thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast. Where that the words of the 19th verse were by the Jews before our Saviour's time mystically understood of the real and proper resurrection of the dead at the last day, is certain from the Chaldee paraphrast on the place. And it is as certain, that the chambers of God's people in the 20th verse were by the ancient Jews also mystically expounded of the receptacles of the souls of the righteous till the resurrection. For in the second apocryphal book of Esdras, (as we number it,) chap. iv. 35, 36. after some curious questions propounded by the author to his angel, concerning the state of the world to come, the angel is brought in thus answering: Did not the souls also of the righteous ask questions of these things in their chambers, saying, How long shall I hope on this fashion? When cometh the fruit of the floor of our reward? And unto these things Uriel the archangel gave them answer, and said, Even when the number of seeds is filled in you; that is, when the number of God's elect is accomplished, as our church expresseth it in the Office of the Burial of the Dead. To the same purpose speaks St. John in the Revelation, chap. vi. 9, 10, 11. And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held: and they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellowservants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled. But to return to St. Clement again: the region of the godly, where all the faithful deceased from the beginning of the world inhabit, of which he here speaks, he in the beginning of his Epistle (as was observed at first in the explanation of my text) calls with reference to St. Peter, one of that number, the place of glory; because, according to the exposition of the Clementine Liturgy, of which I shall give you an account presently, they that are there behold the glory of Christ, though not in that full brightness wherein it shall be seen at the day of his glorious appearance. And presently after, he terms the same place, speaking of St. Paul there, the holy place P, not the most holy place. For he seems to allude in that expression, as otherwhere in the same Epistle he doth, to the temple at Jerusalem, which at the time of his writing it was yet standing; wherein there was the sanctuary, or holy place; and within it the sanctum sanctorum, the holy of holies, both figures of the heavenly things. He altogether seems therefore to have thought the region of the godly deceased, to be a part of the heavenly regions, as the sanctuary was a part of the temple; and near to the highest region of the heavens, as the sanctuary was near the holy of holies. But I dare not venture too far into these curious and abstruse questions. Only I note, that upon this account some of the Fathers, as St. Cyprian, St. Ambrose, and others, stuck not to • Τόπον τῆς δόξης. [c. 5.] * Τὸν ἅγιον τόπον. [ib.] "[This is not now the opinion of the learned. See Lardner.] VOL. I. F call the place of the separate spirits of good men, by the name of heaven, or the heavens, meaning, as it appears', not the aditum, or inmost apartment of the heavens, where the throne of the majesty on high is seated, and the pas apóσirov, the unapproachable light shines; but a heavenly mansion near to it. Whence also the ancient Hebrews were wont to say of the separate spirits of the righteous, that they are under the throne of glory. But again, as to St. Clement's region of the godly, where the spirits of all the faithful deceased from the beginning of the world inhabit, we have a clearer account of it in the Clementine Liturgy in the Office for the Deads; where the entrance of good souls into that state of bliss, which presently succeeds death, is said to be their admission "into the region of the godly released from their bodies; into the bosom of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and of all those that "have pleased God, and obeyed his will from the beginning of the world: where all sorrow, grief, and mourning is banished." And presently after the same region is called "the land of those that see there "the glory of Christ"." 66 66 Of the same region of godly souls Justin Martyr plainly speaks in his Dialogue with Trypho, not very far from the beginning of it: where, among the ca ▾ Vid. Ambros. de Bono Mortis, cap. 10, 11. et eundem ad Michæam, obs. 2. * Vid. Constit. Apost. VIII. 41. [Bull could hardly have considered the Apostolical Constitutions to have been the work of Clement. They were probably written in the third or fourth century.] * Εἰς χώραν εὐσεβῶν ἀνειμένων. - Τῶν ὁρώντων ἐν αὐτῇ τὴν δόξαν τοῦ Χριστοῦ. 66 Even tholic doctrines taught him when he first became Christian, he delivers this for one, "That the souls "of the godly" (after death till the resurrection) "re"main in a certain better region, and unrighteous "and wicked souls in an evil one." And yet the same Justin Martyr in the same book, p. 307. condemns it as an error in the Gnostics, that they held, "That as soon as they die, their souls are received up into heaveny," i. e. the highest heaven. Remarkable is the catholic consent here. those doctors of the church, that fancied the place of godly souls to be I know not what subterraneous region; being led into that error (for such I take it to be) by the ambiguity of the Greek word ädŋs, yet acknowledge the godly souls there to be in a very happy condition. So that, though they differed from other doctors of the church, as to the situation (if I may so speak) of the place of the separate spirits of good men, yet as to their state, they well enough agreed with them. Thus Irenæus is known expressly to have delivered that opinion in his fifth book, chap. 31. Yet the same Father in his second book, chap. 63. from the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, concludes," that every sort of men" (i. e. both good and bad) "receive their deserved habitation even be"fore the judgment." And he somewhere tells us, "that the souls in paradise begin there their incor * Τὰς μὲν τῶν εὐσεβῶν ψυχὰς ἐν χρείττονί που χώρῳ μένειν, τὰς δὲ ἀδίκους καὶ πονηρὰς ἐν χείρονι. [c. 5. p. 107.] 9 Αμα τῷ ἀποθνήσκειν, τὰς ψυχὰς αὐτῶν ἀναλαμβάνεσθαι εἰς τὸν οὐρα vóv. [c. 80. p. 178.] 7. [See the passage quoted at p. 27.] a Dignam habitationem unamquamque gentem percipere etiam ante judicium. [c. 34. p. 168.] 66 66 ruptible state," viz. of bliss. Again, in his fifth book, chap. 36. he expressly indeed distinguisheth paradise from the kingdom of heaven, and reckons it a lower degree of happiness" to enjoy the delights of para"dise," than "to be counted worthy to dwell in heavend." But yet he acknowledgeth in both our Saviour shall be seen, "according as they shall be worthy "or meet who see him"." Which the author of the Questions and Answers to the Orthodox, in his answer to quest. 75. thus explains, "That the souls in paradise do enjoy the conversation and sight of angels and archangels, and also of our Saviour Christ by way of vision f;" viz. such in its kind, though in degree far more excellent, as whereby the prophets saw him of old. But to return to Irenæus, he concludes his discourse in that chapter thus; that it is the divine ordination and disposition, that those that are saved should per gradus proficere," proceed by degrees" to their perfect beatitude: that is, that they should, as St. Ambrose speaks", "through the refreshments “of paradise, arrive to the full glories of the heavenly kingdom"." 66 66 66 Tertullian also in his Apology, c. 47.when he was yet orthodox, calls paradise "a place of divine pleasant"ness, appointed to receive the spirits of the saints." b Justos qui sunt in paradiso, auspicari incorruptelam. · Τῆς τοῦ παραδείσου τρυφῆς ἀπολαύειν. [p. 337.] · Καταξιωθῆναι τῆς ἐν οὐρανῷ διατριβής. • Καθὼς ἄξιοι ἔσονται οἱ ὁρῶντες αὐτόν. · Κατ ̓ ὀπτασίαν δὲ καὶ τοῦ σωτῆρος Χριστοῦ. [in ed. Just. Mart. p. 470.] Ad Michæam, observ. 2. Per paradisum ad regnum pervenire. 1 Locum divinæ amoenitatis recipiendis sanctorum spiritibus destinatum. |