The most striking example of this transcentJent conception of salvatiun is found in the SiinililiKles of the ISoak of Knoch (;i7- 70; Cllarl^ia, 1J.C. 94-64). In tliis rc-niarU:il)le writing, whicli in many resperta anticipates most clearly the NT concepliun of the ^lorilied Christ, the Messiah is conceived of as a strictly supernatural beinjj. Clothed with wisdom and righteousness, he sits on tlie throne of his glory (4.^^) to judge all living heings, whether niwil or angi-ls (40* ;)1- 5.')4 02-'). liy the word of hia mouth he slays the wicked (02-). Heaven and earth are trans- formed (45*- °) antl made fit for the dwelling of the redeemed community, whose memliers, clothed with life(62i'J)» resplendent with light (39"), with faces shining with joy (61^), become angels in heaven (.'»!*), and dwell in closest communion with their redeemer (Gii'-*), in the glory of bis eternal kingdom (49-').
This passage is specially interesting because it puts the Messianic Kingdom in the world to come. The author knows only one salvation, even the eternal salvation of the new world. In other books, however, we have a difTerent conception. The Messiah "s Kingdom, which is of temporary duration, belongs to this world, not to the next. Thus the author of Enoch 91-104 looks for a millennial kingdom of three world-weeks preceding the transformation of nature which ushers in the new world (9;j^h'). The same idea reappears in the Slavonic Enoch, Baruch, and 2 Esdras. For aetaila see Millennium, where references and quotations are givelL Doubtless this idea was the result of a compromise between the earlier and simi)ler view of salvation which placed it upon this earth, and that later and more transcendent conception whose growth we have been tracing. Whatever its origin, it was an idea which had wide currency, meeting us not only in Jewish hut in early Christian literature as well, and being represented, within the NT itself, by the Millennium of the Apocalypse.
Side by side with this growing transcendence we note a further development of the individualistic tendency. This appears most clearly in connexion with the life after death. The doctrine of the resurrection, which in Isaiah and Daniel is applied to some men only, is further extended. While the older sceptical tendency still survives in Sad- duceeisni, the belief in a universal resurrection wins more and more adherents. With this change the character of the conception alters. Instead of exhausting its -significance in connexion with the Messianic Kingdom as the means of entrance for the righteous upon joys which they could not otherwise enjoy, it becomes the channel of uni- versal retribution. As the righteous rise to be bles.sed, so the wicked are raised that they may receive the recompense of their sins (beginnings in Dn 12- ; cf. also Enoch 22" 51'- -, Ajioc. Bar SO'-" 50. 61, 2 Es 7"'-'" ; yet note that in many places resurrection is still only of the righteous, e.g. Enoch 9U»'' 01'° 923 ioqh, Ps-Sol 3'» 14'-»- 15'»"-: cf. on this whole subject Wendt, Lehre Jesu, ii. 45-49).
But the moralization of the life after death does not stoi> here. It extends also to the intermediate state. Little by little, Sheol loses its aspect of colourless monotony. It becomes the scene of preliminary rewards and punishments. It has ita compartments where the wicked are kept separat* from the righteous— the former in great pain, waiting the eternal judgment ; the latter in a bright s]iot, where there is a spring of water (Eiux^h 22"' " ; yet note that punishment is only for those who have died and hccii buried ' without incurring judgment in their lifetime,' '"). In the Similitudes the elect are represenletl as dwelling in the garden of life (61", cf. 70* 61 1" • the garden where the elect and righteous dwell, where my grandfather was taken up, the seventh from Adam'; GD-^ 'the garden of the righteous'; 77' 'the garden of righteousness'). 'Ihis place of relimiiiaiy blessedness, at lirst tenanted only by h and Elijah, afterwards by all the rights
pre Ln
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eons (cf. 60*), develops into the Paradise of NT times ; see Paradise. Thus side by side with tlie preliminary blessedness of the milleiinial kiii^doiii we have the rigliteous enjoyiii}; foret;usles of saj- vation in the life immediately after death.
The efl'ect of this new view of the life after death was inevitably to diminish the relative import- ance of the final salvation. In those writings which, under Greek influence, developed the idea of immortality (i.e. Philo, Wisdom, 4 Maccabees), tlie doctrine of an intermediate state falls away altogether, and souls are repre.sented as entering upon their final award at deatli {cf. Wis 3'"^ 4'", cf. v.» 4 Mac 13'" 53" 18="). Even where this is not the case, as in Slavonic Enoch, we •lind the tendency more and more to si>iritualize the earlier conceptions. Resurrection is no longer a return to earthly conditions, but, as in 1 Corinthians, the putting on of a new organism fitted to the life of the heavenly kingdom (Enocli 22'"'"). Paradise is no longer the abode of the righteous in the inter- mediate state, from whicli they are raised to enter a higher state of blessedness, but the place of their eternal habitation (Apoc. Bar 51", 2 Es 8"). Sheol is more and nmre identified with Gehenna as the place of final punishment of the wicked (Enoch 56" 63'" 99" 103', 2 Es 8«), and loses its character as an intermediate abode of righteous and wicked alike. Thus more and more we note the tendency, which can be paralleled in Christian history, to break down the middle wall between the intermediate and final states, and to make death the real dividing line in human destiny.