Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 5.djvu/602

 ESCHATOLOGY

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ESCHATOLOGY

people's hope of a glorious theocratic kingdom that the e.schatology of the individual became prominent; and with the restoration there was a tendency to re- vert to the Tiational point of view. It is true of the C). T. as a whole that the eschatology of the people overshadows that of the inih\idual, though it is true at the same time that, in and through the former, the latter advances to a clear and definite assurance of a personal resurrection from the dead, at least for the children of Israel who are to share, if foimd worthy, in the glories of the Messianic Age.

It is beyond the scope of this article to attempt to trace the growth or describe the several phases of this national eschatology, which centres in the hope of the establishment of a theocratic and Messianic kingdom on earth (see Messias). Howe\'er spiritually this idea may be fovmd expressed in O.-T. prophecies, as we read them now in the light of their progressive fulfilment in the N.-T. Dispensation, the Jewish people as a whole clung to a material and political interpretation of the kingilom, coupling their own domination as a people witii the triumph of God and the worldwide establish- ment of His rule. There is much, indeed, to account for this in the obscurity of the prophecies themselves. The Messias as a distinct person is not always men- tioned in connexion with the inauguration of the king- dom, which leaves room for the expectation of a theo- phany of Jahve in the character of judge and ruler. But even when the person and place of the Messias are tlistinctly foreshadowed, the fusion together in proph- ecy of what we have learned to distinguish as His first anc-1 His second coming tends to give to the whole picture of the Messianic kingdom an eschatological character that belongs in reality only to its final stage. It is thus the resurrection of the dead in Isaias, xxvi, 19, and Daniel, xii, 2, is introduced; and many of the descriptions foretelling " the day of the Lord ", the judgment on Jews and Gentiles, the renovation of the earth and other phenomena that usher in that day, while applicable in a limited sense to contemporary e\-ents and to the inauguration of the Christian Era, are much more appropriately understood of the end of the world. It is not, therefore, surprising that the religioas hopes of the Jewish nation should have be- come so predominantly eschatological, and that the jiopular imagination, foreshortening the perspective of Divine Revelation, should have learned to look for the cstalilishment on earth of the glorious Kingdom of < 'icul, which Christians are assured will be realized only in heaven at the close of the present dispensation.

(4) Passing from these general observations which seem necessary for the true understanding of O.-T. eschatology, a brief reference will be made to the pass- ages which exhibit the growth of a higher and fuller doctrine of immortality. The recognition of individ- ual as opposed to mere corporate responsibility and retribution may be reckoned, at least remotely, as a gain to eschatology, even when retribution is confined chiefly to this life; and this principle is repeatedly recognized in the earliest books. (See Gen., xviii, 25; Kx., xxxii, 3:!; Nimi.,xvi, 22; Deut., vii, 10; xxiv, 16; II K., xxiv, 17; IV K., xiv, 6; Is., iii, 10 sq.; xxxiii, 15 sqq.; Jer., xii, 1 sq.; xvii, 5-10; xxxii, 18 sq.; Ezech., xiv, 12-20; xviii, 4, 18 sqq.; Psalms, piisifim; Prov., ii, 21 .sq.; x, 2; xi, 19, 31; etc.) It is recognized also in the very terms of the problem dealt with in the Book of Job.

But, coming to higher things, we find in the Psalms and in Job the clear expression of a hope or a.s.surance for the just of a life of blessedness after death. Here is voiced, under I)i\-ine in.spiration, the innate crav- ing of the righteous soul for everlasting fellowship with God, the protest of a strong and vivid faith against the popiilar conception of Sheol. Omitting doubtful pa.s.sages, it is enough to refer to Psalms XV (A.V. xvi), xvi (A.V. xvii), xlviii (A.V. xlix), and Ixxii (A.V. Ixxiii). Of these it is not impossible to

explain the first two as prayers for deliverance from some imminent danger of death, but the assurance they express is too absolute and imiversal to admit this interpretation as the niost natural. And this as- surance becomes still more definite in the other two psalms, by reason of the contrast which death is asserted to introtluce between the fates of the just and the impious. The same faith emerges in the Book of Job, first as a hope somewhat ijuestionably expressed, and then as an assured conviction. Despairing of vin- dication in this life and rebelling against the thought that righteousness should remain finally unrewarded, the sufferer seeks consolation in the hope of a renewal of God's friendship beyond the grave: "O that thou wouldest hide me in Sheol, that thou wouldest keep me secret, until thy wrath be past, that thou wouldest appoint me a set time, and remember me. If a man die, shall he live again? All the days of my warfare would I wait, till my release should come" (xiv, 13 sq.). In xvi, 18-xvii, 9, the expression of this hope is more absolute; and in xix, 23-27, it takes the form of a definite certainty that he will see God, his Re- deemer: "But I know that my Redeemer liveth and that he shall stand up at the last upon the earth [dust]; and after this my skin has been destroyed, yet from [al. without] my flesh shall I see God, whom I shall see for myself and my eyes shall behold, and not another" (25-27). In his risen body he will see God, according to the Vulgate (LXX) reading: "and in the last day I shall rise out of the earth. And I shall be clothed again with my skin, and in my flesh I shall see my God" (25-26).

The doctrine of the resurrection finds definite ex- pression in the Prophets; and in Isaias, x.xvi, 19: "thy dead shall live, my dead bodies shall rise again. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust" etc.; and Daniel, xii, 2: "and many of those that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake: some unto everlasting life, and others imto everlasting shame and contempt ' ' etc., it is clearly a personal resurrection that is taught — in Isaias a resurrection of righteous Israelites; in Daniel, of both the righteous and the wicked. The judgment, which in Daniel is connected with the resur- rection, is also personal; and the same is true of the judgment of the living (Jews and Gentiles) which in various forms the prophecies connect with the " day of the Lord". Some of the Psalms (e. g. xlviii) seem to imply a judgment of individuals, good and bad, after death; and the certainty of a future judgment of "every work, whether it be good or evil", is the final solution of the moral enigmas of earthly life of- fered by Ecclesiastes (xii, 13-14; cf. iii, 17). Coming to the later (deuterocanonical) books of the O. T. we have clear evidence in II Mach. of Jewish faith not only in the resurrection of the body (vii, 9-14), but in the efficacy of prayers and sacrifices for the dead who have died in godliness (xii, 43 sqq.). And in the sec- ond and first centuries B. c, in the Jewish apocryphal literature, new eschatological developments appear, chiefly in the direction of a more definite doctrine of retribution after death. The word Sheol is still most commonly imderstood of the general abode of the de- parted awaiting the resurrection, this abode having different divisions for the reward of the righteous and the punishment of the wicked; in reference to the latter, Sheol is .sometimes simply equivalent to hell. Gehenna is the name usually applied to the final place of punishment of the wicked after the last juilgment, or even immediately after death; while paradise is often used to designate the intermediate abode of the souls of the just, and heaven their home of final bless- edness (for detailed references to apocryphal literature see Charles, article "Eschatology" in "lOncycl. Bib- lica", §§ 63, 70). Christ's use of these terms shows that the Jews of His day were sufficiently familiar with their N.-T. meanings.

III. Catholic Eschatology. — In this article there