Part 6 (1/2)

[Footnote 3: Book iii, 97-817]

[Footnote 4: Esther vi 13, vii 10, viii 7, 11-17, ix 1-22; and in the apocryphal parts, ix 10, 11, xiv 13, and following, xvi 20, 24]

[Footnote 5: Eccl i 11, ii 16, 18-24, iii 19-22, iv 8, 15, 16, v

17, 18, vi 3, 6, viii 15, ix 9, 10]

A gigantic drea its youth in its decrepitude A stranger to the theory of individual recompense, which Greece diffused under the name of the immortality of the soul, Judea concentrated all its power of love and desire upon the national future She thought she possessed divine promises of a boundless future; and as the bitter reality, froave more and more the dominion of the world to physical force, and brutally crushed these aspirations, she took refuge in the union of the yrations Before the captivity, when all the earthly hopes of the nation had become weakened by the separation of the northern tribes, they dreamt of the restoration of the house of David, the reconciliation of the two divisions of the people, and the triumph of theocracy and the worshi+p of Jehovah over idolatry At the epoch of the captivity, a poet, full of harmony, saw the splendor of a future Jerusalem, of which the peoples and the distant isles should be tributaries, under colors so charlimpse of the visions of Jesus had reached him at a distance of six centuries[1]

[Footnote 1: Isaiah lx &c]

The victory of Cyrus seerave disciples of the Avesta and the adorers of Jehovah believed the thetheinations (essentially naturalistic) a species of Monotheiss of Iran had y with certain compositions of Hosea and Isaiah

Israel reposed under the Achemenidae,[1] and under Xerxes (Ahasuerus) made itself feared by the Iranians themselves But the triumphal and often cruel entry of Greek and Roman civilization into Asia, threw it back upon its dreaer of the people A complete renovation, a revolution which should shake the world to its very foundation, was necessary in order to satisfy the enoreance excited in it by the sense of its superiority, and by the sight of its humiliation[2]

[Footnote 1: The whole book of Esther breathes a great attachment to this dynasty]

[Footnote 2: Apocryphal letter of Baruch, in Fabricius, _Cod pseud, VT_, ii p 147, and following]

If Israel had possessed the spiritualistic doctrine, which divides man in two parts--the body and the soul--and finds it quite natural that while the body decays, the soul should survive, this paroxysetic protestation would have had no existence But such a doctrine, proceeding from the Grecian philosophy, was not in the traditions of the Jewish s contain no trace of future rewards or punishments Whilst the idea of the solidarity of the tribe existed, it was natural that a strict retribution according to individual ht of

So much the worse for the pious man who happened to live in an epoch of impiety; he suffered, like the rest, the public ion This doctrine, bequeathed by the sages of the patriarchal era, constantly produced unsustainable contradictions Already at the time of Job it was much shaken; the old e, and the young Elihu, who intervened in order to combat them, dared to utter as his first word this essentially revolutionary sentied understand judgment”[1]

With the complications which had taken place in the world since the time of Alexander, the old Temanite and Mosaic principle became still more intolerable[2] Never had Israel been more faithful to the Law, and yet it was subjected to the atrocious persecution of Antiochus

Only a declai, would dare to assert that these evils proceeded from the unfaithfulness of the people[3] What! these victims who died for their faith, these heroic Maccabees, this et therave?[4] Worldly and incredulous Sadduceeisht possibly not recoil before such a consequence, and a consuht indeed maintain that we must not practise virtue like a slave in expectation of a recompense, that we must be virtuous without hope But the mass of the people could not be contented with that So theined the righteous living in the lorious forever in the re the wicked who had persecuted theht of God;

they are known of God”[7] That was their reward Others, especially the Pharisees, had recourse to the doctrine of the resurrection[8]

The righteous will live again in order to participate in the Messianic reign They will live again in the flesh, and for a world of which they will be the kings and the judges; they will be present at the triumph of their ideas and at the humiliation of their enemies

[Footnote 1: Job xxxiii 9]

[Footnote 2: It is nevertheless remarkable that Jesus, son of Sirach, adheres to it strictly (chap xvii 26-28, xxii 10, 11, xxx 4, and following, xli 1, 2, xliv 9) The author of the book of _Wisdom_ holds quite opposite opinions (iv 1, Greek text)]

[Footnote 3: Esth xiv 6, 7 (apocr); the apocryphal Epistle of Baruch (Fabricius, _Cod pseud, VT_, ii p 147, and following)]

[Footnote 4: 2 _Macc_ vii]

[Footnote 5: _Pirke Aboth_, i 3]

[Footnote 6: _Wisdom_, ii-vi; _De Rationis Imperio_, attributed to Josephus, 8, 13, 16, 18 Still we must remark that the author of this last treatise estiree The primary ie which their death will procure to the people, and the glory which will attach to their na; _Eccl_ xliv, and following; Jos, _BJ_, II viii

10, III viii 5]

[Footnote 7: _Wisdom_, iv 1; _De Rat Imp_, 16, 18]

[Footnote 8: 2 _Macc_, vii 9, 14, xii 43, 44]

We find a the ancient people of Israel only very indecisive traces of this fundama The Sadducee, who did not believe it, was in reality faithful to the old Jewish doctrine; it was the Pharisee, the believer in the resurrection, as the innovator But in religion it is always the zealous sect which innovates, which progresses, and which has influence Besides this, the resurrection, an idea totally different from that of the immortality of the soul, proceeded very naturally from the anterior doctrines and from the position of the people Perhaps Persia also furnished so with the belief in the Messiah, and with the doctrine of a speedy renewal of all things, it for articles of faith (the orthodox Sanhedrim of Jerusaleinations, and produced an extreme fermentation from one end of the Jeorld to the other The total absence of dogor caused very contradictory notions to be admitted at one tihteous were to await the resurrection;[2] sometimes they were to be received at the moment of death into Abrahaeneral;[4] sometimes it was to be reserved only for the faithful;[5] sometimes it supposed a renewed earth and a new Jerusalem; sometimes it implied a previous annihilation of the universe

[Footnote 1: Theopo Laert_, Proem, 9 _Boundehesch_, xxxi The traces of the doctrine of the resurrection in the Avesta are very doubtful]

[Footnote 2: John xi 24]

[Footnote 3: Luke xvi 22 Cf _De Rationis Imp_, 13, 16, 18]