made gehenna for the wicked, like a two-edged sword, cutting either way; and in the midst of it sparks and coals, burning up the wicked." In the Targum on Ps. xxxviii. 20: "And they shall be consumed in the smoke of gehenna." On Eccl. viii. 10: "They have gone to be consumed in gehenna." And on Isa. xxxi. 9, gehenna is spoken of as a fire which goes forth from the bodies of the wicked and sets them on fire; for it is said, "Ye shall conceive chaff, and bring forth stubble; your breath, as fire, shall devour you." This may illustrate the phrase in James, iii. 6: "set on fire of hell." The writer of the apocryphal book, Ecclesiasticus, evidently alluding to "gehenna punishment," says: "Humble thy spirit very much; for the vengeance on the flesh of the ungodly is fire and worms" (vii. 19). And again: "He that joineth himself to harlots will be reckless. Rottenness and worms shall inherit him; and he shall be lifted up for a greater example; and his soul shall be taken away out of the number." (xix. 3.) The Jewish Talmud also says: "Those who sin and rebel greatly in Israel, as well as gentile sinners, shall descend into gehenna, and there be judged during twelve months; at the end of which the body is consumed, the soul is burned up, and the spirit is scattered beneath the feet of the just, as it is said in Mal. iv. 3."

What, then, was "gehenna punishment," even if we take the disputed word as an adjective, signifying simply the severest judgment, as Universalist writers explain the words in Matt. v. 22 ?

That "extermination is the greatest of all punishments" is a common remark of Maimonides, the "Eagle of the Jewish Doctors," and of other Rabbies. One of these, speaking of the death of the soul, says this is "perfected punishment, and excision absolute, and perdition and corruption, which is never reversed, and is the greatest among all punishments." And we dismiss the passage in hand with the words of Dr. Bentley, partly as confirming our interpretation, partly as showing that the punishment may not be severe beyond all reason or thought of man: "Oh, dismal reward of Infidelity! at which Nature does

shrink and shiver with horror. What some of the learnedest doctors among the Jews have esteemed the most dreadful of all punishments, and have assigned for the portion of the blackest criminals of the damned, so interpreting Tophet, Abaddon, the Valley of Slaughter, and the like, for final extinction and deprivation of being,- this atheism exhibits to us as an equivalent to heaven." (Boyle Lecture, Sermon I.)

2 Pet. ii. 12: "But these, as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things that they understand not; and shall utterly perish in their own corruption."

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Granting, for argument's sake, that this refers to a temporal destruction, it will remain for the Universalist to show that the phrase "shall utterly perish" allows a subsequent resurrection to immortality. It may also be compared with Acts iii. 23, where Peter quotes from Deut. xviii. 19, and says: Every soul which will not hear that Prophet shall be utterly destroyed (exolothreuthesetai) from among the people." This was the punishment of extirpation, and it is explained in the Mishna, the text or older tradition of the Talmud, as cutting off from the life of the olām habbā,- a Hebrew phrase denoting the world or age which the Jews expected to inherit in the resurrection of the dead, and which they expected would continue for ever. What the phrase means we are to decide. I will only say for the present that it seems connected not only with the phrases, "world to come (aiōn ho erchomenos, Mark x. 30; Luke xviii. 30, mellōn aiōn, Heb. vi. 5), and "that world" (aiōn ekeinos, Luke xx. 35), but also with the zōē eis ton aiōna, and the zōē aiōnios which are the subject of our next inquiry; and that it was a common expression in the Mishna that such an one is "worthy of the olām hahbā” (see Schoettgen, Hcræ Heb., in Luc. xx. 35).

§ 5. Do the phrases zōē aiōnios, (rendered in our version "eternal" or "everlasting life," by Universalists, "age-lasting" or "aiōnian life,") and its equivalent zõe eis ton aiōna, imply immortal life?

It it freely admitted that aiōn and aiōnios are often used in

a limited sense. The former word does not necessarily mean eternity; nor the latter a duration strictly eternal. The same is true of their English equivalents. The word ever is apparently derived from the Latin ævum, which is the same as aiōn. When one says, "I have ever loved flowers," the phrase limits the term to a very few years. Yet, when it is asked whether the earth will endure for ever, we understand an absolute eternity. In the same way the phrase eis ton aiona, like its Hebrew equivalent, l'olām, may signify a duration without any limit, assigned or conceived. And the word aiōnios is doubtless thus used. (Rom. xvi. 26; 2 Cor. iv. 17, 18; v. 1; 1 Tim. vi. 16; 2 Tim. ii. 10; Heb. v. 9; ix. 14, 15; 1 Pet. v. 10.)

As already remarked, the phrase zōē aiōnios is used fortyfive times in the Bible, and in most instances partitively, or with reference to a class. It is therefore important to the Universalist argument to show, if possible, that the phrase does not signify "eternal life,” in the strict sense of that expression. Either the adjective aiōnios does not refer to duration at all, but signifies the nature or kind of life spoken of, or it refers simply to the future age or dispensation, as distinct from the expiring Jewish economy. The latter view, I think, is that preferred by Universalists. The phrase eis ton aiōna would, of course, be taken in a similar sense.

To the first view, - that zoē aiōnios denotes a gospel or spiritual life, derived from Christ, as the Lord of the gospel age, or (according to Maurice) a divine life, that relates us to the Eternal One, I simply reply: Granting this as the primary sense of the word, then is not the endless continuance of the life implied as a secondary sense; and if so, do not the "perishing," "death," and "not seeing life," put in contrast with it, denote a falling short of immortal life?

To the second view I find several objections:

1. The matters of contrast, and the connected and paralleled expressions, do not favor a reference merely to the gospel dispensation. Contrasted are the expressions, to "perish" (John iii. 15, 16 (comp. vi. 27); x. 28); "persecutions in this time"

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(Mark x. 30; Luke xviii. 30); "death" (John v. 24; Rom. v. 21; vi. 23); "abiding in death" (1 John iii. 14, 15); corruption" (Gal. vi. 8). The following expressions are connected: "Ye judge yourselves unworthy of" (Acts xiii. 46); "As many as were ordained to" (ver. 48); "To those who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory, honor and immortality" (Rom. ii. 7); to "lay hold on" (1 Tim. vi. 12, 19). The phrase "to live for ever" (eis ton aiōna) occurs in John vi. 51, 58, which should be compared with chajah lolām (Gen. iii. 22; Deut. xxxii. 40; Ps. xxi. 26; xlix. 9). The following expressions are also important: "They [Christ's flock] shall never perish" (shall not perish eis ton aiōna, John x. 28); "shall never die" (shall not die eis ton aiōna, John xi. 26); “shall never see death" or "taste of death" (eis ton aiōna, John viii. 51, 52); "shall never thirst" (eis ton aiōna, John iv. 14); "He that doeth the will of God abideth for ever leis ton aiōna, 1 John ii. 17). I also venture to name as parallel the phrase "neither can they die any more” (Luke xx. 36), because it stands in connection with the phrase "to obtain that world" (tou aiōnos ekeinou, ver. 35).

2. If the phrases in question are referred to the Christian dispensation, many of the passages where they occur will be hard to translate. The following are examples: "Shall not thirst during the Christian dispensation." "Shall not perish during the Christian era." "Shall not perish for the age to come, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand." "Shall live during (or into, eis) the future age." "Abideth during the Messianic kingdom." "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him might not perish, but have life for the age." "Whosoever liveth and believeth on me shall not die during the aiōn. Believest thou this?"

I do not wonder that in the argument which confines these phrases to a dispensation, the terms "aionian life" and "æonic life" are found so convenient and occur so often. But this is not to translate the words of life; and we should not be con

tent with a mere transfer, when a translation involves or betrays no difficulty.

3. It would follow that immortal life is one of the rarest things named in the Bible. It follows that he who "brought life and immortality to light," and who "had the words of eternal life," spoke of immortal life in only a single recorded instance. (Luke xx. 36.) In this view, about fifty passages are given up at once as containing no assurance whatever against the final annihilation of all mankind. And the whole doctrine of immortality, either for all men or for any select class of men, rests upon half a dozen passages or less. For not only the fifty passages that speak of "aionian" life will fail in this great argument, but all which speak merely of "life" or of "salvation;" for life and salvation might be only for a temporary existence. But if these words are supposed to imply immortality, then those who have not life or salvation, may have no immortality.

And here, before proceeding to the few passages on which depends the last hope of immortality, I must repeat the caution against the assumption of man's immortal nature. Mr. Balfour, in his "First Inquiry," has very properly remarked on this subject: "Is not the doctrine of the soul's immortality revealed in the New Testament? No; for if it was taught there, it would be no revelation from God to the world, for it was a popular doctrine among the heathen nations many centuries before the Christian era. With more propriety it might be said that the heathen revealed this doctrine to God than that God revealed it to them. Had the New Testament writers believed the soul to be immortal, why did they never speak of it as such?" (Pp. 332, 333.)

The sum is this. The Scriptures reveal no "immortality of the soul." And they announce the "aionian" life, not of all mankind, but of those who through faith become righteous or good. If, now, "aionian life does imply immortal life, the numerous passages in question teach most decidedly the immortality of a class.