CHAPTER XII.

LATER JEWISH OPINION.

The phrase, "eternal fire," does not occur in the Old Testament, although the idea is contained in passages. already quoted which speak of God's anger as a “fire which shall burn forever." This judgment by fire we have seen to be compatible with the idea of purgation and restoration. (Isa. iv. 4.) There crept, however, into Jewish theology, and especially after the exile in Babylon, and the close of the Old Testament canon, the idea that a future torment in eternal fire awaits the desperately wicked. In this class, however, but few Jews were included. This doom was, in the main, reserved for incorrigible heathen.

We do not find the roots of this conception in the Old Testament. God's judgments there terminate in the destruction which brings men and nations down to death, and shuts them up in Shoel. We are assured, however, that this period of death is, for all men, in their own order, brought to an end. And all the Old Testament views of resurrection imply that it is a redemptive act. It must bring to all the subjects of it some order of blessing.

As to the origin of the idea of an eternal torment in hell, its sources are heathen, and not Jewish. "This doctrine was, as an historical fact, brought back from Babylon by the Rabbis. It was a very ancient primary doctrine of the Magi, an appendage of their fire kingdom of Ahriman, and may be found in the old Zends, long

prior to Christianity.' Hence we must pass beyond the region of the Old Testament into the Apocryphal books, and into the wide waste of Rabbinical traditions and conceits before we find proof that this doctrine was held among the Jews. The song of Judith, (xvi. 17) closes thus: "Wo to the nations that rise up against my kindred! The Lord Almighty will take vengeance of them in the day of judgment, in putting fire and worms in their flesh; and they shall feel them, and weep forever." In 2 Maccabees, vii. 14, we read of a "resurrection unto life," from which the tyrant Antiochus should be shut out, receiving through the judgment of God “just punishment for his pride." (vs. 36.) These earlier apocryphal books, which the Roman church receives as part of Holy Scripture, furnish, however, no clear outlines of the later doctrine of everlasting punishment, and especially of such a doom as following resurrection. Passages may be quoted from them which seem to teach the annihilation of the wicked; others, the final restoration of all men. "The congregation of the wicked is like tow wrapped together, and the end of them is a flame of fire to destroy them." (Eccl. xxi. 9.) "After this the Lord looked upon the earth and filled it with His blessings. With all manner of living things hath He covered the face thereof; and they shall return into it again." (xvi. 29-30.) "The mercy of man is toward his neighbor; but the mercy of the Lord is upon all flesh. He reproveth and nurtureth, and teacheth, and bringeth again, as a shepherd his flock." (xviii. 13.)

*Life and letters of Chas. Kingsley, pg. 194. See Alger's History of the doctrine of a future life (Chs. vil-ix.)

†See also 2 Esd. xv. 23-26.

"And after seven days, the world, that yet awaketh not, shall be raised up, and that shall die that is corrupt. And the earth shall restore those that are asleep in her, and so shall the dust those that dwell in silence, and the secret places shall deliver those souls that were committed unto them. And the most High shall appear upon the seat of judgment, and misery shall pass away, and the long suffering shall have amend." (2 Esdras vii. 31-33.)* The writer of this book was profoundly exercised over the problem of God's dealings with His people and with mankind. Instruction concerning these mysteries is given him in a series of visions. He is assured that God's covenant mercy toward His people cannot fail, that by His unchanging law of righteousness the good will be rewarded and the wicked punished; that these rewards and punishments are not limited to this life, and that the divine administrations are directed toward this end: "That all the earth may be reached, and may return, being delivered from thy violence, and that she may hope for the judgment and mercy of him that made her." (xi. 46.)

When we pass, however, still beyond this post-exilian period, we find that the later Jewish apocryphal books contain fuller and more definite allusions to the fate of the wicked. The Book of Enoch declares that "they shall be cast into the damnation of fire, and shall perish. in anger and in the mighty damnation which lasts to eternity." The fourth book of Esdras, written about the close of the first century, contains these words: (vii. 46.) "A lake of torment shall appear, and over against it a

*See also Wisdom of Solomon, xi. 22-xii. 2.

place of rest. And the oven of Gehenna shall be shown, and over against it a paradise of delight; and then shall the Highest say to the risen nations: See and understand Him whom ye denied, or whom ye did not serve, or whose observances ye despised; behold, on this side and that; here is pleasure and rest; and there fire and torments." Any one who cares to examine many similar passages found in this class of Jewish writings, will find them collated at length by Dr. Pusey in his work "What is of faith as to everlasting punishment." (pp. 55-98.) There is no doubt that the doctrine of an eternal punishment for the wicked may be derived from selected passages drawn from the Hebrew books of that period, and also from the Talmud, which contains the teachings of the Rabbins and their traditional interpretations of the law. We are not to suppose, however, that there is any approach to agreement in their teachings.

For, in the first place, there is confusion in the Persian sources from which the doctrine was drawn. It is only from exceptional statements in the Zoroastrian theology that it may be derived. The general drift of that system was toward restoration. The fire was to purge all things. "Through the glowing flood all human kind must pass. To the righteous it will prove a pleasant bath, of the temperature of milk; but on the wicked the flame will inflict terrific pain. Ahriman will run up and down Chinevad in the perplexities of anguish and despair. The earth-wide stream of fire, flowing on, will cleanse every spot and everything. Even the loathsome realm of darkness and torment shall be banished and made a part of the all-inclusive Paradise. Ahriman himself, reclaimed

to virtue, replenished with primal light, abjuring the memories of his envious ways, and furling thenceforth the sable standard of his rebellion, shall become a ministering spirit of the Most High, and, together with Ormuzd, chant the praises of Time-without-bounds. All darkness, falsehood, and suffering shall utterly flee away, and the whole universe be filled by the illumination of good spirits blessed with fruitions of eternal delight."* In like manner very many of the passages from the Rabbis do not consist with the idea of unending torment. One passage of the Talmud affirms that after twelve months of expiatory sufferings, "the bodies of the wicked cease to exist, their soul is burned, and a wind scatters their cinders under the feet of the just." This is annihilation. The general drift of Rabbinical teaching was toward the idea that Gehenna was not endless torment, but purgatory, for at least the wicked Jews and the more righteous among the Gentiles. The famous Akiba taught that their sufferings would last but twelve months.† The severest doctrine of the Rabbis was more merciful than the modern dogma which consigns all but an elect company of believers to the unspeakable torments of an eternal hell. For even the better class among the heathen, as well as wicked Jews, would finally escape from these torments. Without attempting to go over the ground so exhaustively explored by such recent authors as Drs. Pusey and Farrar, we think it is plain from the quotations which they abundantly citet that, amid all

*Persian doctrine of a future Iffe. Alger. pg. 143.

See Dr. Pusey's "What is of Faith," etc. pp. 83-89.

See "Mercy and Judgment," by F. W. Farrar, D.D. Ch. viii. Also "What is of Faith," etc., by Dr. Pusey, pp. 50-104,