is yet in one
respect an important difference between them. The uncertainty about the
final consummation was first set aside by the Gospel. It should be noted
as highly characteristic of the Jewish hopes of the future, even of the
most definite, how the beginning of the end, that is, the overthrow of
the world-powers and the setting up of the earthly kingdom of God, was
much more certainly expressed than the goal and the final end. Neither
the general judgment, nor what we, according to Christian tradition,
call heaven and hell, should be described as a sure possession of Jewish
faith in the primitive Christian period. It is only in the Gospel of
Christ, where everything is subordinated to the idea of a higher
righteousness and the union of the individual with God, that the general
judgment and the final condition after it are the clear, firmly grasped
goal of all meditation. No doctrine has been more surely preserved in
the convictions and preaching of believers in Christ than this. Fancy
might roam ever so much and, under the direction of the tradition,
thrust bright and precious images between the present condition and the
final end, the main thing continued to be the great judgment of the
world, and the certainty that the saints would go to God in heaven, the
wicked to hell. But while the judgment, as a rule, was connected with
the Person of Jesus himself (see the Romish Symbol: the words [Greek:
krites zonton kai nekron], were very frequently applied to Christ in the
earliest writings), the moral condition of the individual, and the
believing recognition of the Person of Christ were put in the closest
relation. The Gentile Christians held firmly to this. Open the Shepherd,
or the second Epistle of Clement, or any other early Christian writing,
and you will find that the judgment, heaven and hell, are the decisive
objects. But that shews that the moral character of Christianity as a
religion is seen and adhered to. The fearful idea of hell, far from
signifying a backward step in the history of the religious spirit, is
rather a proof of its having rejected the morally indifferent point of
view, and of its having become sovereign in union with the ethical
spirit.

Sec. 4. _The Old Testament as Source of the Knowledge of Faith._[214]

The sayings of the Old Testament, the word of God, were believed to
furnish inexhaustible material for deeper knowledge. The Christian
prophets were nurtured on the Old Testament, the