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176 RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA Eaohwtolop·

necessity that it be ethically (historically) rather than apocalyptically (magically) realized compelled a new point of view for the whole subject. And if now one still uses the apocalyptic phraseology of the Scriptures, it will be permitted only when one has replaced its external cosmological reference with an ethical and spiritual content. In no case may form and content be identified. That this principle has been violated, the history of the belief will show. In Christian belief, the chief eschatological events are: the second coming, the resurrection, and the final judgment.

The second coming has been conceived of under two general forms: either a visible, glorious appearing of Christ at a moment fixed in the g. The divine purpose, or a silent, gradual

Second penetration of all social forces by his Coming. spirit, to be either perpetual or con tinued until the consummation. There will thus be such a disclosure of Christ as will render the divinity of his kingdom unmistakable; this will meet, with either a completely sympathetic or partly hostile reception. Preceding or associated with the advent have been several distinctive features. (1) The millennium (see MILLENNItTM, MILLENARI ANISM). The Chiliastic hopes of the early Chris tians, based on Rev. xx. 4-6, colored by Jewish apocalyptic fancies, are rejected by the Alexandrian Fathers. The millennium was ascribed by Augus tine to the church militant. At the Reformation the earlier fancies were revived by the Anabaptists, receiving a vehement condemnation in the Augs burg Confession (Art. xvii.). Of the dogmatists who held that the second coming, general resurrec tion, last judgment, and end of the world would occur at the same time, some placed the 1,000 years and the binding of Satan at about 3G0-1300 A.D. More recently Bengel has had many followers in a refined form of the millennial idea. The pre- and post-millennialista are distinguished according as the advent is placed before or after the 1,000 years. (2) The " Antichrist " has received many inter pretations, having been identified in the early church with Nero, among the Reformers with the Papacy, later with successive forces of evil as op posed to God, again with systems of belief or with a social order subversive of the Church, or finally with an embodied evil principle in conflict with the Gospel. Here is without doubt an echo of the Babylonian creation-story of the conflict of Light with Tiamat or chaos, the later Jewish thought of Satan (q.v.), and the fierce struggle of the Jewish religious people under Judas Maccabeus against Antiochus Epiphanes (see IhsxoNEANS). (3) The intermediate state. The teaching of the Roman Catholic Church concerning this includes the doc trine of Purgatory and the Limbos of the Fathers: Purgatory is for those who departing this life in faith are liable to punitive sufferings for venial sins or for the vestiges of mortal sins and who must, before their entrance into heaven, be purified to be the sooner effected by the suffrages (prayers and good works) of the faithful, but principally by the acceptable sacrifice of the altar (Council of Trent, seas. xxv.). This is not to be confused with a continued or a second probation. The Limbos

of the Fathers was the abode of the Old Testament saints to whom Christ after his death and before his ascension appeared for their liberation when he took them with himself in his ascent to heaven (Pa. xvi. 10; I Pet. iii. 19; see DESCENT OF CHRIST INTO HELL). This doctrine rests upon the Jewish notion of the dead as in a condition of privation awaiting the appearance of the Messiah to raise their bodies from the ground and call their disembodied spirits from the shades of the under-world, thus through union of soul and body introducing the risen Israel to a more than earthly prosperity and blessedness. In the Protestant Church the doctrine of an intermediate state has been either rejected or variously conceived. The earlier Protestant writers held that the righteous and the wicked went at once to a place of happiness or misery-the souls of believers being made perfect in holiness (cf. the Shorter Catechism, Ques. 37; also W. G. T. Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, ii. 353, iii. 453, New York, 1889); on the other hand, those who die in their sine were thought of as entering a region where they should behold in God their " perfect and irreconcilable enemy " (cf. J. Edwards, Works, vi. 123, New York, 1830). In their respective conditions both classes remain until the second coming, all waiting for the " Great Assize," at which the earthly deeds of the wicked and possibly of the good shall be `made manifest and judged. Associated with the intermediate state have been several doctrines. (a) The sleep of sods (psychopannychy; cf. I Those, iv. 13-15; I Cor. xv. 6,18, 20, 51; Acts vii. 60, xiii. 36). Between death and the second coming the condition of the soul will be that of a dreamless sleep (cf. R. Whately, Concerning a Future State, London, 1829). (b) A nucleus of the personality of the unsaved is preserved during the middle state until the judgment, when by a creative act God will reunite soul and body, after which they will be gradually annihilated (cf. Edward White, Life in Chriaet, London, 1875; Bee ANNIHILATIONIBM). (c) The soul being bodiless during the intermediate state is in a condition of " involution," " progressive development " (Martenaen, Christian Dogmatics, Edinburgh, 1865), " deepest retirement " (Van Oosterzee, Christian Dogmatics, 2 parts, New York, 1872), " spiritual seclusion " (I. A. Dormer, Sys tem of Christian Doctrine, 4 vols., Edinburgh, 1880sqq). (d) In the intermediate state, to those who have not in this life definitely rejected Christthe heathen and others to whom knowledge of Christ was impossible-a probation will be open. This is based on the absolute universality of the Gospel, the indispensableness of faith in Christ as historically revealed for salvation, an unvarying unity of the moral order; finally, if universal salvation is to be affirmed, the offer of grace must be effectually continued in another world (see PROBATION, FBTURE; and UNIVERSALISTS).

According to Schleiermacher, since Christianity is a historical religion and its progress is historically conditioned, those who die without having been reached by the divine call, will, in a future existence, become subjects of a divine influence which will create for them the possibility of entering the society of the redeemed.