Hebrews
10;30.

True it is often claimed that Jesus repudiated the doctrine of
vengeance. The passage of 5th Matthew, 38-30 is often quoted in proof of
this assertion--"Ye have heard that it hath been said, an eye for an
eye and a tooth for a tooth. But I say unto you, that ye resist not
evil, but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the
other also." But the gospels and the other books of the New Testament
show plainly that non-resistance was not laid down as a rule for the
guidance of mankind, but only as a policy by one sect of the Jews and
Christians to save themselves from the Romans. The reason for the
doctrine was the belief that resistance was hopeless, and that God who
had the power would in his own time visit on the oppressors the
vengeance that the Jews and Christians were too weak to inflict. Jesus
and the early Christians knew of no people beyond their immediate
territory, and they did not appeal to mankind as a whole, or to future
generations.

The early Christians believed in judging and in punishment as vengeance,
the same as the Jews and other peoples believed in it. (See 13 Matthew
41-43, 23 Matthew 33, 25 Matthew 46.) They believed that the end of the
world was at hand; that the coming of the Lord was imminent; that some
of that generation would not taste death, and that God would punish
sinners in his own time. The New Testament is replete with this
doctrine, which was stated and elaborated in the so-called "Revelations
of St. Peter."

Probably this document was composed about the year 150 A.D. and by the
year 200 it was read as "Scripture" in some Christian communities.
Subsequently it disappeared and was known only by name until a
substantial fragment of the document was discovered at Akhmim in Egypt,
in the year 1887. A portion of it represents a scene in which the
disciples of Jesus ask him to show them the state of the righteous dead,
in order that this knowledge may be used to encourage people to accept
Christianity. The request is granted and the disciples are shown not
only a vision of the delightful abodes of the righteous, but also a
vivid picture of the punishments that are being meted out to the wicked.
It is interesting to note how the punishments are devised to balance in
truly retributive fashion the crimes mentioned. It is this type of
tradition that furnished Dante and Milton the basis for their pictures
of hell.

The following is the more interesting