ESCHATOLOGY ESCHATOLOGY, or the " doctrine of last things," is a theological term for the facts revealed in Scripture about a future state, and the result of Christian speculation on these facts. The origin of the term is to be found in the phrases " the last day," " the last times," and similar expressions adopted by New Testament writers from ancient prophecy. 1 It was the universal feeling among primitive Christians that they were living in the last period of the world s history. Their conflict with surrounding paganism constituted the final struggle between good and evil, 2 and would be ended by the appearance of Christ in visible triumph. The feeling was natural, and not new. The Jews always believed that the Messianic kingdom would be preceded by an unusual manifestation of the hostile powers of heathenism. 3 In times of great national distress the excess of misery was regarded as a sign of approaching deliverance ; and the hopes of the nation were revived and its courage sustained by apocalyptic visions, in which the future was depicted as a time of undisputed triumph and unending prosperity. A distinct class of literature of which the prophecies of Ezekiel and Zechariah afford partial examples grew out of this feeling, and from it has been mainly derived the form, not only of Jewish, but also of Christian eschatology. The central point of expectation having necessarily shifted, for those who received Jesus as the Messiah, from the first to the second advent, this event forms the focus of the Christian doctrine of last things. The expressions common among the Hebrews to denote respectively the exist ing and the coming dispensations atwi/ ovro?, " this age," 4 aitof /xeAAwi/, " the coming age" were adopted, with a new reference. Theybecame"thislife"and "the life tocome,"and in later language "time" and "eternity;" and the atwv, or age, became confused with the Kocr/u.os, 5 or visible order of things. With the momentous epoch that formed the dividing-point between these two periods remained associated all that ancient prophecy connected with the restoration, of the Hebrew monarchy. The apocalyptic literature which began with the book of Daniel, and which belongs to the post-exile period, had, it is true, already changed the form of the primitive national hopes. The restoration had become the resurrection ; the idea of judgment had been enlarged to include the dead ; and the final consummation was depicted, not as a mere distinction of the heathen or their subjugation to Judaism, but as a universal catastrophe in which all who had ever lived would have their part. But the mode of presentation had not changed, and the old prophetic language was literally adopted, although the sphere of its application had so infinitely extended. Christian eschatology, then, is especially occupied with the destinies of the church in the concluding act of the world s drama. In formal treatises which trace the histori cal development of the opinion on the last things, they are usually arranged under the heads Second Advent, Millennium, Resurrection, Judgment, Conflagration of the World, and the State of the Blessed and the Damned. But experience taught the first generation of Christians to postpone the moment of the realization of their hopes. The second advent which, however, as the fourth gospel teaches, had already been spiritually reali/.ed was delayed. Already 1 (V TTJ ternary rjutpq, John vi, 39 ; eir ftrxarcoj rSiv xpov&i , 1 Pet. i. 20, &c. ; cf. TO tax aTa > Mat. xii. 45 ; see Is. ii. 2, Mic. iv. 1; and cf. Acts ii. 17. 2 See Neander, Hist. Ch. Dogmas, vol. i. p. 247 (Bohn s series.) 3 Ps. ii.; cf. Rev. ii. 27; 2 Esd. xiii. 21. 4 Alford s note on Matt. xii. 32. For similar expressions see Titus ii. 12, Mark x. 30, Gal. i. 4, Luke xx. 35. The Hebrew equivalents were n ; jn oVli? and X3PI D^ iy. 5 See parable of tares, Matt, xiii., where the A. V. misses the point of the parable by translating both alwv and K/t<T[j.os "the world." It is the harvest, the aldiv or age, which comes to an end, not the world. when St Paul wrote to the Thessalonians, some had died before the fulfilment of their desire, and the church was troubled with fears lest they should awake from the death- sleep too late for the divine appearing. A new epoch was therefore introduced. The destinies of the individual from the moment of departure from this life enter into the inquiry, and the already boundless field of speculation is increased by the addition of controversies about an inter mediate state, purgatory, and the limboes 6 into which the schoolmen partitioned hell. Nor is the area of theory sub stantially narrowed for Protestant theology, although it limits the last things to four death, resurrection, judg ment, end of the world, or more commonly, in practical dis courses, to death, judgment, heaven, and hell. The history of eschatology is in great measure the history of "lawless and uncertain thoughts" on these matters. The best notion of the extravagances allowed to speculation is obtained by a glance at the concluding part of the Summa 2 heologice, where Aquinas discusses these subjects. Thirty questions (besides an appendix devoted to purgatory) are proposed, each question being divided into several articles, and each article supported and opposed by many arguments. Then follows a conclusion, with the doctor s remarks on his conclusion. We take a few of the proposi tions at random : "Whether souls are conducted to heaven or to hell immediately after death ; " " Whether the limb IKS of hell is the same as Abraham s bosom ; " " Whether the limbus puerorum is the same as the limbus patrum;" or, pass ing over a few pages, " Whether the sun and moon will be really obscured at the day of judgment;" "Whether the fire which is to purge the world will be like in kind to elemental fire ;" or again, "Whether all the members of the human body will rise with it ; " " Whether the hair and nails will reappear;" and so on to questions of age, size, and sex.? Of these and a thousand like inquiries modern thought of course takes no notice. But there ore more tremendous issues, which will never cease to engage the conscience and reason of man. The ultimate fate of the lost has created what has been called " a whirlpool of interminable contro versy, roaring in endless circles over a dark and bottomless abyss." 8 "Only fragments of the dogma" are, as Neander remarks, to be found in Scripture. 9 And of these by far the greater number are poetical, and admit all the variety of interpretation possible to figurative language. The very books which are most occupied with last things found their way into the canon under protest. 10 And it has been remarked that, " in nearly every passage on which it is attempted to found the eternal misery of the lost, there is a less or greater difficulty in settling the text, or in reach ing the conviction that we read as the author wrote." 11 The same uncertainty prevails all along the line of eschatological thought. In every age the popular opinion has been both more extravagant and more dogmatic than the expressed formulas of the church. 12 It is, indeed, difficult to determine 6 Limbus from an Italian word meaning lap. 7 Augustine devotes much space to inquiries of this kind, Civ. Dei, xxii. 14, &c. The reproduction of the hair, nails, &c., is affirmed Ly Jerome from Matt. x. 30. See Hagenbach, Hist. Doct., i. 402. 8 Sir J. Stephen, Essays in Eccl. Biography, vol. i. 346. 9 Hist. Christ. Dogm., i. 247 (Bohn s series). < 10 The Apocalypse, Jude, and 2 Peter are classed by Eusebius with the doubtful or contested books (Euseb., Hist. Eccl., b. iii. c. 25.) 11 White, Life in Christ, p. 437. For English readers the confusion is increased by the arbitrary mode in which the A. V. has dealt with many of the most important terms, such as altuv, Kpiais, &c. See some powerful remarks on this in a volume of sermons just published by Canon Farrar, called Eternal Hope, p. 78, Preface, p. xxviii. sq. t and Excursus ii. 12 Notice the reserve of the three great creeds thedeliberateexclusion of all pronounced opinion from the formularies of the English Church, and the comparative freedom claimed even by Roman Catholics
(Newman, Grammar of Assent, p. 4] 7).