(b) The Intermediate State. — As long as St. Paul expected the Return in the immediate future, there was no logical place for any thought of the Inter- mediate State of the 'dead in Christ.' Probably St. Paul, like many Jews, believed in a ' waiting- place ' for the faithful souls of former generations, who had been evangelized by the ' Descent into Hell ' (Eph 49 ; cf. 1 P S^^ ^% But the Christian, when he departs, will be ' with Christ' (Ph 1-'^) — a phrase scarcely applicable to an ' Intermediate State' (cf. 2 Co o^"^''). If (as seems most probable) Onesiphorus was dead when 2 Ti V^ was written, St. Paul did not scruple to pray for the dead. Yet such a prayer is but the instinctive act of a spiritu- ally-minded man, to whom friendship is a bond too strong to be severed by death ; and it would be unwise to deduce from it that St. Paul held a reasoned-out theory concerning the possibility of moral change in the life to come, to say nothing of a clear-cut doctrine of 'purgatory.'
(c) The Resurrection. — To the Jews a doctrine of the resurrection did not appear strange, though
the question 'In what shape shall the dead rise?' is found, e.g. in Apoc. Baruch, xlix. 2. But among the Gentiles, even where a belief in immortality was present, a resurrection was incredible (Ac 26*). So, as long as St. Paul 'spake as a Jew,' he simply affirmed the resurrection without comment [e.g. 1 Th 4'^'-); but, when he had to conmiend the gospel to educated Gentiles, a new line of argument became necessary, such as we find in 1 and 2 Cor- inthians. A brief outline of the famous passages
1 Co 15, 2 Co 4 and 5 is all that can be attempted here. The chief points to note are : (a) he bases the Christian hope on the historical fact of Christ's Resurrection (1 Co lo'*"") ; (^) he argues from the analogy of the seed (1 Co 15^"'-) — an argument which would appeal to the Gentile no less than to the Jew ; (7) he teaches an upward movement in history (1 Co 15^), implying that the resurrection- life will be no mere replica of this life, but some- thing higher and greater ; (5) the resurrection- body will not be 'flesh and blood' (1 Co 15^°), but a 'spiritual' body (1 Co IS""^). Herein St. Paul difiers alike from the materialistic conception of the resurrection and from the Gentile idea that the soul at death is freed from the encumbrance of a body. In some passages St. Paul does indeed seem to disparage the body (2 Co 5^) ; but he clearly teaches that the highest ideal is not to be stripped of the body, and lead a bodiless existence (which would render self-expression unthinkable), but rather to be ' clothed upon ' with a higher type of body, adapted to be the organ through whicli the 'ego' may fully express itself in the 'spiritual' sphere of existence (2 Co 5--^; cf. 1 Co32i)- This ' transformation ' of our mode of life is to take place at the Last Day (1 Co lo^^'-) ; yet the spiritual trans- formation of the believer in this present life is described in similar language (2 Co 3'*) ; and indeed the two are not irreconcilable, for the last-named is an 'earnest' of the future resurrection (cf. Ph S'"- '1, 2 Ti 2'8),
The Chiliastic doctrine of a reign of Christ on earth, in an intervening period between a ' first ' and 'second' Resurrection (cf. Rev 20^''^), does not appear in St. Paul ; the ' reign of Christ ' in 1 Co 15'-' is far more applicable to the working of Christ through the Church, which was in progress when St. Paul wrote.
Whether St. Paul believed in a gener-al resuiTec- tion of all men seems doubtful ; some passages (e.g. Ro 8^') suggest that the resurrection is conditionnl upon the possession of the Spirit of Christ ; but since he taught that the judgment is to be universal, we may perhaps infer that the scope of the resurrec- tion will be co-extensive.
((/) Final destinies. — Normally St. Paul adopts the usual view that the wicked go to ' eternal destruction' and the believers to 'eternal life' (2 Co 2'^'-, etc. ) ; but the latter aspect receives much greater emphasis than the former. The thought of the ' unendingness ' of final destinies is not pro- minent in the Pauline Epistles ; sometimes the word aidbvtos seems used to express intensity rather than interminable duration (e.g. ' eternal destruc- tion,' 2 Th P, or ' an eternal weight of glory,'
2 Co 4^^). There are some passages where St. Raid's words suggest the hope of the final salvation of all men (1 Co 15-*; cf. Ro 11^^). Such a conclusion seems naturally to follow from the infinite love of God ; but it is hard to reconcile with the fact of human sin.
(3) The influence of Gentile thought upon St. Paul's eschatology. — (a) Greek influence. — On this subject various views are held : some contend that ' the eschatological views of Paul mark a transition from purely Jewish to Hellenistic notions' (P. Gardner, The Religious Experience of St. Paul, 1911, p. 126) ; others will scarcely admit