perbolically. But will any person pretend that it could have answered the purpose of giving the most terrible view of divine judgments, if the literal meaning of the word had implied no more than a grave? This concession of Simon's is, in effect, giving up the cause. According to the explanation I have given of the proper sense of the word, it was perfectly adapted to such an use, and made a very striking hyperbole; but if his account of the literal and ordinary import of the term be just; the expression, so far from being hyperbolical, would have been the reverse. 53 In further evidence of this doctrine, the inhabitants of ådns are, from their subterranean abode, denominated by the Apostle Paul 5, xataxdovioi, a word of the same import with the phrase ὑποκάτω της γης, under the earth, in the Apocalypse ", and which, with the εлsρavior and eлiyεio celestial beings, and terrestrial, include the whole rational creation. That they are expressly enumerated as including the whole, will be manifest to every one who attentively peruses the two passages referred to. Of the coincidence of the Hebrew notions, and the pagan, in regard to the situation of the place of departed spirits, if it were necessary to add any thing to what has been observed above, from the import of the names infernus and inferi, those beautiful lines of Virgil might suffice: Non secus, ac si quâ penitus vi terra dehiscens 7. SEVERAL proofs might be brought from the Prophets, and even from the Gospels, of the opposition in which heaven for height, and hades for depth, were conceived to stand to each other. I shall produce but a few from the Old Testament, which convey the most precise notion of their sentiments on this subject. The first is from the Book of Job 5, where we have an illustration of the unsearchableness of the divine perfections in these memorable words, as found in the common version, Canst thou by searching find out God? Canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection? It is as high as heaven, what canst thou do? Deeper than hell, βαθύτερα δε των εν άδου, what canst thou know ? The measure thereof is longer than the earth, and broader than the sea. Now, of the opinion that the word in the Old Testament always denotes grave or sepulchre, nothing can be a fuller confutation than this passage. Among such immense distances as the height of heaven, the extent of the earth, and the ocean, which were not only in those days unknown to men, but conceived to be unknowable; to introduce as one of the unmeasurables, a sepulchre whose depth could scarcely exceed ten or twelve cubits, and which, being the work of men, $5 Æn. viii. 56 Job, xi. 7, 8, 9. was perfectly known, would have been absurd indeed, not to say ridiculous. What man in his senses could have said, 'Ye can no more comprehend the Deity, than ye can discover the height of the firmament, or measure the depth of a grave.' A passage very similar we have in the Psalms " where heaven and ads are in the same way contrasted. If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, εαν καταβω εις τον άδην, behold thou art there. The only other place I shall mention is in the Prophet Amos 58, where God is represented as saying, Though they dig into hell, as adov, thence shall my hand take them; though they climb up to heaven, thence will I bring them down; and though they hide themselves on the top of Carmel, I will search and take them out thence; and though they be hid from my sight in the bottom of the sea, thence will I command a serpent, and he shall bite them. Here for illustration we have a double contrast. To the top of Carmel, a very high mountain, the bottom of the sea is very properly contrasted; but to heaven, which is incomparably higher than the highest mountain, no suitable contrast is found, except sheol or hades, which was evidently conceived to be the lowest thing in the world. The εлy were supposed to possess the middle parts, the επουρανιο and καταχθόνιοι occupied the extremes, the former in height, the latter in depth. A late writer, of profound erudition, of whose senti 57 Psal. cxxxix. 8. 58 Amos, ix. 2, 3. ments, on this subject, I shall have occasion soon to take notice, has quoted the above passage of Amos, to prove that into sheol men penetrate by digging: he might, with equal reason, have quoted it to prove that into heaven men penetrate by climbing, or that men, in order to hide themselves, have recourse to the bottom of the sea. 8. AGAIN, let it be observed, that keber, the Hebrew word for grave or sepulchre, is never rendered in the ancient translation άδης, but ταφος, unua, or some equivalent term. Sheol, on the contrary, is never rendered τάφος or μνημα, but al ways άδης; nor is it ever construed with θάπτω, or any verb which signifies to bury, a thing almost inevitable, in words so frequently occurring, if it had ever properly signified a grave. This itself might suffice to show that the ideas which the Jews had of these were never confounded. I observe further, that ads, as well as the corresponding Hebrew word, is always singular in meaning, as well as in form. The word for grave is often plural. The former never admits the possessive pronouns, being the receptacle of all the dead, and therefore incapable of an appropriation to individuals, the latter often. Where the disposal of the body or corpse is spoken of, rapos, or some equivalent term, is the name of its repository. When mention is made of the spirit after death, its abode is ådns. When notice is taken of one's making or visiting the grave of any person, touching it, mourning at it, or erecting a pillar or measure. 60 monument upon it, and the like, it is always keber that is employed. Add to all this that, in hades, all the dead are represented as present, without exception. The case is quite different with the graves or sepulchres. Thus, Isaiah represents, very beautifully and poetically, a great and sudden desolation that would be brought upon the earth, say. ing 50 Hades, which is in the common version Hell, hath enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without Hades alone is conceived to contain them all, though the graves in which their bodies were deposited, might be innumerable. Again, in the song of triumph on the fall of the king of Babylon 6o, Hell (the original word is the same as in the preceding passage) from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming: it stirreth up the dead for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth: it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations. Thus, in hades, all the monarchs and nobles, not of one family or race, but of the whole earth, are assembled. Yet their sepulchres are as distant from one another as the nations they governed. Those mighty dead are raised, not from their couches, which would have been the natural expression, had the Prophet's idea been a sepulchral vault, how magnificent soever, but from their thrones, as suited the notion of all antiquity, concerning not the bodies, but the shades or ghosts of the departed, to which was always assigned something similar in rank and 59 Isa. v. 14. VOL. I. 44 60 xiv. 9. |