ESCHATOLOGY
ESCIIATOLOGY
rsi
and Christ's coining, and there are passages in which the idea seems to be the same as that of the Synoptic records (14' 21=', cf. 1 Jn 2^). The Hrst point, tlierefore, in Christ's teaching on the subject of the future is the announcement of the objective event of His own Return. But His dechirations on this Parousia know nothing of the minute and fantastic inventions of Jewish theology, as seen in the Book of Enoch, the Assumption of Moses, the Sibylline Oracles, and similar products of Jewish thought, with their elaborate machinery of signs and portents and mystic numbers, their extrava- gant chronologies, their grotesque descriptions of the literal re-settlement of the Jews in taeir own land, their many eccentricities and ineptitudes. They know as little of those Chiliaxtic conceptions of the future, those curious calculations of the duration of Messiah's kingdom, those puerile ideas of the erection of a new Jerusalem on the ruins of the old, which took hold of the Jewish mind before Christian times, and, entering into Christian thought, gave shape to the doctrine of a millennial reign of Christ on earth which was to end in a great apostasy and to herald the consummation.
With this doctrine of the second advent is associated the doctrine of a Final Judgment. This judgment is presented as the object of the coming;, and it occupies a place of like prominence in Christ's teacliing. It is expressea in various of His sayings, but at greatest length in the eschato- logicaf discourse in the First Gospel. According to the consentient teaching of the Synoptic Gospels, it is a judgment at the end of the world, a judgment of individuals (Mt 22'" etc.), a judg- ment of universal scope (Mt IS*"-**- "-" 16-'' 25*' etc.), and a judgment in which Christ, the Son of Man, is Himself to be the Judge (Mt 25^' etc.). In the Fourth Gospel the judgment appears for the most part under anotner aspect. In that Gospel the emphasis is laid upon a judgment which la present and subjective, fuUilling itself in a probation of character and a self-verdict which proceed now (3"' " 12"' **). But this subjective judgment of the present in life and conscience is not inconsistent with an objective judgment of the future. And the latter is not strange to the Fourth Gospel. The Johannine phrase 'the last day ' (12") points to it, and it is contained in such words as those in 5"- ^ (cf. 1 Jn 2'^ 4", in which Johannine writing the judgment is connected, as in the Synoptists, with Cbrist's coming). "The doctrine of a final judgment so declared by Christ Btands in intimate relation to certain leading ideas of the OT, completing these and giving them cer- tainty. "The Heb. Scriptures, penetrated through and through by the idea of a Divine retribution, have a large doctrine of judgment, a judg- ment for Israel, more frequently a judgment for the nations or a world -judgment. But for the most part it is a world-judgment which has its scene in this world, a triumph of the king- dom of God in the form of an overthrow of its living adversaries on earth. And in this J" llim- eelf is the Judge. In certain prophecies (Is 9. 11, Mic 5, Jer 23. 33. 34. 36, Ezk 34. 37, Zee 9-11) the triumi)h of the kingdom of God is connected with the advent of a great Davidic Kin^, and Messiah appears as the agent of J". But in the OT the final arbitrament of men's lives is not committed to the Messiah or the ideal King, as in Christ's teaching it is given to the Son of Man. Further, while the foundations of the doctrine of a final universal and individual judgment are laid in the OT ideas of the righteousness of God, His cove- nant relations with Israel, and Hin sovereignty over the nations, the conception of a judgment after death does not take distinct and dttinite form till near the close of the OT. Even when the idea of
an indi\-idual judgment at the end of things appears, the subjects of the judgment seem to bo limited to those of I.srael. Clirist's doctrine has also its relations to the ideas of the non-canonical literature. In tlie representative books of Judaism the doctrine of a judgment bulks largely, and is taught with much novel and peculiar detail. It has also different forms. In certain books (e.g. the Book of Enoch 90"-", the Assumption of Moses 3. 4, etc.) the OT idea of a destruction of living enemies of J'"8 kingdom here on earth survives. In many cases, though not in all, the Messiah is the agent of God in this judgment ; and the judg- ment is placed usually at the beginning of His reign, but sometimes (where a limited duration is ascribed to that reign) at its close. In other books, however, and especially in the Book of Enoch, this passes over into the idea of a final judgment, in the forensic sense, occurring after death, extending to all men and to angels as well. In these books, too, God is the Judge and Messiah His instrument. Only in the later section of the Book of Enoch does the Messiah appear in any certain and definite form as the Judge at the last day. Christ's doctrine of a universal, individual judjrnient at the en<i of things, in which judgment He Himself is Arbiter of human destinies, carried the OT conception to its proper issue, whUe it gave a new certainty, consistency, and spirituality to the developed ideas which had arisen in Judaism in the period following the last of the Jewish prophets.