Adonijah started back at the boldness of this speech, with gestures indicative of horror. “Lucius Claudius,” replied he, “in this world we often see the good suffer and the bad prosper, but be assured that God will punish the wicked and recompense the just at that day of final account, when the dead shall be raised, and the Judge, seated in the valley of Jehoshaphat, shall call every man to an account for his works done in the flesh.”
“The dead raised!” exclaimed the Roman; “you speak enigmas, fables. What Power, Adonijah, can unite the body and soul together again, and form man anew from his ashes?”
“The Power that first united them, ‘who formed man originally from the dust of the ground, breathing into him the breath of life, till man became a living soul.’ Thinkest thou, Lucius, that the spirit of the murdered Corbulo perished with his body? or, imbibing the cold, joyless notions of the Greek mythology, dost thou imagine it wandering round its ashes, seeking in vain its ancient prison? No, Roman, no; it hath gone to its ‘appointed place, again to be united to the flesh, and to plead against the murderer at the judgment-seat of God.’ Such is the doctrine of the Pharisees respecting the resurrection, though even among the Jews an impious sect hath arisen, holding notions as foolish as the ignorant Gentiles themselves. The sacred Scriptures can fully inform you respecting the laws and worship of the true God, and these oracles are in the hands of the Jews, and our Scribes can fully make them known to you.”
The belief in the immortality of the soul never appears more reasonable than when we lament the death of a friend. Though new to Lucius Claudius, it now appeared strange even to himself that he had never considered its possibility before. The existence of a Supreme Being, and his superintending Providence and future judgment, made a deep impression upon his mind, although these impressions did not quite amount to absolute conviction. He expressed willingness to become acquainted with what he called the Jewish records, and Adonijah indulged the hope that this upright Roman would eventually become a proselyte of justice and a believer in the one true God.
He obtained from the rulers of the synagogue the rolls containing the sacred oracles, and commenced reading and explaining them to his patron. The beauty, the sublimity of the inspired truths thus made known to the Gentile dispelled the darkness of ignorance from his mind. The great, the vital doctrine of a Messiah, presented to his view as a point of faith by the slave so strangely become his teacher, bore little resemblance to the “Man of sorrows,” whose atonement for sin was pointed out in the 53rd chapter of Isaiah, and whom the Jewish nation had obstinately rejected. They interpreted His kingdom as a temporal kingdom, and, catching at the idea so prevalent at that time that the ruler of the world was to arise out of Judea, expected their Messiah presently to appear among his people, to deliver them from the Roman yoke. Of the real end of the Messiah’s coming, “to put away sin,” Adonijah was as ignorant as his Gentile convert, who would thankfully have embraced the sublime doctrine the Pharisee rejected, if it had been made known to him.
CHAPTER VIII.
“Whom in the sacred porch
Ezekiel saw, when by the vision led
His eye surveyed the dark idolatries