to the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable
company of angels, and to God, and to the spirits of the perfected
just, and to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant, and to the
lustral blood which speaks better things than that of Abel." The
connection here demonstrates that the souls of the righteous are
called "perfected," as having arrived at the goal of their destiny
in heaven. Again, the author, when speaking of the sure and
steadfast hope of eternal life, distinguishes Jesus as a
[non-ASCII characters], one who runs before as a scout or leader:
"the Forerunner, who for us has entered within the veil," that is,
has passed beyond the firmament into the presence of God. The Jews
called the outward or lowermost heaven the veil.7 But the most
conclusive consideration upon the opinion we are arguing for and
it must be entirely convincing is to be drawn from the first half
of the ninth chapter. To appreciate it, it is requisite to
remember that the Rabbins with whose notions our author was
familiar and some of which he adopts in his reasoning were
accustomed to compare the Jewish temple and city with the temple
and city of Jehovah above the sky, considering the former as
miniature types of the latter. This mode of thought was originally
learned by philosophical Rabbins from the Platonic doctrine of
ideas, without doubt, and was entertained figuratively,
spiritually; but in the unreflecting, popular mind the Hebraic
views to which it gave rise were soon grossly materialized and
located. They also derived the same conception from God's command
to Moses when he was about to build the tabernacle:

7 Schoettgen, Hora Hebraica et Talmudica in 2 Cor. xii. 2.

"See thou make all things according to the pattern showed to thee
in the mount." They refined upon these words with many conceits.
They compared the three divisions of the temple to the three
heavens: the outer Court of the Gentiles corresponded with the
first heaven, the Court of the Israelites with the second heaven,
and the Holy of Holies represented the third heaven or the very
abode of God. Josephus writes, "The temple has three compartments:
the first two for men, the third for God, because heaven is
inaccessible to men."8 Now, our author says, referring to this
triple symbolic arrangement of the temple, "The priests went
always into the first tabernacle, accomplishing the service, but
into the second went the high priest alone, once every year, not
withou