The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 1

IV. Innate Immortality and Noxious Involvements

But that is not all. The opposite and conflicting side of the same treatise must be noted—the Greek Innate-Immortality postulate and its involvements. To grasp this is imperative in order to understand and evaluate the pseudo-Solomon’s reasoning and his conclusions. Let us now follow “Solomon’s” major reasoning—which was evidently written shortly before the birth of Philo. CFF1 678.1

It will also be well to note that at this time there were believed to be a million Jews in Egypt, half of them in Alexandria, and a great number tinctured with Hellenism (1:1, note). ³⁸ This is the setting of the other side of the conflicting picture presented in The Wisdom of Solomon. Perhaps it reflects the hand of another writer or redactor. CFF1 678.2

1. UNABASHEDLY AVOWS INNATE IMMORTALITY

Part I (chaps. 1-6) deals with eschatology and openly abandons the historical Jewish traditional view. As mentioned, it vividly portrays the different destinies awaiting the righteous and the ungodly. In Dr. Charles’s detailed “Introduction” he is eight times constrained to stress the fact that the writer of The Wisdom of Solomon enunciates the doctrine of entrance upon immortality immediately upon death. CFF1 678.3

His several statements are: “The writer enunciates the doctrine of immortality immediately after death”; “a blessed immortality with God entered immediately upon death”; “the soul immediately after death receives its full reward, happiness or misery, life or death”; “immortality immediately after death—a purely Greek idea”; “after their death their souls are guarded by angels”; “the writer simply added the idea of the immortality of the soul immediately after death to one or other of the current forms of Jewish eschatology”; “the writer adopted a purely Greek view of immortality”; and “adopted the Greek idea of immortality.” ³⁹ And scrutiny of the treatise justifies the multiple statements of Charles. CFF1 678.4

2. “WISDOM” THE SOURCE OF IMMORTALITY

Part II (chap. 6:6 to chap. 11) is a panegyric on wisdom. The writer presents a remote, transcendent God with no immediate contact with the world. All relationships are by means of Wisdom—not a person, but the personification of this attribute of God. Wisdom is set forth as omnipotent (“all-powerful,” the instrument in the making of all things—7:22, 27; 8:5, 6); as omniscient (“knoweth all things”—8:11; 9:11). CFF1 679.1

Wisdom is portrayed as the Creator (as above, “artificer of all things”—7:22, 23; 8:5, 6). Moreover, “wisdom is IMMORTAL” (8:17, note), and those akin to her share her “immortality” (8:13, 17). “Through wisdom were they saved” (9:18), and it is Wisdom that “delivered out of troubles” (10:9). ⁴⁰ CFF1 679.2

3. THE RIGHTEOUS ONLY SEEM TO DIE

The righteous do not actually experience death, they only seem to die (3:2). ⁴¹ They are “in peace” (3:3). It is purely a spiritual death; it does not mean ultimate extinction. The wicked continue in a miserable condition in the next world. Such are all “in anguish” (4:19). ⁴² But all punishment is remedial and reformative. CFF1 679.3

The first part of the writer’s solution to the sin problem is “the theory that suffering is meant to test the righteous and prove them worthy of immortality and communion with God,” ⁴³ “as gold in the furnace, he proved them” (3:6). Though they be punished, “their hope is full of immortality” (3:4). ⁴⁴ That, it is to be noted, is similar to Philo’s declaration: CFF1 679.4

” ‘The wise man who appears to have departed from this mortal life lives in a life immortal’” (3:2, note). ⁴⁵ CFF1 679.5

The summarizing subhead following 4:6, in the Charles edition, reads, “The premature death of the righteous is followed by immortality.” ⁴⁶ But it continues, “The very memory of the ungodly shall perish.” As to spiritual death, the writer of Wisdom says, “We also, as soon as we were born, ceased to be” (5:13), being “utterly consumed in our wickedness,” “like smoke which is scattered by the wind and passeth away” (5:14). ⁴⁷ CFF1 679.6

4. ASSUMES PRE-EXISTENCE OF THE SOUL

The writer of this “Wisdom” pseudepigraph assumes the existence of the soul before birth (8:20). ⁴⁸ Thus he says, “I myself am mortal, like to all, and am sprung from one born of the earth” (7:1). His body was “in contrast to the soul which pre-existed” (8:2, note). ⁴⁹ And he adds, “A good soul fell to my lot”; and “I came into a body undefiled” (8:19). ⁵⁰ CFF1 680.1

He expresses the thought that “the soul which was lent him shall again be demanded” (15:8), and refers to “one whose own spirit is borrowed” (15:16). ⁵¹ This evidently involved some form of pre-existence as an inseparable part of his Innate-Immortality concept. There is the same depreciation of the body as in Platonism. He speaks of how “a corruptible body weigheth down the soul” and “the earthly frame lieth heavy” (9:15). ⁵² CFF1 680.2

Such is the strange conflicting picture presented in the apocryphal Wisdom of Solomon. And such were the inseparable premises lying back of his Innate-Immortality conclusions. This was the transition hour in Judaism. Variant voices struggled for utterance. But the trend was Platonic. CFF1 680.3