"O yet we trust that somewhere good Will be the final goal of ill, To pangs of nature, sins of will, Defects of doubt, and taints of blood; So runs my dream."-TENNYSON. IX. The Witness of the New Testament-Paradise `HE orthodox Jews were accustomed to speak of THE the abode in Hades where the souls of the righteous awaited the resurrection, as Abraham's Bosom, Gan Eden, and Paradise. Our Lord, therefore, used well-understood words when in one of His parables He told how Lazarus after his death "was carried by the angels1 into Abraham's bosom"; and also when from the cross He gave to the penitent robber the promise, "To-day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise."2 Our Lord, however, added nothing to the knowledge of those He addressed as to the condition of the soul in the interval between the death and resurrection of the body. We must, therefore, look a little more carefully into the sacred Scriptures if we would understand the teaching that gathers around the intermediate state of the righteous; for we shall find that it is closely associated with much that concerns the fall and redemption of man. 1 St. Luke xvi. 22, καὶ ἀπενεχθῆναι αὐτὸν ὑπὸ τῶν ἀγγέλων. In one sense "Paradise" and "Abraham's Bosom are synonymous, but in another sense they are widely different. This difference is suggested by the fact that the word Paradise is twice used after Pentecost in the New Testament when the future state is spoken of, while there is no such reference to Abraham's Bosom. The word Paradise, though it appears in the Old Testament in its Hebrew form (Pardés),1 is, there can hardly be a doubt, a word of Aryan rather than of Shemetic origin. It was probably borrowed by the Jews from Persia. In its original signification, and in the Classics the word simply means a beautiful park or pleasure-garden. After the conquests of Alexander the Great the word gained a recognised place in the language of the Hellenistic Jews, and was adopted by those who translated the Pentateuch into Greek as the equivalent of the "garden "s that the Lord God "planted eastward in Eden"; and they used it in the other portions of the Septuagint for any allusion to that fair home of primeval man. Paradise was thenceforth to the Jew the bright and happy region that had been lost by sin. By an easy succession of ideas the word then became associated with the future home of rest and tranquil enjoyment into which Abraham the Father of the faithful was thought to welcome his children at the hour of their death, or when they were purified and made ready for their reward. 1 e.g. Xenophon. 2 Song of Sol. iv. 13; Eccles. ii. 5; Neh. ii. 8. 3 Gen. ii. 8, "The Lord God planted a paradise. As might be expected, the various Jewish sects had different theories respecting Paradise; some interpreted the word in a merely allegorical sense, and understood by it the attainment of spiritual perfection; others, such as the Rabbinic schools, mapped out Paradise much as Dante did in after ages, and had a complete topography of this part of the unseen world.1 Out of these theories grew the popular belief that the righteous Jews passed at death to a fair region of great beauty, almost exactly resembling the Elysian fields of the Greek mythology. Here they enjoyed the society of the heroes of their race, and notably that of their father Abraham. It was believed that the faithful in Paradise reclined as honoured guests on the bosom of the great Patriarch at that festive banquet which was the Jewish anticipation of "the marriage supper of the Lamb."2 So far, then, the two titles Paradise and Abraham's Bosom are synonymous. It is only when we remember that in the primeval earthly Paradise man enjoyed the society and friendship of God, that we notice the great difference between the state of man in Eden and the conception of the future life conveyed under the figure of Abraham's Bosom. In the one we have as its characteristic the thought of the presence of God, while in the other God is apparently forgotten and the Patriarch takes His place! 1 It must, however, be borne in mind that Dante by Paradise meantas Christians usually mean-not a part of Hades, but Heaven. 2 Rev. xix. 9. |