RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Immer Immortality
of Sheol; on the other hand, in individual pseudepigraphies, the hope of the future is more definitely presented. Enoch teaches an absolutely universal resurrection (xxxvii.-lxxi.), yet other chapters (i.xxxvi. and lxxii.-cv.) and also the Psalms of Solomon mention only a resurrection of the pious. II Maccabees teaches the resurrection of all. The result of the development of this hope is: belief in a conscious life after death in a bright paradise or a dark hades, a communion with the pious of all ages. Some of the pious, like Enoch and Elijah, pass at once into perfect communion with God. A general resurrection precedes the judgment; it closes with the annihilation of the godless. The resurrection is variously pictured as a sudden divine deed, or a gradual development. In the latter portion of Enoch (lxi. 12) Paradise (in the east between heaven and earth) is the meeting-place of all the blessed; in the other sections only for Enoch and Elijah. Hades lies in the west. The earth is to be without men for seven days, then come resurrection, judgment, and damnation for the majority. The Sadducees denied the resurrection and endurance of the soul in connection with a body (Josephus, Ant. XVIII. , i. 4; Mark xii. 18; Acts xxiii. 8), or at least either regarded it as problematical or ignored it. The Talmud distinguished the mere continuance of the soul from the miracle of resurrection by which body and soul were permanently reunited. The Essenes appear to have taught a natural immortality of the soul (cf. Matt. x. 28). Philo regarded the soul as essentially imperishable, temporarily imprisoned in the body. The Book of Wisdom combined natural immortality and an intimation of preexistence (viii. 19 sqq.) with the general Pharisaic hope. Death, the consequence of sin, due to the devil's envy, but unnatural to man, is to a pious and just man a fortunate gift of God; the dead return to their true form of existence. According to the Talmud the departed have knowledge of earthly events; after the judgment some of the justified have opportunity for moral improvement (cf. Wisdom xiii. 9). Others are the perfectly pious who, according to Shammai, having never sinned, are sealed in the book of life; while a third class, the hopeless transgressors, are written in the book of damnation and are handed over to Gehenna (cf. A. Edersheim, Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, ii. 791-796, New York, 1884). The school of Hillel taught that obdurate, sinners, whether Jew or Gentile, after a twelvemonth's torment in Gehenna, are destroyed by fire. After Christ the prevailing doctrine vacillated between eternity of the punishment of hell, absolute destruction by fire, either outer or inner, or additions to the doctrine of restoration or of a gradual purification, transformation, and glorification.
Jesus and Paul sided with the Pharisaic eschatology (Matt. xxii. 23 sqq.; Acts xxiii. 6 sqq.). The
notion of zoe aionios fluctuated be-
3- New- tween " everlasting " and " eternal,"
Testament the latter in the sense of the Fourth
Teaching. Gospel is not strange to the synoptics
(cf. Matt. xxii. 32; Mark xii. 26 sqq.). Jesus' idea of the future is distinguished from that of the Pharisees (1) by the spiritualizing and ethici-
zing of the aims and means of the resurrection (Matt. xvi. 25 sqq.); (2) through the conscious distinction between form and content (cf. Matt. xi. 14-15 with xiii. 9-13); (3) by transcending a natural in favor of a universal ideal (Matt. viii. 11, xxi. 43, xxiv. 31 sqq.); instead of the judgment of the Gentiles by pious Israelites, the Son of Man judges men out of their own mouths (Matt. xxv. 31-46, xii. 37; cf. John xii. 47-48). Traces of "metempsychosis " also appear (Matt. xi. 14, xvii. 12). Herod Antipas's identification of Jesus with the murdered Baptist witnesses to the popular conviction that earlier prophets may be reincarnated as heralds of the Messianic time (Matt. xiv. 2; Luke ix. 7-9) . Soul and body were sharply distinguished (Matt. x. 28). In this general belief, the resurrection of Christ became a new factor.
Paul spoke now of simply passing over into the future life (Phil. i. 23), now of a transformation (I Cor. xv. 51). But it is uncertain whether the glorified man is more properly described as his true self (II Cor. iv. 16), as a new planting upon the ruins of the old man (I Cor. xv. 35-55), or (cf. Rom. xi.) as a grafting into the latter; also, whether the " departure " of the soul " to be at home with the Lord " (II Cor. v. 8) is a sleeping, a dreaming, or a conscious entrance into another sphere of existence. Paul's presentation is enriched with such figures as the " book of life " (Phil. iv. 3), " sting of death " (I Cor. xv. 55). From his reference to the stars and the seed-corn (I Cor. xv. 37) one must not infer that the resurrection body was not specifically different, a newly fashioned duplicate of the perishing body. The Apocalypse pictures (1) a repose of many of the blessed for more than a thousand years (xiv. 13) until the second resurrection (xx. 5 sqq.), from which some are excepted (ver. 4), others experience a yet earlier quickening (xi. 11). (2) A speedy recompense for the pious sufferers (cf. iii. 11-21 with xii. 10-12). These pictures are to be regarded not as dogmatic constructions, but as the impress of pious feeling, even the distinction between first and second resurrection (chap, xx.), and between the first and second death (ii. 11, xx. 14), as well as between the temporary rule of the risen martyrs on earth (Chiliasm) and the future changeless life (see Millennium, Millenaeianism) . Many of these pictures, as xx. 3-7, originate in pre-Christian Messianic hopes (Daniel, Enoch, IV Ezra); also " resurrection of the just," of the good to life, of the wicked to judgment (Luke xiv. 14; Matt. xxv. 46; John v. 29), and relation of Hades to Gehenna (Matt. xi. 23). The figurative forms in which the future hope is realistically painted are almost everywhere referred to the spiritual-ethical new creation as this should have been fulfilled in this world: palingenesia, kaine-ktisis, anastasis, zoopoiesis, endusasthai. For the dwelling of God in mankind, cf. John i. 14 with Rev. xxi. 3 and both with II Cor. vi. 16: since this is as truly future as present, transcendent and becoming as well as already immanent and existent, the figurative character of this aspect of the immortal life is evident, especially when Lev. xxvi. 11-12; Num. xii. 8; Ex. xxiv. 10 are compared with Matt. v. 8; John i. 18; and I Tim. vi. 16.
Immortality