(4.) After that he was seen of James. No one but Paul says so. Doubtless, however, as Peter claimed a special visit of the risen Jesus for himself, so did James, and Paul followed their example; for,
(5.) After mentioning that Jesus was next seen of all the apostles,—he does not mention where or when—he states,
(6.) "Last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time." Also 1 Cor. ix. 1, "Have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord?" How or where he saw him he leaves untold. Comparing this, however, with 2 Cor. xii, it is probable that he refers to the time when he was caught up into paradise and heard unspeakable words, unutterable by man. It has already been shown that the appearance on the way to Damascus had not been thought of when the second epistle was written, and during this appearance Paul did not see Jesus. He heard a voice, and saw a brilliant light. But there is nothing in Paul's writings to indicate that he ever laid claim to so dread an event in connection with himself.
9. Can the mind, then, eagerly straining to find in these accounts of the resurrection of Jesus grounds for a sincere belief that "one has risen from the dead;" raising no question as to the authenticity of the gospels, but taking them as they are, and putting the fairest construction on the words and narrative; most desirous not to abandon a hope cherished from the lessons of youth, a hope twined with the fondest reflections of manhood,—can the mind once aroused to doubt and inquiry, so straining, descry aught on which to rest? Far otherwise; for how rapidly these tales of the resurrection, and the other supernatural occurrences claimed for Jesus, crumble away, like a long-buried corpse exposed to light, before the touch of the simplest tests of evidence!
10. It remains to consider the resurrection of Jesus in connection with Old Testament ideas, and with those of the surrounding Gentile nations.
11. In Genesis Adam was doomed to "return unto the ground, for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." He died when he had lived so many years, is the brief record of his death, and of that of all the other primeval patriarchs, with the single exception of Enoch, who "walked with God, and he was not, for God took him." The writer of the Hebrews states that he was translated that he should not see death. He is thus represented as escaping the curse of Adam, and as made immortal, contrary to the common doom. The statement in Genesis is so loose, however, that the exact meaning of the writer will ever remain uncertain. The deaths of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are referred to thus: "that they gave up the ghost, full of years, and were gathered unto their people." They returned to the dust from whence they came, as their fathers before them. And when Joseph died, "being 110 years old," he is not "gathered unto his people," but "embalmed and put in a coffin in Egypt."
12. In Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, the books that immediately concern Moses, there is no mention of any future state of existence. The precepts, the ritual, the rewards, and the punishments all have reference to the present life. Beyond the grave is nothingness: no hope, no fear. What a startling fact this is, and how intimately it concerns the subject now under consideration, appears when contrasted with the prevailing contemporary Egyptian belief. Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt. They had been there upwards of two centuries. He himself was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. He had been brought up as the son of Pharaoh's daughter. Now, the most prominent belief of the Egyptian religion, as shown by the monuments and ritual, was the immortality of the soul and a state of existence beyond the grave, and it must have been vividly before the Israelites during their sojourn in Egypt. The god Osiris became incarnate on earth, worked all manner of good for mankind; was slain through the malignity of the evil one, the serpent Typhon, but rose again from the dead, and was made the 'judge of souls; the disembodied spirits were weighed in his balances; the just, after expiating their venial sins by many severe trials, in which they were accompanied and sustained by Osiris, who had himself passed through the same ordeal—"been tempted in all points like as they were"—shared the bliss of the god; the reprobate were condemned to lengthened torments, came back to earth as evil spirits, dwelt in the bodies of unclean animals, and were ultimately to be annihilated. In addition, also, to the symbolic idolatrous religion, by which the deity was represented to the people in numerous phases, all probably conceptions of natural phenomena, however incongruous most of the manifestations now appear, there was the hidden religion of the priests and of the initiated; and the main conception of this hidden religion was of the one living, independent, uncreated god—Nuk pu Nuk, "I am that I am." A hereditary priesthood, animal sacrifices, circumcision, and abstinence from swine's flesh, were likewise Egyptian institutions. So was the seventh-day rest. These and minor practices were continued among the Israelites, and the Egyptian Nuk pa Nuk became the Jewish Jehovah; but the symbolical idolatrous worship, likening the Creator to the creature, and the belief in the immortality of the soul, were rejected by Moses. They have no place in his system. The former he denounced, the latter he ignored. His conception of the unity and omnipotence of God was intense, and he indelibly stamped this belief on the mind of his nation, shunning the example of the priests of Egypt, who encouraged the people in idolatrous polytheistic rites, while the purer faith remained concealed among themselves. Contrary to the practice of all priestcraft, ancient and modern, he did not keep his followers in ignorance, that he himself might, by a superior understanding, retain an exalted position in their sight, but he sought to bring them up to the level of his own knowledge and belief. How far many of the Egyptian practices retained by the Israelites, and some of the more unworthy conceptions of the deity—such, for instance, as the ever-living omnipotent God working six days in creating the world, and resting the seventh; or his ordering the enemies of Israel to be massacred, man, woman, and child; or his exacting animal sacrifices, as if he, the source of life, could be appeased by the destruction of the very life he had brought into being—were forced by the nation upon Moses, rather than by Moses upon the nation, cannot now be ascertained. Jer. vii. 22, 23, seem to indicate that the animal sacrifices, at least, were not of Mosaic origin. But his stern prohibition of idolatry, and his ignoring a future life, constituted the principal differences between the Mosaic and the Egyptian systems. They were, indeed, radical differences. Had not Moses seen in Egypt how the pretended immortality of the soul, and the several connected doctrines and practices, in the hands of a polished priesthood, had been used so as to keep that very soul in this world in a state of vague fear and abject superstition: how the terrors or expectation of the life to come had led to misery and misdirection of the life on earth: how the dead had been cared for to the neglect of the living? And was there any good ground for this expectation of a future life? On the contrary, was not man, in his view, doomed to return to the dust whence he came? Was not the pretence of the soul being immortal an assumption of an attribute of the eternal Jehovah? And so he taught "that the Lord he is God, in heaven above, and in the earth beneath; there is none else. Thou shalt therefore keep his statutes and his commandments, which I command thee this day, that it may go well with thee, and with thy children after thee, and that thou mayest prolong thy days upon the earth which the Lord thy God giveth thee, for ever" (Deut. iv. 39, 40). The rules of conduct were those which, in the judgment of Moses, led to long life and earthly prosperity; their neglect would inevitably bring disaster and woe; there was no other reward, no other dread. And in Psalm xc, described as "a prayer of Moses, the man of God," when he mentions that the days of our years are threescore and ten, or if, perchance, by reason of strength, fourscore, yet "that strength labour and sorrow," so far is he from arriving at Paul's conclusion—"What advantageth it me if the dead rise not? Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die"—that he makes the brevity of man's life the ground of the petition, "So-teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom." Let us be up and doing, for our own and our brethren's sakes; there is no time to be lost; let us strive and ponder how to pass our brief life on earth wisely and well. The dead, moreover, were buried out of sight, and any bodily disfigurement (Lev. xix. 28; Deut. xiv. 1) or offerings (Deut. xxvi. 14) for them were prohibited.
13. Now, if the Jewish Jehovah thus represented by Moses be one and the same being with "the God of Peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus," whose kingdom was not of this world, whose reward was eternal life, whose followers were of all men the most miserable if in this life only they had hope in Christ, then the Almighty in one dispensation left his chosen people to ignore the possession of an immortal soul and the hope of eternal life—doctrines fully known and recognised by the Egyptians and other nations surrounding them—but in the other revealed, little modified, as his own, these prevailing beliefs of the heathen nations, thus making Christianity practically little else than the Mosaic religion without the sacrifices, joined to the Egyptian belief in the soul's immortality and a state of future rewards and punishments, which Moses rejected; in one dispensation he placed his service in the following of those rules of life which lead to making the best of the good earth on which men live, without any other reward; in the other, "he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal," and those are denounced "who mind earthly things, for our conversation is in heaven, from whence also we look for our Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ." A wondrous contradictory Almighty!
14. In the historical books of the Old Testament, from Joshua to Esther, there is nothing to indicate that a belief in a future life was held by any of the representatives of Jehovah, whether judge, king, prophet, or priest, (a.) The aged Joshua (Josh. xxiii. 14) and the dying David (1 Kings ii. 2) affirm that they are about "to go the way of all the earth." They express neither hope of heaven nor fear of hell. The writer in Judges (ii 10) states, "all that generation was gathered unto their fathers." The kings of Israel and Judah all "slept with their fathers." (b.) The Godforsaken Saul (1 Sam. xxviii. 7-25) went to inquire of the witch of Endor, and asked her to bring up Samuel, who appeared (visible, as the narrative implies, only to the witch) as an old man covered with a mantle—that is to say, his shade had the appearance of himself in old age, dress and all—and said, "Why hast thou disquieted me to bring me up." Saul told his extremity. Samuel's wraith affirmed that the kingdom was transferred to David, that Saul's army would be defeated by the Philistines, and that "to-morrow shalt thou and thy sons be with me." The God-favoured Samuel and the God-forsaken Saul would be together. Here is certainly a belief in a future life, and in the power of a witch to bring up to earth a soul at rest—not in bliss or in misery, if Samuel's "why hast thou thus disquieted me" may be so construed; but that it was not an orthodox Jewish belief is made clear by 1 Chron. x. 13: "So Saul died for his transgression which he committed against the Lord, even against the word of the Lord, which he kept not, and also for asking counsel of one that had a familiar spirit, to inquire of it, and inquired not of the Lord: therefore he slew him, and turned the kingdom to David, the son of Jesse." (c.) The wise woman of Tekoah, whom Joab sent disguised to king David, expressed the recognised belief when she said, "for we must needs die, and are as water spilled on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again." (d.) Elijah (1 Kings xvii. 21, 22) raised from the dead the son of the widow of Zarephath, and Elisha (2 Kings iv. 32-35) the son of the Shunammite. "Elisha went up and lay upon the child, and put his mouth upon his mouth, and his eyes upon his eyes, and his hands upon his hands, and he stretched himself upon the child, and the flesh of the child waxed warm." Elijah, too, stretched himself on the child three times, and he prayed, "O Lord my God, let this child's soul (or life, same word as Genesis i. 30) come into him again; and the Lord heard the voice of Elijah, and the soul (or life) of the child came into him again, and he revived." It would be hard from these statements to determine whether Elijah and Elisha considered the child's soul or life as merely the action of an organism, or as so much vital force existing only as force outside the body, or as a separate conscious soul sent back to earth at their request. Most probably neither they nor the narrator of their wonder-working had any definite opinion on the subject. Elisha's bones, also, had such virtue that when a dead man let down into his sepulchre (2 Kings xiii. 21) had touched them, he revived and stood up on his feet. It is strange that the bones could not do so much for themselves. Neither this man, however, nor the resuscitated children, appear to have been made immortal on earth, any more than the son of the widow of Nain, or the raised Lazarus of the New Testament. So, wretched ones, they had to suffer death twice; and when they were brought back to life, what did they tell their wondering friends of the condition of the disembodied soul? The world has been none the wiser of their revisit, (e.) The marvellous departure of Elijah (2 Kings ii. 11) was probably told to prevent any sort of worship at his tomb, concealed, in all likelihood, as that of Moses, doubtless at his own desire, was.
15. The authorised version gives rise to considerable misapprehension by translating the Hebrew word "sheol" as "hell" in some places, and "the grave" in others, (a.) The passage (Genesis xxxvii. 35) before referred to, where Jacob says, "I will go down into the grave (sheol) unto my son mourning," if translated, "I will go down into hell," &c, would have conveyed to the mind of a modern Christian that Joseph was in the place of torment. It was quite necessary here, therefore, to render the word "the grave." Genesis xlii. 38 is, similarly treated, (b) Proverbs xxiii. 13, 14, is an example of the other rendering of the same word: "Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell" (from sheol). Here nothing more is meant than that by coercing a youth to follow the lessons of experience, he would be saved from an early grave; but by translating sheol "hell," the notion that "eternal woe" is to be averted by the unsparing use of the rod is erroneously implied, (c.) The Hebrew word kibr is usually employed to designate a specific burying-place (a grave, as distinguished from the grave), as in Genesis xxiii. 42; xxxv. 20, but is sometimes also used in the same sense as sheol, as Psalm vi. 5, "In the grave (sheol) who shall give thee thanks:" Psalm lxxxviii. 10, "Shall thy loving-kindness be declared in the grave" (kibr)? Sheol, however, almost invariably means more than a mere burial place: sometimes it is used in the sense of the "power of death" (Isaiah xiv. 9), sometimes of the unfathomable abyss of darkness, erroneously believed in those days to be under the earth (Psalm cxxxix. 8; Amos ix. 2); but usually it implies the state that follows death; and that this state was held to be one of ended existence, non-existence, or nothingness, is as clear a conclusion as words can convey. The reprieved Hezekiah (Isaiah xxxviii. 18) says, "For the grave (sheol) cannot praise thee, death cannot celebrate thee: they that go down to the pit cannot hope for thy truth. The living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I do this day." So Psalm cxv. 17, "The dead praise not the Lord, neither any that go down into silence;" and Eccles. ix. 5, "For the living know that they shall die, but the dead know not anything;" also ix. 10, "for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave (sheol), whither thou goest." Job, too (vii. 9), "As the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away, so he that goeth down to the grave (sheol) shall come up no more." Psalm xlix. 12, "Nevertheless, man being in honour abideth not: he is like the beasts that perish." Thus also Eccles. iii. 19, "For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other: yea, they have all one breath" (i.e, same word as translated "spirit" in verse 21, and chap. xii. 7); "so that a man hath no pre-eminence above a beast: for all is vanity. (20) All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again. (21) Who knoweth the spirit (or breath) of man that goeth upward, and the spirit (or breath) of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?" Is this last verse an answer to any objection taken to what is stated in verse 19, that man and beast have all one spirit (breath)? Again, Eccles. xii 7, "Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return to God who gave it." This passage is quite conclusive against a separate conscious existence of the soul in any one place set apart for its reception, or of one soul going to one place and another to another. Man is dissolved into dust and spirit: the dust mingles again with the earth; the spirit in like manner, as spirit, returns to God: in other words, the life as life returns to its source. Such seems the idea. Again, the mercy of Jehovah is shown in consideration of the brief span of man's life, as Psalm lxxviii. 39, "For he remembered that they were but flesh; a wind that passeth away and cometh not again:" ciii. 14, "He knoweth our frame, he remembereth that we are dust;" and Psalm lxxxvii. 5 mentions the "slain that lie in the grave (kibr), whom thou (Jehovah) rememberest no more." How utterly opposed are all these clear statements to the paradise of unspeakable bliss, and the hell of unutterable woe, and the immortal soul and the bodily resurrection of the New Testament.