Of more importance, however, is the witness cf the Apocryphal and Pseudepigraphical writings. These books reflect a remarkable variety of opinions, which it is impossible to harmonize, and many of which were extremely fantastic. In the later Jewish belief Sheol appears to be regarded as a place of moral issues, with preliminary rewards and punishments, and with different divisions in it for different classes of the departed. The more prevalent view seems to have been that the world of the dead had two sections separated by a wall or a chasm—one for the righteous, and one for the unrighteous. But the opinion also was held that Sheol had four divisions—one for the righteous who on earth suffered death for their righteousness’ sake; one for sinners who on earth suffered penalty for their sins ; one for others of the just ; and one for sinners who were not punished on earth (Znoch 20, 102"). But in addition to these, which were no doubt the prevalent beliefs and were held especially by the Pharisees, there was also the opinion, favoured especially by Jews influenced by Alexandrian thought, that the separation of the righteous from the unrighteous took place immediately after death, and that the souls of the just were received by God into heaven (Wisdom 3 410 5°17; cf. Jos. Ant. XVII. i. 3, Bell. Jud. τι. viii. 14). The Essenes, again, are reported to have held the abode of the departed just to be neither in the under-world nor in
eaven, but in a Paradise belonging to earth itself; and this idea also appears elsewhere (e.g. Enoch 32°-* ete.). There is reason to say that by our Lord’s time various ideas of Paradise had become current among the Jewish people. So that sometimes it was thought of as an earthly place or scene, sometimes as a heavenly, sometimes as a thing of the distant future. Sometimes it was supposed to be hid in heaven and to be destined to reveal itself on earth, and sometimes it was sup- posed to be destined to realize itself in the perfected theocracy, and to be transported to Sion.
This idea of a Paradise somewhere on earth appears frequently in the Book of Enoch, in the
500k of Jubilees (ch. 4), and elsewhere. It per- sisted into Christian times, and on even to the Middle Ages (cf. Thilo, Cod. Apoc. ete.). In 4 Ezr we find also the idea that the Paradise which formed the dwelling-place of man in his integ- rity was made before the earth (17). It is im- plied in this that the original Paradise was not of the earth, and so the book speaks elsewhere of a heavenly Paradise (6-7). And this upper Para- dise is practically a Paradise of the future. Select souls, such as Enoch, Elijah, Moses, are indeed received into it immediately, and Ezra himself was to be so received. But it is not exhibited as the present dwelling-place of the righteous generally.
ie pass into preliminary abodes in the under- world,
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A special interest belongs here to the Book of Enoch, although the composite nature of its contents and the different ideas which are expressed in its different sections make it difficult to define the precise force of its testimony asa whole. In its more recent parts and in the Noshic fragments the primeval Paradise is in view, and it is described repeatedly as on earth itself (207), among the more mysterious parts of earth (652 1068), in the east |
| heavenly abodes (394 411. 2481 7
of the earth. It is visited by Enoch in his journey (82). Enoch and Elijah are taken up into it (608 875-4 8982), and other righteous souls are understood to be included “608. 33), The veneral idea of the under-world as the gathering place of all the Seat: with different sections in it for the evil and the good, seems at the same time to subsist (82. 10212 1037). In the older parts of the book, again, the Messianic kingdom is represented as one hid in heaven at present, and to be revealed on earth hereafter ; and in these parts the dwellings of the righteous appear to be 711437), The passages bearing more directly on Paradise itself are these :—824, which speaks of the ‘garden of justice,’ with its varieties of trees, and refers to the earthly Paradise ; 60-23, which also speaks of the ‘garden where the chosen and holy ones shall dwell’—*‘ the en of the Just’; 61!2, which refers to the ‘chosen who dwell in the garden of life’; 708-4, in which the seer is said to have seen the ‘ place for the chosen and the just,’ and in it ‘ the first fathers and the just, who dwell in the place from the beginning’; and 773 where the ‘ fourth quarter called the north’ is said to be divided into three parts—one for the dwelling of men, one for the seas, the valleys, the winds, and the streams, and the third for ‘the garden of justice.’ The ideas which are expressed in these passages, therefore, are far from consistent, and the same is stil’ more obviously the case with the book as a whole. In 87-7 and in the Noahic fragments the garden is the abode of th departed just; but in 1-37 the righteous dead dwell in a special division of Sheol. The garden in view in 323 ete. is the earthly Paradise; but in 37-70 it is the heavenly. The locality of Paradise varies in different sections. In 3228 the garden lies in the east ; in 7024 between north and west ; in 773 in the north. The accounts of those who ἜΡΡΕΙ it alsodiffer. In 828 itappears to be empty ; in 605. 3 6112 it is the abode of the righteous and elect in Enoch and Noah's time ; in 7024 the fathers are found in it; in 8952 it is described as receiving Enoch and Elijah. (See the ae of the Book of Enoch by Dillmann, Schodde, and Charles Among other writings of this class a special value belon;