The Problem of Immortality (1892)- Chapter 3- by Petavel

CHAPTER 3. IMMORTALITY ACCORDING TO THE OLD TESTAMENT AND IN JUDAISM.

THE true biblical teaching in relation to immortality is now to be the subject of our study. This inquiry is all the more important as it involves the estimation in which we shall hold the documents of the Christian religion, and even that religion itself. Is it easy to admire and to love a God who would destine a portion, if not the great majority, of his creatures to endless torments? Yet a pretended orthodoxy imagines that it finds such a destiny taught in the holy Scriptures. The same prejudice is found very generally in the camp of our opponents. Some of these, otherwise well instructed, declare that the Bible, in both Old and New Testament, teaches eternal sufferings. 1

1 "The preaching of John the Baptist dealt only with judgement and eternal sufferings" (Ed. Stapfer, Les idles religieuses en Palestine au temps de Jesus Christ, p. 208, second edition, Paris, 1878).—With all respect for M. Stapfer, the only punishment spoken of by the Baptist is death, symbolized by the axe, the fire, and the water. The expression "eternal sufferings" (peines eternelles) was only admitted into the old French versions of the New Testament by a falsification of which we need not now seek the origin. The Greek text of Matth. xxv. 46 has eternal chastisement, not eternal sufferings. The chastisement consists in the deprivation of life (cf. 2 Thess. i. 9); it is eternal in its effect, which endures even after the culprit has ceased to suffer. The versions of Lausanne, Rilliet, Segond, and M. Stapfer himself give the correct translation, abandoning the plural of the traditional rendering. [The English A. V. is not disfigured by this error, but it has an unwarranted variation in the adjective applied equally to the punishment and to the life; this has been rectified in the R. V. ]

Careful examination of the records will prove that under the powerful influence of Platonic philosophy the Scriptures and the God therein revealed have been calumniated; they have been obscured by the dismal tint of the darkened glass through which they have been regarded. Our proof will be supported by competent authorities. Our conclusions will be those of exegetical scholars who have made the point in question the subject of special study. Following the chronological order, we shall begin with the Old Testament, the deep soil in which are to be found the very roots of Gospel teaching.

I. Fundamental principle of historical and grammatical interpretation

One of the most illustrious preachers of the latter part of the middle ages, Geiler of Kaisersberg, who is buried under the pulpit of Strasburg Cathedral, could say without irony that the holy Scripture is treated as though it were like wax for everyone to mould according to his own fancy. 1 Thanks to the reformers of the sixteenth century, that is no longer exactly the case. They had force enough to restrain the aberrations of traditional principles of interpretation; they introduced into the study of the sacred text the fundamental principle of a sound philology: the historico-grammatical interpretation, which simply consists in admitting the literal sense wherever it is not manifestly absurd. 2 This principle was the powerful war-horse of the Lutherans and of the reformed Churches in their struggle against the superstitions of centuries. In the middle ages the mystical meaning had become the pest of exegesis.

1 La Bible au seizieme siecle, by Samuel Berger, p. 32, Paris, 1879.

2 Exception must be admitted for the prophecies, the application of which to history is far from being always literal; this exception may also be extended to the parables.

Luther said: "We ought to be most careful to search out the certain and veritable meaning, which can only be that of the letter, of the text, of the history." Luther, the child of the people, the mendicant monk, fought valiantly against the middle age; Calvin, that son of the Renaissance, that thoroughly French intellect, that conquering genius, eventually triumphed over it. Speaking of allegory, he said: "By this means many of our predecessors have taken leave to play with Scripture as with a ball."

And again, in condemnation of allegory as the conquered enemy of the natural sense of Scripture: "As for me, I acknowledge that the Scripture is an abundant fountain of all wisdom, one which is inexhaustible; but I deny that its riches and abundance consist in a diversity of meanings, which each one may hammer out at his will. Let us, then, know that the true and natural meaning of the Scripture is that which is simple and artless. This, then, let us receive and hold it fast. As for fabricated expositions, which turn us away from the literal sense, let us not merely leave them alone as doubtful, but let us boldly reject them as pernicious corruptions." 1

M. Berger calls allegory a conquered enemy. Would to God that it were so! We should not then have taken the trouble to write, nor would our readers have the trouble of perusing, our book. Although conquered in theory, the mystical interpretation still reigns in practice, and on the point which now concerns us. It still keeps the door of hermeneutics, it is this which maintains the scholastic sense of the fundamental terms of our discussion: those words life and death which are found in the prologue and the epilogue of the Pentateuch, on the first page of Genesis and in the last chapters of the Revelation, and which are, as it were, the two poles of the biblical sphere. Everything turns upon these great antitheses.

II. Literal and Ontological sense of the words life and death; in the Old Testament death always indicates a cessation of functions.

When man is in question, life in the historic and grammatical sense is an existence composed of action and sensation; death is the cessation of that existence; the end of all action and all sensation. But it has come to pass that in consequence of the preconceived notion of the absolute immortality of the human soul, and in defiance of the formal declarations of Scripture, the traditional exegesis starts from the principle that the life of the soul cannot possibly cease. The result has been to give to that which is called in Scripture death, in relation to the soul, the sense of perpetual life in the midst of sin and sufferings without end. For ever dying, the soul would never die. The painful death spoken of in Scripture is replaced by mortal pain, which is yet interminable. On the other hand, the life of the soul is made synonymous with holiness and blessedness. These contradictory meanings have passed from the biblical commentaries into the European languages, which have been thereby more or less falsified. If we remain faithful to the principle of historic interpretation before laid down, we see that the traditional exegesis is false, for there is nothing absurd in supposing the cessation of the existence of a soul. The total suppression of such and such an individual is a notion very easy to conceive. If the existence of a soul separate from the body be admitted, the death of that soul will be the cessation of all individual functions. The possibility of this is not at all an inadmissible hypothesis. Every being that has had a beginning may have an end. This, as we have seen, is an incontestable principle. 1

1 Samuel Berger, op. cit., p. 127.

It is vain to argue that when the soul is in question death is only an image. Were it even so, the image ought to correspond with the reality. An image reproduces the salient features of the object represented; the characteristic and principal feature of physical death is neither disorder nor suffering, it is the complete cessation of all organic functions; immobility, and insensibility. If the death of the soul consisted in a life of suffering or disorder, the image that would most naturally be used to represent it would be an illness or persistent agony. Life and death are opposites, like black and white. To say that death is a kind of life, a certain "state of life," is like declaring that black is a kind of white, a certain state of white.

1 Infatuated with himself, man is too ready to forget that, being a contingent creature, he exists only by the good pleasure of the Creator. "Contingent: that which is not necessary; that which may be suppressed in thought without producing any contradiction; that which our thought can represent as not existing."—Franck, Dictionnaire des sciences philos., at the word Contingent.

If death were a certain state of life, it would be a manifestation of life: the contradiction is evident. The usage of all language protests against such violence done to the words. To die, when the predicate is something inanimate, means to cease to exist. When the unbelieving materialist tells us that after death all is dead, there is no doubt as to the meaning of the word; it signifies that the dead person no longer exists at all. So also in the negative term "immortal" as applied to the soul: everyone will admit that the meaning is indestructible, imperishable. If to die when spoken of the soul is to signify, to suffer far away from God, souls that are immortal, or that cannot die, could not suffer far away from God; their very immortality would prevent their liability to that fate, and the very terms of the traditional dogma would thus be contradictory. Life and happiness are two distinct notions, although often brought together. The author of the Pentateuch does not identify them. In the book of Deuteronomy we read: "Ye shall walk in all the way which the Lord your God hath commanded you, that ye may live, and that it may be well with you." 1 In the same way, when death is spoken of it is not confounded with suffering: in case of rebellion the Israelites were to be afflicted by various maladies until they should perish. 2 There is, then, here a double distinction of ideas, which needs to be restored in both Old and New Testaments from one end to the other. In the Israelites' view life is, first and foremost, existence and duration; that is clearly indicated in the Psalmist's declaration: "The king. . . asked life of thee, thou gavest it him; even length of days for ever and ever." 3

Moses said: "I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil." 4 For the faithful Israelite these four notions are the cardinal points of his spiritual horizon. In order to ascertain our own position we need to define them in their mutual relation, which is that of cause and effect. Moral good tends to the perpetuation of life, physical as well as moral; moral evil leads to death, physical as well as moral.

1 Deut. v. 33.

2 Ibid., xxviii. 22.

3 Psa. xxi. 4.

4 Deut. xxx. 15.

.

The sentence just quoted is a summary of the teaching of the five books of the Pentateuch; it sets forth the principal terms of the problem propounded at the very beginning of Genesis. 1

III. Adam a candidate for immortality, and the necessary conditions of immortality

"The Lord God commanded the man, saying: 'Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it, for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.'. . . And the serpent said unto the woman: 'Ye shall not surely die.'. . . When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof and did eat; and she gave also unto her husband, and he did eat. . . . And the Lord God said:. . . 'Lest the man put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever,' therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man, and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden the Cherubim and the flame of a sword, which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life." 2

Like the learned Oehler, Dr. Hermann Schultz, and M. Bruston, Professor of Hebrew in the Theological Faculty at Montauban, we see in this narrative a symbolical teaching. M. Bruston calls it "a beautiful and profound allegory of the Jehovist author." 3 Be that as it may, the psychological truth of the story is independent of its historic or non-historic character. In a form suited to the infantine simplicity of the early ages of humanity, we find in it the principal data of the question before us. Let us pause awhile before this picture, so that we may the better understand its teaching.

1 Gen. ii., iii., passim.

2 L'idie de l'immortalite chez les Pheniciens et chez les Hebreux, discourse pronounced at the opening of the scholastic year, 1878-79 (Revue theologique,Jan., 1879). This discourse has been separately published.—It is admitted by all that the prophecy relating to the bruising of the Serpent's head by the posterity of the woman is symbolical. It seems, therefore, natural to assign to the whole narrative a character which is evidently that of one of its parts.

Man is here set before us as a candidate for immortality. As a candidate, he is subjected to a test: if he overcomes the temptation, he will raise himself to the rank of the immortals and will never die; if he revolts, he will lose life, and with it all the good things which enhance its value. To man the Creator gives existence and offers immortality. So long as Adam remains in the garden of Eden he is allowed to eat the fruit of the tree of life; but his immortality is conditional: as soon as he infringes the condition laid down he is devoted to death, and he no longer has access to the tree which alone could render him immortal. In short, man is susceptible of immortalization; he was created "in view of immortality," 1 but he is not imperishable; he does not enjoy a native and in alienable immortality.

Man was created good, says Oehler, that is to say, he answered to God's purpose in his creation. But the good that was in him was not yet the product of his free determination, thus he had not yet the knowledge of good. . . . Holiness is not given to man all at once, and without his doing anything towards acquiring it, for that is impossible. . . . It is possible for man not to die. . . . The possibility of attaining to immortality was put within his reach, it was a benefit reserved for him in case he should persevere in his communion with God. . . . An innocent being, can attain to holiness only by an act of free decision. . . . Death is the sequel of sin. It, was only in the state of innocence that it was possible for man not to die, that he possessed that posse non mori and that relative immortality of which we have spoken. 2

1 Ep' aphtharsia .—Wisdom of Solomon, ii. 23.

2 Theologie de l'ancien Testament, by G. F. Oehler, Doctor in theology, professor at Tubingen, translated into French by M. H. de Rougemont, vol. i., pp. 223-239.—Compare the English translation, Theology of the Old Testament, Edinburgh, T. and T. Clark, 1874, vol. i., pp. 227-229. See also later on the remark of M. Zietlow, chap. iv., sect. iv., § 6.

Although not so explicit, Professor F. Godet seems to teach the same doctrine. He says: “The natural condition of man was such as would end in dissolution. Remaining on the level of the animals by the preference given to desire over moral obligation, man has remained subject to that law. But if he had raised himself by an act of moral freedom to a level above the animals, he would not have had to share their fate. 1

The fate of the animals is apparently the cessation of individual existence. Vainly does the eminent professor desire to reserve the immortality of the soul. He himself says elsewhere, "The soul is corrupted in its lusts." To corrupt is to dissolve, destroy. Corruption is the breaking up (rupture) of a, whole, the complete disorganization of a substance which has, ceased to be what it was, and presents no longer any of its distinctive essential characteristics. 2 The propriety of the image requires that the corruption of the soul should produce an analogous result. According to the same author, the second or eternal death is caused "by the separation of the soul from the spirit, that sense of the soul for the divine. The soul and body, thus deprived of that superior principle, that primary element of the soul, become the prey of the worm that dieth not." 3 We would ask what remains of the individual after these successive separations. An individual exists as such only on condition of the principal parts not being separated. Further, as we shall have occasion to notice, the worm spoken of by the prophet Isaiah and by Jesus after him attacks dead bodies only. It must therefore relate to the destruction of an unconscious remainder. 4

1 Commentaire sur l'Epitre aux Remains, vol. i., p. 444.

2 Littre, Bescherelle. 69

3 Godet, op. cit., vol. i., pp, 256, 442, sq.

4 Oehler teaches that the soul attains consciousness of itself by the spirit: "Causa quidem, cur homo sui conscius sit, ex spiritu est repetenda. . Homo, ut ex spiritu et per spiritum omnino vivit, ita per eundem agit, cogitat, intelligit," etc. (Veteris Testamenti sententia de rebus post mortem futuris illustrata, p. 15. ) The spirit spoken of by Oehler is surely the "superior principle" mentioned by Professor Godet. According to Oehler, the soul separated from this principle loses consciousness of itself. That is a thesis essentially Conditionalist.

We will now quote M. Bruston, who says: “According to the Jehovist author, man has violated the law of God; he has allowed himself to be seduced by the attraction of the senses and by pride; therefore is it that he suffers and dies. But if he had persevered in the way of obedience, he would have been able to eat of the fruit of the tree of life which was in the midst of the garden of Eden; that is to say, he would have been immortal, as well as exempt from pain and suffering. He was not so, then, by nature, but he could become so by continuing in union with the author of life. It was sin that made him mortal. 1 From the Old Testament point of view, the sinner must sooner or later perish, body and soul; the mortality of his being extends to the whole individual. This appears from the following considerations:

1. God said to Adam, not: "Thy body shall die," but "Thou shalt die," thy self shall perish. For Adam death could only signify that which he had been used to call by that name in relation to the animal world which surrounded him, and which had been subject to death throughout the geologic ages. By death, says John Locke, some men understand endless torments in hell fire; but it seems a strange way of understanding a law, which requires the plainest and directest words, that by death should be meant eternal life in misery. Can anyone be supposed to intend by a law which says: for felony thou shalt surely die, not that he should lose his life, but be kept alive in exquisite and perpetual torments? And would anyone think himself fairly dealt with that was so used? 2

2. In the Levitical sacrifices the victim represented the sinner; yet those who offered it were not required to inflict upon it a long series of tortures. Death pure and simple was all that the law of sacrifice demanded. In the rite it was not the suffering, but the suppression of the life, that was accentuated. In practice, if the execution was prolonged, the sacrifice had to be rejected. In our own days even, if the shochet (the Jewish butcher) makes use of a blade with ever so small a notch in it likely to cause the least useless suffering, the flesh of the slain animal is terepha, forbidden to the faithful; it is only allowed to be sold at a low price to non-Jews. The burning of the victim, too, was not a symbol of suffering, since it took place only after the immolation; but was rather an emblem of the utter destruction which menaces the incorrigible sinner.

3. So also in the penal code of the Israelites, the heaviest chastisement prescribed is the death, pure and simple, of the offender; there is never a word to indicate that the sinner may have to endure eternal pains. It is an extraordinary fact, and a divine characteristic, that long-continued tortures are foreign to Old Testament legislation. In the republic of Israel there is no executioner, nor rack, nor torture, nor gallows, nor special place of execution. The numerous and odious means of torture, which have dishonoured both ancient and modern civilizations, have no equivalent in the Divine code of Sinai. Crucifixion is well known to be of Roman origin. In executions by stoning, it was usual, in order to shorten the suffering, to take care that the first stone cast should be large enough to crush the culprit's breast. The contemporaries of Noah, the inhabitants of Sodom, and the infamous Canaanites, were in turn overtaken by the water, the fire, and the sword; their chastisement was terrible, but the accompanying anguish did not long endure. Nothing can be quicker than lightning, symbol of celestial vengeance.

1 Op. cit., p. 224.

2 Reasonableness of Christianity, § 1.

IV. The doctrine of the unconditional immortality of the human soul neither taught nor assumed in the Old Testament—

The Old Testament never mentions a native and inalienable immortality. The expression immortal soul, that favourite formula of ecclesiastical phraseology, is not there to be found. Nor is it said that God will immortalize sinners in view of eternal torments. So far from it, the clearest terms and the most striking images are used to teach the final and total suppression of evil and of obstinate evildoers. In the Hebrew language there are more than fifty roots which habitually or occasionally relate to the destruction of animated beings. In the Old Testament they are almost all employed to announce the doom of the impenitent. 2

To these words should be added a multitude of proverbial expressions, a long succession of images which sometimes seem to exclude each other, but which always, by association of ideas, and like fractions reduced to a common denominator, are found to be in accord when used to describe the end of the existence of evil and of obstinate evildoers. Everywhere we find the notion of a final cessation of being, of a return to a state of unconsciousness, never that of a perpetual life in suffering. It is with the symbolism of the Bible as with its vocabulary: the sacred writers seem to have exhausted the resources at their command in order to affirm that which we maintain.

1 In Germany the torture of the wheel was maintained until the present century; it was abolished in France in 1790.

2 See in Supplement No. VI. a table of these roots, with the correspondingGreek terms used in the Septuagint and the New Testament.

It may now be asserted as a fact in biblical science: "There is nothing in all the Bible which implies a native immortality." 1 "The doctrine of the immortality of the soul is not to be found in the Bible, nor even its name." 2 —"Moses said not a word ofit. . . . Not one Palestinian document speaks of it." 3

1 F. Delitzsch, Commentary on Gen. iii. 22, sq. Die ganze Schrift weiss nichts von einer in der Natur der Seele begrundeten Unsterblichkeit.

2 Olshausen, Commentary on Luke xvi. 24-26, and 1 Cor. xv. 19, 20.

3 M. Michel Nicolas, Des doctrines religieuses des Juifs , chap. vi., pp. 317, 323. As we shall presently see, the lethargic sleep of Sheol is not true immortality, but a state of existence nearer to death than life.

Professor Vuilleumier, of Lausanne, has expressed his views as follows:

“There is one point on which we regret to find ourselves in complete disagreement with M. Bruston. We refer to the notion of "the immortality of the soul" as applied to the idea, or, as it would be better to say, to the ideas of the Hebrews as to the future destiny of man. We still think that to speak of immortality of the soul with reference to the ideas, beliefs, hopes, presentiments, intuitions, etc., which were current among the Hebrews relative to an existence after this life, is to commit a veritable anachronism. The idea of the immortality of the soul is not a plant indigenous to Israel. It is an exotic seed, brought by a wind from the west at a later date. The land in which it originated is not the old Semitic soil, but the Greek soil fertilized by philosophic culture. That abstract distinction between body and soul, and that doctrine of the primitive and natural immortality of the human soul, are foreign, not, it is true, to later Judaism, but certainly to the ancient Israelites. Nothing could well be less in conformity with Hebrew anthropology, as we understand it, than the thought "that if (by the fault of primitive humanity) we have lost for ever the immortality of the body, we ought, at least, to be able by a pure life to reconquer the immortality of the soul.

...We are firmly convinced that no exact idea of biblical anthropology and eschatology in the Old Testament and in the New will be acquired until the use of terms and conceptions foreign to the Bible, such as ‘the immortality of the soul," are discarded. In any case, that particular idea is only one— the latest and the least Hebraic—of the ideas which were current among the Hebrews (and the Jews) as to the fate of man after the present existence.’ 1

Towards the exoneration of M. Bruston we will add that in speaking of "an immortality of the soul to be reconquered by a pure life," he leaves to be understood the final destruction of obdurate sinners. 2

As additional evidence we will further record the declaration of M. Th. Henry Martin, whose very orthodox work was approved by Pius IX. He says: “We willingly admit that the philosophical doctrine of the simplicity and immortality of the soul is not found anywhere in the Bible.” 3

1 Revue de theologie et de philosophie, Lausanne, March, 1879.

2 Revue theologique, p. 215, Jan., 1879,

3 La Vie future, p. 76, third edition.

Moses says so little about life beyond the tomb, that some have gone so far as to deny that he had the notion of a future existence. It is forgotten that he had been "instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians," and that for those worshippers of Ammon and Phtha, kings, priests, and people, the life to come and the resurrection were subjects of constant concern. The mummies, the paintings and inscriptions on the coffins that enclose them, are there to prove how lively and profound was that faith; but it had degenerated into superstition. According to M. Th. Henry Martin, in Egypt recourse was had to the good dead, who were supposed to counteract the baneful influence of the evil dead. "Moses reduced all to the belief in the one God, who rewarded or punished men on the earth; as for the rest, he systematically avoided speaking about it." The body of Moses, buried in secret, was put out of the way of the worship which the Israelites might have offered to it. Thus at Geneva the precise place of sepulture of the reformer Calvin is unknown. In these facts there is a tacit protest against the abuse of relics, which already existed in the time of Moses, and which was rampant during the Middle Ages. In keeping absolute silence respecting the future life, the Hebrew legislator may have meant to cut short the idolatry of which the shades of the dead were the object.

V. Israelitish piety has a glimpse of Conditional Immortality

Does this mean that all notion of a future life is absent from the Old Testament? Not at all; but the hope of it does not rest upon a metaphysical a priori. It is not a dogma; it is an aspiration of the religious and moral consciousness. Two factors concur in its production: faith in the living God, and the experience of the ages. Under the sometimes crushing burden of life, the belief in immortality bursts forth from the piety of the Israelite like virgin oil from the oil-press. For a long time indistinct and confused, these aspirations would only at a much later date find their definitive formula in the term "resurrection." It is with immortality in the Old Testament as with the seed in the plant. Stalk, leaves, flowers, fruit, first appear, then comes the seed, symbol and pledge of a future life.

The key of the problem has been given to us in the story of the fall. Man has gone astray; yielding to the tempter's voice, he stifled the voice of God, which spoke to him in the recesses of his conscience. The attraction of sensual enjoyment led him into the way of death. Still, all is not lost; all may be restored; man may make his way back again. Faith, obedience, and self-denial may lead him back into the way of life. An all-powerful and perfectly good God will save those whom he loves and by whom he is loved. (Man is not born immortal; he may become so. Immortality is a privilege granted to the righteous, a favour offered to the penitent believer. It is conditional. The righteous will live again; the impenitent will be finally destroyed. ) Such is, as we shall see, the doctrine which gradually becomes visible in the canonical books of the Old Testament, as in dawning light.

1 Probably from shaal, not used, to bury one's self, in speaking of excavationsof the soil. In German, Holle comes from Hohle, a cavern. The English hell is from the Anglo-Saxon helan, to cover to hide.

VI. Lethargic slumber of the shades in the night of Sheol—

The Pentateuch and the subsequent books make mention of an abode of the dead called Sheol. 1 It is a very long way from this belief to that which is called the immortality of the soul. Without being confounded with the grave, Sheol can scarcely be distinguished from it. The dead who are there give no sign of life. It is a subterranean abode in which thick darkness and the deepest silence reign. In Sheol nothing is seen, nothing heard; there is no perception there, nor activity of any sort. Good and bad are there together, confined in bonds and, darkness; it is the suspension of life, a state bordering upon nothingness. In Sheol "there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom," neither pain nor pleasure, neither fear nor hope; everything is forgotten. God is no longer adored or known there. It is a heavy and endless sleep. 1 In the book of Isaiah the shades are represented as awaking for a moment at the coming of the King of Babylon; but this can only be a case of prosopopoeia, since in the same passage the prophet makes the fir-trees and the cedars of Lebanon to speak. 2

The apparition of Samuel to Saul takes place in the suspicious abode of a sorceress; the shade of the old prophet wears a mantle, about the origin of which some information would be desirable. 3

Exulting in life, the pious Israelite is saddened at the prospect of Sheol. He puts aside the thought of it, and delights himself by cherishing the hope of such a prolongation of existence as would come very near to immortality. His faith cannot admit the idea of the descent into and a definitive abode in the eternal prison-house of death. Even to his last hour he remains full of confidence; he has vague glimpses of a victory over the tomb by means of a miraculous intervention of the Almighty in his favour. 4

The wicked, on the contrary, when once they go down to Sheol, will never again see the light.

The glory of the wicked ends in sudden night,

The dreadful tomb devours them utterly for aye.

It is not so with him who feareth thee aright,

He will revive, O God, more brilliant than the day.

Ye sinners disappear! the Lord awaketh now. 5

1 Gen. xxxvii. 35; Job xiv. 12, 13; Psa. xlix. 19; lxxxviii. 11, 12; Eccl. ix. 5-10; Isa. xxxviii. 18; Ecclus. xvii. 26.

2 xiv. 8-10.

3 1 Sam. xxviii.

4 Psa. i., vi., xi., xvi., xvii., xlviii. 14, cxxxix. 24, cf. i. 6; Prov. xiv. 32, xv. 24, xxiii. 14.—The words of Balaam, "Let me die the death of the righteous" (Numb. xxiii. 10), attest, even in the Pentateuch, the hope of a life to come.

5 Racine. Esther, act ii., scene ix.; Athalie, act iii., scene viii. The French words are:

La gloire des mechants en un moment s'eteint,

L'affreux tombeau pour jamais les devore.

Il n'en est pas ainsi de celui qui te craint,

Il renaitra, mon Dieu! plus brillant que l'aurore.

. . . . . . . . . . .

Pecheurs, disparaissez! le Seigneur se reveille.

VII. Gleams of hope in relation to a future life—

The notion of earthly prosperity indefinitely prolonged, Sheol being disregarded, is found in a large number of the Psalms. The thirty-seventh is composed entirely on this basis. Our translation of it follows the original text as closely as possible.

PSALM XXXVII. 1

Fret not thyself because of the wicked,

Nor be thou envious of evil doers,

For they shall soon be cut down like the grass,

And wither as the green herb.

Trust in the Lord and do good,

Dwell in the land quietly and cherish righteousness;

Delight thyself also in the Lord,

And he shall give thee the desires of thy heart.

Cast off upon the Lord thy care,

Trust also in him, and he will act for thee;

He will manifest thy righteousness in the daylight,

And thy judgement in the brightness of noon.

In silent submission unto the Lord

Await him!

Fret not thyself because of the prosperous man,

Because of the man who bringeth wicked devices to pass.

Cease from anger and forsake wrath,

Fret not thyself, it would lead only to evil;

For the wicked shall be cut off,

But they that rest upon the Lord shall inherit the land.

Yet a little while and the wicked shall not be,

Yea, thou shalt search his place, but he shall not be there; 1

1 The 22 strophes of the original text began with the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet in consecutive order. By means of this acrostic arrangement the so-called alphabetic psalms were the more easily committed to memory.

While the meek shall be in possession of the land,

And in peace shall enjoy abundant prosperity.

Against the righteous the wicked plotteth,

Gnashing his teeth;

The Lord laugheth at him,

For he seeth that his day is coming.

The wicked draw the sword and bend their bow

To cast down the poor and needy,

To slay those who are upright in the way;

Their sword shall pierce their own heart,

And their bows shall be broken.

Better is the little of the righteous

Than the abundance of a thousand wicked,

For the arms of the wicked shall be broken,

But the Lord upholdeth the righteous.

The Lord knoweth the days of the upright,

Their inheritance shall last for ever;

They shall not be overthrown in the time of calamity,

And in the days of famine they shall be satisfied.

But the wicked shall perish—

The enemies of the Lord;

They shall vanish like the beauty of the meadows,

In smoke shall they vanish away.

The wicked borroweth and payeth not again,

But the righteous is bountiful with gifts;

Those who are blessed of him shall possess the land,

Those who are cursed of him shall be cut off.

The Lord upholdeth the steps of the man

Whose way is pleasing unto him;

Though he fall, he will not be utterly cast down

For the Lord holdeth him by the hand.

I have been young, and now am old,

Yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken,

Nor his children begging their bread;

He is always gracious and lendeth,

And his posterity is blessed.

Depart from evil and do good,

And thou shalt dwell in peace for ever;

For the Lord loveth judgement,

And forsaketh not those who worship him.

Those who do evil shall be destroyed for ever,

The posterity of the wicked shall be cut off; 1

The righteous shall inherit the land,

And dwell therein for ever.

The mouth of the righteous speaketh wisdom,

And his tongue upholdeth judgement;

The law of his God is in his heart,

None of his steps shall slide.

The wicked watcheth for the righteous,

And seeketh to slay him;

The Lord will not leave him in his hands,

Nor allow him to lose his cause.

Stay thyself upon the Lord,

Keep in the way that he showeth thee;

He shall exalt thee and cause thee to inherit the land;

Thou shalt see the extermination of the wicked.

I have seen the wicked in his power

Spread himself like a well-grown tree

That has never been removed;

Yet he has passed away, and lo! he is not;

I sought him, but he was not to be found.

Mark the perfect man and observe the just,

For the upright a future is reserved. 2

As for the sinners, they are utterly destroyed;

The future of the wicked is cut off.

But the Lord saveth the righteous,

He is their stronghold in the time of trouble;

The Lord helpeth and delivereth them,

He delivereth them from the wicked and saveth them,

Because they put their trust in him.

1 There is a change here necessitated by the alphabetic order. The conjecture of a word missing at the beginning of this strophe put forth by M. Reuss seems to us unavoidable, if an attempt is made to restore the pre-masoretic text.

2 Cf. Prov. xxiii. 18, xxiv. 20.

So also in Psalm xvi. 10, 11:

Thou wilt not deliver my soul unto Sheol;

Thou wilt not permit him that loveth thee to see the grave;

Thou wilt make me to know the path of life.

The book of Job also sets forth the contrast that often exists between the latter end of the righteous even here below and that of the wicked:

The triumphing of the wicked is short. . . .

His roots shall be dried up beneath,

And above shall his branch be cut off.

His remembrance shall perish from the earth; . . .

He shall be driven from light into darkness; . . .

He shall be chased away as a vision of the night.

And, chased from the world, He shall perish for ever. 1

1 xviii., xx., passim.

The trial of the righteous, on the contrary, is only temporary. Job receives the double of that which he lost; satisfied with days, he sees his sons and his sons' sons, unto the fourth generation.

For all this, it could not but be noticed that the wicked not only may enjoy long life, longer even sometimes than that of the righteous, but also that the righteous are frequently carried off before their time, or they succumb under the weight of unmerited misfortunes. "In that very day the old doctrine of exclusively earthly remuneration and the vulgar idea of Sheol were shaken with the same blow, at least in intelligent and reflective minds."

The sage of Ecclesiastes seems to have had a presentiment of a future retribution. "There," says he, speaking no doubt of that which is beyond the tomb, "will God judge the righteous and the wicked." His book closes with the declaration that "God shall bring every work into judgement, with every hidden thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil."

Certain psalms of comparatively late date connect the hope of a future life with the taking away of the patriarch Enoch. The fifth chapter of Genesis, in which that story is found, is like a funereal hymn of which each strophe ends with the same dismal phrase, "and he died." At the seventh recurrence the sequence is interrupted and the usual refrain is replaced by the mysterious statement: "Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him." 1

The same expression is found in Psa. xlix.15:

The wicked are appointed for Sheol . . .

But God will redeem my life from the power of Sheol,

For he shall take me. 2

So again in Psa. lxxiii.

Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel,

And afterwards take me to glory. . . .

My flesh and my heart may be consumed;

God is the rock of my heart and my portion for ever,

For lo! they that go far from thee perish.

Thou destroyest those who are unfaithful to thee.

But as for me, to be near to God is my good. 3

With these prospects may be connected the passages which represent the faithful under the Old Covenant as "strangers and pilgrims on the earth." Considering themselves pilgrims, they "made it manifest that they were seeking after a country of their own." As the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews says further: "If indeed they had been mindful of that country from which they went out, they would have had opportunity to return. But no, they desired a better country, that is, a heavenly." 4

1 Gen. v. 24.—The story of this carrying away necessarily supposes belief in a future life, otherwise, the fact being admitted that the Israelites were tenaciously attached to the present life, the shortening of the earthly career of the holy Enoch would have been a great scandal. Who will maintain that the author of the sacred story wished to scandalize his readers!

2 Segond seems to us to weaken the sense by the addition "under his protection."

3 Verses 24-28. Cf. xlix. 15, and 2 Kings ii. 3-11, the carrying away of the prophet Elijah, whom God takes to himself.

4 Heb. xi. 14-16.—The notion of a carrying away reappears in Paul's reference to a mysterious ascension of the Church, 1 Thess. iv. 17. 7

VIII. First allusions to the possibility of aresurrection—

The book that bears the name of the prophet Isaiah is the first to mention a coming resurrection. The notion of a carrying away (enlevement ) gives place to that of a raising again (releuement ) of the dead, or more exactly, from among the dead. The hope of a future life becomes, as it were, crystallized in this new conception:

The Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces;

He swalloweth up death for ever. . . .

Let thy dead live again,

Let my dead bodies arise!

Awake and sing

Ye that dwell in the dust! . . .

Let the earth bring forth the shades! 1

We regret that we cannot appeal to the well-known passage in the book of Job which has so long been supposed to contain a promise of the resurrection.

But I know that my redeemer liveth,

And that he shall stand up at the last upon the earth:

And after my skin hath been thus destroyed,

Yet from my flesh shall I see God:

Whom I shall see for myself,

And mine eyes shall behold, and not another.

The meaning of that text is the subject of much dispute and uncertainty. 2

1 Isa. xxv. 8; xxvi. 19.

2 xix. 25-27. R. V.: —See Jean Bovet, La Vie a venir d'apres l Ancien Testament, Neuchatel, 1889.

Chapter xxxvii. of the book of Ezekiel compares the restoration of Israel to the resurrection of a multitude whose bones strewed the plain:

Divinely led, my spirit to the desert went:

The ground was covered o'er with numberless dry bones;

I tremblingly approach, Jehovah cries to me:

If to those bones I speak, will they return to life?

I said: O Lord, thou knowest. Then said he to me:

Attend my words, retain them; say to those dry bones:

O ye dry bones, that now are naught but senseless dust,

Arise! receive again the spirit and the light,

Assemble at my voice your members scattered wide,

And be a second time with spirit animate;

Among your withered bones let muscles be restored,

Your blood renew its round, your nerves resume their place;

Arise and live again, and know me who I am!

I listened to Gods voice; obediently I cried:

O spirit, breathe upon these bones, from west, from east,

Or breathe from north, O breathe! . . . In haste new life to gain,

These long unburied hosts, awakened by my voice,

Their dry and withered bones full soon together shake,

To clearest sunshine now their eyes reopen wide,

Their bones have come together, clothed again with flesh!

And on the field of death a multitude stands up,

Becomes a mighty host, and knows Jehovah, Lord. 1

"That the power of God can, against all human thought and hope, reanimate the dead, is the general idea of the passage; from which, consequently, the hope of a literal resurrection of the dead may naturally be inferred." 2

1 Lamartine, La Poesie sacre —Meditations poeliques. The French lines are:

L'Eternel emporta mon esprit au desert:

D'ossements desseches le sol etait couvert;

J'approche en frissonnant, mais Jehova me crie:

Si je parle a ces os, reprendront ils la vie?

—Eternel to le sais—Eh bien! dit le Seigneur,

Ecoute mes accents; retiens les, et dis-leur

Ossements desseches, insensible poussiere,

Levez-vous! recevez l'esprit et la lumiere!

Que vos membres epars s'assemblent a ma voix!

Que l'esprit vous anime une seconde fois!

Qu'entre vos os fletris vos muscles se replacent!

Que votre sang circule et vos nerfs s'entrelacent!

Levez-vous et vivez, et voyez qui je suis!

J'ecoutai le Seigneur, j'obeis et je dis:

Esprit, soufflez sur eux, du couchant, de l'aurore,

Soufflez de l'aquilon, soufflez! . . . Presses d'eclore,

Ces restes du tombeau, reveilles par mes Iris,

Entre-choquent soudain leurs ossements fletris;

Aux clartes du soleil leur paupiere se rouvre,

Leurs os sont rassembles et la chair les recouvre!

Et ce champ de la mort tout entier se leva,

Redevint un grand peuple, et connut Jehova!

2 Oehler, Theology of the Old Testament, vol. ii., p. 395; Edinburgh, T. and T. Clark, 2875.

In the midst of the sanguinary persecution to which they were exposed by Antiochus Epiphanes, King of Syria, and during the wars which they waged for their religion and their liberty, the Jews of Palestine, educated in the doctrine of Sheol, and convinced that the souls of the righteous as well as those of the wicked descended to that underground abode, could not bring themselves to believe that God would allow so many noble martyrs who had died for his glory to remain there forever in the company of renegades and pagans, and so they arrived at the idea of the resurrection of the body. 1

That which up to this time had been only a subject of speculation for doctors of the law sprang into new life, becoming a hope for the oppressed, and an encouragement for those who were fighting for the cause of God. 2

To affirm the resurrection of the body was an ingenious method of solving the difficulty which for so long a time had troubled the consciences of Israelites, without denying any part of the ancient Mosaic faith. Moses had said in effect: "Man receives his reward upon earth." Every day this promise was being falsified by the facts. The just died without having received that which he had deserved. Israelitish warriors fell in crowds bearing arms for the sacred cause of Jehovah, one mother and her seven sons had perished martyrs for their faith, and for them would all be over? Nay, these heroes shall live again. Their existence has not come to an end: they will come forth living from their tombs when the Messiah shall appear; they shall be present on the day of his coming, and along with us who still live shall share in the coming glory. 3

The full solution of the enigma can only be furnished by the participation of the righteous who have departed in faith, in the promises of God, the redemption of their nation, and the consummation of that kingdom of God for which they waited. 4

The prophecy of Daniel satisfied these demands of heart and faith. In the twelfth chapter the resurrection of the righteous is announced very positively: "Many of those that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake. . . . And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and they that have taught righteousness to the multitude as the stars for ever and ever." The book ends with the promise given to Daniel of his own resurrection: "Go thou thy way till the end be; for thou shalt rest, and shalt stand in thy lot at the end of the days."

1 Bruston, art. cit., p. 229.

2 Nicolas, op. cit., p. 331.

3 Ed. Stapfer, op. cit., p. 140.

4 Oehler, op. cit., vol. ii., pp. 392, 393.

IX. Summary of the doctrine of immortality in the Old Testament—

Not having been able to find in the Old Testament a single direct proof of a native and compulsory immortality, the partizans of the traditional dogma have fallen back upon indirect proofs. Out of twenty-three thousand two hundred and five verses they quote four which, as they claim, "imply" an inalienable immortality. We shall shortly have to study these four implications; but at this point, seeing the general tenour of the Scriptures of the Old Covenant, we can already affirm that the doctrine of eternal torments has been foisted upon the Old Testament. Nowhere at all in these classic books of Israelitish literature do we find the interminable tortures of the Tartarus of pagan mythologies, of the Koran, or of ecclesiastical tradition. Brought to the touchstone of the moral consciousness, this unequalled collection of documents issues victoriously from its trial. Its eschatology, sober and majestic, contains not a notion degrading to the divinity, nothing to revolt the moral sense.

The anger of Jehovah is not eternal; his mercy endureth for ever. No other declaration occurs so often. And what a contrast there is between the lusts of the heroes of profane antiquity, such as Achilles and Ulysses, lions and foxes, who in Hades dream only of new combats, stratagems, massacres, and pillages, and the aspirations of men like Enoch, Moses, David, and Isaiah! The ideal of these Israelites is to unite themselves to the God who forgives, to the God who indited the Decalogue, and who gives liberally an eternal life to the faithful observers of his holy law. This ideal is like a golden thread binding together the writings of the canonical

collection. Is not this phenomenon unique, and well worth the attention of the disciples of the moral consciousness?

X. Subsequent infiltrations into Judaism of the Platonic doctrine

Dispersed abroad as a result of the wars waged for the possession of their country, the Israelites propagated their beliefs everywhere, and made numerous proselytes; but they could not entirely protect themselves from the operation of influences which in turn permeated and perverted their doctrines. The Jews in Egypt in particular became partizans of the immortality of the soul. As M. Nicolas has said: "There is no doubt as to the origin of their doctrine; it came directly from Plato, in whom alone it is found surrounded by the same accessories and expounded in the same terms as in Philo." 1

On the other hand, the materialism of Epicurus had also its representatives in the Israelitish community. The Sadducean party denied all future life. The prospect of nothingness beyond death was, however, not one likely to become popular among those whose children were called upon to die in the flower of their age for the defence of the country. Thus it was the contrary doctrine of the Pharisees that eventually prevailed. In the reaction against Sadduceeism, some Pharisees sought support in the doctrine of the Alexandrine Jews, and, like them, became Platonists, if we may believe Josephus, who was himself a Platonist, and has been reproached with clothing Jewish ideas in a Greek garb. Gradually, at least outside Palestine, the doctrine of the immortality of the soul and that of the resurrection became united, producing a hybrid compound of contradictory opinions.

On all these questions a general lack of precision prevailed, which was afterwards inherited by Christianity. At the present time this vagueness still exists. Like the Essene, the Christian thinks that death is a deliverance, and that the immortal soul goes direct to heaven at death. To this faith in the immortality of the soul he adds faith in a resurrection to come. The soul will hereafter be invested with a glorified body. With the Pharisee he believes in the resurrection of the body, with the Essene in the liberation of the soul in death, and he finds it difficult to reconcile these two beliefs. 2

1 Op. cit., p. 320.—Born at Alexandria about 30 B.C., Philo endeavoured to

reconcile the Platonic doctrines with the religion of the Israelites. He was called

in the schools the Jewish Plato.

2 Ed. Stapfer, op. cit ., p. 95.

XI. Apocryphal books of the Old Testament

By a truly extraordinary immunity the canonical books of the Old Testament show no undeniable traces of the influence of Platonic doctrines; this influence is, however, evident in many of the extra-canonical books. 1

1 M. Henri Bois, Lic. es lettres and doctor in theology, has just published a book which supports these conclusions; it is entitled: Essai sur les origines de la philosophie judeo-alexandrine, Paris, Fischbacher, 1890. Sec in Supplement No.

Nevertheless, we believe that the apocryphal and pseudepigraphic books, both Jewish and Judeo-Christian, are yet to a large extent Conditionalist. Although they carry no authority in the Synagogue, we will quote a few extracts:

“The Most High has made this world for many, but the world to come for few… Like as the husbandman's seed perisheth, if it come not up and receive not thy rain in due season, or if there come too much rain and corrupt it: even so perisheth man also.” 1

“Evil shall be put out, and deceit shall be quenched. . . corruption shall be overcome.” 2

“Sinners will remain in Sheol the prey of eternal death, and will have disappeared in the day when God shall have pity on the faithful.” 3

“The wicked will be as they were before their creation.” 4

“Some there be which have no memorial, who are perished as though they had never been.” 5

“The righteous will continue to exist after the destruction of the wicked and of their evil works. Their life will be as long as that of the patriarchs, and the number of their children shall mount up to a thousand.” 6

“The impious who deny immortality will be deprived of that which they deny; their souls will perish. . . . The wicked is consumed in his wickedness.” 7

“They shall end by extinction; an eternal fire will consume them. . . for those who have slandered the only and eternal God could not continue for ever to exist.” 8

1 2 Esdras viii. 1, 43, 44.

2 Ibid., vi. 27, 28; viii. 53, sq .; ix. and xiii., passim .

3 Psalms of Solomon xiv. 6; xiii. 10; iii. 14; ii. 35; ix. 9; xv. 13.

4 Assumption of Isaiah iv. 18, 38.

5 Ecclus xliv. 9.

6 Enoch x. 17; xxv. 6; xii. 13; cviii. 3; iii. 13; xcix. 6.

7 Wisdom of Solomon i. 11-16; v. 13, sq . Cf. iii. 10; iv. 19, sq.

8 Clementines iii. 6.

VII. Some passages from this book on the apocryphal books of the Old Testament.

The author of the second book of Enoch is the first to teach a simultaneous resurrection of all men, believers and unbelievers, heathen and Israelite. The second book of Maccabees also teaches a resurrection of the wicked, but apparently limits it to the unfaithful Israelites:

"As for thee, Antiochus, thou shalt have no resurrection to life. . . . Thou like a fury takest us out of this present life, but the king of the world shall raise us up who have died for his laws unto everlasting life.”1

XII. Pharisees and Sadducees

Traditional orthodoxy has been accustomed to see in the Pharisees believers in the native and inalienable immortality of the human soul. This, however, is going rather too far. In fact, that doctrine never acquired full recognition at Jerusalem. The Pharisees were more nearly Pythagoreans; they believed in the reincorporation of souls. 2 Of Indian origin, adopted by the Magi of Chaldea, this opinion had been able to infiltrate itself among the Jewish people during their captivity in Babylon. Still, the heterodoxy of the Pharisees did not go so far as the Platonic heresy. They did not maintain the separate immortality of the soul, but, as the evangelist Luke tells us, the resurrection of the body. 3

We shall presently see that the Talmud attests the accuracy of the sacred writer. It is here desirable to record the important testimony of the apostle Paul. 4 A Pharisee, son of Pharisees, belonging to the straitest sect, Paul was the accomplished model of a party to which, notwithstanding certain reservations, he never ceased to belong. Before Claudius Lysias and the whole assembled Sanhedrin he declares: "I am a Pharisee." 3 Still, far from admitting native immortality, Paul elsewhere declares that if Jesus has not been raised from the dead, those who have died in the Christian faith have "ceased to be." 5

1 2 Macc. vii. 9, 14, 23, 36. Cf. xii. 43, 44, and Enoch xxii. 4.

2 Indications of this tendency have been seen in John ix. 2: the man born blind suspected of having sinned before his birth; John i. 21, 25: "Art thou Elijah the prophet?" the question put to John the Baptist. Cf. Matt. xi. 14; xvi. 14; xvii. 10, sq ., etc.

3 Acts xxiii. 6-8. Cf. xxvi. 5-8.—See with reference to the Pharisees: Ed. Montet, Essai sur les origines des partis saduceen et pharisien, 1883.

4 Paul, "nourished in the harem, knows its every turn," as M. Michel Weill has expressed it.

5 1 Cor. xv. 18. Cf. Critique religieuse, April, 1882, p. 7 and for the meaning of apolonto, the Phaedo of Plato. In the Greek language in ordinary use there did not exist a stronger term for expressing that which we are accustomed in conversation to call annihilation. "What," exclaimed Socrates, "a soul created with all these advantages would no sooner have quitted the body than it would be dissipated and annihilated, as most men believe!" Diapephusetai kai apololen hos phasin hoi polloi anthropoi, § 29. Cf. §§ 68, 129, 130, 143, 145.—See also Chapter XI. of this work.

When the apostle wishes to cast an apple of discord among his accusers, it is still of resurrection that he speaks, not of immortality. The animosity between Pharisees and Sadducees was so keen on this point that several scribes at once began to defend the apostle, and the quarrel became so violent that the Roman officer had to put an end to the scene. Towards the end of his career the apostle of the Gentiles opposed the nascent heresy of native immortality by the declaration that "God only hath immortality." 1

Certain statements of Josephus have been quoted against us; but in relation to theology that historian is not to be depended upon. This has been generally recognized: his veracity is suspected, his works betray his duplicity, his declarations have but little value in matters relating to dogma. He gives us notions that are quite erroneous about the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Essenes. The parallel that he draws between their doctrines and the Greek philosophies has no solid foundation. 2

1 1 Tim. vi. 16.—The word athanasian seems to have been chosen with a view to those who, even in our own day, argue that God only hath eternity (aidiotes ) or incorruptibility (aphtharsia ), but that he has shared his immortality with his creatures, angels or men.

2 Dictionnaire of Bouillet; Jost, Histoire du judaisme; Dr. Adler; Ed. Stapfer, Encyclopedie des sciences religieuses. Dr. Pocock, Archbishop Usher, Bishop Warburton, Mosheim, Bretschneider, Prof. Hamburger, Chief Rabbi Kaeuffer, Dr. Kitto, Boettcher, Hilgenfeld, Drs. Marks, Ewald, Traill, Farrar, Hermann Schultz, Schurer, Messrs. Aug. Bost, Aug. Sabatier, E. Montet, Philarete Chasles, are unanimous in their want of confidence in this historian.

Decidedly, on the subject now before us, the authority of Josephus is too unsatisfactory. When a quarter only of the number of authors of repute who have doubted his testimony shall have spoken in his favour, it will be time to think of giving him our confidence. Meanwhile, let us pass to the Talmud.

XIII. The Talmud

The Talmud consists of two collections, the Mishna and the Gomorra. The Mishna, a collection of the "oral law," speaks neither of native immortality nor of eternal torments. The chastisement of the wicked consists in their absolute extermination at the last judgement, in the "annihilation of the sinful soul." 1 The Gemara gives a commentary on the Mishna: "The true sinners in Israel and the true sinners of other nations go down to hell and are judged during twelve months. After these twelve months their body is destroyed, their soul is burnt, and a spirit disperses them under the feet of the judges, for it is said: 'And the essence of the wicked shall become dust under the soles of their feet.'"2 Rabbi Simon ben Lakisch has said: "In the future there will be no Gehenna, for the wicked shall be as chaff, and the day that is coming will devour them."

According to the Talmud, the existence of the soul and the body is only a conditional loan to every human being. It is true that in his great work on "Judaism, its Dogmas and its Mission" (Judaisme, ses dogmes et sa mission ), the Chief Rabbi Weill mentions a Doctor who is said to have taught an absolute immortality, but he does not give his name; this solitary anonymous Doctor certainly would make a poor show as an opposing minority. One of the most celebrated Talmudists of our time, the late Emmanuel Deutsch, 3 declared that according to the Talmud the chastisement of the greatest sinners is temporary. In this vast collection of twenty folio volumes one single passage would seem to be in favour of the doctrine of eternal torments; but it is of relatively recent date, and not at all decisive. This is it: "The impious will descend into Gehenna, and will there be judged from generation to generation." In this passage there is nothing that goes beyond the scope of certain texts of Scripture which relate evidently to temporal punishments, as, for example, the desolation of the land of Edom, which also is to endure "from generation to generation." 4 The meaning would seem to be this: A sentence eternal in its effects will be pronounced upon the impious, who will be for ever destroyed.

1 Sanhed xi. 2, 3; Rosch Hashahanah, 17a. It is the punishment of Kareth, a cutting off.—Joseph Cohen, Les Pharisiens, vol. ii., p. 448.

2 Alex. Weill, Moise et le Talmud, p. 244, sq., Abodah zarah, iii. 2; iv. 1.

3 The Revue theologique in 1877 published an extract from his famous treatise on the Talmud. See particularly pp. 162 and 170.

4 Isa. xxxiv. 10.

The Rabbis regarded the total annihilation of the soul as the supreme chastisement; that is a point upon which there can be no doubt." 1

The Rev. A. Dewes, D.D. and Ph.D., has made a deep and detailed investigation of this precise point. He has compared the result of his own researches with the works of Lightfoot, Schoettgen, Buxtorf, Castell, Schindler, Glass, Bartolocci, Ugolino, Nork, Fritsch, and Eisenmenger. His conclusions agree with those of the learned Deutsch. 2

In his Talmudic Dictionary, Dr. Hamburger thus expresses his view:

"The Talmud adheres strictly to the biblical doctrine of immortality, rejecting categorically, on the one hand, the opinion that denies all immortality, and, on the other hand, that which makes immortality a consequence of the nature of the soul, as though that were of divine essence. The Doctors of the Talmud have declared formally against the eternity of torments." 3

If the patience of our indulgent readers would permit, we could quote also the equally definite statements of Drs. Benisch and Phillipson, of the Rabbis Marks, Adler, Lowe, and Chief Rabbi Mosse, of Avignon; but we will content ourselves with the declaration of Chief Rabbi Michel Weill: "Nothing seems more incompatible with the true biblical tradition than an eternity of suffering and chastisement." 4

1 L'immortalite de l'ame chez les Juifs, by Dr. G. Brecher, translated into French by Isidore Cahen, p. 99; Paris, 1857.

2 See S. Cox, Salvator Mundi, London, 1877.—Dr. Farrar has examined the works of various other learned authors, and has arrived at the same result.

3 Articles Holle und Unsterblichkeit.

4 Op. cit., vol. iv., p. 590.

In support of these affirmations we quote a few texts taken from what may be called the main current of talmudic and post-talmudic teaching:

"It is the possession of the holy spirit which leads to immortality."—Abodah zarah, xx. 6.

"The resurrection from among the dead is the portion only of the righteous. How could the impious live again, since even in life they are dead?"—Sanhedrin, § 10.

"The day of resurrection is the portion of the righteous only."—Taanith, 7a; Bereschith rabbah, 13.

The Pirke Eliezer admit (c. 34) a resurrection of the heathen, but say that the heathen who rise again do not remain in life; they sink back into death. Thus the resurrection of the dead, according to the Jewish theology, is the definitive appanage of those who are to have a part in the kingdom of God. As for those who fall into Gehenna, their lot is first suffering and finally complete annihilation, the second death from which there is no return.

"The enemies of Israel who will come under the leadership of Gog will be immediately consumed by the burning up of their souls. They will not get away from Gehinnom, but will there be destroyed."—Targ. Jerem. on Numb. xi. 26.

"The generation of the deluge will have no part in the future life, and will not even appear at the universal judgement, being already annihilated. The inhabitants of Sodom, on the contrary, will be present at the last judgement, for they are not yet destroyed." —Sanhedrin, x. 3.

"As the cattle slain by the butcher have no renewal of life, so the impious will be definitively destroyed. . Kohel. rabbah, 69b.

"The fire will destroy them little by little, beginning with the ears."—Kethuboth, 5b .—This strange detail has a symbolic meaning. Vinet, a deep thinker, spoke

of souls rendered by sin incapable of hearing, and apparently lost to all sense of their own identity. See ante, p. 62, and Supplement No. III.

"The souls of the wicked will be ignominiously destroyed as well as their bodies; they will have neither immortality nor eternity." —Summary of the Faith, ch. 24.

"The bodies of the wicked will be destroyed a second time; it is the second death." —Targum of Jonathan, on Isa. lxv. 5, and Jer. li. 39, 57.

"The wicked will live no more in the world to come; they will be consumed in the smoke of Gehenna." —Targum of Jonathan, Psa. xxxvii. 20.

"The chastisement will last twelve months, therefore did Noah remain one year in the ark." —Abodah zarah, i.; Edaioth, ii.

"Rabbi Acha asks whether there is any hope for those who have laid violent hands on the temple of the Lord. Answer: They will be neither damned nor saved; their sleep will be eternal, according to the word of the prophets." — Targum of Jonathan, on Jer. li. 57.

"After the last judgement Gehenna will exist no more."—Asarah maamaroth, 85; Nedarim, viii.; Abodah zarah, iii.; Midrash rabbah, i. 30, etc.

Following the example of the mediaeval ecclesiastical doctors and the later Rabbis of the Talmud, the Gaon Saadias in the tenth century and Albo in the fifteenth taught eternal torments; but they limit the number of victims to an almost impalpable minimum of monstrous sinners. Yet Albo has a glimpse of a final amelioration of their lot, and Saadias protests against the idea of native immortality.

It may, perhaps, be asserted that the Talmud is mainly Universalist. If that be so, it would have taken for granted an indefeasible immortality. Even that view cannot, however, be sustained. Dr. Farrar, himself an advocate of eternal hope, has admitted it. He devotes sixty pages to Jewish Eschatology, and this is his conclusion:

"Generally, it may be stated with confidence that the Rabbinic opinion was that of Abarbanel, that the soul would only be punished in Gehenna for a time proportionate to the extent of its faults; and it is in accordance with this belief, and that in annihilation as being "the second death," that we must interpret the passages which are sometimes adduced from the Targums of Jonathan and Onkelos, and from various parts of the book of Enoch." 1

In short, according to the great majority of Rabbis, Gehenna designates generally a brief chastisement followed by pardon. For great sinners the chastisement will be prolonged; for the worst criminals the chastisement will finally be either commuted or followed by complete annihilation. The Rabbis who have spoken of endless torments are very few, and the scope of their declarations is frequently contestable. 2

1 Eternal Hope, Excursus v. Cf. Mercy and Judgement, London, 1881. This last volume is a reply to Dr. Pusey.

2 This seems to be the case with the single quotation by Dr. Ferd. Weber in support of this assertion in his book: "Neither are passages wanting which relate to eternal torments." The author quotes only Pesachim, 54a "The fire of Gehenna never goes out." But we shall soon have occasion to see that even in the Bible "unquenchable fire" indicates a temporary fire, as, for example, the burning of Bozrah (Isa. xxxiv. 10, sq. ). We note that Weber's paragraph as to the assertion of eternal torments contains only five lines, while whole pages are devoted to what might be called the Conditionalism of the ancient Synagogue.—F. Weber, System der altsynago-galen palastinischen Theologieaus Targum, Midrasch und Talmud, pp. xi., xxxiv., 76, 190, 215, 326, 374, sq., 380, etc.

XIV. Maimonides—

Maimonides is a modern Rabbi who has formulated with unequalled authority the teaching of the Synagogue. The Jews have called him the eagle of the Rabbis and their second Moses. His confession of faith, in fact, occupies in the Synagogue a position similar to that of the Apostles' Creed in the Churches of Christendom, since every Jew is expected to repeat it daily. The Israelite who should call in question any one of the thirteen articles of this creed would be under the stroke of excommunication, and would lose all share in the age to come.

Here is the declaration of Maimonides on the point in question: “The punishment that awaits the evil man is that he will have no part in eternal life. He will die, and will be completely destroyed. He will not live for ever, he will perish with his wickedness like the brute; it is a death from which there is no return. The reward of the righteous will consist in this, that they will be joyful and will exist, while the retribution of the wicked will be to be deprived of the future life.”

The doctrines of Maimonides are accepted by Simon ben Lakisch, Jehudah bar Elai, Jarchi, David Kimchi, Manasseh ben Israel. In all Judaism there are no higher authorities.

Chief Rabbi Wertheimer has in a few words summed up the Jewish view in a lesson given in the University of Geneva. According to him, "the principle of the immortality of the human soul has been, is, and always will be, rejected by the Semites, because for them God is all."

We have consulted in vain Weber's work, those of Wunsche, Gfrorer, Grobler, Hausrath, Schultz, Kleinert, Spiess, Wogue, Jost, Ewald, Weizel, Alger, Edersheim, etc. In none of these authors have we found anything to invalidate our view of the case. On the other hand, we have gathered quite a harvest of supplementary proofs.

It is with regret that we have to state that the truth on this point has been perceived by a sceptical scholar better than by many orthodox professors, who are still running in the Platonic ruts. M. Renan shall speak for himself:

“When an Israelite, travelling through Egypt, visited the royal catacombs of Thebes, the Memnonia, the underground vaults of the Serapeum—those abodes of the dead so much superior to those of the living—the sentiment uppermost in his mind was the pity inspired by the view of the absurd. To him God would then appear great, unique, laughing at men and their follies. In his eyes, the chief of those follies was the pretension to immortality. 'God alone endures,' such has always been the fundamental basis of the semitic and monotheistic theology. Man is a transitory being, and the worst act of his pride would be to make himself equal to God by attributing to himself eternity. The Pharaoh who built pyramids for himself in prospect of an indefinite existence, far from being considered by the wise Israelite as a religious man, appeared to him to be impious. The belief in immortality seemed to him not merely not pious, but in opposition to God and to sound sense. The people believed in rephaim —ghosts; there were sorcerers and sorceresses who pretended to invoke these shades and make them speak. If the wise men of Israel had allowed it, the people with their Sheol and their rephaim would have created a hell and a mythology like all the other peoples.

But the wise men were strong enough to stifle these dreams at their birth. 'In Sheol there is neither feeling, nor knowledge, nor vision, the rephaim are nothing.'—One being alone exists eternally, that is, God. Man is a creature essentially mortal. . . . The idea of an infinite destiny for man never enters the Jewish mind. . . . The Christian hope is at first only a reign of a thousand years. . . . With Greek philosophy the dogma of the immortality of the soul was introduced into the Church, and was associated, not very happily, with that of the resurrection of the body. . . . It is to be observed that the first Christian teachers who tried to amalgamate Christianity with Greek philosophy—St. Justin and Tatian—have no belief in the eternity of the soul. For them the soul is essentially mortal. God makes it immortal as a favour, by a sort of miracle. It should be noted that Justin and Tatian were both Syrians.” 1

1 Of Repentance, ch. viii. Edition of Dr. Clavering, Oxford, 1705.

On this question the erudite free-thinker is in accord with the unflinching promoter of Plymouth Brethrenism. In his book entitled Hopes of the Church, Mr. J. N. Darby says: “I would express the conviction that the idea of the immortality of the soul. . . is not in general a gospel topic; that it comes, on the contrary, from the Platonists; and that it was just when the coming of Christ was denied in the Church, or at least began to be lost sight of, that the doctrine of the immortality of the soul came in to replace that of the resurrection. This was about the time of Origen.” 2

XV. The Kabbalah—

Some writers have erred through confounding the Talmud with the Kabbalah, as though these two records were but one, or as though they both were of equal value. 3

1 L'Ecclesiaste, 29; Paris, 1882.

2 Works, Prophetic, vol. i., p. 463. London: Geo. Morrish, 24, Warwick Lane, 1866. See also the letters of J. Salvador, published in Le Temps newspaper (Union chretienne, June, 1882).

3 This word might be spelt Qabbalah, in accordance with the reasonable system of transcription adopted by Prof. Reuss; the original comes from the verb gabal, pihel qibbel, to receive by transmission, speaking of a doctrine. The Kabbalah was a traditional doctrine, which was received under the seal of secrecy. By enveloping themselves in mystery the Kabbalist doctors attained a double object: they stimulated the curiosity of their scholars, and they protected themselves against the persecution which might have affected them even in the bosom of the Synagogue, their system being in its essence a pantheistic heresy and a true gnosticism. M. Ad. Franck has devoted to this obscure subject a remarkable volume La Kabbale, Paris, 1843. A second edition has just been issued.—See also Dissertation sur la Kabbale, by A. F. Petavel, Neuchatel, 1848. A page of this work is quoted in the Supplement No. VIII., under the title: Pretensions of the Kabbalists.

This confusion exists, for example, in the Judaism Unveiled of Eisenmenger, 1 and it reappears in an article by M. George Godet on The Chastisement to Come. 2 Eisenmenger being an anti-Semite, all was fish that came to his net. He found in the Kabbalah arms wherewith to oppose Judaism, and did not care to enter into a distinction which would have weakened the force of his attacks. M. George Godet, being an anti-Conditionalist, and ascribing his own point of view to the great majority of Rabbis, has faithfully followed in the steps of his guide, without noticing that the majority of the quotations that he borrows from Eisenmenger have very little value. The Kabbalah, in fact, is not acknowledged as an authority in the Synagogue.

As the learned Munk says:

“The whole system could only arise under the influence of the Jewish schools of Alexandria, where the doctrine of Pythagoras and that of Plato were combined with oriental philosophical modes of reasoning. . . . The speculative Kabbalah presents to us a complete mythology. . . it departs altogether from the Mosaic doctrine and results in pantheism.” 3

So also M. Ad. Franck. He says:

“Let us not be deceived; the Kabbalah is pantheistic. . . . It is not only by their psychology, but also by their whole system, that the authors of the Zohar often remind us of Plato's philosophy.” 4

1 Entdecktes Judenthum, Frankfort, 1700.

2 Chretien evangelique, 20 Dec., 1882.

3 La Palestine, p. 519, sq.; and Dictionnaire de la conversation, at the word Cabale .

4 Dictionnaire des sciences philosophiques, at the word Kabbale .

M. Franck thinks that the materials of the Kabbalah were taken from the theology of the ancient Parsees; other scholars believe that the system is of neo-Platonic origin; but all are agreed as to the pantheistic character of the Kabbalah.

“It is not in the Talmud, but in the Kabbalistic writings, that are to be found the heterodox assertions concerning the human soul: that, being itself a part of the divinity, a divine substance or spark, it must for ever exist, etc.” 1

From the standpoint of the Kabbalah, the soul is not a creation, but an emanation of the Divinity; therefore every human soul is both pre-existent and imperishable by nature. The doctrine of eternal torments flowed naturally from this a priori. The same principle might equally lead to the doctrine of universal salvation; that depends upon the disposition of the doctor, optimist or pessimist. Both these consequences have been maintained by Kabbalists. Thus the book of the Zohar developes the hypothesis of metempsychosis, or transmigration of souls, which are supposed eventually all to return into and form part of the universal soul.

Some celebrated rabbis have been reckoned among the Kabbalists. It is none the less true, however, that to confound and quote indiscriminately Talmud and Kabbalah is very much like reckoning the gnostics Marcion and Valentinian among the Fathers of the Church. It is like taking a parasitic plant for a branch of the vine of Israel. Every river has its back currents. Certain rabbis have Platonized; but if in the history of the Israelite theology the central current be carefully followed, it will be evident that on the point in question the official teaching has remained generally faithful to the true biblical tradition. 2

1 Hamburger, Realencyklopadie fur Bibel und Talmud; Articles, Unster-blichkeit der Seele, Holle, Kabbalah, passim.

2 In the important work before quoted, on the Theology of the Ancient Synagogues of Palestine, Dr. Weber does not admit the Kabbalah nor the apocryphal books among his sources of information. See his Introduction.

XVI. Conclusions

In any case, says M. Auguste Sabatier, the idea of the Catholic hell and eternal torments does not belong to Hebraism. As the Hebrews did not ascribe to the soul an essential indestructibility, but, on the contrary, regarded it as essentially mortal, there was in Hebraism no basis for the doctrine of an eternal hell, which from this point of view would have no reason for existence. Jehovah restores life to the wicked in order that they may be judged and punished; but when once the sentence is declared and the punishment endured the wicked disappear.

This appears in the peculiar doctrine of Rabbi Akibah. Was it not also the doctrine of St. Paul, who, while admitting a final judgement for all men, 1 goes on to describe the defeat and utter destruction of all the enemies of God, even to the death of death itself, and proclaims that in the end "God will be all, in all" 2 ? Is it not also to the same order of ideas that belongs the notion so strange of the "second death," the supreme death, which often reappears in the Apocalypse of St. John? We can then affirm that the eschatological dualism of an eternal hell and an eternal paradise is entirely outside the lines of pure Hebraism. This final dualism supposes at the beginning a metaphysical dualism of two eternal and incompatible principles, which is also utterly foreign to the Hebrew intuition. A theology which derives everything from a single principle, from God alone, can only conceive of evil as an accident, and cannot possibly issue in an eternal dualism. There is a necessary correspondence between the principle of absolute creation and the complete restoration of all things. No longer, then, let Hebraism, nor even authentic Christianity, be accused of having invented an eternal hell and imposed upon the world that horrible nightmare. Hell is of Aryan origin, not Semitic; it is a remnant of paganism, which the Church mistakenly adopted and has too long retained.

We have, then, reason for saying that, notwithstanding all infiltrations of Greek thought, Palestinian Judaism has maintained anthropological views radically different from Platonic anthropology, and has maintained them precisely in that doctrine of bodily resurrection which has been so awkwardly amalgamated by ecclesiastical theology with that of the immortality of the soul. 3

1 2 Cor. v. 10.

2 1 Cor. xv. 27, 28.

3 Memoire sur la notion hebraique de l'esprit, p. 29, sq. Paris, Fischbacher, 1879. This essay has a quasi-official value; it forms part of a publication by the Faculty of Protestant theology of Paris, on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the professorship of M. Reuss.—The journal de Geneve, of to Oct. in the same year, published a review of this Memoire, which also contains an adhesion to some of our principles. It is from the pen of M. Lucien Gautier, professor of Hebrew in the theological Faculty of the Free Church in Lausanne. M. Gautier says:

"It remains for us to indicate the importance of this new theory in relation to various doctrines, that of inspiration for example, and in relation to the eschatological beliefs of the Christian Church. M. Sabatier, in fact, shows that in the formation of these beliefs there was a double current, a double series of factors, one coming from Greece and the pagan world, the other from biblical sources. It is to the Greek influence that is to be assigned, amongst others, the origin of hell, the place of eternal punishments. And, more important still, while Greek psychology admitted the immortality of individual souls as a guarantee of the future life, the Hebrew psychology finds that guarantee in the doctrine of the resurrection of the body, made alive again by the gift of the divine Spirit. From the conjunction of these two incongruous conceptions has resulted a dualism, an internal contradiction, which exegesis and theological speculation ought to endeavour to replace by a simpler doctrine resting on better foundations."

Let us conclude. Taken as a whole, the Synagogue has remained faithful to the eschatology of the Old Testament. The Israelites are in principle Conditionalists. Their great mistake has been in refusing to recognize in Jesus the supreme condition and the mediator of life eternal. By his resurrection the Christ has illuminated the grave; the hope of the Israelites is but an uncertain glimmer. Many Christians salute with joy the advent of death; sometimes their countenance is radiant even after they have breathed their last sigh. But has a Jew ever been seen impatient to leave this world in order to enter into the divine abode? Not possessing the earnest of the celestial inheritance, the Jews seem not to reckon much upon paradise; hence naturally arises an exclusive attachment to the good things of this world. Judaism presents the melancholy spectacle of an unfinished temple; its ruined walls attest the fatal lack of a covering. We shall find in the Gospel the crowning of the edifice.