life.
According to the Hebrews, there was "the house of Jehovah," "the
habitation of eternity," "the world of holy angels." The Old
Testament contains many sublime allusions to this place. Jacob in
his dream saw a ladder set up that reached unto heaven, and the
angels were ascending and descending upon it. Fixing his eyes upon
the summit, the patriarch exclaimed, not referring, as is commonly
supposed, to the ground on which he lay, but to the opening in the
sky through which the angels were passing and repassing, "Surely
this is the house of God and this the gate of heaven." Jehovah is
described as "riding over the heaven of heavens;" as "treading
upon the arch of the sky." The firmament is spoken of as the solid
floor of his abode, where "he layeth the beams of his chambers in
the waters," the "waters above," which the Book of Genesis says
were "divided from the waters beneath." Though this divine world
on high was in the early ages almost universally regarded as a
local reality, it was not conceived by Jews or Gentiles to be the
destined abode of human souls. It was thought to be exclusively
occupied by Jehovah and his angels, or by the gods and their
messengers. Only here and there were scattered a few dim
traditions, or poetic myths, of a prophet, a hero, a god descended
man, who, as a special favor, had been taken up to the supernal
mansions. The common destination of the disembodied spirits of men
was the dark,stupendous realms of the under world. As Augustine
observes, "Christ died after many; he rose before any: by dying he
suffered what many had suffered before; by rising he did what no
one had ever done before."1 These ideas of the celestial and the
infernal localities and of the fate of man were of course
entertained by Paul when he became a Christian. A few texts by way
of evidence of this fact will here suffice. "That at the name of
Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and those on
earth, and those under the earth." "He that descended first into
the lower parts of the earth is the same also that ascended up far
above all heavens." The untenableness of that explanation which
makes the descent into the lower parts of the earth refer to
Christ's descent to earth from his pre existent state in heaven
must be evident, as it seems to us, to every mind. Irenaus,
discussing this very text from Ephesians, exposes the absurdity
and stigmatizes the heresy of those who say that the infernal
world is this