See, further, artt. Judgment and Trial-at- Lav,-.
LiTERATCHE. — C. GorB, Sermon on the Mount, London, 1897, ch. ix. ; J. B. Mayor, The EpiMe of St. Jame^'^, do. 1897, p. 221; IJ. R. Seeley, Erce Humo^^, do. 1S76, ch. ix.; J. Martineau, Types of Ethical Theory^, Oxford, 1889, vol. ii.
oii- i- R. Martin Pope.
JUDGMENT, DAMNATION.— The idea of judg- nient is involved in that of government: a ruler, if he is to assert his authority and maintain order, must call recalcitrants to account. Since the Deity has ahvays been thought of as exercising some kind of sovereignty, the idea of judgment may be said to be co-extensive with that of religion.
1. The OT conception. — Long before the days of the great prophets, Israel worshipped Jahweh as a God of judgment. Jahweh avenged not only insults against His own honour, but also deeds of violence and wrong (Gn4i^, Jg 9^*^^). Justice was administered in His name, and as the supreme Judge He saw that right was done. It would, however, be too much to say that His actions were regarded as invariably regulated by a regard for justice. He had His favourites among individuals, and Israel was His favourite nation (1 S 1^^, 2 S 12^*). In the exorcise of His despotic power, He could act in a certain way simply because it so pleased Him. For His rejection of Saul and His surrender of Israel into the hand of the Philistines the older traoition knew no reason. Not tiU we come to the great prophets do judgment and justice appear as equivalent terms.
The prophetic conception of Divine judgment can be summed up in a few sentences. Jahweh is the World-ruler and Judge : not only Israel but all nations of the earth stand at His bar (Am 1. 2). His judgments rest on purely moral grounds and are absolutely just (Is 28^^ 45-'). Even in the case of Israel, justice must take its course (Am 3^^). Though individuals are occasionally spoken of as suffering for their private sins, in the main it is not with the individual but with the nation that Jahweh reckons. The individual is merged in the State and shares its fate. The theatre of judg- ment is this earth : of reward or punishment beyond death the prophets know nothing. Good and bad aUke descend to Sheol and share the same bodyless, pithless existence in separation from Jahweh (Is 14^-i«, Ps 6-^). Judgment, at least so far as Israel is concerned, never appears, except perhaps in Amos, as an end in itself and the ultimate law of Jahweh's working. Israel has a worth in Jahweh's eyes ; He refuses to give her up ; and, when His judgments have accompUshed their discipHning work, salvation wiU surely follow (Is 40'- ^). That the correspondence between desert and lot in the existing order is but imperfect, and salvation an object of hope rather than of experi- ence, are facts to which the prophets are keenly ahve. But their faith finds refuge in the concep- tion of a great day in the near future, 'the day of the Lord,' in which Jahweh will interpose in a decisive way in human affairs, to overt lirow His enemies and inaugurate a new and happier era. For Israel this day will be one of sifting and purging, for her oppressors a day of terror and anguish (Is 2' ' ■ ^^, Jl 2""^'^) . To this conception, as we shall see, the subsequent development attached itself.
^Yith the Book of Daniel a new chapter opens in the history^ of Hebrew eschatology. 'I beheld,' we read, 'tiU thrones were placed, and one that was ancient of days did sit. . . . Thousand thou- sands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him : the judg- ment was set and the books were opened. . . . And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt' (Dn 7' 12-;. Compared with the outlook of the great
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prophets, this conception of a resurrection of the dead for judgment and sentence is something alto- gether new. Written in the crisis of the Macca- btean struggle (165 B.C.), the Book of Daniel forms the first of the long series of Jewish Apocalj'pses. For an understanding of NT eschatology these writings are of such cardinal importance that it is necessary to give some account of their leading ideas.
Apocalyptic had its roots in the hope held up before Israel by the prophets of a glorious day in the future, 'the day of the Lord,' when her op- pressors would be overthrown, and she, purified by her sufferings, exalted to a position of unparalleled splendour and power. Through her fidelity to God and her supremacy among the nations God's reign on earth would be visibly realized, and Nature itself would be made fairer and more generous to grace the new order. This national hope proved itself vital enough to survive the most disillusion- ing experiences, but somewhere in the dark days of Persian or Greek ascendancy it was subjected to radical modification, and fitted into a world- view widely different from that to which it origin- ally belonged. The new development was char- acterized in the first place by a thorough -going pessimism. In the eyes of apocalyptic writers the existing world or age is incurably evil, incapable of being transformed by any conceivable process of moral renewal into a kingdom of God. Human beings are in the mass hopelessly corrupt, and wicked men occupy the seats of power. And this is not all. A portentous development of the belief in evil spirits lends to apocalyptic pessimism a still darker hue. The world is the haunt of throngs of such spirits, who, under Satan their head, form a demonic hierarchy. With unwearied activity they prosecute their hellish work, thwarting the will of the Almighty, hounding on the heathen persecutors of His people, inciting men to wickedness and smiting them with disease. To these sinister figures God, by an inscrutable decree, has sur- rendered the government of the world. Satan is the world's real master. But, despite this pessi- mism with regard to the existing order, apocalyptic writers have no thought of surrendering their faith in God or in His promise to Israel. Only, their faith, finding nothing in the present to which it can attach itself, takes refuge in the future and becomes eschatological. The present world is given up to destruction, and religious interest transferred to the new and glorious world whicli God will reveal when the old has been swept away. With passionate eagerness the great catastrophe that shall open the way for the Kingdom is antici- pated, and the horizon scanned for signs of its approach. When it arrives, its opening scene will be one of judgment. To the bar of the Almighty the whole world, Jews as well as Gentiles, and — what is still more significant — the dead as well as the living, will be gathered to answer for the deeds they have done. The fate of each soul having been decided, sentence will at once be executed. For the righteous there is reserved a blessed and death- less life in the presence of God ; for the wicked, everlasting destruction.