(Mt 5'=, Lk e=», 2 Cor 5\ Eph 0', He 1(P etc.). So it is the sum of all good, and the goal of man's hope (Mt G'9, Lk 6-^ 10=", Ph 3™, 1 P 1', He 12=»).
Tliere are other questions regarding the ' heaven ' of the Bible which are of interest and require consideration. Some relate to the use of the term, others to the ideas of heaven which find expression in the Scriptures. Among these is the question whether the word' heaven'or 'heavens' occurseither in the OT or in the NT as a metonymy for God. The Jew of later times had so exaggerated a sense of the sanctity of the divine name, that he did not allow himself to utter the most proper designation of God, but had recourse to equivalents, 'fliere is abundant evidence to show that by our Lord's tima the word ' heaven ' or ' heavens ' was in frequent use in this way ; and it is held by not a few compecettt scholars that the Jewish formula n:':?' I'^i"? is an instance of this, and that St. Matthew's phrase, ' the kingdom of heaven,' is literally the same as 'the kingdom of God,' which is the expression of the other evangelists and of St. Paul (see Cremer, Bib.- theol. Lex., sub voce ^acriKeia ; Thayer's Lex., sub voce ovpavbi; Edersheiiii's ij/'e and Times of Jeius tlve Messiah, i. 205 ; Jhrh. f. prot. Theol. 1870, p. 100, etc. ; Schurer, UJP, Eng. tr. div. II. vol. ii. p. 171). The instances of this use furnished by the Bible are at the best very scanty, and even the most probable cases are negatived by many. There seems, however, to be at least one sufficiently clear instance in the OT (Dn 4'-'), and another, though more disputable, in the NT (Lk 15"), where, however, it may be (as it is taken, e.g., by Meyer and others) a personification of the heavenly world ' as injured and offended.'
Another question is whether the conception of a series of heavens is found in the Scriptures. This has been answered in the negative, and the terms which seem to imply the influence of such a conception have been taken for plurals of majesty, or larjre.rhetorical expressions of the idea of in Ii ii i ty. But the evidence is all in favour of the aflirnia- tive answer. The plural form of the Hebrew word points in that direction. Much more decidedlj- IS this the case with such forms as ' the heaven of heavens' (Dt 10>^ IK 8-'', P'* 148^), 'all the heavens' (Eph 4'" RV), 'the third heaven' (2 Co 12'-). The same may be said of che peculiar phrase 'in the heavenly places,' or 'in the heavcnlies' {ill Tois ivovpavioi^), which occurs live times in the Ep. to the E]^h. (1»- '» « S'" 6'-), and has in each a local sense. To which must be added the idea of Christ as the tcreat High Priest who ha.s ' passed through the heavens' (He 4"), and is 'made higher than the heavens' (He 7"*). The aflirma- tive reply is also in harmony with the fact that the idea of a plurality of heavens prevailed among other ancient peoples, and in particular among those that were in contact with the Jewish nation at dilt'crent periods of its history, such as the Babylonians and the Persians. Tiiis conclusion is further confirmed by the large place which is given to this idea in the Rabbinical literature, and in the apocalvptic and other psendepigraphic books, both Jewisli and Christian, — especially the Slavonic Enoch, the apocalyptic parts of the Testaments of the Twelve I'atriarch?, 4 Ezra, the Ascension of Isaiah, the Apocalypsos of Moses, Ezra, John, Isaac, Jacob.
With this is connected the further question whether the plurality that is recognized is one of three heavens or of seven. It has been thouj'ht by some that only the idea oi a series of three heavens is found in Scripvure. Jt has been jiro- nounced liy some (Estius, I>fl Clcrc. Bengel) to ba the dortrim: of the Bible th.it tl;eM> aio only three heavens. Origen (dm. Vds. vi. p. 280) dc'iieJ that St. Paul had the u'eAof seves bosvens, <;^d tii«
322
HEAVEN
HEAVEN
idea of a threefold heaven obtained a considerable place in the Church (Suicer, Thi:s. ii. p. 520, etc.). But the evidence wliich bears out the existence of the idea of a plurality of heavens also favours the idea of a sevenfold series of heavens. Among the Babylonians a sevenfold division of heavens seems to have prevailed. They ha<l the conception of seven world-zones ; they surrounded thoir cities, Erech and Echatana, with seven walls ; they thought of hell as divided into seven parta by seven walls. And though no explicit reference to it appears to have been discovered as yet among the inscriptions, it is reasonable to suppose that tlieir heaven was also divided into seven sections (.lensen, Kosm, der Babj/l. pp. 232-252 ; Sayce, Jlib. Led. pp. 221-227). In the Zoroastrian books, but not in the earliest, we find the idea of a suc- cession of seven heavens, which were traversed bj' Sosioch in seven days, Zar.-ithrustra himself occupying a golden throne in the seventh. The Jews were fiimiliar, too, with the planets, of which four are mentioned by name m the OT (2 K IV", Am 5««, Is 14" 46' 65"). The same con- ception of seven heavens appears to have been almost universal among the Rabbis, only R. Juda boing mentioned as diverging from the general doctrine, and teaching the existence of but two heavens. The pseudepigr.aphic writings, and very delinitely the Slavonic Knocli and the Testa- ments of the Twelve Patriarchs, give the same enumeration of the lieavens, and describe them at length. It is hazardous to infer, as Meyer does, from the notice of Paradise in 2 Co 12'' that St. Paul thouglit of it as higher than the third heaven and belonging to a fourth heaven ; for in the pseud- epigraphic literature Paradise is repeatedly repre- sented as being in the third heaven. But, in view of the evidence, the most reasonable conclusion is that the conception of the heavens which pervades the OT and the NT (not e.xcepting the Pauline writings, though St. Paul mentions only the third heaven and Paradise) is that of a series of seven heavens.