I came into a body undefiled."7 But, with the exception of
this and one other passage, there is little or nothing in the book
which is definite on the subject of a future life. It is difficult
to tell what the author's real faith was: his words seem rather
rhetorical than dogmatic. He says, "To be allied unto wisdom is
immortality;" but other expressions would appear to show that by
immortality he means merely a deathless posthumous fame, "leaving
an eternal memorial of himself to all who shall come after him."
Again he declares, "The spirit when it is gone forth returneth
not; neither the soul received up cometh again." And here we find,
too, the famous text, "God created man to be immortal, and made
him to be an image of his own eternity. Nevertheless, through envy
of the devil came death into the world, and they that hold of his
side do find it."8 Upon the whole, it is pretty clear that the
writer believed in a future life; but the details are too
partially and obscurely shadowed to be drawn forth. We may,
however, hazard a conjecture on the passage last quoted,
especially with the help of the light cast upon it from its
evident Persian origin. What is it, expressed by the term "death,"
which is found by the adherents of the devil distinctively?
"Death" cannot here be a metaphor for an inward state of sin and
woe, because it is contrasted with the plainly literal phrases,
"created to be immortal," "an image of God's eternity." It cannot
signify simply physical dissolution, because this is found as well
by God's servants as by the devil's. Its genuine meaning is, most
probably, a descent into the black kingdom of sadness and silence
under the earth, while the souls of the good were "received up."

The Second Book of Maccabees with emphasis repeatedly asserts
future retribution and a bodily resurrection. In the seventh
chapter a full account is given of seven brothers and their mother
who suffered martyrdom, firmly sustained by faith in a glorious
reward for their heroic fidelity, to be reaped at the
resurrection. One of them says to the tyrant by whose order he was
tortured, "As for thee, thou shalt have no resurrection to life."
Nicanor, bleeding from many horrible wounds, "plucked out his
bowels and cast them upon the throng, and, calling upon the Lord
of life and spirit to restore him those again, [at the day of
resurrection,] he thus died."9 Other passages in this book to the
same effect it is needless to quote.