HISTORY OF OPINIONS ON THE SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF RETRIBUTION

No idea is more universal among men than retribution. The laws of the material world exert a retributive power, rewarding those who regard and obey them and punishing those who disobey. So also the laws of all social organizations involve retribution. It is found in the family, in the school, in the social circle, in business, and in the state.

Retribution, also, has been believed to exist in the various systems of supernatural powers which men in various ages and climes have accepted as true. Under these systems some things are required and some things forbidden, and rewards and punishments are expected in accordance with obedience or disobedience.

If the idea of retribution is carried into a future life, and to this the idea of eternity is added, it becomes a motive of supreme, all-controlling power, for what is this short life compared with eternity?

Moreover, if the power of assigning the retributions of eternal joy or woe is believed to reside in a certain order of men, then this belief invests them with terrific sway. Such was the fearful influence once wielded by papal excommunications and interdicts. The power of priesthoods and governments has for ages rested on such convictions. The most terrible despotisms under which men have ever groaned have had this basis.

It is, therefore, a matter of great moment to understand the real system of the universe under which we live, and the real retributions which we are to expect. For this true knowledge we are dependent on the Word of God. Nor do we rely upon it in vain. Nothing is more full than divine revelation on this subject. And yet there is far from being unanimity of views among those who follow this standard. And though the subject has been often discussed, yet it is thought by some learned and pious divines that the full energy of investigation in the Church has never yet been put forth on this subject, and that a more profound discussion is needed and is at hand

A Profound Discussion Inevitable.

Prof. Schaff, of Union Theological Seminary, eminent alike for learning and piety, seems to think thus. In his “History of the Apostolic Church” he speaks as follows: “Each period of Church history is called to unfold and place in a clear light a particular aspect of doctrine to counteract a corresponding error; till the whole circle of Christian truth shall have been traversed in its natural order.” He illustrates this as to the Trinity, the person of Christ, the depravity of man, and the system of redemption. He then adds: “In our times the doctrine concerning the Church seems to be more and more challenging the attention of theologians. And finally, Eschatology, or the Doctrine of the Last Things, will have its turn.” There is a profound reason why the radical discussion of future retribution should come last, for that retribution is the final issue of the whole system, and, to explain and justify it, all false conceptions of God must have been exposed and his true character revealed, the highest forms of the principles of honor, justice, sympathy, and love, must have been disclosed and invested with divine authority, and the preceding system as a whole, and in all its parts, have been understood and vindicated. This is the most profound and all-comprehending work to which the mind of man can be summoned. To this all things are now tending. Nothing can be more evident than that a peculiar, profound, and universal interest is felt on the subject of future retribution, and that, to prepare for the coming investigation, a careful review of past discussions and opinions is indispensable. In the common histories of doctrine, such as those of Munscher, Hagenbach, Neander, and Shedd, the history of the doctrine of retribution is not considered at all under this title. Neither is it so considered under any title as to include more than one part of the Scripture doctrine of retribution. So far as it is treated, it is included under the head Eschatology. By this is meant, as stated by Dr. Schaff, the doctrine as to the last things, or the winding up of the present system. Viewed thus it includes death, the world of spirits, the final coming of Christ, the last judgment, and the retributions of the world to come.

Temporal Retribution in the Old Testament.

This mode of viewing the subject is defective, in that it omits a large and important part of the Scriptural doctrine of retribution. The only form of retribution prominently presented in the Old Testament as existing for four thousand years was temporal, and did not refer to the spirit-world and a future state. This, the common histories of doctrine omit, and consider only the doctrine concerning the retributions of the future state.

Of this omission one important effect has been to take from the divine system of temporal retributions the importance and influence which God once assigned to it, and to produce a tendency to entirely overlook it, and to concentrate the thoughts on the retributions of the eternal state. But certainly temporal retributions must have been, in the judgment of God, an element of great power, and well worth of attentive consideration, or he would not have mainly derived the motives of his revealed government from them for four thousand years.

These remarks on the predominance of temporal retributions in the Old Testament are not meant to affirm or imply that there was not some belief in a future state and its retributions, among the Old Testament saints, going beyond any express revelations of the Mosaic law, and disclosing itself in their recorded experience.

What is meant is this: that in the law of Moses, taken as a law, a rule of life, individual and national, there is not one motive derived from a future state and its retributions. All is derived from this world and the present life. The same also is true of the Patriarchal dispensation, and of the world before the flood.

It is true that the Christian Fathers carry back to the retributions of the Old Testament their ideas of future retribution. This is owing to the fact that the analogical relations of this material system to the spiritual world are such that these punishments may be intended as types of spiritual punishments. Thus, natural disease and death may be types of spiritual disease and death; natural defeat and bondage, of spiritual defeat and bondage; natural darkness, of spiritual darkness; natural fire, of spiritual fire. But, even it is so, nothing is expressly said about it in the Law of Moses. The system of temporal punishments is set forth without any express reference whatever to the spiritual world and a future state. Nevertheless, the analogies are often so striking that, in after-ages, they have been extensively regarded as types and shadows of coming events in the spiritual world. Thus the judgments of God on Pharaoh, and the redemption of Israel out of Egypt, have been regarded as types of God’s judgments on the great adversary, and the redemption of the Church. Yet of this the Law of Moses says nothing.

It may have been God’s purpose, as suggested by Fairbairn, since the Mosaic dispensation was typical, to keep always within the typical sphere of the material world, so as not to mingle the two spheres, and anticipate the spiritual dispensation. This may be the reason why no direct reference is made to the spiritual world and the future life, even when otherwise we should expect it. But, whatever that reason may be, I shall not attempt to develop it, but, following Moses, shall, in considering his system, keep within the temporal sphere.

As a general fact, we little realize how long this world was under the system of temporal retributions. It is not yet four thousand years from Abraham to our day. How long is such a period to us! But from Adam to Christ was fully four thousand years. In these years there was a long progress of thought and of revelation. In order to form any distinct conception of it, we need to unfold it somewhat, and not, as is often done, to attempt to present in one comprehensive summary what is called the teaching of the Old Testament.

The four thousand years before Christ, according to the common chronology, may be divided into five periods. The first, of two thousand years, from Adam to Abraham; the second, of five hundred years, from Abraham to Moses; the third, of five hundred years, from Moses to Solomon; the fourth, of five hundred years, from Solomon to the return from the captivity in Babylon; the fifth, of five hundred years, from the return from the captivity to Christ.

Without going into detail, the outline or illustration of temporal retributions during these periods will next be set forth.

Natural Death Pronounced on Adam.

In the first period, the first and most striking instance of retribution was the sentence of natural death pronounced upon Adam and Eve for their transgression. This sentence, as interpreted by Paul, included in its scope all their posterity.

Great efforts have been made under dogmatic influences to carry back the idea of spiritual death to the sentence pronounced on Adam and his race. But that sentence is its own interpreter. “Till thou return unto the ground, for out of it wast thou taken; for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” The Jewish writers of the Alexandrine period and the Greek Fathers took this view, and their interpretation is confirmed by the Apostle Paul. Any other view is contrary to the whole genius of the Old Testament typical dispensation.

Another instance of threatened retribution was the future punishment of the tempter by the seed of the woman, of which more will be said hereafter. It is the first hint of a redeeming and avenging Messiah, which, in after-ages, was so fully developed as the central theme of revelation.

The deluge, also, was threatened and inflicted by God during this period. To this divine retribution our Saviour emphatically refers as an illustration and warning of coming judgments on Jerusalem.

Temporal Motives Addressed to the Jews.

In the second period occurred the judgment of God on Sodom and Gomorrah, to which our Saviour also refers, as a solemn warning to the men of his age, in view of the impending ruin of Jerusalem. In the third period were the divine judgments on Egypt, the redemption of the Israelites from bondage, and the development of the Mosaic economy in the wilderness, and the establishment of the nation in Canaan. It is not wonderful that the civil and criminal law of the nation thus established should be sustained by temporal retributions. But it is very remarkable that the providential rewards of fidelity to God and his system were derived entirely from the material sphere. If the nation was loyal and obedient, God promised that they should have health, long life, fruitful seasons, military ascendency among the nations, national wealth, honor, and power. If disobedient and idolatrous, God threatened that they should be scourged by famine, disease, defeat in war, captivity, poverty, shame, and contempt. The powers of language are exhausted in giving intensity to these motives. A brief experiment easily made will bring the whole subject before the mind, and for the sake of vividness of conception it is well to make it. Let any one read attentively the twenty-sixth chapter of Leviticus, and then ask, What are the rewards and punishments by which God here sought to induce the Israelites to obey? Is there any allusion to a future life and eternal retributions? Do they not relate to fruitful seasons and health, and victory in war, and the protecting presence of God, on the one hand, and drought, famine, disease, defeat, captivity, and death, on the other? Then read the twenty-eighth chapter of Deuteronomy – a still longer and more earnest and eloquent chapter, full of promises and threatenings – and see if one can be found that does not relate to this life. In that whole chapter we shall find not one reference to a future life, not one motive derived from it. The same is true of the whole law.

During the wanderings of the nation in the wilderness, temporal rewards and punishments were always close at hand, of the most powerful kind. During the period of the Judges, the fortunes of the nation varied with their obedience or rebellion, as God had threatened. The ascendency of the kingdom under David was the result of fidelity and obedience to God. The division and decline of the nation in the fourth period, and their final ruin, were owing to the apostacy of Solomon, and to subsequent relapses into idolatry, till the ten tribes were led captive by the King of Assyria, and the rest by the King of Babylon.

The great prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, in all their warnings of the apostatizing nation, did not refer to future punishments in the spirit-world, or to redemption from them, but to the terrors of the siege, of famine, of the capture of the city, and of captivity in a strange land, or to redemption from such captivity.

In the fifth period, after the return from the captivity until Christ, the system of temporal retributions was still pursued, and finally culminated in the terrible destruction of Jerusalem, in anticipation of which the Saviour wept.

Temporal Retribution Taught by Christ.

It is worth of special notice that, although he had the most vivid conceptions of future punishment, he yet confined himself in his prediction of coming retribution on Jerusalem to the temporal sphere, as did Moses. Listen to his words: “And when he was come near, he beheld the city and wept over it, saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this, thy day, the things which belong to thy peace! But now they are hid from thine eyes. For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, and shall dash thee to the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.”

In addition to the special theoretical government of the Jews, God represents himself as administering a providential government during the ages over the surrounding nations of Egypt, Assyria, Tyre, Moab, Edom, and the like, and inflicting on them temporal retributions.

But, if we examine this whole governmental system for four thousand years so far as express promises or threats are concerned, we cannot infer from it any knowledge or thought of a future life, or of any retributions beyond this world.

How Was Belief in Future Life Developed?

Nevertheless, there was in fact a course of feeling and thought on the subject of a future life, during all these ages, which had finally culminated in well-defined opinions as to retributions in a future life before Christ came.

It is not often realized, but it is true, that in the last period, during the persecutions of the Jews by Antiochus Epiphanes, one hundred and seventy years before Christ, a spirit of martyrdom was developed, based on an open-eyed vision of the resurrection, a future life, and eternal rewards, which was not exceeded even by the glorious martyrs after Christ. This wonderful development of a full belief of eternal rewards in a future world must have been the result of powerful antecedent causes, the accumulated force of which, during the Old Testament dispensation, was thus finally developed.

Of the facts there can be no doubt. They are fully developed in trustworthy and universally accredited historical records. They are facts that cannot be ignored, and that demand a thorough investigation of the causes of such wonderful results.

It is necessary now to consider these causes, and the mode of their operation. There is an intimate connection between this inquiry and the development of opinion on the doctrine of retribution, both at and after the days of Christ.

CHAPTER II.

OPINIONS IN THE AGE OF THE MACCABEES

In the preceding chapter, a general view has been given of God’s system of retribution. It appears that by Moses, as a lawgiver, he made no revelation of a future state, and no appeal to its retributions, but derived his rewards and punishments entirely from this life.

From this many have inferred that there was among the Jews no knowledge or belief of a future life. In opposition to this view, we alleged that there were causes among the pious Jews leading to a belief of a future life and its retributions, growing out of a covenant with God, and their personal experience and habits of communion with him, and confirmed by certain prominent and sublime events of their history. In proof of this, the great fact was alleged that in the days of the Maccabees, nearly two centuries before Christ, there was developed among the Jews a clear conception and a firm belief of the doctrine of the resurrection, and of the retributions of a future life, a belief of such power that it sustained illustrious heroes in the torments of most cruel martyrdom. These facts are of such fundamental importance that they deserve a more full development. Moreover, the age and circumstances in which they occurred call for particular consideration, if we would thoroughly understand the thinking of subsequent ages.

Point of Vision.

It is for this reason that we shall make the age of the Maccabees a point of vision for the whole history. It is a remarkable point in many respects. It is the beginning of Jewish theological and religious writing outside of the Bible. Before this time there was the Bible alone. We, at this day, can hardly conceive of such a state of things. The Bible is now so imbedded in commentaries and systems of theology by the Fathers, the Scholastic divines, the Reformers, and the modern sects, that it is quite overshadowed by them. But up to this point the Old Testament stands in sublime majesty and solitude, overshadowed by nothing. But here, human comments, reasonings, inferences, and developments, begin to make their appearance.

It is no less remarkable as making the completion of the circuit of those great periods of foreign influences to which the Jews were, in the providence of God, exposed, and by which it has been alleged that their religious thinking was greatly affected.

Egyptian, Persian, and Grecian Periods.

The first of these periods was during their early captivity in Egypt, in which they came in contact with a clearly-defined doctrine of the immortality of the soul and of future retributions, connected with the theory of the transmigration of souls. The second was during the captivity of Babylon, and during their subjection to the Persian power. During this period they came in contact with the system of Zoroaster, of Eastern origin, containing a doctrine of future retributions, involving the resurrection of the body, the eternal reward of the righteous at a future judgment, the temporary punishment and final restoration and purification of wicked men, and the annihilation of evil spirits, so as to harmonize the universe in good. This system is based on professed direct revelations from God, and not on philosophical speculations.

The third period was during the Greek power of Alexander and his successors. During this period they came in contact with a doctrine of the immortality of the soul and of future retributions, based, not on a professed revelation, but on philosophical principles. It was also, as in Egypt, connected with a doctrine of the transmigration of souls. In it, also, the doctrine of the preexistence of souls was held, based upon their divine, immortal and eternal nature, they being regarded as a kind of self-existent and immortal divinities. These views were developed by Plato, and are repeated by Cicero as derived from him. The first of these periods lasted over two centuries, and terminated in the fifteenth century before Christ. The second lasted from the Babylonian captivity to the conquests of Alexander, over two centuries, terminating in the fourth century before Christ. The third lasted till Christ, for the religious and philosophical systems of the Greeks and Romans were substantially the same. The age of the Maccabees is a part of the third period. Now, it is certainly remarkable that, though the doctrines of a future life and of eternal retributions are not taught in the law of Moses, yet the Jews were, in the providence of God, so long and so repeatedly brought into contact with various forms of those doctrines that they could not but think of them, and the age of the Maccabees is noteworthy as marking the completion of this great circuit of influences on the Jewish mind. It is no less remarkable as the point at which we unmistakably meet the first clear and full development among the Jews, and outside of the Bible, of the doctrine of retribution in a future life as an element of all-pervading popular power. Before this point we have no Jewish theological and religious writing, except what is contained in the Hebrew canon of the Old Testament. And it has been earnestly debated whether the doctrine of future retribution occurs in the Old Testament at all. But it cannot be debated whether that doctrine was promulgated at this point, for it was clearly proclaimed – as clearly as at any subsequent time.

General Plan.

We shall, therefore, in the first place, clearly prove this statement, and then, from this point of vision, cast our eyes backward and endeavor to trace its river of opinion upward to its source; then returning, we shall trace it downward to Christ, and thence onward through the Christian ages.

Martyrdom and War.

The fundamental characteristics of the age of the Maccabees are, in the first place, a great religious persecution of the Jews by Antiochus Epiphanes, and then a great religious war. This war, like that under Cromwell, or that of the Netherlands, was based on deep religious convictions, by which a handful of heroes were enabled to encounter and defeat the whole power of the Syrian kingdom of Antiochus, and these convictions were based on eternal retributions. It was a crisis not only in the history of the Jews, but in that of the religion of the Bible and of humanity. It affected the Jews, not only in Palestine and Egypt, but throughout the world. Antiochus, cooperating with a party of Jewish apostates, deliberately undertook to eradicate the religion and religious usages of the Jews, and to replace them by those of Greece. He repeatedly took Jerusalem, and plundered the temple and massacred the people. He set up the altar of Jupiter on that of Jehovah, and defiled the temple by sacrifices of swine’s flesh thereon. He sought to destroy all the copies of the Law of Moses, and punished with death any with whom they were found. He prohibited not only the temple-service, but the keeping of the Sabbath and circumcision. Women who circumcised their children were put to a cruel death with their infants. Edicts commanding these things were published throughout Judea, and officers were appointed to enforce them. Inasmuch as Christianity was involved in Judaism, this was, by anticipation, a fundamental assault on the kingdom of Christ. This assault was met first by martyrdom and then by war. And the story of the heroic warfare of Judas Maccabeus and his brothers in defense of the law of God, the narrative of their victories, defeats, and martyrdoms, resulting in the final independence of the Jews, is inferior in interest, sublimity, and importance, to no history in the language of man.

A lofty and noble enthusiasm of faith in God and in eternal retributions was developed, from which a great religious reaction toward faith, and the more spiritual observance of the law of God, took its rise, which by sympathy elevated the tone of spiritual Judaism among all the Jews dispersed in all parts of the world.

Faith in Eternal Retributions.

This faith in the resurrection and in eternal retributions pervaded the whole army of Judas Maccabeus as thoroughly as it did the army of Cromwell, and was testified by public acts in behalf of those who died in battle, of which we shall elsewhere more fully speak. It was still more strikingly manifested in the case of the martyrs. Among these a mother and her seven sons were put to death by Antiochus for refusing to abjure the law of Moses and sacrifice to the gods of Greece. They endured extreme torments with wondrous and heroic power, through the hope of the resurrection and of eternal life. The second of the seven martyred brethren said, with his last breath, as he was dying of extreme torments, “Thou, O persecutor, removest us from this present life, but the King of this world will raise us up to everlasting life, since we die for his laws” (2 Macc. vii. 9). The fourth said to the tyrant: “It is a great blessing, when dying by the hands of men, to cherish the hope inspired by God, that we shall be raised up again by him. But to thee there shall be no resurrection unto life” (2 Macc. vii. 14).

The heroic mother, after cheering and sustaining her seven sons in the mighty conflict, at last died a triumphant martyr’s death.

Dogmatic Statements.

Not only was the belief in immortality and eternal retributions thus set forth in heroic actions and suffering, but it was also embodied in didactic statements. The author of the Wisdom of Solomon wrote in the second century before Christ, after the establishment of the kingdom of the Maccabees. He does not refer to these martyrs by name, but no one can doubt that they were before his mind when he wrote the following eloquent unfolding of the doctrine of future retribution and of eternal life:

“But the souls of the righteous are in the hands of God, and there shall no torment touch them. In the sight of the unwise they seemed to die, and their departure is taken for misery, and their going from us to be utter destruction; but they are in peace. For though they be punished in the sight of men, yet is their hope full of immortality. And having been a little chastised they shall be greatly rewarded, for God has proved them and found them worthy of himself. As gold in the furnace hath he tried them; and received them as a burt-offering. In the time of their visitation they shall shine and kindle a conflagration, as sparks among the dry straw. They shall judge the nations and have dominion over the people, and their Lord shall reign forever” (Wisdom of Solomon iii. 1-8).

“But the ungodly shall be punished according to their own imaginations, who have neglected the righteous and forsaken the lord. He shall rend them and cast them down headlong that they shall be speechless; and he shall shake them from their foundation, and they shall be utterly laid waste and be in sorrow, and their memorial shall perish. Then shall the righteous man stand in great boldness before the face of such as have afflicted him and made no account of his labors.

“When the wicked see it they shall be troubled with terrible fear, and shall be amazed at the greatness of his salvation. Repenting and groaning in spirit they shall say, This is he whom we once derided. We fools accounted his life madness and his end without honor. But now is he numbered among the children of God, and his lot is among the saints.” Then they lament over the extreme brevity and worthlessness of worldly joys. They are like dust blown away by the wind, like the foam of the ocean scattered by the storm, like smoke dissipated by a tempest. The writer then proceeds:

“But the righteous live for evermore; their reward also is with the Lord, and the care of them is with the Most High. Therefore shall they receive a glorious kingdom and a beautiful crown from the Lord’s hand” (iii. 10; iv. 19; v. 2-5, 15, 16).

Retribution on the wicked is then described in sublime, figurative language.

The right-aiming thunderbolts shall fly to the mark. Hailstones of wrath shall fall. Floods and tempests shall sweep them away.

Can anything be more explicit than this vivid account of a future life and future retributions? Indeed, the beautiful expression “a hope full of immortality” has been transferred from this passage to the religious language of Christendom. On the points of modern controversy such as the literal eternity of punishment, or the annihilation of the wicked, the language is not explicit. Of this we shall say more. But as to a glorious reward of the righteous, and a fearful punishment of the wicked in the world to come, the testimony is unequivocal.

CHAPTER III.

CHARACTER AND HISTORIC DOCUMENTS

OF THE AGE OF THE MACCABEES

We have ascended the chosen mountain-top of thought. We have seen, in the Maccabean age, the full and vivid development of the doctrine of the resurrection, and of the retributions of a future life. Standing on this mount of vision, let us survey the present, the past, and the future. Let us inquire whence came these clear and sublime views of a future life? Who were these men and these women who thus anticipated the martyr-spirit of the Christian age? What were their habits of thought? What their books and historical documents? What the character of the age? In short, what means have we of reproducing, in sympathetic forms, the opinions, feelings, and acts, of the men of that age? We do not feel content with dry dates, or the skeletons of heartless abstractions. We desire to meet them heart to heart, and to sympathize with them in the great conflicts, physical, intellectual, and moral, in which they were called to engage. Nor is it from mere curiosity that we desire this investigation. It is indispensable to a thorough historical presentation of the great question which we have undertaken to consider.

Antecedent Relations.

For want of it, the history of the doctrine of retribution in the early Christian ages has been presented without a proper regard to its antecedent relations. In the most common histories of doctrines, such as those of Hagenbach, Neander, and Shedd, the subject is treated as if Christ were the fountain-head of the doctrine of future eternal retributions, and as though the history of opinions on this subject properly begins with him.

But the fact is that, in the three centuries preceding Christ, nearly or quite every form of the doctrine of future retribution had been developed that was promulgated and defended after Christ.

Leading Forms of Doctrine.

The three leading forms promulgated among the early Christians were – 1. The eternal blessedness of the righteous and the eternal punishment of the wicked. 2. The eternal blessedness of the righteous and the annihilation of the wicked. 3. The eternal blessedness of the righteous and the limited remedial punishment of the wicked, resulting in the final restoration to holiness of all fallen beings, and the unity and harmony of the universe in God. Every one of these doctrines of retribution had been held and defended before Christ came, by the Jews or among them.

In addition to these, in the early Christian ages the doctrine was promulgated of a conflict between two eternal and self-existent gods; one good, the other evil, each creating a system of his own – a conflict which involved in its issues the eternal duration of evil; though good was, on the whole, to be victorious in the conflict. This view, though promulgated by men claiming the Christian name, was generally regarded as extra-Christian and heretical. This view also had been promulgated in the centuries before Christ, and had come in contact with the Jews. Hence it is clear that the influence of these preceding centuries must have been deeply felt in all the early Christian discussions of the doctrine of retribution. It was, in fact, so felt.

Character of the Centuries Before Christ.

It has also been supposed that the centuries immediately preceding Christ were centuries of relative darkness, since prophecy and revelation ceased soon after the return from captivity, four hundred years before Christ, and in the interval the most important works of a literary kind produced by the Jews were those books entitled Apocryphal, and which by Protestants generally have been undervalued, if not contemned, under that title. Though intelligent Romanists esteem them more highly as a kind of Deutero-canonical books, yet the masses for the most part do not popularly appreciate them or the centuries during which they were written.

And yet the five centuries preceding Christ are some of the most remarkable centuries in the history of man, and most highly distinguished for an intense and wide-spread mental activity, in which the Jews participated, especially those at Alexandria.

Philosophers, Historians, Poets.

In these centuries flourished such philosophers as Socrates, Plat, and Aristotle, and also, except Homer, the leading poets and historians of Greece. In the same centuries the great luminaries of Rome arose, in whose light we still walk in our classical studies, such as Cicero, Horace, Virgil, and Livy. In these centuries was the great scientific and literary development of Alexandria under the Ptolemics. In this development the language of Greece took the lead, and the fact that the Jewish writings called Apocryphal are in Greek, and not, like the Old Testament, in Hebrew, is a result of that wonderful providence of God, by which the language of the Greek Testament was prepared.

Alexandria A Great Centre.

When Alexander founded Alexandria he created not only a great centre of political power, commerce, and wealth, but of literary and scientific development.

The Museum.

What was called the Museum was, in fact, a great royal university. “To it” (says Draper), “as to a centre, philosophers from all parts of the world converged. It is said that at one time not fewer than fourteen thousand students were assembled there.” In it were established two great libraries, which together contained 700,000 volumes. Here grammar and criticism were developed. Here the inductive sciences were cultivated under the lead of Aristotle. Here the world-famed Geometry of Euclid was composed. From this school came such mathematicians, astronomers, and geographers, as Appollonius and Eratosthenes. Its influences extended to Archimedes and Hipparchus. Draper says: “Astronomical observatories, chemical laboratories, libraries, dissecting-houses, were not in vain. There went forth from them a spirit powerful enough to tincture all future time.” In short, the intellectual activity of the Old World came to its highest development in the five centuries before Christ. In this respect he came in the fullness of time.

The Bible in Greek.

In the providence of God, the Jews and their sacred books were brought into the very centre of this great intellectual movement. When the Ptolemies carried above 100,000 Jews into Egypt they at once felt the power of the surrounding mental excitement, and studied the language, history, and philosophy, of the Greeks. As a result the Hebrew Scriptures were translated into Greek, and thus prepared for universal circulation. Thus, too, the Alexandrine or Hebraizing Greek of the New Testament was formed.

Celebrated Jews.

From this great movement came Philo, the celebrated Jewish commentator on Moses, whose works exerted a world-wide influence both in the Church and out of it; and Josephus, the eminent and well-known Jewish historian. Both of these lived near the time of Christ, yet they were not formed under his influence, but under that of the preceding ages.

The Apocrypha.

What, then, are the writings commonly called Apocryphal? They are mainly historical and ethical compositions of Jews, to whom the Old Testament was the supreme standard of religious truth. Besides these there were works of religious fiction, intended to develop religious and patriotic enthusiasm for the institutions of the Jews.

At the same time they were under the influence of ideas which of necessity had come in through the thinking of the Egyptians, Babylonians, Persians, and Greeks, to whom their nation was subjected in successive centuries. Hence, in view of the relations of the events of those ages to the future of Christianity, these writings are of great value and profound interest.

Apocalyptic Literature.

The same is true of the literature of those ages not commonly called Apocryphal, but rather Apacalyptic; such as the early parts of the Sibylline Oracles, the book of Enoch, the Fourth Book of Ezra, and the like. Indeed, in these are the most complete statements of the views then held among the Jews of the system revealed in the Old Testament, in its future development and final retributions. Thus in the book of Enoch there is a very full development of the rewards of the holy and the final punishment of the wicked, as conceived of at that time by a Jew.

Prejudice Removed.

I am aware that a prejudice is felt against such apocalyptic works, on account of the moral element involved in the false assumption that they were written by the authors whose names they bear; as, for example, Enoch, or the Sybil. But without entering into that question, it is enough to say that it does not affect their value for the purpose now contemplated, that is, the throwing of light on the thinking and feeling of the age of their composition. This may be illustrated by a modern example. In Milton’s “Paradise Lost,” the angel Michael is represented as giving to Adam a long and tolerably minute prophetic outline of the destinies of his descendants. It is in form a prophecy; it is in fact a statement of history up to the days of Milton from his theological standpoint. To this is added Milton’s view of the future destinies of mankind, as coming from the lips of the angel. As a prophecy all this is of no worth, but it is of great value as throwing light on the opinions of Milton and of the great body of Christians of his age. In like manner the authors of these apocalyptic works represent the Sybil, or Enoch, or any other prophet, as predicting events according to what the writer held to be the true view. Regarded thus, they throw very great light on the thinking and feeling of the age in which they were written. In these works, too, is found a very wide range of thought and great mental activity.

Pharisees and Sadducees.

It adds a new interest to this age of the Maccabees to know that in it are the roots of the two great parties of the Pharisees and Sadducees, whose opinions on future retribution are so prominently presented in the New Testament. The Pharisees honorably represented at the outset those whose firm faith in the resurrection and the rewards of a future life sustained them in the great persecution. They truly represented the main body of the Jews, and they were zealous defenders of the law of Moses, but it was as encompassed with the traditions of the Fathers. The Sadducees, on the other hand, represented the Epicureanism that rejected the retributions of a future life, and they repudiated all efforts to introduce into the law of Moses by tradition what was not there in express statement.

The Zend-Avesta.

To the sources of information already noticed we may add the Zend-Avesta and the recent learned investigations into the system of Zoroaster by German, French, English and American scholars. The question how far, if at all, what is regarded as the Christian doctrine of the future life and of retribution has been derived from the system of Zoroaster cannot be satisfactorily answered except by a thorough study of that system, and for this the materials and aids are more satisfactory and abundant than they ever have been before.

The Mishna.

The Mishna is the first part of the Talmud, and is a digest of Jewish observances and traditions. Its author, Rabbi Juhudah the Holy, a Jew, wealthy and influential, composed it toward the close of the second century. Yet it refers back to the decisions of Hillel and Shammai, who flourished before Christ; and also to those of Gamaliel, the teacher of Paul. It is therefore of great value in studying the progress of doctrinal opinion as well as practice among the Jews, even before Christ. On some points at issue we shall freely appeal to this authority.

CHAPTER IV.

SOURCE OF JEWISH OPINIONS

We have gained our point of vision, and from it have looked down on a broad and deep river of opinion flowing by us. We have seen that although the law of Moses was sustained by sanctions merely temporal, yet, under it, in the days of the Maccabees, there was a remarkable development of a mighty current of belief in a future life, in a resurrection of the body, and in eternal retributions. This river of opinion was broad and deep, and carried a nation in its current. It was derived from no abstract and unpractical speculations of philosophy, adapted only for the few. It flowed from simple and intense faith in God and his Word. It was a belief popular and powerful enough to rally a nation, and to sustain them in the intense struggles of a fierce and bloody religious war, and conduct them to victory and independence.

From this point of vision we are now to cast our eyes backward, and to trace this river of opinion to its sources.