terval of which the soul was unconscious, would, for it, have no existence. The archbishop for himself thinks that the arguments on the one side are as strong as those on the other. The two considerations which seem to him to favour the doctrine of the sleep of the soul between death and the resurrection, are, first the fact that death is so often called a sleep. The dead are those who are asleep. (1 Thess. xiv. 4.) This expression cannot properly be understood of the body. A dead body can no more be said to sleep than a stone. The fair intimation, therefore, is, as the Archbishop thinks, that the soul sleeps when the body dies. The second consideration is that the New Testament clearly teaches that there is a solemn final judgment at the last day, when the destiny of each soul will be decided for eternity. But this ap- pears inconsistent with the doctrine that the fate of the soul is decided immediately after it leaves the body. He admits that, according to the Scriptures, probation ends with this life, and therefore if the righteous at death pass into a state of happiness and the wicked into a state of misery, they are thereby judged ; and there is no apparent necessity for a future judgment. It is obvious that these arguments have little force against the clear teachings of the Bible, and the faith of the Church universal, and indeed of all mankind. As to the first of the above men- tioned arguments, it is enough to say, that as a dead body and a body asleep are so much alike in appearance, it is the most natural thing in the world to speak of death as an unending sleep. This is done continually by those who are firm believers in the continued conscious activity of the soul after death. The other argument has, if possible, still less weight. Although the fate of every man should be decided for himself and to his knowledge at the moment of death, there may be important and numerous reasons why there should be a public, solemn adjudica- tion at the last day, when the secrets of all hearts shall be made known, and the justice of God revealed in the presence of men and angels.
§ 3. Patristic Doctrine of the Intermediate State. Although the true doctrine concerning the state of the dead was, as has been shown, revealed in the Old Testament, it was more or less perverted in the minds of the people. The prevalent idea was that all souls after death descended into Sheol, and there remained in expectation of the coming of the Messiah. When He came it was expected that the Jews, or at least, the faithful,
734 PART IV. Ch. L — STATE OF SOUL AFTER DEATH.
would be raised from the dead, and made partakers of all the glories and blessedness of the Messiah's reign. The views pre- sented in the writings of the Rabbins of the condition of the souls in Sheol are not only diverse but inconsistent. The com- mon representation was that Sheol itself was a gloomy, subter- raneous abode, whose inhabitants were shades, weak and power- less, existing in a dreamy state ; the best of them not in a state of suffering, and yet with no other enjoyment than the anticipa- tion of deliverance when the Messiah should come. At other times, however, more life was attributed to the souls of the de- parted ; and Sheol was represented as divided into two depart- ments, Paradise and Gehenna. In the former were, according to some, all Jews, according to others only those who had faithfully observed the law ; and in the other, the Gentiles. The common opinion was that all the Jews would be raised from the dead, when the Messiah came, and all the Gentiles left forever in the abode of darkness. Paradise, according to this view, was a place of positive enjoyment, and Gehenna a place of positive suffer- ing. It is evident that there is no great difference between this Jewish doctrine in its essential features, and the true doctrine as presented by our Lord in the parable of the rich man and Laz- arus. Both are represented as going into Sheol or Hades. The one was comforted, the other tormented. There was an in- separable barrier between the two. So far both doctrines agree. When the Rabbi Jochanan was dying, he said, " Two paths open before me, the one leading to bliss, the other to torments ; and I know not which of them will be my doom.', 1 " Paradise is sep- arated from hell by a distance no greater than the width of a thread."2
According to many modern interpreters the New Testament writers adopted this Jewish doctrine not only in substance but in its details. (1.) They are represented as teaching that all the people of God who died before the advent of Christ, were con- fined in Sheol, or the under-world. Sheol or Hades, as stated above, is constantly spoken of " as the gloomy realm of shades, wherein are gathered and detained the souls of all the dead gen- erations." The soul at death is said to be dismissed "naked into the silent, dark, and dreary region of the under-world." (2.) That when Christ died upon the cross, He descended " ad inferos," into Hades, or Hell, for the purpose of delivering the
i Talmud, Tract. Barachoth ; quoted by Alger, p. 167.
* Eisenmenger, Entdecktes Judenthum, Konigsberg, 1711; n. cap. v. p. 315.