ture, not of what already is. We know that in Tertullian's
time the idea was entertained by some that Christian martyrs, as
a special allotment, should pass at once from their sufferings to
heaven, without going, as all others must, into the under world;
but the evidence preponderates with us, upon the whole, that no
such doctrine is really implied in the Apocalypse. In the
fourteenth chapter, the author describes the hundred and forty
four thousand who were redeemed from among men, as standing with
the Lamb on Mount Zion and hearing a voice from heaven singing a
new song, which no man, save the hundred and forty four thousand,
could learn. The probabilities are certainly strongest that this
great company of the selected "first fruits unto God and the
Lamb," now standing on the earth, had not yet been in heaven; for
they only learn the heavenly song which is sung before the throne
by hearing it chanted down from heaven in a voice like
multitudinous thunders.

Finally, the most convincing proof that the writer did not suppose
that the martyrs entered heaven before the second advent of
Christ a proof which, taken by itself, would seem to leave no
doubt on the subject is this. In the famous scene detailed in the
twentieth chapter usually called by commentators the martyr scene
it is said that "the souls of them that were beheaded for the word
of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, lived and reigned
with Christ a thousand years. This is the first resurrection."
Now, is it not certain that if the writer supposed these souls had
never been in the under world, but in heaven, he could not have
designated their preliminary descent from above as "the first
resurrection," the first rising up? That phrase implies, we think,
that all the dead were below: the faithful and chosen ones were to
rise first to reign a while with Jesus, and after that the rest
should rise to be judged. After that judgment, which was expected
to be on earth in presence of the descended Lamb and his angels,
the lost were to be plunged, as we have already seen, into the
subterranean pit of torture, the unquenchable lake of fire. But
what was to become of the righteous and redeemed? Whether, by the
Apocalyptic representation, they were to remain forever on earth,
or to ascend into heaven, is a question which has been zealously
debated for over sixteen hundred years, and in some theological
circles is still warmly discussed. Were the angels who came