JUDGMENT. 318 JUDGMENT. ■will also descend as a part of the assets of a deceased owner. L'i)on payment of the amount of the judgment and accrued interest, the judg- ment debtor is entitliMf to a satisfaction piece. See the articles on Ai-i-kal; Finding; Oi'IMOx; Keport; Res Judicata. Consult: Hlack, The Law of J udgments (2d ed., Saint Paul, 1903) ; Free- man, The Law of Judgments (4th ed., San Fran- cisco, 1802). JUDGMENT, FiNAl,. The ultimate trial of the liunian race wlien judgment will be passed upon all men according as their works have been good or evil, the present order of things will be brought to an end, and a new dispensa- tion inaugurated. The idea of a coming destruc- tion of the world by fire is found among many peoples, (See Ksciiatologt. ) It was espceiallj' developed among the ancient Indo-European na- tions. The worshipers of Ahnra !Mazda l)elieved that this world-consuming fire would destroy only the wicked, while the good would pass through it unscathed. With this judgment there associated itself gradually in ilazdayasnian thought the expectation of a Saoshyant (the .Mes- siah) who would raise the dead, (See Saoshy- ant.) The various elements of this Persian eschatology found their way into Jewish and Christian speculation. That the conception of the ordeal by fire was thus transplanted is evident from the Silii/lline Oracles, ii„ 2,52 sqq., viii, 411; Lactantius, Div. JiUit., vii, 21, 0; and the same is true of the coming of the Jlessiali with flaming fire, the resurrection of the dead, and the connection of the llessiah with this resur- rection. But these foreign ideas found accept- ance because they could ally themselves with already existing tendencies of thought. In an- cient Israel the day of a battle which decided the fate of a nation was called a 'day of Yahweh,' While popularly this day was looked upon as bringing deliverance or victory to Israel, the great prophets before the Exile who, on moral and religious grounds, regarded the destruction of the nation by the Assyrians or the Babylonians as inevitable, saw in it a day of judgment upon Israel for its sins. In this sense the term is used by Amos and Zcphaniah, and the conception is found in Hosea, Isaiah, Slicah, and .Jeremiah, After the E.xile judgment was naturally expected upon the arrogant world-power that op|>ressed Israel, and the 'day of Yahweh' became the day when He would punish the nations and deliver His people, or at least the faithful Isr.aelites, Signs of its coming were eagerly looked for. In Joel the Day of Judgment is preceded by great calamities. The apocalypse of Daniel, written B,c, 165, depicts a scene of judgment in heaven. Thrones are set for the celestial court: the de- monic representative of the Grfpco-Macedonian power in the shape of a chaos-monster is con- demned, and the angelic representative of Israel in the form of a man receives the empire. Toward the end of the second centuiy B.C. the judgment upon the angels who sinned by marrving beautiful wonien (see Angel) and the angels of the nations already occupied much attention, as is seen in the older parts of the Book of Enoch and in the apocalvpse preserved in Isaiah xxiv.-xxvii. .Vs the notion of a celestial judgment thus linked itself to the earlier ideas of a retribution and a change of power on earth, so the new doctrines of a resurrection and a "Messiah connected themselves with earlier specu- lations (see Kesuukection ; ilESSiAu), and the grand conception of a universal judgment was formed. It is doubtful whether the step was ever taken in Judaism of ascribing the fin;il judgment and the resuriection to the Messiah. On the other band, the Persian idea of an ordeal by lire and an emergence of a new heaven and a ■ new earth from llie final conllagration may have come through Judaism to Christianity. If the Messiah's kingdom was regarded as of limited duration, the judgment was thought of as follow- ing it (Psalter of Solomon), Where the Greek doctrine of immortality (q.v, ) was accepted rather than the idea of a resurrection, the judg- ment of each individual was regarded as occur- ring immediately after death, and there was no thought of a general judgment (Wisdom of Solomon; Philo). In the New Testament ditrercnt views are represented. Whether Jesus bimsell believed in a final judgment cannot be ascer- tained. His view of the resurrection (q.v.) renders it improbable. The Evangelists connect the last judgment with His parousia, or appear- ance upon the clouds. The scene of the last assize in Matthew xxiv, is remarkable by the emphasis put upon moral conduct, the nations being judged not by their religious beliefs, but by the manner in which they have treated some of their fellow-men, viz. the Christians. The Epfstle of .Jude follows the teaching of the liook of Enoch on this subject. II. Peter reflects the Persian conception of a world-confiagratlon. James e.xpects the coming of the ilessiah to judye the world. The Epistles to the Thessalonians present the thought of a final judgment con- nected with the purousia, when Antichrist and tlu! godless Jews and Gentiles will be destroyed. In other Pauline Epistles 'the day of the Lord Jesus Christ' is described as the time when Christ shall return and render imto all men according to the deeds wrought in the body. In the Kpistle to the Hebrews, however, the judg- ment follows immediately after death, and the conception of the future is that characteristic of Alexandrian thought. The same is true of the .lohannine writings, in which the current idea is allegorieally intei-preted and referred to the already existing distinction between the followers of the light and those remaining in darkness. In the ecumenical creeds of Christendom the return of Christ to judge the quick and the dead maintained its place, and the importance of the final judgment was enhanced by the developing doctrine of a purgatory. The rejection of the doctrine by the Protestants tended to fix the eternal destiny of the individual at death ; but as the resurrection was not assumed to take place before the final judgment, the latter event still retained some of its significance. The reviving ehiliastie speculation (.see MiLLENXiusr) had a tendency to find in the millennial reign of Christ and His saints on earth the judgment of the world. Swedenborg conceived of several final judgments at the end of the different dispensa- tions — the ,-damic. the Xoachic, the Mosaic, and the first Christian, closing in 1759. Among those who adhere to the doctrine as set forth in the Christian creeds there is much difference of opinion as to the details of time, place, and circumstances. In the view of Catholic theolo- gians, a 'particular judgment' is passed upon every soul at the moment of death, when the choice made by the human will is irrevocablj'
