" (bringing unto the end) "was not by the Levitical priesthood." "The law perfected nothing, but it was the additional introduction of a better hope by which we draw near unto G.o.d." "The law maketh men high priests which have infirmity, which are not suffered to continue, by reason of death; but the word of the oath after the law maketh the Son perfect for evermore," bringeth him to the end, namely, an everlasting priesthood in the heavens. That Christian believers are not under the first covenant, whereby, through sin, men commencing with the blood of Abel, the first death were doomed to the lower world, but are under the second covenant, whereby, through the gracious purpose of G.o.d, taking effect in the blood of Christ, the first resurrection, they are already by faith, in imagination, translated to heaven, this is plainly what the author teaches in the following words: "Ye are not come to the palpable mount that burneth with fire, and to blackness and tempest, where so terrible was the sight that Moses exceedingly trembled, but ye are come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, and to G.o.d, and to the spirits of the perfected just, and to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant, and to the l.u.s.tral blood which speaks better things than that of Abel." The connection here demonstrates that the souls of the righteous are called "perfected," as having arrived at the goal of their destiny in heaven. Again, the author, when speaking of the sure and steadfast hope of eternal life, distinguishes Jesus as a [non-ASCII characters], one who runs before as a scout or leader: "the Forerunner, who for us has entered within the veil," that is, has pa.s.sed beyond the firmament into the presence of G.o.d. The Jews called the outward or lowermost heaven the veil.7 But the most conclusive consideration upon the opinion we are arguing for and it must be entirely convincing is to be drawn from the first half of the ninth chapter. To appreciate it, it is requisite to remember that the Rabbins with whose notions our author was familiar and some of which he adopts in his reasoning were accustomed to compare the Jewish temple and city with the temple and city of Jehovah above the sky, considering the former as miniature types of the latter. This mode of thought was originally learned by philosophical Rabbins from the Platonic doctrine of ideas, without doubt, and was entertained figuratively, spiritually; but in the unreflecting, popular mind the Hebraic views to which it gave rise were soon grossly materialized and located. They also derived the same conception from G.o.d"s command to Moses when he was about to build the tabernacle:
7 Schoettgen, Hora Hebraica et Talmudica in 2 Cor. xii. 2.