During the first century of the existence of the Gentile Christian Church, “the hope of the approaching end of the world and the glorious kingdom of Christ” was dominant, although warnings had to be given against doubt and indifference. Redemption was thought of as still future, as the power of the devil had not been broken but rather increased by the First Advent, and the Second Advent was necessary to his complete overthrow. The expectations were often grossly materialistic, as is evidenced by Papias’s quotation as the words of the Lord of a group of sayings from the Apocalypse of Baruch, setting forth the amazing fruitfulness of the earth in the Messianic time.
The Gnostics rejected this eschatology as in their view the enlightened spirit already possessed immortality. Marcion expected that the Church would be assailed by Antichrist; a visible return of Christ he did not teach, but Gnostics.
Montanism. he recognized that human history would issue in a separation of the good from the bad. Montanism sought to form a new Christian commonwealth which, separated from the world, should prepare itself for the descent of the Jerusalem from above, and its establishment in the spot which by the direction of the Spirit had been chosen in Phrygia. While Irenaeus held fast the traditional eschatological beliefs, yet his conception of the Christian salvation as a deification of man tended to weaken their hold on Christian thought. The Alogi in the 2nd century rejected the Apocalypse on account of its chiliasm, its teaching of a visible reign of Christ on earth for a thousand years. Montanism also brought these apocalyptic expectations into discredit in orthodox ecclesiastical circles. The Alexandrian theology strengthened this movement against chiliasm. Clement of Alexandria taught that justice is not merely retributive, that punishment is remedial, that probation continues after death till the final judgment, that Christ and the apostles preached the Gospel in Hades to those who lacked knowledge, but whose heart was right, that a spiritual body will be raised. Origen taught that a germ of the spiritual body is in the present body, and its development depends on the character, that perfect bliss is reached only by stages, that the evil are purified by pain, conscience being symbolized by fire, and that all, even the devil himself, will at last be saved. Both regarded chiliasm with aversion. But in the 5th century there were rejected as heretical (1) “the doctrine of universalism, and the possibility of the redemption of the devil; (2) the doctrine of the complete annihilation of evil; (3) the conception of the penalties of hell as tortures of conscience; (4) the spiritualizing version of the resurrection of the body; (5) the idea of the continued creation of new worlds” (A. Harnack, History of Dogma, iii. p. 186).
Epiphanius, following Methodius, insisted on the most perfect identity between the resurrection body and the material body; and this belief, enforced in the West by Jerome, soon established itself as alone orthodox. Augustine made experiments on the flesh of a peacock in order to find physical evidence for the doctrine. He held fast to eternal punishment, but allowed the possibility of mitigations. Some believers, he taught, may pass through purgatorial fires; and this middle class may be helped by the sacraments and the alms of the living. “There are many souls not good enough to dispense with this provision, and not bad enough to be benefited by it” (op. cit. v. 233). This doctrine was sanctioned and developed by Gregory the Great. “After God has changed eternal punishments into temporary, the justified must expiate these temporary penalties for sin in purgatory” (p. 268). This view was inferred indirectly from Matt. xii. 31, and directly from 1 Cor. iii. 12-15. Afterwards purgatory took more and more the place of hell, and was subject to the control of the church. As regards the saints, different degrees of blessedness were recognized; they were supposed to wait in Hades for the return of Christ, but gradually the belief gained ground, especially in regard to the martyrs, that their souls at once entered Paradise. The primitive Christian eschatology was preserved in the West as it was not in the East, and in times of exceptional distress the expectation of Antichrist emerged again and again. In the middle ages there was an extravagance of speculation on this subject, which may be seen in the last division of Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae. He proposes thirty questions on these matters, among which are the following: “whether souls are conducted to heaven or hell immediately after death”; “whether the limbus of hell is the same as Abraham’s bosom”; “whether the sun and moon will be really obscured at the day of judgment”; “whether all the members of the human body will rise with it”; “whether the hair and nails will reappear”; could thought become “more lawless and uncertain”?
While rejecting purgatory, Protestantism took over this eschatology. Souls passed at once to heaven or to hell; a doctrine even less adequate to the complex quality of human life. Luther himself looked for the passing In Protestant Theology. away of the present evil world. Socinianism taught a new spiritual body, an intermediate state in which the soul is near non-existence, an annihilation of the wicked, as immortality is the gift of God. Swedenborg discards a physical resurrection, as at death the eyes of men are opened to the spiritual world in which we exist now, and they continue to live essentially as they lived here, until by their affinities they are drawn to heaven or hell. The doctrine of eternal punishment has been opposed on many grounds, such as the disproportion between the offence and the penalty, the moral and religious immaturity of the majority of men at death, the diminution of the happiness of heaven involved in the knowledge of the endless suffering of others (Schleiermacher), the defeat of the divine purpose of righteousness and grace that the continued antagonism of any of God’s creatures would imply, the dissatisfaction God as Father must feel until His whole family is restored. It has been argued that the term “eternal” has reference not to duration of time but quality of being (Maurice); but it does seem certain that the writers in the Holy Scriptures who used it did not foresee an end either to the life or to the death to which they applied the term. The contention should not be based on the meaning of a single word, but on such broader considerations as have been indicated above. The doctrine of conditional immortality taught by Socinianism was accepted by Archbishop Whately, and has been most persistently advocated by Edward White, who “maintains that immortality is a truth, not of reason, but of revelation, a gift of God” bestowed only on believers in Christ; but he admits a continued probation after death for such as have not hardened their hearts by a rejection of Christ. According to Albrecht Ritschl “the wrath of God means the resolve of God to annihilate those men who finally oppose themselves to redemption, and the final purpose of the kingdom of God.” He thus makes immortality conditional on inclusion in the kingdom of God. The doctrine of universal restoration was maintained by Thomas Erskine of Linlathen on the ground of the Fatherhood of God, and Archdeacon Wilson anticipates such discipline after death as will restore all souls to God. C.I. Nitzsch argues against the doctrine of the annihilation of the wicked, regards the teaching of Scripture about eternal damnation as hypothetical, and thinks it possible that Paul reached the hope of universal restoration. I.A. Dorner maintains that hopeless perdition can be the penalty only of the deliberate rejection of the Gospel, that those who have not had the opportunity of choice fairly and fully in this life will get it hereafter, but that the right choice will in all cases be made we cannot be confident. The attitude of theologians generally regarding individual destiny is well expressed by Dr James Orr, “The conclusion I arrive at is that we have not the elements of a complete solution, and we ought not to attempt it. What visions beyond there may be, what larger hopes, what ultimate harmonies, if such there are in store, will come in God’s good time; it is not for us to anticipate them, or lift the veil where God has left it down” (The Christian View of God and the World, 1893, p. 397).
Although in recent theological thought attention has been mainly directed to individual destiny, yet the other elements of Christian eschatology must not be altogether passed over. History has offered the authoritative commentary on the prophecy of the Parousia of Christ. The presence and power of His Spirit, the spread of His Gospel, the progress of His kingdom have been as much a fulfilment of the eschatological teaching of the New Testament as His life and work on earth were a fulfilment of Messianic prophecy, for fulfilment always transcends prophecy. Even if the common beliefs of the apostolic age have not modified the evangelist’s reports of Jesus’ teaching, it must be remembered that He used the common prophetic phraseology, the literal fulfilment of which is not to be looked for. Some parables (the leaven, the mustard seed) suggest a gradual progressive realization of His kingdom. The Fourth Gospel interprets both judgment and resurrection spiritually. Accordingly the general resurrection and the last judgment may be regarded as the temporal and local forms of thought to express the universal permanent truths that life survives death in the completeness of its necessary organs and essential functions, and that the character of that continued life is determined by personal choice of submission or antagonism to God’s purpose of grace in Christ, the perfect realization of which is the Christian’s hope for himself, mankind and the world.
Bibliography.—In addition to the works referred to above the following will be found useful: S.D.F. Salmond, The Christian Doctrine of Immortality (4th ed., 1901); R.H. Charles, A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life in Israel, in Judaism, and in Christianity (1899); L.N. Dahle, Life after Death and the Future of the Kingdom of God (Eng. tr. by J. Beveridge, 1895); J.A. Beet, The Last Things (new ed., 1905); W.G.T. Shedd, Doctrine of Endless Punishment (New York, 1886); F.W. Farrar, The Eternal Hope (1892); E. Pétavel, The Problem of Immortality (Eng. tr. by F.A. Freer, 1892); E. White, Life in Christ (3rd ed., 1878); also the relevant sections in books on biblical and systematic theology.
(A. E. G.*)
ESCHEAT (O. Fr. eschete, from escheoir, to fall to one’s share; Lat. excidere, to fall out), in English law, the reversion of lands to the next lord on the failure of heirs of the tenant. “When the tenant of an estate in fee simple dies without having alienated his estate in his lifetime or by his will, and without leaving any heirs either lineal or collateral, the lands in which he held his estate escheat, as it is called, to the lord of whom he held them” (Williams on the Law of Real Property). This rule is explained by the conception of a freehold estate as an interest in lands held by the freeholder from some lord, the king being lord paramount. (See [Estate].) The granter retains an interest in the land similar to that of the donor of an estate for life, to whom the land reverts after the life estate is ended. As there are now few freehold estates traceable to any mesne or intermediate lord, escheats, when they do occur, fall to the king as lord paramount. Besides escheat for defect of heirs, there was formerly also escheat propter delictum tenentis, or by the corruption of the blood of the tenant through attainder consequent on conviction and sentence for treason or felony. The blood of the tenant becoming corrupt by attainder was decreed no longer inheritable, and the effect was the same as if the tenant had died without heirs. The land, therefore, escheated to the next heir, subject to the superior right of the crown to the forfeiture of the lands,—in the case of treason for ever, in the case of felony for a year and a day. All this was abolished by the Felony Act 1870, which provided for the appointment of an administrator to the property of the convict. Escheat is also an incident of copyhold tenure. Trust estates were not subject to escheat until the Intestates’ Estates Act 1884, but now by that act the law of escheat applies in the same manner as if the estate or interest were a legal estate in corporeal hereditaments.