30 Schoettgen, De Messia, lib. vi. cap. vi. sect. 27.
31 See an able dissertation on Jewish Notions of the Resurrection of the Dead, prefixed to Humphrey's Translation of Athenagoras on the Resurrection.
32 Surenhusius, Mischna, pars tertia, p. 309.
33 Schroder, s. 419.
of the thousand years," the duration of the Messiah's earthly reign, "when the Lord is lifted up, God shall fit wings to the just, like the wings of eagles."34 In a word, the Messiah and his redeemed ones would ascend into heaven to the right hand of God. So Paul, who said, "I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee," declares that when the dead have risen "we shall be caught up in the clouds to be forever with the Lord."
We forbear to notice a thousand curious details of speculation and fancy in which individual Rabbins indulged; for instance, their common notion concerning the bone luz, the single bone which, withstanding dissolution, shall form the nucleus of the resurrection body. It was a prevalent belief with them that the resurrection would take place in the valley of Jehoshaphat, in proof of which they quote this text from Joel: "Let the heathen be wakened and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat; for there will I sit to judge the nations around." To this day, wherever scattered abroad, faithful Jews cling to the expectation of the Messiah's coming, and associate with his day the resurrection of the dead.35 The statement in the Song of Solomon, "The king is held in the galleries," means, says a Rabbinical book, "that the Messiah is detained in Paradise, fettered by a woman's hair!" Every day, throughout the world, every consistent Israelite repeats the words of Moses Maimonides, the peerless Rabbi, of whom it is a proverb that "from Moses to Moses there arose not a Moses:" "I believe with a perfect faith that the Messiah will come, and though he delays, nevertheless, I will always expect him till he come." Then shall glory cover the living, and the risen, children of Israel, and confusion fall on their Gentile foes. In almost every inch of the beautiful valley of Jehoshaphat a Jew has been buried. All over the slopes of the hill sides around lie the thick clustering sepulchral slabs, showing how eagerly the chosen people seek to sleep in the very spot where the first rising of the dead shall be. Entranced and mute,
"In old Jehoshaphat's valley, they
Of Israel think the assembled world
Will stand upon that awful day,
When the Ark's light, aloft unfurl'd,
Among the opening clouds shall shine,
Divinity's own radiant shrine."
Any one familiar with the Persian theology36 will at once notice a striking resemblance between many of its dogmas and those, first, of Pharisaism, secondly, of the popular Christianity. Some examination of this subject properly belongs here. There is, then, as is well known, a circle or group of ideas, particularly pertaining to eschatology, which appear in the later Jewish writings, and remarkably correspond to those held by the Parsees, the followers of Zoroaster. The same notions also reappear in the early Christianity as popularly understood. We will specify some of these correspondences. The doctrine of angels, received by the Jews, their names, offices, rank, and destiny, was borrowed and formed
34 Schoettgen, de Messia, lib. vi. cap. vi. sect. 23; cap. vii. ss. 3, 4.
35 John Allen, Modern Judaism, ch. vi. and xv.