by which the grave is signified, are, on the other hand, either singular or plural, as the case may require.69 Such are the only traces we discover in the Greek version of the Pentateuch; and as this was the standard copy of the law with the Jews of Egypt, who could not read the Hebrew, it may be regarded as an index of their opinions. The Septuagint translation of the rest of the Old Testament was made at a later date.

The apocryphal book, Ecclesiasticus, or the Wisdom of Jesus the son of Sirach, is probably the next, in order of time. It was originally composed in Palestine, 237 years, it is thought, before Christ; but we have only the Greek version, made in Egypt about a century afterwards. 70 So far as a single work can be relied on, as indicating the popular sentiments of the time, it goes to show that the Palestine Jews had about the same views as formerly, of the state of the dead. The author speaks of the depths of the belly of hades'; and, in a song of thanksgiving for deliverance, says, that in a recent scene of great personal danger, his life drew near to Hades beneath." It was from Hades that Elijah brought up the deceased son of the Shunamite woman, when he raised him from the dead.72 This was the common receptacle of all the deceased: Fear not the sentence of death,' says he; 'remember them that have been before thee, and that come after; for this is the sentence of the Lord over all flesh. And why art thou against the pleasure of the Most High? There is no inquisition in Hades, whether thou have lived ten, or an hundred, or a thousand years.' 73 There, the dead remain in the same inactive condition as represented by the old prophets : 'Who shall praise the Most High in Hades, instead of them which live and give thanks? Thanksgiving perisheth from the dead, as from one that is not: the living and sound in heart shall praise the Lord.... For all things cannot be in men ; because the son of man is not immortal.' Weep for the dead,' says he; for he hath lost the light; and weep for the fool,

974 6

69 Campbell's Preliminary Dis. vi. Pt. ii. § 8, and Trommii Concordantie, vocc. Σημερας. άδης, θάνατος, μνῆμα, μνημεῖον.

7 For the dates of the Apocryphal books, and the countries in which they were written, &c., I depend on Eichhorn, (Einleitung in die apokry phischen Schriften des A. Test.) and Horne, (Introduction, &c. vol. iv.) without consulting the older authors, such as Prideaux, &c. 74 xvii. 27-30.

71 Ecclus. li. 5, 6.

72 xlviii. 5.

73 xli. 3, 4.

175

77

for he wanteth understanding. Make little weeping for the dead, for he is at rest; but the life of the fool is worse than death.' 'When the dead is at rest, let his remembrance rest; and be comforted for him, when his spirit is departed from him.' 976 The author intimates no resurrection from this state, notwithstanding the very plan of his book must have led him repeatedly to introduce the subject, had he been acquainted with it. And that he had no thought of a retribution in Hades, is evident, both from the tenor of the representations just quoted, and from the circumstance that in his numerous descriptions of rewards and punishments, he speaks of such only as are experienced in this world, or in the hour of death, or in the fortune of one's posterity. As examples of Jewish phraseology in relation to the temporal judgments appointed to the wicked, it may be useful to notice some expressions he uses the time of their punishment, whensoever it arrives, is called the day of vengeance; they are reserved to the mighty day of their punishment; they are exhorted to think of the wrath that shall be at the end, and the time of vengeance, when the Lord shall turn away his face; the vengeance on the ungodly is fire and worms; in the congregation of the ungodly, a flame is kindled, and in a rebellious nation, wrath is set on fire; the congregation of the wicked is like tow wrapped together, and the end of them is a flame of fire to destroy thein; let the heathen nations be consumed by the rage of fire; an evil tongue burneth as a flame of fire, and shall not be quenched; the lewd shall be a heritage to moths and worms; they kindle a fire in their flesh; a hot mind is as a burning fire, which will never be quenched, till it be consumed; a foolish father shall gnash his teeth in the end; in the day of death, the Lord rewarded a man according to his works,78 &c. All these expressions, several of which bear a close affinity with some of the controverted figures in the New Testament, are here applied to the fortune of the wicked in this life, or to the circumstances of their death.

77 For his description of rewards and punishments, see i. 9-14; v. 6, 7 ix. 11, 12; xi. 26-28; xii. 6; xix. 2, 3; xxi. 9, 10, (where' the pit of hell,' is literally the pit of hades,") xxiii. 3, 11, 21-28; xxvii. 25-30; xxix. 9 -13; xxxi. 10, 11; xxxiv. 13-17; xxxv. 16-20; xxxix. 9-12, 26-30; xl. 5-15; xli. 6-13; xliv. 8-23; and the five chapters from xlv. to 1.

78 Ecclus. v. 7; vii. 17; ix. 11, 12; xi. 26; xii. 6; xvi. 6; xix. 3; xviii. 24; xxi. 9; xxiii. 16; xxviii. 22, 23; xxx. 9, 10; xxxvi. 9.

The first book of Esdras, and the book of Tobit, though their dates cannot be fixed with certainty, may be placed between the years 230 and 150 before Christ. The former appears to have been written by a Jew of Egypt; and perhaps the latter was composed in the same country; but possibly in Palestine, possibly in Babylon. From neither, however, do we obtain any important materials for our present inquiry. The following passage in the book of Tobit may refer to the subject having been vexed till he was weary of life, he says, in his prayer, Command my spirit to be taken from me, that I may be dismissed, and become earth; for it is profitable for me to die rather than to live, because I have heard false reproaches, and have much sorrow: command, therefore, that I may now be delivered out of this distress, and go into the everlasting place,' 79 meaning, perhaps, Hades. From several descants, which he introduces, on the rewards of piety, and the motives to virtue, it is evident that he did not trace the retributions of Heaven beyond the present life; and it is probable, from his silence, that he had no knowledge of a resurrection. We may add, that, on other subjects, his book betrays the influence of Greek and oriental notions.

It was within the period last marked out, (between the years 230 and 150 before Christ,) that the Septuagint Version of most, if not all, of the remaining books of the Old Testament, was probably composed by different individuals among the Jews of Egypt. The same remarks that we have made with regard to the version of the Pentateuch, may be repeated, with little modification, here: Sheol, in the original, is still translated by the corresponding Greek term, Hades -with one exception, however, where it is rendered death. It is indeed true, that six or seven circumlocutions in the Hebrew, are likewise contracted into that term; but in all these cases, the original reference to Sheol is too plain to be mistaken; as in the expressions, the stones of the pit,'' the gates of death,' the pit,' the way of death.' 80 It would seem, also, that the translators had not yet become acquainted with the doctrine of a resurrection from the dead; for, notwithstanding the liberties which they not unfrequently take with the text, they never favor that idea, even in those figurative passages the most likely to suggest it. On the contrary, they often give them a different turn. For reasons that will at once appear, so See Trommii Concordantiæ, voc. ädys

19 Tobit iii. 6.

6

it is important to observe, that they use the compound Hebrew word Gehenna, or, as they spel! it, Gaihenna, as the name of the valley of Hinnom'; and another word, compounded in the same way, Gebenhinnom, to express the valley of the son of Hinnom.' 81 Aionios commonly occurs in those texts in which our authorized English version exhibits the word everlasting.

It was within the same period, also, that the Jewish sects of Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes, arose in Palestine; since the earliest notice of them is at about the year 150 before Christ, when they were already flourishing.82 The two former were probably of native growth; the last was, perhaps, a branch of the Jewish Therapeutæ of Egypt. Judging from the account of Josephus, our sole authority, they were, at present, divided only on three questions: the authority of traditions, or the obligation barely of the written law; the doctrine of fate, or that of free-will; and the social, secular life, or solitude and abstinence. These are the only points of distinction, mentioned by Josephus, in his statement of the peculiarities of those sects, such as they were at this time.83 At a later period, the Pharisees and Essenes held the doctrine of immortality and future retribution; while the Sadducees went so far, on the contrary, as to deny all surviving existence, and to say that there was neither angel nor spirit. But, as yet, it would seem that none of the sects had introduced their respective innovations on this subject, and that they still retained the ancient views with regard to the state of the dead. Mattathias, the Jewish leader, who evidently belonged with the Pharisees, calls his sons around him, while dying, and proposes the hope of immortality, as an incentive to sacrifice their lives, if necessary, in defence of their religion; but it is only an immortality of renown, not of future happiness, such as the occasion and the subject were so likely to suggest: Your bodies,' says he, are mortal, and subject to fate; but they receive a sort of immortality by the remembrance of what actions they have

81 Josh. xviii. 16, 2 Chron. xxviii. 3, xxxii. 6. See Universalist Expositor, vol. ii. Art. xxxiv. pp. 355-359.

82 Joseph. Antiq. B. xiii. ch. v. 9, is the earliest notice. usually very careful and correct, says (Bib. Archæol. § 317,) remarks, that even then they had existed for a great while. take: Josephus makes the remark when treating of the about A. D. 11. Antiq. B. xviii. ch. i. 2.

83 Antiq. B. xiii. ch. v. 9, ch. x. 6.

Jahn, who is that Josephus This is a misJewish affairs,

done. And I would have you so in love with this immortality, that you may pursue after glory; and that when you have undergone the greatest difficulties, you may not scruple for such things to lose your lives.' 84 Had he any idea of such an immortality as the Pharisees of a later period taught? The Sadducees, on the other hand, appear, at this time, to have believed that the ghosts of the deceased continued to exist; for when the princess Alexandra had put several to death, and threatened the rest, they called on her husband's ghost for commiseration of those already slain, and those in danger of it.' 85 Aristobulus, also, who was probably reckoned among the Sadducees, speaks of appeasing the ghosts of his murdered parent and brother.& Such was the state of the sects, at this period, in Palestine: in Egypt, the distinction of Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes, does not seem to have obtained; though the generality of the Jews there, resembled the Pharisees, and the Therapeute answered in many respects to the Essenes.

86

Several of the apocryphal books, whose dates are altogether uncertain, may be introduced in this place, with a notice of the little they contain, that falls within the scope of our purpose. The History of Susannah, and the book of Baruch, were of Greek, probably Egyptian, original; and perhaps likewise the book of Judith, Bel and the Dragon, and the Song of the Three Children. They afford no direct allusion to the state of the dead, except in two or three passages. The three worthies are represented as giving thanks to God, after their miraculous preservation in the fiery furnace: Bless ye the Lord; praise and exalt him above all, forever; for he hath delivered us from Hades, and saved us from the hand of death: 87 he had rescued them from a most imminent death, and prevented them from going down to Hades. The dead,' says Baruch, that are in Hades, whose spirit is taken from their carcasses, will give unto the Lord neither praise nor righteousness'; 88 and he says that the Israelites, while oppressed and dejected in the Babylonish captivity, were counted with them that are in Hades': 89 expressions, which imply the inactive and languid state of the dead. Several traces of the Greek notions on other topics, we pass over. It is worthy of remark, that the

84 Antiq. B. xii. ch. vi. 3. tiq. B. xiii. ch. xi. 3. ruch ii. 17.

85 Antiq. B. xiii. ch. xvi. 2, 3. 87 Song of the Three Children, 66.

$9 do. iii. 11.

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