The idea of the resurrection in the ante-Nicene period

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Preface

This treatise aims to trace historically the development of the idea of the resurrection from its origin in the Old Testament, through Jewish and Christian literature, to the end of the first quarter of the fourth century. The precise theme is the resurrection of Jesus and of men as held in the ante-Nicene period. To discover this, the extant literature of this period has been carefully studied and investigated. The volumes in the Ante- Nicene Christian Library have been read, and passages pertaining to the resurrection studied in critical editions of the Fathers. The material is so grouped and treated that the story of the resurrection may be readily followed through the various stages. The aim of the author has been not merely to set forth the different historical strata in the idea of the resurrection, but also to deal with influences and inferences, in the hope that through this extensive study in early Christian literature suggestions may have been given for a more intensive study of the question of the resurrection in the New Testament and of the facts pertaining to the resurrection of Jesus. The author wishes to acknowledge special obligation to Professor Ernest D. Burton, of the University of Chicago, for generous help and inspiration.

C. K. S.

Table Of Contents

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I. Jewish and Greek Literature i

II. The New Testament 9

Chapter I Jewish And Greek Literature

This essay aims to trace the idea of the resurrection, both of Jesus and of men, as held in the ante-Nicene period. The literature of the period has been carefully studied with a view of ascertaining what men thought about the resurrection and what doctrines they held concerning it. The problem is confined mainly to a discussion of the precise nature and character of the resurrection. The distinction between the resurrection and the larger subject of the future life — to which belongs the conception of Hades, judgment, second coming, millennium, future rewards and punishments, and redemption — is constantly kept in mind. However, all these elements of eschatology are often knit up with the resurrection; and so far as they present collateral testimony to the resurrection they are brought into the discussion. Moreover, in the history of the resurrection-idea, especially in the early strata, a constant distinction is made between the resurrection of the Jews and that of the Gentiles, and between the resurrection of the righteous and that of the wicked. But this again is not the main subject of our study, and is considered only when it throws light and shade upon a more vital and intricate problem. The essential purpose of the essay is to set forth the nature of that which was supposed to continue in the after-life.

A prerequisite to the study of the resurrection in early Christian literature is a knowledge of the New Testament conception. But even this does not comprise all the necessary antecedent conditions. The idea of the resurrection did not leap into life full-grown, having its first appearance in the New Testament; it passed through certain stages and a long period of development. There are presuppositions to the New Testament material which dare not be overlooked; for the earliest conceptions are genetically related to the New Testament teachings, and besides, the literature of pre- Christian times exerted a direct influence on post-apostolic times. Inquiry must, therefore, be made into the Old Testament and into later Jewish writings, whether Palestinian or Alexandrian. Another very important prerequisite is the Graeco-Roman idea of immortality, the influence of which was both positive and negative in early Christian literature. The Jewish and Greek literature is therefore examined with a view of determining the idea or ideas which were held concerning the after-life before, or

i contemporaneous with, New Testament literature. The matter being introductory, the results are succinctly stated. In every document an effort is constantly made to discover whether the idea of the nature of that which is to rise, was uniformly held; or whether two, three, or even more conceptions were current.

The beginnings of a belief in individual resurrection are found in the Old Testament in at least two passages. That death is the end of life but not the end of existence was, however, the most common position among the Hebrews. At death, it was thought, the shades pass to Sheol where they continue in a semiconscious state. Those who have gone thither return no more, and none escape it (Job 7:9,10510:21,22). In some psalms there is a trace of the thought of eternal life in God in the other world (49 : 15) but not of hope for a resurrection. In Psalm 17:15, the phrase, "when I awake," does not mean awake from death, but from sleep. There is in the Old Testament, for the most part, nothing to look for beyond the grave and no hope of a resurrection.

On the other hand, there arose, in connection with the messianic hopes, a belief in the restoration of the nation, in which the dead as well as the living Jews were to participate. With this hope the resurrection from the dead is logically connected. In its simplest form it was a revival of Israel. Many of the religious conceptions which were later appropriated to the individual were in the first place altogether national. The resurrection was no exception to this general tendency in which the larger unit of the nation was gradually displaced by the smaller unit of the individual. This appears in those words of Hosea (6:1,2) in which, in a dramatic representation in the form of a soliloquy and of a dialogue between Jehovah and the people, the people acknowledge their chastisement to be from God, and express the conviction that in a short time he will deliver them and that they shall live again under his protection. The same is true of Ezekiel's vision of the Valley of Dry Bones (37:1-14). The passage is not a literal prophecy of the resurrection of the individual persons of the nation, dead or slain, but of a resurrection of the nation, whose condition is figuratively expressed and even so avowed when it is said that these bones are the whole house of Israel. The first mention of an unmistakable individual resurrection is in Isa. 26:19, m which a hope in a resurrection from Sheol is clearly expressed through a prayer for the resurrection of individuals. 1 The writer looks forward to the setting up of the kingdom in the city of strength, whose walls and bulwarks are salvation and whose gates will open that the righteous nation may enter (26:1,2). And since the nation was

JEWISH AND GREEK LITERATURE 3

hut few in numher the righteous dead shall rise and share the blessedness of the regenerate nation. Another definite prophecy of the resurrection of the dead is recorded in Dan. 12:2. These words refer to the faithful and the apostates of the Maccabean revolt (cf. 11 : 32 ff.). The resurrection is to be a resurrection of wicked as well as of righteous Israelites, who, in the body, are presented before God for judgment.

Turning to the apocryphal and apocalyptic literature, first to such as is of Palestinian origin, we discover that the idea of the resurrection formed a very vital part of the thought of later Judaism. The conception bulks larger and is more fully developed than in the Old Testament, being bound up with the entire system of eschatology. Statements concerning the character of the resurrection are often explicit and sometimes satisfactorily discussed. The most significant as well as the earliest of these writings was the Book of Enoch (Ethiopic). Through it the resurrection became commonplace in Jewish theology; and with the early Fathers it had all the weight of a canonical book, being sometimes cited as Scripture. There are at least two, if not four parts in the Ethiopic Enoch. The so-called "Similitudes" (chaps. 3 7-71), being entirely different from the rest of the book, are commonly assigned to a subsequent author. The resurrection is thus very variously conceived in consequence of these different historical layers; and the naive as well as the symbolic way of presentation makes interpretation extremely difficult.

In the first part of Enoch the resurrection is conceived to be of all Israel save one class of sinners (chap. 22) ; while in a later section the resurrection of the righteous alone is attested (90:33). The well-known " Similitudes " give testimony to a resurrection, either of all mankind or of Israelites only. 1 As to the resurrection act itself and the nature of the resurrection body there, too, are naturally marked variations. In the oldest section of the book the righteous are raised from Sheol in the body, to enjoy a life of material prosperity. The messianic kingdom is to be established on a purified earth with Jerusalem as its center (25:5); where its members are to eat of the tree of life (25:46), and where nature is to be prolific (10:19). The resurrection body of the righteous is thought of as having the same organs and functions which a mundane body possesses (cf. 25:46; 10:17), being virtually a restoration of the former body. The resurrection of the wicked is, however, differently conceived. The one class remain in Sheol forever; while the members of the other class are simply transferred on the great day of judgment from Sheol to everlasting punishment in Gehenna

1 See Schodde, The Book 0} Enoch, p. 139, for the one view; R. H. Charles, Book of Enoch, p. 139, for the other view.

(27:2). Whether the writer thought of the resurrection of the wicked as that of disembodied spirits (22 : 10,11), or spirits united with bodies so that they could be slain (22:13) and visible to the risen righteous (27 : 3), we are unable to surmise. Quite another conception of the resurrection is presented in the closing chapters of this Ethiopic Enoch. The center of interest is shifted from the material world to the spiritual, and the messianic kingdom being of short duration is no longer the goal of the hopes of the righteous. Heaven is the goal to which the spirits ascend after the final judgment (93:4). "The righteous dead will be raised (91:10; 92:3) as spirits only (103:3,4) and the portals of the new heaven will be open to them (104:2) and they shall joy as the angels (94:4) and become companions of the heavenly hosts (94:6) and shine as the stars (94: 2). " x The idea of the resurrection in this section does not involve the body, but only the spirit. In the "Similitudes," however, the resurrection assumes a firmer form and acquires more universal value. "In those days the earth also gives back those who are treasured up within it and Sheol will give back that which it owes" (51 : 1-3). The nature of this resurrection body is such that the risen one can eat and sleep (62:14) in the messianic kingdom in which the righteous will live forever. The mention of "garments of glory and fight" spoken of in connection with the resurrection body (even if this is the correct rendering of a variant text) does not revoke, as some are apt to think, the fleshly and materialistic conception of the body. There are thus in the Ethiopic Enoch two ideas concerning the character of the resurrection: (1) the resurrection of a material fleshly body; (2) the resurrection of the spirit only.

There is a very gross description of a bodily resurrection in Second Maccabees. This book surpasses all the earlier writings, not only in the prominence which it gives to the belief in a resurrection, but also in the enlarged form in which this belief is presented. The resurrection is set forth, not as a mere opinion, but as a motive and a support for martyrdom. The resurrection of the Israelites is to everlasting life (7:9), and their bodies are raised in exactly the same form in which they were committed to the earth. The writer holds the plainest and most literal conception of the resurrection of the body. God will restore the mutilated bodies (7:11; 14: 46) ; and even blood relationships will continue (7 : 29). There is no belief in the doctrine of a natural resurrection. Resurrection comes through the miraculous exertion of divine power (7:14). The formation of a human being in the womb is paralleled by its re-formation after death and

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dissolution (7 : 22, 23). God's will and ability to do the former gives courage to believe that he will and can do the latter. 1

Turning to the Book of Jubilees we meet again the doctrine of the resurrection of the spirit and the idea of simple immortality, already discerned in the Ethiopic Enoch. There is no mention of an intermediate abode, and surely it cannot be Sheol since that is conceived of as hell (24: 3). The only statement with reference to the resurrection is in 23:31, in which it is asserted that the souls of the righteous enjoy a blessed immortality after death. Presumably the soul must enter at death into its final destiny. A resurrection of the spirit only, and not of the body, is also asserted in the Assumption of Moses (10:3-10). A most striking view of the resurrection is recorded in the Apocalypse of Baruch. This book is a composite work, contemporaneous with New Testament writers. Baruch is represented as asking God what the nature of the resurrection body will be (chap. 49) ; to which answer is made that the body will be restored in exactly the same form in which it was buried, with all the defects and deformities, so that there may be a common recognition after death (chap. 50). After such recognition the body of the righteous will be transformed and will assume a more spiritual nature. There will be a series of successive changes until the body is adjusted to the new environment (51 : 3). The body, however, will not be so attenuated as to become a nonentity; it will remain a body, even though it is spiritually apprehended. Thus in almost the same breath the Apocalypse of Baruch presents a material as well as a spiritual conception of the risen body. 3

The nature of the resurrection is, therefore, variously conceived of in Palestinian- Jewish literature. Three conceptions were current: (1) a bodily resurrection in the material sense, clearly indicated (Eth. En.) and taught in the most literal terms (II Mace. ; Apoc. Bar.) ; (2) a resurrection of the spirit only, or an incorporeal immortality after judgment (Eth. En. ; Jub. ; Ass. Mos.) ; (3) a resurrection of a transformed body, different from the mundane body (Apoc. Bar.).

A preliminary resume of the Greek doctrine of the future life is a very important prerequisite to the interpretation and presentation of the idea of the resurrection in the ante-Nicene period. Early Christianity, as is

1 In II Mace. dvda-Taa-is occurs for the first time in the Greek Bible in the sense of resurrection.

2 Though this book runs somewhat parallel to Paul (I Cor. 15:35-50), it cannot be declared that Paul was influenced by it, since the main part of the book and the section referred to were written after a. d. 70. Withal the position of Baruch is fundamentally different from that of Paul.

well known, was developed in the environment of Greek life and thought. There is thus an a-priori probability that in the formation of the doctrine of the resurrection Greek influences were operative. This influence must have been both conscious and unconscious, direct and indirect, positive and negative. At the time of the Christian era there were still current among the Greeks and the Romans the popular beliefs in the Homeric conceptions and the ancient mythologies. The sepulchral inscriptions give conclusive evidence of this fact. And since Homer was the bible of the Greeks, and since the philosophies were beyond the grasp of the people as a whole, it is evident that this must have been the case. Now the Homeric doctrine of the after-life is inharmonious and irreconcilable at many places. In the main, however, it presents us with a doctrine which seems similar to the ancient beliefs of the Hebrews. The Homeric poems teach that death is not the end of man, but that something survives. This something is not a full, real man, but a kind of "an attenuatecl edition of man." The part which survives death is called the soul (^x 1 /)* but it is entirely different from what we understand as soul. It has no psychological relation with the rest of man, even while it is in the body. At death it departs to Hades, where it continues without consciousness (//. xxiii. 103, 104), and without a possibility of return (//. xxiii. 75, 76). Immortality was vouchsafed only to a few favorites of the gods, who were bodily translated to the Elysian fields.

The philosophic view of the future life is, on the other hand, of greater moment and more pertinent than the popular thought. There are constant allusions in Christian writings to the philosophical views and besides, many of the early Christian writers were at one time philosophers and were trained in the philosophic systems. The moral philosophies were the religion of most of the cultivated people. The foremost of philosophers was Plato — decidedly so on the subject of the after-life. He established the doctrine of a future life on grounds of reason, independent of tradition. Still he had his predecessors who were controlled by a higher idea of the after-life than the Homeric conception. The Eleusinian and Orphic mysteries, Pythagoras, and Pindar contributed the idea that the soul which survives in the other world is soul itself, and no attenuated dead image; that the transmigration of souls is necessary; and that the body is a hindrance to the soul. 1

Plato teaches very distinctly the idea of the immortality of the soul, to which is attached the doctrine of pre-existence and^the dogma of metempsychosis. The soul is incarnated, and after the death of the body a judgment

1 to o-cDjua a-ijfxa in the Orphic mysteries; see Plato, Cratylus, 400.

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awaits it in an intermediate state where penance and discipline and purification are possible. There it remains for a thousand years, after which it is again reincarnated; and so continuing to persist in successive bodies it is finally delivered from the body and departs into the realm of pure being. This goal is, however, reached only by those who have purified themselves by philosophy and have freed themselves from every taint of the body. The idea of a resurrection of the body is contrary to Platonic principles. The entire scheme is to get rid of the body and all of its functions, not to save it. "The soul is divine, immortal, intelligible, uniform, indissoluble, unchangeable," but "the body is mortal" (Phaedo, 80); the body is the source of endless trouble, and it hinders the soul from the acquisition of knowledge (66); purity is attained only by the separation of the soul from the body (67); the body is an impediment, a hindrance, and the prison of the soul; heaven is reached only in a bodiless condition, in which the soul is free from every taint of the body. The doctrine of immortality had reached its highest point in Plato, and all subsequent writers who dealt with the future life followed in his footsteps. There is one variation, however, and it is utilized by the Fathers, viz., the conception of the Stoics, who taught that the soul is corporeal and that it survives until the world's periodic conflagration. They taught that the entire universe is in a continuous flux, that periodically everything is reabsorbed into Deity, and that the soul subsists until the next reabsorption and conflagration.

Turning to the Romans we find that there is very little that is Roman which is not also Greek. There are only two writers who seriously deal with the after-life — Cicero and Virgil. Both of these are used in a few of the Latin Fathers. Cicero restates the Platonic doctrine, concluding that a soul will either have a happy future or will perish with the body (Tusc. Disp. /, 38). Virgil gives both the popular view and also his own view, the latter being a reflection of the Platonic ideas of an antagonism between body and soul (Aeneid vi, 725 fL). Thus Graeco-Roman thought was confined to the immortality of the soul, and consistently so; and the resurrection of the body was logically excluded, inasmuch as flesh and matter were conceived of as morally weak.

In the Alexandrian Jewish literature, there is a repetition of the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. In Alexandria, where the Jewish and Greek ideas were welded together, the conception of the after-life fell on the Greek rather than on the Jewish side. Nowhere is there an attestation of the resurrection of the body. In the Wisdom of Solomon the doctrine of an individual immortality beyond the grave is set forth

(2:23; 8:17; 15:3). The psychology of the author is dualistic. The soul of man is pre-existent, and the body is treated as a mere receptacle (8 : 20) ; the body is only an " earthly tabernacle" for the soul (9:15); the body falls to the dust and never rises. This idea is brought out still more clearly in Philo, the classic example of Jewish Alexandrian theology. A personal immortality is clearly recognized; while a resurrection of the body and a judgment and an intermediate abode find no place. At death the soul enters into its final state, which at once sets aside the idea of a resurrection. His conception of matter, likewise, repudiates any conception of a bodily resurrection. Thus it is stated that the body is made out of matter and matter is incurably evil; that life in the body is death and death real life; that the body is the "utterly polluted prison" of the soul (De Migr. Abr., II) ; that it is the corpse which the soul drags with it, the clog which hinders the spirit. The writer of Fourth Maccabees, "a dilettante in philosophies," believing only in a blessed immortality of the soul, thrusts aside any intimation of a resurrection of the body (13:16; 15:2; 18:23). This is the more remarkable since the discourse is founded on II Mace, which takes a very literal view of the resurrection. The Slavonic Enoch, or the Book of the Secrets of Enoch, standing in a class by itself, uses a collocation of words which do not lend themselves to definite interpretation (22:8-10).

Thus Hellenistic Judaism consistently held to a conception of mere personal immortality, and is a good illustration of the positive effect of Greek thought on the Jewish idea of the resurrection. This conception was confined almost exclusively to Alexandria, while the conception of the rehabilitation of the body was indigenous to Palestinian soil. This latter — the restoration of the former body — had gained wide currency and was a common property of the Pharisees and the common people, as is evident from Josephus, the New Testament, and the Talmud. Indeed, it was the atmosphere in which the Christian idea of the resurrection was born.

Chapter II The New Testament

In entering upon a study of the New Testament we are mainly interested to know whether there is a single view of the nature of the resurrection or whether testimony is given to two or even three conceptions. Inasmuch as we found through a genetic study of the literature of Judaism that there were current, at least, three possible conceptions of the nature of the resurrection, it is meet to inquire whether there is variation of idea in the New Testament books also, or uniformity. A careful study of Jesus, of Paul, and of the writers of the four gospels furnishes us with the desired information. In general, Jesus says very little — less perhaps than we should have expected — on the nature of the resurrection. However, the resurrection is affirmed in his reply to the cavil of the Sadducees, and the account is given by the three Synoptists (Mark 12:18-27 and parallels). That Mark contains the earlier tradition is evident, not merely from the general conclusion to which scholarship has come on the Synoptic problem as a whole, but also from the abrupt and uncouth form in which this Markan narrative is cast. The Sadducees present what was seemingly an imaginary case, and no doubt one of their standing questions — of the effect of levirate marriage on the after-life. To this question Jesus makes answer; and in his answer there are three aspects which bear, either directly or indirectly, on the subject.

The purport of the question of the Sadducees and the import of Jesus' answer give an implicit testimony. Jesus does not answer the question put to him, but deals with the presumption out of which the question sprang. Was that presumption the denial of the resurrection of the body, or rather the denial of the persistence of life after death ? If only the former, then the purpose of the argument of Jesus was simply to indicate to the Sadducees that there is a resurrection of the body in the material sense. If, however, the presumption of the question was a denial of a spiritual personality after death, rather than of a resurrection of the body, then the answer of Jesus has pertinency only if directed to this denial. Now a knowledge of the tenets of the Sadducees, apart from our immediate passage, reveals the fact that they denied not merely the resurrection of the body, but more fundamentally the soul's immortality. Josephus' representation is undoubtedly correct when he says that they maintain that the soul perishes with the body

IO IDEA OF RESURRECTION IN ANTENICENE PERIOD

(Ant., xviii. i ; War, ii. 8: 14). This is also in harmony with Acts 23:8, in which it is asserted that they deny a world of supermundane spirits. And from the very history of the Sadducees one infers that they were wholly concerned with materialistic interests, so that spiritual realities had little meaning for them. From this standpoint it is therefore evident that Jesus must have set himself to the task primarily of showing the continuity of life, rather than of arguing the resurrection of a material body.

After all, Jesus seems to give some hint as to the nature of the resurrection in this passage when he says that in the resurrection "they neither marry, nor are given in marriage; but are as the angels in heaven." It is evident from this that the future life is not to be one of sense-life, in which men exist with the same forms of intercourse occasioned by man's sensuous nature. Jesus repudiates very strongly the idea of the earthly sensuous character of the future life. However, the exact nature of the future existence of men is not, by this expression, definitely indicated. In the analogy of the heavenly state of angels (eto-tv ws ayyeXot iv rois ovpavois) there is something a little more tangible, but still nothing absolutely definite. Angels, like demons and spirits, are usually conceived of as immaterial beings, having a self-conscious, self-directing individuality. Jesus probably intended the simile to be taken at its full value. If so, he intended to give a distinctly spiritual meaning to the resurrection. Furthermore, it is worth noticing that this reply of Jesus tallies with the description in the latter part of Ethiopic Enoch, where there is to be a resurrection, but a resurrection of the spirit alone; in which the risen righteous are to rejoice "as the angels of heaven" (104:4), being companions of the "heavenly hosts" (104:6). Hence it is most probable that Jesus intended to deny the physical and affirm only the spiritual nature of the after-life.

The argument which Jesus draws from Scripture, in his answer, has reference only to a spiritual resumption of the activities of life after death (Mark 12 : 26, 27). Jesus shows conclusively that the view of the Sadducees is inconsistent with the very Scripture to which they hold. If God, he argues, is really the God of the patriarchs, then they are in fellowship with him, and that fellowship cannot be broken by death; it is continuous, and consequently life must be continuous. Commentators often have made the argument to hinge on the use of the present instead of the past tense in the words, "I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob," thereby showing that the patriarchs who were buried centuries before Moses must still have been living when God spoke these words to him. But the argument for the survival of human personality strikes deeper, for it is inferred from the nature of God himself. Those who are morally

THE NEW TESTAMENT II

and religiously bound up with him now are in a life-giving and eternal fellowship with him; he who lives for God and with God lives forever. In this aspect of Jesus' answer to the Sadducees there is no support of the idea of a restitution of the body; but only of a survival of the spirit after death and of a blessed fellowship with God. The term " resurrection " has acquired, in the thought of Jesus, the content of immortality. No room is even left for an awakening of the soul from an intermediate abode and its transference therefrom to another place, where some kind of a body will be given to it. Jesus tacitly assumed that the resurrection begins with death and that the patriarchs were living the resurrection life fully and completely. There is no room for a point of time in the history of the after-life when a soul will be united with its former body and live a completer life.