Substantially the same, as regards Eternity of Punishment, is the view of the School of Hillel (u. s. 17 a). In regard to sinners of Israel and of the Gentiles it teaches, indeed, that they are tormented in Gehenna for twelve months, after which their bodies and souls are burnt up and scattered as dust under the feet of the righteous; but it significantly excepts from this number certain classes of transgressors who go down to Gehinnom and are punished there to ages of ages.' That the Niphal form of the verb used, {hebrew}; must mean punished' and not judged,' appears, not only from the context, but from the use of the same word and form in the same tractate (Rosh haSh. 12 a, lines 7 &c. from top), when it is said of the generation of the Flood that they were punished' surely not judged' - by hot water.' However, therefore the School of Hillel might accentuate the mercy of God, or limit the number of those who would suffer Eternal Punishment, it did teach Eternal Punishment in the case of some. And this is the point in question.
But, since the Schools of Shammai and Hillel represented the theological teaching in the time of Christ and His Apostles, it follows, that the doctrine of Eternal Punishment was that held in the days of our Lord, however it may afterwards have been modified. Here, so far as this book is concerned, we might rest the case. But for completeness' sake it will be better to follow the historical development of Jewish theological teaching, at least a certain distance.
The doctrine of the Eternity of Punishments seems to have been held by the Synagogue throuthout the whole first century of our era. This will appear from the sayings of the Teachers who florished during its course. The Jewish Parable of the fate of those who had not kept their festive garments in readiness or apeared in such as were not clean (Shabb. 152 b, 153 a) has been already quoted in our exposition of the Parables of the Man without the Wedding-garment and of the TenVirgins. But we have more than this. We are told (Ber. 28 b) that, when that great Rabbinic authority of the first century, Rabbi Jochanan ben Zakkai - the light of Israel, the right hand pillar, the mighty hammer' - lay a dying and wept, he accounted for his tears by fear as to his fate in judgment, illustrating the danger by the contrast of punishment by an earthly king whose bonds are not eternal bonds nor his death eternal death,' while as regarded God and His judgment: if He is angry with me, His Wrath is an Eternal Wrath, if He binds me in fetters, His fetters are Eternal fetters, and if He kills me, His death is an Eternal Death.' In the same direction is this saying of another great Rabbi of the first century, Elieser (Shabb, 152 b, about the middle), to the effect that the souls of the righteous are hidden under the throne of glory,' while those of the wicked were to be bound and in unrest ({hebrew}), one Angel hurling them to another from one end of the world to the other - of which latter strange idea he saw confirmation in 1 Sam. xxv. 29. To the fate of the righteous applied, among other beautiful passages, Is. lvii. 2, to that of the wicked Is. lvii. 21. Evidently, the views of the Rabbis of the first century were in strict accordance with those Shammai and Hillel.
In the second century of our era, we mark a decided difference in Rabbinic opinion. Although it was said that, after the death of Rabbi Meir, the ascent of smoke from the grave of his apostate teacher had indicated that the Rabbi's prayers for the deliverance of his matter from Gehenna had been answered (Chag. 15 b), most of the eminent teachers of that period propounded the idea, that in the last day the sheath would be removed which now covered the sun, when its fiery heat would burn up the wicked (Ber. R. 6). Nay, one Rabbi maintained that there was no hell at all, but that that day would consume the wicked, and yet another, that even this was not so, but that the wicked would be consumed by a sort of internal conflaragation.