e think, that, had there been no sin, they
would have lived eternally upon earth in their present bodies; but
all of them agreed, it is undisputed, that in consequence of sin
souls were condemned to the under world. No man would have seen
the dismal realm of the sepulchre had there not been sin. The
earliest Hebrew conception was that all souls went down to a
common abode, to spend eternity in dark slumber or nerveless
groping. This view was first modified soon after the Persian
captivity, by the expectation that there would be discrimination
at the resurrection which the Jews had learned to look for, when
the just should rise but the wicked should be left.

The next alteration of their notions on this subject was the
subdivision of the underworld into Paradise and Gehenna, a
conception known among them probably as early as a century before
Christ, and very prominent with them in the apostolic age. "When
Rabbi

4 Schoettgen, in 1 Cor. xv. 44.

Jochanan was dying, his disciples asked him, 'Light of Israel,
main pillar of the right, thou strong hammer, why dost thou weep?'
He answered, 'Two paths open before me, the one leading to bliss,
the other to torments; and I know not which of them will be my
doom.'"5 "Paradise is separated from hell by a distance no greater
than the width of a thread."6 So, in Christ's parable of Dives and
Lazarus, Abraham's bosom and hell are two divisions. "There are
three doors into Gehenna: one in the wilderness, where Korah and
his company were swallowed; one in the sea, where Jonah descended
when he 'cried out of the belly of hell;' one in Jerusalem, for
the Lord says, 'My furnace is in Jerusalem.'"7 "The under world is
divided into palaces, each of which is so large that it would take
a man three hundred years to roam over it. There are distinct
apartments where the hell punishments are inflicted. One place is
so dark that its name is 'Night of Horrors."8 "In Paradise there
are certain mansions for the pious from the Gentile peoples, and
for those mundane kings who have done kindness to the
Israelites."9 "The fire of Gehenna was kindled on the evening of
the first Sabbath, and shall never be extinguished."10 The
Egyptians, Persians, Hindus, and Greeks, with all of whom the Jews
held relations of intercourse, had, in their popular
representations of the under world of the dead, regions of peace
and honor for the good, and regions of fire for the bad. The idea
may have been adopted fr