At the time of Jesus, the Pharisees believed in the resurrection of the body; a state of rewards and punishments.[1] Some of them connected it with the common notion of the transmigration of souls;[2] perhaps with that of preëxistence. The Essenes, still more philosophically, taught the immortality of the soul, and the certainty of retribution, without the resurrection of the body. The soul is formed of the most subtle air, and is confined in the body as in a prison; death redeems it from a long bondage, and the living soul mounts upward rejoicing.[3] We find similar views in Philo.[4] Perhaps they were common in reflecting minds at the time of Jesus, who always presupposes a belief in immortality. The Sadducees alone opposed it. Such were the beginning and history of this dogma with the Jews. Its progress and formation are obvious.
2. Of this Doctrine among the Heathen Nations.
Among savage nations this belief is common. It appears in prayers and offerings for the dead; in the mode of burial. The savage American deposits in the tomb the bow and the pipe, the dress and the tomahawk of the de-
- ↑ Acts xxiii. 6—8, xxiv. 15; Matth. xxii. 24, et seq.; Mark xii. 19, et seq.
- ↑ Josephus, Wars, II. viii. 14. Josephus may have added the metempsychosis to suit the taste of his readers.
- ↑ Josephus, Wars, II. viii. 11. Josephus himself seems to agree with this opinion, when he “talks like a philosopher,” in his pretended speech, Wars, III. viii. 5. See Buddeus, ubi sup., II. p. 1202, et seq.; Paulus, Memorabil., Vol. II. p. 157, et seq.; and De Wette, ubi sup., § 178, et seq.
- ↑ See also the views of Philo, De Somniis, p. 586; De Abrah, p. 385; De Mundi Opif., p.31. The soul is immortal by nature, but by grace. See Dähne, Geschichtliche Darstellung der Judischen,-Alexand. Philosophie, &c., 1834, Vol. I. p. 330, et seq, 405, 485, et seq., who cites the above and other proof passages; Ritter, ubi sup., Vol. IV. See Weizel on the primitive doctrine of immortality among the Christians, in Theol. Stud. und Kritiken, for 1836, p. 957, et seq. Constant, Liv. IX. Ch. vii., makes some just remarks on this subject. On the state of opinions in the time of Christ, see Gfrörer, Jahrhundert des Heils, 1838, Vol. II. Ch. vii.; Triglandius de tribus Judæorum sectis, in quo Serarii, Drusii, Scaligeri, Opuscula, &c., 1703, Vol. I. Part I. Lib. II. and III., Part II. Lib. II.-IV., and Scaliger's Animadversions; and the very valuable treatise of Leclerc, Prolegomena ad Hist. Eccl. Lib. I. Ch. i. See Flügge, Geschichte des Glaubens an Unsterblichkeit, &c. &c., Leip. 1794, Vol. I. p. 112—160, 201—251, et passim; Bouchitté Mém. de l'Institut. Savans étrangères, Tom. II. p. 621, et seq.
of passages from the Apocrypha, and the New Testament. The same doctrine is taught in both. See Flatt, in Paulus, Memorabil. st. II. p. 157, et seq.; Bretschneider, ubi sup., § 53–58.
