nd the wicked were to be punished
with tortures like those of the valley of Hinnom, or were to be immersed
in liquid brimstone, like that which had rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah.
Here we get the first announcement of a future state of retribution. The
doctrine was peculiarly Pharisaic, and the Sadducees, who were strict
adherents to the letter of Mosaism, rejected it to the last. By
degrees this doctrine became coupled with the Messianic theories of
the Pharisees. The loss of Jewish independence under the dominion of
Persians, Macedonians, and Romans, caused the people to look ever more
earnestly toward the expected time when the Messiah should appear in
Jerusalem to deliver them from their oppressors. The moral doctrines
of the Psalms and earlier prophets assumed an increasingly political
aspect. The Jews were the righteous "under a cloud," whose sufferings
were symbolically depicted by the younger Isaiah as the afflictions of
the "servant of Jehovah"; while on the other hand, the "wicked" were the
Gentile oppressors of the holy people. Accordingly the Messiah, on his
arrival, was to sit in judgment in the valley of Jehoshaphat, rectifying
the wrongs of his chosen ones, condemning the Gentile tyrants to the
torments of Gehenna, and raising from Sheol all those Jews who had lived
and died during the evil times before his coming. These were to find
in the Messianic kingdom the compensation for the ills which they had
suffered in their first earthly existence. Such are the main outlines of
the theory found in the Book of Enoch, written about B. C. 100, and it
is adopted in the Johannine Apocalypse, with little variation, save in
the recognition of Jesus as the Messiah, and in the transferrence to
his second coming of all these wonderful proceedings. The manner of the
Messiah's coming had been variously imagined. According to an earlier
view, he was to enter Jerusalem as a King of the house of David, and
therefore of human lineage. According to a later view, presented in the
Book of Daniel, he was to descend from the sky, and appear among the
clouds. Both these views were adopted by the disciples of Jesus, who
harmonized them by referring the one to his first and the other to his
second appearance.

Now to the imaginations of these earliest disciples the belief in the
resurrection of Jesus presented itself as a needful guarantee of his
Messiahship. Their faith, which must have been shaken by his execution
and descent into