taught. Thirdly,
even if Paul supposed a considerable period must elapse before
"all enemies" would be subdued, during which period Christ must
reign, it does not follow that he believed that reign would be on
earth: it might be in heaven. The "enemies" referred to are, in
part at least, the wicked spirits occupying the regions of the
upper air; for he specifies these "principalities, authorities,
and powers."20 And the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews
represents God as saying to Jesus, "Sit thou on my right hand,
until I make thine enemies thy footstool." Fourthly, it seems
certain that, if in the apostle's thought a thousand years were
interpolated between Christ's second coming and the delivering of
his mediatorial sceptre to God, he would have said so, at least
somewhere in his writings. He would naturally have dwelt upon it a
little, as the Chiliasts did so much. Instead of that, he
repeatedly contradicts it. Upon the whole, then, with Ruckert, we
cannot

20 The apocryphal "Ascension of Isaiah," already spoken of, gives
a detailed description of the upper air as occupied by Satan and
his angels, among whom fighting and evil deeds rage; but Christ in
his ascent conquers and spoils them all, and shows himself a
victor ever brightening as he rises successively through the whole
seven heavens to the feet of God. Ascensio Vatis Isaia, cap. vi x.

see any reason for not supposing that, according to Paul, "the
end" was immediately to succeed "the coming," as [non-ASCII
characters] would properly indicate.

The doctrine of a long earthly reign of Christ is not deduced
from this passage, by candid interpretation, because it must be
there, but foisted into it, by Rabbinical information, because
it may be there.

Paul distinctly teaches that the believers who died before the
second coming of the Savior would remain in the under world until
that event, when they and the transformed living should ascend
"together with the Lord." All the relevant expressions in his
epistles, save two, are obviously in harmony with this conception
of a temporary subterranean sojourn, waiting for the appearance of
Jesus from heaven to usher in the resurrection. But in the fifth
chapter of the Second Epistle to the Corinthians he writes,
"Abiding in the body we are absent from the Lord." It is usually
inferred, from these words and those which follow them, that the
apostle expected whenever he died to be instantly with Christ.
Certai