IV. archangels. CHAP. shining multitude above were substituted by man's vain imagination for the Lord of hosts Himself: and as the influence of that ancient superstition was far from being peculiar to the Persians, the allusion to 'seven' principal objects of esteem and worship is continually recurring in all parts of heathendom'. It is, however, a mistake to argue that the later Hebrew people, and much less the Hebrew prophets of the exile, manifested any disNumber of position to deify the orbs of light. There is indeed one solitary passage in the book of Tobit, where the speaker, Raphael, describes himself as of the number of the 'seven holy angels who enter in before the glory of the Holy One' (xii. 15; cf. Rev. viii. 2); but, according to a different method of enumeration, the archangels of the Hebrew are more frequently reduced to four (Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and Uriel), each presiding over one of the four armies of ministry who sing praises to the Holy and the Blessed. Still if we had higher reasons for accepting the account of Tobit as an illustration of the general state of knowledge on this subject at the period when he wrote, it would be running counter to the sacred usage, both of the Old and New Testament, to argue that the number 1 Above, pp. 52, 169, to which examples may be added the seven rishis of Hindustan, who, at least in the Puranic period, were represented as 'seven primeval personages, born of Brahma's mind, and presiding, under different forms, over each Manwantara.' 2 See the passage from the Pirke of Rabbi Eliezer (who, according to Fürst, Bibliotheca Judaica, I. 232, flourished about A.D. 70), in Dr Mill's work, as before, p. 58, n. 10. Dr Donaldson (p. 136) breaks through this difficulty at once by urging that when the Jews limited the number of attendant spirits' to four, they did so 'probably from some confusion between the amshaspands and the seraphim of Isaiah on the one hand, and the four creatures of Ezekiel on the other'! IV. Scriptural seven as there employed, contains the slightest CHAP. reference to the worship of celestial luminaries, or to any phase whatever of gentile superstition1. use of 'Seven,' alike before and after the Captivity, had 'seven.' its own specific import for all members of the Hebrew Church. It was the signature of fulness, union, manifoldness, perfection; and therefore the seven spirits of God' in the Apocalypse (i. 4; iv. 5) are understood as pointing us directly to the diverse operations of the One all-gracious Spirit2; while the seven stars' are the angels of the seven churches,' and the 'seven candlesticks' a grand collective symbol of the whole Christian body (i. 20). § 4. Doctrine of the Resurrection of the Body. attached to trine in the ment. To foster a belief in the awakening of man's Importance body from the sleep of death, and in the final this doc glorification of his whole humanity, was a primary New Testaobject in the teaching of St Paul and of apostles generally. In their view 'the redemption of the body' at the re-appearing of our Lord and Saviour, was the crowning-point in a succession of stupendous acts which dated from His own ineffable assumption of our weak and dying flesh. Yet writers are not wanting who assure us that the doctrine of the resurrection, so specifically and profoundly Christian, is a relic only of primeval barbarism which passed into the Hebrew creed, like others of the same description, at the period of the Babylonish exile3. Observing, it would seem, that 1 Cf. Bähr, Symbolik, 1. 189 sq. 2 Hengstenberg, Die Offenbarung des h. Johan. I. 91, 92, Berlin, 1849. C. A. E. IV. 3 e. g. Wegscheider does not blush to affirm that this opinion unquestionably grew up 'e notionibus man14 IV. CHAP. fuller light is thrown upon the mystery of our future being, in proportion as the 'mystery of godliness' itself was gradually unfolded, those irreverent critics have not scrupled to conjecture that instead of such ulterior light proceeding from the supernatural source, it must have had an earthly origin among the ancient votaries of Ormazd. No trace of it in the A vesta. Statements of Theopompus. And here, as in some other cases, the supposed 'discovery' of the doctrine in the Zendic books had been facilitated by the mistranslations of their first editor. It is since established by more competent scholars', that in passages where Anquetil Duperron rendered 'till the resurrection,' the words really signify for ever,'-an important rectification, which, as soon as it is generally made known, will silence not a few of the objections borrowed from this quarter. Like results have also followed from the critical examination of some other Zendic texts; until at present all who are entitled to pronounce a judgment on the question may be heard affirming that no glimpses of a resurrection of the body can be traced in extant books of the Avesta. Still that Persians did not long continue strangers to the thought of some ulterior re-embodying of the souls departed, may be argued with great shew of reason from the testimony of the historian, cis et imperfectis hominum incul- 1 Burnouf, Études, in Journ. Asiat. borated by Spiegel, Zeits. Deutsch. morg. Gesell. (1847), I. 260, 261; Avesta, I. 15, 248, n. 2. According to the Vendid. Farg. XIX. 89 sq., as there translated, the good or 'pure' spirits are removed on the third day after death to a place of perfect happiness, and the bad spirits to a place of torment: cf. Wilson's Pársi Religion, pp. 337, 338. Theopompus', who died about the year 300 B. C. He has declared that in accordance with the Persian creed, as soon as the great struggles of Ormazd and Ahriman are all exhausted, Hades will become a void; and that mankind attaining to true happiness will then 'require no nourishment and will cast no shadows.' And elsewhere his language is still more explicit; for he says that if we may believe the Magi, men will come to life again and be immortal:—both which statements fairly indicate that at the close of the 'great year' of Persia, every thing, it is believed, will have reverted to the primitive condition and that the human body, no exception to this general law, will have itself experienced the refining and exalting process. CHAP. ries of the There are reasons, it is true, for urging2 that Two theotwo different lines of thought existed in the schools body. of ancient Persia: one, proceeding from a rigorous form of dualism3, akin to that of Mani, and so, as in the convents of northern India, making of the human body a mere prison-house in which the soul was doing penance for her past misdeeds; the other mourning over the dissolution of the body as a victory won by Ahriman, and so including 1 The testimony of this writer has been examined at some length by J. G. Müller, Theol. Studien und Kritiken (1835), pp. 482 sq. in an article entitled 'Ist die Lehre von der Auferstehung des Leibes wirklich nicht eine alt-persische Lehre?' The discussion turns in a great measure on the force of avaßioûv in the following passage: Θεόπομπος, ἐν τῇ ὀγδόῃ τῶν Φιλιππικῶν, καὶ ἀναβιώσεσθαι, κατὰ τοὺς Μάγους, φησὶ τοὺς ἀνθρώπους καὶ ἔσεσθαι ἀθανάτους (in 2 See Döllinger, Heidenthum, p. 381. 3 Above, p. 174. IV. CHAP. the idea of re-embodiment among the blessings that would ultimately flow from the subversion of his empire. But the testimony of Theopompus may be viewed as an expression of the orthodox' belief, especially when we bear in mind that subsequent language of the Bundehesh' is strikingly in favour of the resurrection-theory. The Hebrew doc trine ante Babylonic. On the other hand, assuming, as in previous instances, that Hebrew prophets would have seen no difficulty in borrowing novel tenets from the creed of their enslavers, it appears to me indisputable that the doctrine of the resurrection of the body was believed to some extent among the members of the sacred family long before the period of the Babylonish exile. I shall lay no stress at present on debateable texts2; of which, however, it is no exaggeration to affirm that while incapable of proving that the doctrine of a resurrection was fully or definitely held, they nevertheless bear witness to the fact that the idea of resurrection had never been repugnant to the feelings of the ancient Israelite, but rather coincided with the expectations that arose in him from a belief in God's redemptive and restoring mercy. It will here suffice to mention that the words which Daniel is said to have indited under the inspirations of the Medo-Persian system are in perfect unison with declarations of Isaiah two centuries before. For instance, if the prophet of the Captivity was pointing onward to a crisis when 'many of them that sleep in the dust 1 The passages are collected in Rhode, as before, pp. 465 sq.; but, as Spiegel remarks, a correct and critical edition of the Bundehesh will doubtless modify the old assertions on this point also. 2 Cf. Fairbairn's Ezekiel, pp. 356 -359. |