common (tuv 0e^ri\wp).' It was the fault of Esau, who was not without admirable qualities, that he made no such distinction. To him the most sacred things were common, because he had no spiritual discernment. He despised ' this birthright ' (Gn 25^-) as a thing of no worth. He did not despise the blessing which had material advantages at- tached to it, and he imagined he could retain it even after he had sold the birthright. But the l^oignant moment of disillusionment came, when he realized that the blessing was gone beyond re- call. His regrets were vain : ' he found no place for repentance.' This signihes that there was no means of undoing what he had done ; the past was irreparable. James Strahan.
ESCHATOLOGY.—
I. The earliest Christian eschatology.
1. Sources.
2. The Jewish background of ideas.
3. The new Christian niessacfe.
4. The chief doctrines of the Last Things.
6. Extent and importance of the apocatyptic element.
6. Relation to tlie teaching of our Lord.
7. Decluie of the earliest type of Christian eschatology. II. The christian afocalvftjc literature.
1. Revelation of St. John.
2. Non-canonical Christian apocalyjises.
III. THE JOHANXINE TYPE OF EARLY CHRISTIAN ESCHAT-
OLOGY.
1. ' Spirituality' of the teaching.
2. The place of the sacraments.
3. Later history of this tipe of eschatology.
IV. The Pauline tyre of larly Christian eschatology.
1. Eschatology of St. Paul.
2. Eschatology of early Gentile-Christian churches.
Scope of the article. — Our subject is the eschat- ology of the Apostolic Church down to A.D. 100. By ' eschatology ' we understand (1) the doctrine of a certain series of events associated with the end of this world-era and the beginning of another ; and (2) the destiny of the individual human soul after death. We shall deal first with the earliest tj'pe of Christian eschatology, as it Avas taught bj^ the first disciples of our Lord, in the primitive Judteo- Christian communities ; and then we shall en- deavour to trace the various lines along which this primitive teaching was developed and modified.
1. The earliest Christian eschatology. — 1. The sources. — In studying the characteristics of the earliest Christian doctrine of the Last Things, it seems not unreasonalile (in view of the trend of recent scholarship) to base our conclusions with some confidence upon the Acts of the Apostles, as a history ' which in most points, and those essential points, stands the test of reliability' (Harnack, The Acts of the Apostles, Eng. tr., 1909, p. 303). The evidence from the speeches must, perhaps, be used with a little more reserve, but even here there appears to be a growing tendency to recog- nize a real historical value. Evidence supplement- ing that of Acts may be drawn from the Epistles of the NT, particularly James, Hebrews, and 1 Peter, all of which belong to a Judaio-Christian type of thought, though somewhat later in date than the earliest preaching recorded in Acts (see artt. on James, Ep. of ; Hebrews, Ep. to ; Peter, Ep. of). From these NT writings it is possible to gain a fairly clear and definite conception of the earliest Christian eschatology.
2. The Jewish ' background of ideas.' — The type of thought reflected in these earlj- Chi'istian writ- ings is thoroughly and distinctively Jewish. Es- ]iecially is this the case in the earlier chapters of Acts, where the ideas of Jewish apocalyptic form the ' background ' of the i^reaching — a background so familiar that it never needs to be explained or expounded in detail, but yet never allows itself to be altogether forgotten. The men who preached the earliest Christian doctrine of the Last Things had for the most part been brought up in a religious
ESCHATOLOGY
ESCHATOLOGY
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atmosphere impregnated ^vith eschatological ideas. The Judaism in which they ■were living was tlie Judaism which produced apocalyptic writings such as the Book of Jubilees, the Assumption of Moses, the Apocalypse of Baruch, 4 Ezra, etc. ; and they were accustomed to think and speak of their religious hopes in the terms of Jewish apocalyptic. Now, although the details of apocalyptic eschat- ology vary from book to book (see e.g. R. H. Charles in HDB i. 741-749), yet a few fixed points stand out in every case, arranged according to a scheme which had become almost stereotyped in the apocalypses, and which is accepted as axiomatic in the apostolic preaching. This scheme is as follows : (1) the signs foreshadowing the end, (2) the Com- ing of the Messiah, (3) the resurrection of the dead, (4) the Last Judgment, (5) the inauguration of the Kingdom of God. The NT passages in which this 'eschatological scheme' is implied are too numerous to be cited ; for tj-pical examples, see Ac 2"-3« S2»f- 42 10*2 15^5-18 1731^ ja 53-9, He 1 and 2, 1 p 4 6. 7. 17^ 1 Th 4 and 5, 2 Th 2i-i-, etc.
The comparative uniformity with Avhich these 'fixed points' recur in the Jewish apocalyptic eschatology may be traced in part to the Jewish idea of predestination. The events Avere conceived of as already fixed in the mind of God, and (in a sense) already pre-existent in heaven ; so that the progress of history may be regarded as an ' apoca- lypse' or unveiling of the Divine plan Avhich is even now ' ready to be revealed in the last times.' It is necessary to realize this if we would under- stand the force of the Judaeo-Christian appeal to the Old Testament. Modem writers generally hold that the value of prophecy consists primarily in its insight into spiritual truths, and onlj^ indirectly in its foresight into the future ; but to the Jew, a co- incidence between a prophetic prediction and a subse- quent event was a signal proof of Divine inspiration, for it showed that God had ' unveiled ' before the vision of His prophet some detail of that future which was already predestined and lying spread out before His all-seeing eyes (cf. Ac V^«- 2'^-« y^-^ 425-28 1128 1332.41 173. a 1828 2622^ etc., He 4^ 92^, and esp. 1 P 11-').