97

them, or in a distant land: Abraham gave up the ghost, and died in a good old age, an old man and full of years; and was gathered unto his people; though his body was about to be deposited in the cave of Machpelah near Hebron, while those of his kindred slept in the plains of Chaldea and Mesopotamia. Of course, to be gathered unto his people, was something else than to be buried with them; it was to descend into Sheol, and there to join the hosts of the departed. A distinction also seems occasionally to be marked, in another way, between the import of the phrase in question, and the act of sepulture: 'Isaac gave up the ghost, and died, and was gathered unto his people, being old and full of days;'- and then it is added, as of what took place afterwards, his sons Esau and Jacob buried him." 28 When Jacob was dying, he said to his sons, 'I am to be gathered unto my people; bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite, in the cave that is in the field of Machpelah. . . .. And when Jacob had made an end of commanding his sons, he gathered up his feet into the bed, and yielded up the ghost, and was gathered unto his people.'" Now, the narrative proceeds, and relates that his burial did not take place for seventy days afterwards, when his sons left Egypt in order to carry him up to the cave of Machpelah. From these and similar examples, it appears that the phrase, to be gathered unto one's people, was used to signify the same idea, in a general respect, which Jacob expressed in a particular case, when he said, 'I will go down into Sheol unto my son.' That the dead were supposed to retain some kind of existence, is evident, moreover, from the circumstance that there were those among the Jews who affected to consult familiar spirits, and to inquire of the dead concerning future events: 10 a pretence which could have found no countenance, but from a general persuasion that the deceased were still in being.

Such are the indications, though vague, which we find in the Pentateuch itself. We must here add a circumstance from another quarter. It will be recollected that our Saviour, on a certain occasion, alleged, against the Sadducees, a text from

See also, Numb. xx. 24-26.

9 Gen. xlix. 29-33. 1. 1-13.

8 Gen. xxxv. 29. See

7 Gen. xxv. 8. also, xxv. 8, 9. 10 Lev. xix. 31. xx. 6, 27. Deut. xviii. 11. A necromancer, mentioned in the text last referred to, is, literally, one who inquires of the dead. That the same was meant, at least afterwards, by one that hath a familiar spirit, may be seen in the account of the witch of Endor, 1 Sam. xxviii, 7 — 12.

the book of Exodus, as implying, contrary to their sentiments, that the dead still live unto God: 'But,' says he to them, as touching the resurrection [or, as Dr. Campbell renders it, the quickening] of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you, by God, saying, [Exod. iii. 6,] I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.' 11 His argument, here, when fully developed, appears to be this: that as God declared to Moses, long after the death of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that he was still the God of those individuals, it is evident that they were still in being; since it would be absurd to say that he was the God of those who did not exist. By this use of the text, Christ silenced the Sadducees. Now, in order to justify him in this procedure, it seems necessary to admit that he regarded the books of Moses as actually recognizing at least some kind of existence after death, such as the Sadducees denied; otherwise, we must suppose that he practised the duplicity of extorting from those writings an idea which he knew they did not contain. If, however, we have taken a correct view of the Pentateuch, it does recognize that very idea; connecting it, to be sure, in many passages, with some fanciful imagery, with which the ignorance of the time had arrayed it, and which our Saviour judiciously avoided, by choosing a text in which the bare fact only of surviving existence was implied. And this fact, we know, the Sadducees of Christ's day disowned. Their denial of it was, indeed, the source of all their errors on the subject; and accordingly our Saviour showed them, from the Pentateuch, that they erred, 'not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God.'12

"Matt. xxii. 31, 32. Parallels: Mark xii. 26, 27. Luke xx. 37, 38. For reasons that will appear in the next note, I think that Dr. Campbell's translation of these passages gives, to a reader of the present day, a better idea of the original meaning, than would readily be obtained from our common version. He renders them thus: Matt. xxii. 23-33. The same day came Sadducees to him, who say that there is no future life, and thus addressed him, Rabbi ... &c. ... Jesus answering said... &c. ... But as to the quickening of the dead, have ye not read what God declared to you,' &c. Mark, xii. 18–27. Then came Sadducees to him, who say that there is no future life... .&c. . . . Jesus answering said unto them. . . &c. . . . But as to the dead, that they are quickened, have ye not read in the book of Moses,' &c. Luke xx. 27-39. Afterwards some of the Sadducees, who deny a future state, came to him with this question,' &c.

12 It may seem, especially from the tenor of our common version, and on account of our fixed usage of some of the terms there found, that Christ quoted the text from Exodus for the purpose of proving the particular fact

With regard, however, to the character of that surviving identity, it is plain, from the facts detailed in the beginning of this section, that Moses and his cotemporaries had no distinct nor definite views. The whole subject was, to them, like a

But

of the resurrection of the dead, in the Christian sense of that phrase. in this supposition there are difficulties to me insuperable: 1st. The text itself, even when taken with our Saviour's comment, cannot possibly be made to imply a still future resurrection of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, from the dead, but merely a continuance of their being; and 2dly, we nowhere find, in all the Pentateuch, the remotest allusion to the resurrection which St. Paul, for instance, teaches. It had not been revealed in Moses' time; so that, had our Saviour quoted him as authority for it, he would have adduced him in testimony to a truth of which he was totally ignorant. It is true that the Evangelists represent Christ, on this occasion, as disputing with the Sadducees concerning a resurrection, a raising of the dead, and as introducing the text in question with the remark, but as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read,' &c. Now, this language does indeed strike us, at the present day, as fixing the reference directly to the particular idea in question, because we are accustomed so to use it. Those expressions have, with us, become like technical terms, invariable in their application. But we are told, that such was not the case with the original phrases in Christ's time, and that, on the contrary, they then had a great latitude of signification. I subjoin a long extract from Dr. Campbell's note, in which these points are more fully discussed:

( • The word ανάστασις," says he, or rather the phrase, ανάστασις τῶν νεκρῶν, [resurrection of the dead,] is indeed the common term by which the resurrection, properly so called, is denominated in the New Testament. Yet, this is neither the only, nor the primitive, import of the word arotaois, It denotes simply, being raised from inactivity to action, or from obscurity to eminence, or a return to such a state after an interruption. The verb drioru [to raise,] has the like latitude of signification; and both words are used in this extent by the writers of the New Testament, as well as by the Seventy. Agreeably therefore to the original import, rising from a seat is properly termed ardoraots, so is awaking out of sleep, or promotion from an inferior condition. The word occurs in this last sense, Luke ii. 34. In this view, when applied to the dead, the word denotes, properly, no more than a renewal of life to them, in whatever manner this happen. Nay, that the Pharisees themselves did not universally mean, by this term, the re-union of soul and body, is evident from the account which the Jewish historian gives of their doctrine, as well as from some passages in the gospels; of both which I had occasion to take notice in Dissert. vi. pt. ii. 19. To say, therefore, in English, in giving the tenets of the Sadducees, that they deny the resurrection, is, at least, to give a very defective account of their sentiments on this topic. It is notorious, not only from Josephus, and other Jewish writers, but from what is said, Acts xxiii. 8, that they denied the existence of angels, and all separate spirits..... In the common version, they are said to deny the resurrection, that is, that the soul and body shall hereafter be united; and our Lord brings an argument from the Pentateuch to prove - what? Not that they shall be reunited, (to this it has not even the most distant relation,) but that the soul survives the body, and subsists after the body is dissolved. This, many would have admitted, who denied the resurrection. Yet so evidently did it strike at the root of the scheme of the Sadducees, that they were silenced by it, and, to the conviction of the hearers, confuted,' &c. Note on Matt. xxii. 23. See also. Rosenmüller, in loco, who takes a similar view of this passage.

prospect dimly seen under the obscurity of night: that there was something of the kind, they were aware; but what it was, they neither perceived, nor indeed do they seem to have inquired. One would suppose, that they never proceeded so far as to attribute to it much, if any, activity, and that they were accustomed to regard it rather as a dull, lethargic state of being, whose torpidness was scarcely affected by motives, and enlivened by no interest. That they never thought of it as a state of rewards and punishments, appears from their profound silence, and from the fact that all the retributions which they anticipated, all which Moses proposed, are invariably assigned to the present life.13

In conclusion, we will put together, for the sake of convenience, all the expressions which we find the Jews of this time to have appropriated to their idea, such as it was, of future being. Sheol was the name by which they designated the supposed abode of the departed. To be gathered to their people, was the common phrase, and sometimes, perhaps, to sleep, or lie down with their fathers,14 was used, to signify their entrance into that abode.

II. From the death of Moses, to the Babylonish Captivity: From 1563, B. C. to 605 B. C.

In this period, the only authorities for Jewish opinions and usages, are the following books of the Old Testament, which we shall set down in their supposed chronological order: 15

13 See this fact illustrated at large, Universalist Expositor, Vol. ii. Art. xxxiii. pp. 325–339. - Prof. Stuart finds one, and but one circumstance to show that Moses had any idea of a retribution in the future state. These are his words: As it is now past all doubt, that the ancient Egyp tians (of Moses' time) did believe and teach, very expressly, the doctrine in question; I am not able to comprehend how Moses, "who was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians," should have been ignorant of this doctrine.' (Exegetical Essays on several words relating to future punishment, pp. 107, 108.) To say nothing of the weakness of his argument, it may be well to remark, that the very fact on which he founds it, is by no means past all doubt, viz. that the Egyptians of Moses' time, did believe and teach the doctrine of future retribution. I suppose he relies, for authority, on some of Champollion's late readings of the Egyptian Hieroglyphics. How imperfect, and, in most cases, how utterly uncertain, is the information thus derived, may be seen by consulting, among other publications, the Edinburgh Review for July last.

14 Deut. xxxi. 14 - 16.

15 It is well known that the date of some of these books is quite uncertain. I have arranged them in the order, which I suppose to be the most

Joshua, Judges, Ruth, the two books of Samuel, larger part of the Psalms, and of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Jonah, Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Micah, Joel, Nahum, Habakkuk, Job, Zephaniah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel; of which the last three were written, either wholly or in part, in the beginning of the captivity. Nearly the whole of the books of Kings and of Chronicles must also be placed in this catalogue; since, though written afterwards, the facts which they relate belong

here.

From the death of Moses, till the time of David, a space of about five hundred years, we meet with no allusion to our subject, unless in a single occurrence of the significant phrase, 'gathered unto their fathers:' and also all that generation [which entered Canaan under Joshua,] were gathered unto their fathers,' 16 although their bodies were buried far from those of their ancestors. This dearth of allusion, however, for so long a space, may be owing to the scantiness of the remains which have descended to us from that time, consisting only of the books of Joshua, Judges, and Ruth, which contain, moreover, little but narrative of the simplest kind. That the views of the people with respect to a future state, remained about the same as formerly, is probable, from the fact that such was the case immediately afterwards, when the traces of their opinion again appear.

1056 B. C. In the reign of Saul, the pretence of consulting the dead seems to have been common in Israel, since that monarch is said to have cut off those that had familiar spirits, the necromancers, and the wizards, out of the land. But he himself, before the battle in which he lost his kingdom and his life, was at length driven by despair to seek the aid of one of these impostors; which shows his belief both in their art, and in the existence of the dead from whom they affected to extort the required information. As the story will serve to illustrate several points in the popular notions of that day, we shall rehearse it with some particularity: Samuel, the patron and inspired counsellor of the king, was dead and buried at Ramah,

generally approved, except in the case of the book of Job. In placing this, I have disregarded the common notion of its extreme antiquity, and followed Rosenmüller, who dates it between the times of Hezekiah and Zedekiah. Scholia in Job. in Compend. redact. Prolegom. § 7.

16 Judges ii. 10. 171 Sam. xxv. 1; xxviii. 3, 9.