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النشر الإلكتروني

'He hath swallowed up death for ever' (Is. xxv. 8). There is, secondly, the conviction uttered by particular Psalmists that their close fellowship with God implies and demands that they will themselves be personally superior to death: 'Therefore my heart is glad and my glory [i.e. my spirit] rejoiceth: my flesh also dwelleth securely. For thou wilt not leave my soul to Sheol1; thou wilt not suffer thy godly one to see the pit' (Ps. xvi. 9, 10; cf. xvii. 15, xlix. 15, lxxiii. 26; Job xix. 26)2. And, thirdly, we meet with the idea of a resurrection, which, however, only takes shape gradually, and is at first a hope and not a dogma, national and not individual, and in the Old Testament, even to the end, is limited to Israel. The hope is expressed first, though dimly, in Hos. vi. 2, where it is evidently national: 'After two days he will revive us in the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live before him': and the promise in Hos. xiii. 14 is national likewise3. The passage which comes next chronologically is Ezek. xxxvii., the vision of the valley of dry bones, where, by the express terms of v. II (‘Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel'), the promise is limited to Israel, and where also, as Prof. Davidson points out, what the prophet contemplates is a resurrection, not of individuals, but of the nation,—' it is a prophecy of the resurrection of the nation, whose condition is figuratively expressed by the people when they represent its bones as long scattered and dry.' In the next prophecy in which the idea occurs, the (postexilic) apocalyptic prophecy, Is. xxiv.—xxvii., there is, however, an advance, and the resurrection of individual Israelites is certainly contemplated, though rather as the object of a hope or prayer than as a fixed doctrine: the people confess that they could not effect any true deliverance themselves: 'We were with child, we writhed in pain, when we bare, it was wind, we

1 Not 'in Sheol': the hope expressed by the Psalmist is not that he will rise again, but that he will not die.

2 See further the notes on these passages in the Cambridge Bible; and the Introduction to the Psalms, pp. lxxv.-lxxviii.

3 Cf. Oehler, Theol. of the O.T., § 225.

4 In his notes on the chapter in the Cambridge Bible.

DANIEL

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made not the land salvation, neither were inhabitants of the world brought forth'; they turned therefore to God: 'May Thy dead live! may my dead bodies arise!' and the prophet breaks in with the words of jubilant assurance: 'Awake, and sing aloud, ye that dwell in the dust; for a dew of lights [a dew charged with the light of life] is Thy dew, and the earth shall bring forth the Shades!' The dwindled and suffering nation is thus represented as replenished and strengthened by the resurrection of its deceased members. 'The doctrine of the resurrection here presented is reached through the conviction, gradually produced by the long process of revelation, that the final redemption of Israel could not be accomplished within the limits of nature. It became clear that the hopes and aspirations engendered by the Spirit in believing minds pointed forward to the great miracle here described, and thus the belief in the resurrection was firmly bound up with the indestructible hopes of the future of Israel. The idea is represented in a form which is immature in the light of the New Testament1,' but it marks almost the highest development of O.T. revelation on the subject. That the hope is limited to Israel, appears both from the words of the passage itself, and also from v. 14, where it is denied of Israel's foes ('The dead live not (again), the Shades arise not').

The last passage in the O.T. in which the idea is expressed is Dan. xii. 2, 'And many of them that sleep in the dusty ground shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to reproaches and everlasting abhorrence.' Here a resurrection of the wicked is taught for the first time, as also a doctrine of future rewards and punishments: both doctrines are, however, still applied only to Israelites, and (as the word 'many' shews) not even to all of these; the writer, it seems, having in view not individuals as such, but those individuals who had in an extraordinary degree helped or hindered the advent of God's kingdom, i.e. the Jewish martyrs and apostates respectively, the great majority of the nation, who were of average character,

1 Skinner, in the Cambridge Bible, ad loc.

neither overmuch righteous nor overmuch wicked, remaining still in Sheol1. The nature of the future reward and retribution is also left indefinite, the expressions used being quite general'. It does not fall within the scope of a Commentary on Daniel to trace the development of the doctrine in subsequent times; it must suffice to point out generally how, in the century or so following the age of the Maccabees, the religious imagination of pious Jews, meditating upon the intimations of a future life contained in the Old Testament, and combining them with different prophetic representations of the future triumph of the kingdom of God, arrived at fairly definite, though not always perfectly consistent, conceptions of a resurrection, a final judgement, a place of punishment (Gehenna), Paradise, and a future life (which is more or less spiritually conceived, according to the point of view adopted by the particular writer); and how, further, by this means currency was given to certain figures and expressions, in which even our Lord and His Apostles could clothe appropriately the truths enunciated by them3.

3. Angels. The angelology of the Book of Daniel has been sufficiently explained, and compared with that of other Jewish writings of 2-1 cent. B.C., in the notes on viii. 16 and x. 13. It has there been shewn that it is only in the later books of the

1 Cf. the note ad loc., and Charles, Eschatology, p. 180. The idea that the resurrection was to be limited to Israel appears also among the later Jews; indeed, it became ultimately the accepted doctrine that it was to be limited to righteous Israelites, the wicked being either annihilated, or confined in prison-houses of perpetual torment: cf. e.g. 2 Macc. vii. 9, 14, 36; Psalms of Sol. iii. 13, 16, xiii. 9, 10, xiv. 6, 7, xv. 13-15; Apoc. of Baruch xxx.; Joseph. Ant. XVIII. i. 3 (the creed of the Pharisees); and see Charles on Enoch li. 1, Weber, Altsynag. Theol. p. 372 ff.

See further, on the subject of the two preceding paragraphs, Salmond's Christian Doctrine of Immortality, ed. 3 (1897), pp. 233267.

The writer has sketched the growth of belief in a future state, with special reference to the Book of Enoch and the Targums, in the fourth of his Sermons on subjects connected with the Old Testament (pp. 72-98); for more detailed particulars see Charles' Eschatology, Hebrew, Jewish, and Christian (1899), chaps. v.—viii.

O.T. that angels begin to receive names, and that differences of grade and function are recognized among them; in particular, also, it has been pointed out that the 'chief princes' mentioned in x. 13 are very probably the seven superior angels (or 'archangels') referred to in Tob. xii. 15 and in different parts of the Book of Enoch, and that the doctrine of patron or tutelary angels of nations, though alluded to probably in Is. xxiv. 21, appears for the first time distinctly in Daniel (x. 13, 20, 21, xi. 1, xii. 1). A few words must however be said here on the opinion that the angelology of Daniel was derived from, or at least influenced by, the religion of the ancient Persians, commonly called either (from the name of its traditional founder) Zoroastrianism, or (from the name of its supreme deity) Mazdeism. There are undoubtedly affinities between some of the doctrines of Zoroastrianism and those of Israel,-its supreme god, Ahuramazda (mentioned repeatedly by Darius Hystaspis in his inscriptions), 'the Lord, the great knower,' was, for instance, a purer and more spiritual being than many of the gods of the heathen,—s -so that it is not difficult to imagine elements from the system being borrowed by the Jews; but in the case of angels, the influence, if it was exerted at all, must have been slight. The facts are these. Ahura-mazda is in the sacred canon of Zoroastrianism,-known generally as the Zend-Avesta,—the Creator of all things, but 'he is assisted in his administration of the universe by legions of beings, who are all subject to him. The most powerful among his ministers were originally naturegods, such as the sun, moon, earth, winds, water,' &c.; but there were an immense number besides. At the head of all these subordinate beings are 'six genii of a superior order, six ever-active energies, who preside under his guidance over the kingdoms and forces of nature.' These genii are called 'Amesha-spentas' (Mod. Pers. 'Amshaspands'), or 'Beneficent (lit. 'increase-giving') immortals'; and their names are Vohumanô ('good thought') presiding over cattle, Asha-vahista ('perfect holiness') presiding over fire, Khshathra-vairya ('good government') over metals, Spenta-armaiti ('meek piety') over the earth, Haurvatât ('health') over vegetation, and Ameretât

('immortality') over water. Sometimes, also, Ahura-mazda is himself included among the Amesha-spentas, thus bringing their number up to seven. There is also an evil principle, Angrô-mainyus (Ahriman), co-eternal with Ahura-mazda, who is ever endeavouring to thwart the purposes, and mar the work, of Ahura-mazda, who against the six Amesha-spentas sets in array six evil spirits of equal power, and who also has under him a multitude of other evil beings (Daêvas), who never cease to do what they can to vex and seduce mankind1.

The Amesha-Spentas are alluded to frequently in the sacred writings of Mazdeism: we meet for instance constantly with such invocations as these: We sacrifice to Ahura-Mazda, bright and glorious: we sacrifice to the Amesha-Spentas, the all-ruling, the all-beneficent' (invocations to the individual Amesha-Spentas, and to other subordinate spirits, or deities, follow).

In Daniel, now, two angels, Gabriel and Michael, are mentioned by name; and Michael is said (x. 13) to be one of 'the chief princes,' i.e. probably (see on x. 13) one of the 'seven holy angels' mentioned in Tob. xii. 15 as presenting the prayers of the saints before God; seven principal angels are also mentioned in Enoch xx. 1-7, lxxxi. 5, xc. 21, 22 (elsewhere four are particularized, viz. in ix. 13, xl. 2—10, lxxxvii. 2, 3, lxxxviii. 1, lxxxix. 1). In order to estimate properly the bearing of Tobit upon the question, it should be added that Asmodeus, the name of the evil spirit in Tob. iii. 8, 17, is almost certainly of Mazdean origin, viz. Aêshmô daévô, the 'raving demon 4' It must however be owned that the resemblance between this system and the angelology of Daniel is exceedingly slight. Even supposing that seven principal angels are certainly implied in

1 Maspero, The Passing of the Empires, pp. 577-586 (who quotes further authorities).

2 Darmesteter in the Sacred Books of the East, XXIII. (the ZendAvesta, Part ii.) pp. 13, 15, 17, 37, &c. (see the Index).

3 Where, in the Greek text of Syncellus (Charles, p. 67), but not in the Gizeh text (ib. p. 333), they are called 'the four great archangels.' 4 Maspero, .c. p. 585. Aêshma is one of the leaders of the evil demons created by Ahriman.

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