Theology has sought to answer many questions re. lating to heaven which Scripture suggests, but which it does not itself follow to their conclusions. It has occupied itself with the question as to how the spirituality and omnipresence of the Divine Being can be reconciled with the predication of heaven as His peculiar dwelling-place. It has also discussed the question whether lieaven is to be regarded as a jilace or only as a condition. These are questions w liich are beyond the range of our present faeultiea ancl ex|)ericnce. Scripture freely speaks, on the one hand, of God as everywhere present and as manifesting Himself in ditlerent ways in all parts of His creation, and, on the other hand, as specially present in heaven and manifesting His glory in a peculiar sense there. And we can only say that it 18 with Him, though in a higher sense, as it is with the sun 'which shines everywhere, yet especially di.splays its full splendour in the tirma- nient ' (Oosterzee, C'/ir. Dvg. p. 258). Neither can we disconnect the idea of lociJity absolutely from our conception of heaven. It belongs to the con- dition of our present mental life and experience to think of heaven more or Ic-^s in terms of locality, even when we think of God who is spirit, much more when we think of the future home of beings like ourselves.
324
HEAVE-OFFEKI^'G
HEAVINESS
Theology also has engaged itself greatly (in Bome eras, however, much more than in others) with the question of the nature of the existence in heav3n, the heavenlj^ activities, the felicities of heaven. Sometimes it has committed itself to rude, material, sensuous conceptions ; sometimes it has defined heaven as essentially a condition of passivity, conteiiii>latioii, or quiescence. But for the most part, and in the case of its greatest names, it has avoided these extremes. Even Justin Martyr (Adv. Hcer. 57), Irenaius {Apol. i. 8), and the Fathers wlio accepted the millenarian doctrine, thought of tlie iiniiu'iliate lomraunion with God as the essence of the hlessedness of heaven. Ori"en atfirmed the progress of life in heaven, and dwelt largely on tlie intellectual conditions of heaven, regarding its chief joy as found in the satisfaction of the desire of knowledge (£>« prin. II. xi. 2). Greg. Naz. {Oral. xvi. 9), Greg. Nyss. {Orat. Cat. c. 40) and others, placed its felicity chiefly in the increase of knowledge and in intercourse with all the saints. Augustine {De Civ. Dei, xxi. 29, 30), agreeing with all )thers tliat the enjoyment of God is the substance »if the bliss of heaven, added specially to that the recovery of man's true liberty. While the mystics of all ages have inclined to reduce the various Scriptural representations of heaven to metaphors of subjective states, the schoolmen generally con- strued them as implj^ng locality, and speculated on the region, its divisions, and its employments. Extreme realistic views of lieaven have oeen advo- cated by theosophic theologians in all times. And in the system of Emmanuel Swedenborg, with its principle of correspondence, in virtue of which tlie spiritual world is the outbirth of the invisible mental world and the natural world that of the spiritual world, we have a curious doctrine of the co^.stitution of heaven as the subject of a reve- lation, and find the existence of three distinct heavens, consisting of three orders of angels, affirmed.
The Scriptures themselves are silent on many tilings on which theology has dilated. They give us a large, general view of heaven as the tlnal home of God's servants ; of its rewards as having degrees corresponding to the character and the sernce ; of its blessedness as found in freedom from all sin, pain, sorrow, in the manifestation of the eternal love and glory, in the realization of hope, the possession of all good, the presence of Christ, the immediate vision and fellowship of God. It leaves much to the sanctified imagination, and makes its final teaching this — ' Eye liath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, tlie tilings which God hath prepared for them that love him'^(l Co 2^).
LiTERATLRE. — The books on Biblical Theology, especially those hy Oehler, Schultz. Dillmann for the OT, and Si'liraid, Weiss, Be\-sohIa£r, Baur, Hahn for the N'T ; the systems of Doj^matics and Elschatology, especially those l>y Plitt, Rothe, Schleier- niacher, Domer, Schweitzer, Khefoth, Atzberger ; the Lexicons of Cremcr and Thayer ; Edershcira's The LQe and Tiiws of Jrxui the Messiah'; Hambiir^'er's Real-eneydopadie ; Eisen- inenger's Entdecktei Judcnthiun ; .'^chbttgen'a ilorce Hcb- raiciB ; Gfrorer's Jahrhuiidfrt rfej HeiU ; Schiirer s 7'Ac Jewith People in the Ti)ne of J i-siu Christ ; Vi Qhar's J udi^che Theologie ; Wetstein on 2 Co 12 ; MoHill and Charles's Book of the Secrets of Enoch ; Jeremias, Die Bahi/l.'Ossyr. Vori^tellun/jen votn Lehen nai-h dein Tode ; Kohut, ZDMG xxi. ; Feuchtwang, Ztachr. f. Ass'jc- iv. ; Weber, Die Lehren des Talmud.
S. D. F. Salmond.
HEAYE-OFFERING.— See Sacrifice.
HEAVINESS.— Besides the literal sense of pon- derous, heavy is used in two lig. meanings : 1. Burdensome, as Nu 11" ' I am not able to bear all this people alone, because it is too heavy for me ' ; 1 Es 5" ' But tlie heatlien of the land lying heavy apon the inhabitants of .Judea, . . . hindered their building' (^(voiMWMft'LFritzsche conjee. dwiKel/icva.} '«f ip Tj Uv!tU(f) ; Wis IV ' Over them only was