and if thou die in thy sins, where God is, thou shalt never come.' Having delivered himself of his allegory, (if he does not curse the day in which it was born,) he condemns himself without mercy, for departing so widely from the true sense of the passage. The wonder is, that he let the allegory remain, after writing the words which immediately follow, to wit: Those who make the adversary, God; the judge, Christ; the officer, death; and the prison, hell, abuse the passage, and highly dishonor God." Com. in loc. SECTION X. 'And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.'-MATT. v. 29-30. THE parallel place is Mark ix. 43-48, and a similar form of expression occurs Matt. xviii. 8, 9. On the passage here quoted, I shall again avail myself of the language of the gentleman, to whom I have more than once alluded. He writes thus: 'We have at length arrived at a text, in which all the orthodox writers, so far as I am acquainted with them, agree that the word hell means a place or state of eternal torment, in the future world. But there are certain facts, admitted by all of them, which are worthy of the reader's attention. The term here translated hell, is in the original, gehenna, of which the origin, history, and use, as now understood by the learned, may be discovered from the following definition, which I insert entire from that standard author, Schleusner : • Gehenna, a word of Hebrew origin, which properly signifies the valley of Hinnom, is composed of the Hebrew appellative GEE, valley, and the proper name HINNOM, who was the owner of this valley. The valley of the sons of Hinnom, was a most delightful vale, planted with trees, and watered by fountains, and was close to Jerusalem on the southeast, by the torrent Kedron. Here the Jews placed that brazen image of Moloch, which had the face of a calf, and extended its hands like those of a man; and to which the Jewish idolaters, as R. Kimchi informs us from the ancient Rabbins, used to sacrifice not only doves, turtles, lambs, rams, calves, and bulls, but also their own children. (Consult 1 Kings xi. 7, and 2 Kings xvi. 3, 4.) In Jeremiah vii. 31, this valley is called TOPHET, from the Hebrew TоPн, a drum; because that the priests in those horrible rites, beat drums, lest the wailings and cries of the infants who were burned, should be heard by those standing around. But when these horrible rites were done away by Josiah, and the Jews recalled to the purer worship of God, (see 2 Kings xxiii. 10,) it is said that they afterwards held this place in such detestation, as to throw into it not only all the filth, but also the carcasses of animals, and of those criminals who had been capitally punished. (Consult Sam. Petiti. Varr. Lect. i. 4, and Morinus de Ling. Primava p. 366.) As a continual fire was necessary to consume the substances, lest the air should be infected by putrefaction, and as there were always worms feeding on the remaining fragments, (see Braun, Selecta, sec. iv. 120,) it hence came to pass, that not only every severe punishment, and particularly every ignominious kind of death, was called by the name of Gehenna, but likewise that miserable state in which the wicked after death shall suffer condign and unceasing torments, in company with demons; so that hell itself was called by this name, not only by the Jews, (see Bartoloccium in Biblioth. Rabbin. M. T. ii. p. 128,) but also by Christ and his apostles. See the following texts; Matt. v. 22, shall be in danger of a gehenna of fire, i. e. shall be worthy of an ignominious death; ver. 29, 30, than that thy whole body should be cast into gehenna, i. e. than that thou shouldst perish in hell; chap. x. 28, destroy both soul and body in gehenna, i. e. destroy thy soul with the body; chap. xviii. 9. Chap. xxiii. 15, two fold more the child of gehenna, i. e. worthy of the severest punishment; ver. 33, escape the damnation of gehenna, i. e. escape infernal torment. In Mark ix. 43-48, Gehenna is called unquenchable fire, fire that is not quenched. Luke xii. 5. James iii. 6, and is set on fire of gehenna, i. e. and afterwards is consumed, itself, by infernal fire. It is nowhere else found in the New Testament. Suidas defines Gehenna to mean punishment; Albertus, in his Glossary of the New Testament, p. 5, defines it, to mean the pit. See Wetstein, New Testament, vol. i. p. 299, and Glassii Philologia Sacra, p. 806, ed. Dathii. Schleusnerii Lexicon, in voce Gehenna. Thus far Schleusner. He mentions three things, which the careful reader will remember: (1,) that Gehenna was originally the name of the valley of Hinnom; (2,) that it came at length to denote any severe punishment, especially any ignominious death; and (3,) that it was at last used to signify a state of torment in the future world. Now at what time it came to be used in the last mentioned sense, is a question of great importance, and I shall first state the jndgment of critics on this point, and then offer a few suggestions. I think it is now agreed by the learned, that it was not so used, till after the close of the Old Testament; but I think it is likewise generally agreed by them, that it had become so used in the time of our Saviour. Of this latter fact, the only proof on which they rely, (besides the controverted texts in the New Testament,) is, I think, the language of certain passages in the Apocrypha, and in the ancient Targums, which were written by the Jews, about the time, it is commonly supposed, of our Saviour's birth. Here I would remark, that if the word Gehenna were ordinarily used for a place of future torment, by those Jewish authors of the Apocrypha, and of the Targums, who lived before, and at, the christian era, the circumstance would render it very probable that the word was commonly so understood in Christ's time. But it is important to observe, with regard to the passages alluded to in the Apocrypha, that Mr. Balfour, (Inquiry pp. 273, 274,) states, that they do not even contain the word Gehenna; so that they must be thrown entirely out of the question, leaving nothing but the Targums to sustain the critics in their decision. The Targums, I believe, have not been sufficiently examined by any author who doubted the common opinion. Before we ought to be satisfied with regard to their bearing on this subject, it appears, to me that the following points should be clearly ascertained; (1,) Whether the oldest of them, those of Jonathan Ben Uzziel and Onkelos, do in fact use the word Gehenna to denote a place of future torment; for all the others are of too late a date to be used as evidence. (2,) Whether it is probable that even those Targums are as old as our Saviour's time; for I understand that this is a disputed question among critics, and that the celebrated Bauer and Jahn bring them down to the second or third century.' Trumpet, ii. 89. In relation to the date of the Targums, I only add the following remarks from Horne :— The Targum of Onkelos: The generally received opinion is that Onkelos was a proselyte to Judaism, and a disciple of the celebrated Rabbi Hillel, who flourished about fifty years before the christian era; and consequently that Onkelos was contemporary with our Saviour; Bauer and Jahn, however, place him in the second century.' Intro. ii. 159. Targum of the Psuedo Jonathan: 'Learned men are unanimously of opinion that this Targum could not have been written before the seventh, or even the eighth century.' Ibid. p. 159. Targum of Jonathan Ben Uzziel: Some suppose this Jonathan to have lived in the days of Christ, and Wolfius thinks he lived a short time before that period. From the silence of Origen and Jerome concerning this Targum, of which they could not but have availed *This examination has since been made by Rev. H. Ballou 2d, (the author of the article here quoted,) and its results published in the Universalist Expositor, Vol. ii. pp. 351-368, to which the reader is referred. He has ascertained, by a careful investigation, that Gehenna is not used, in any Jewish writings now extant, to indicate torment in the future life, before the Targum of Jonathan Ben Uzziel. Concerning the probable date of this Targum some remarks will be found in the text. themselves if it had really existed in their time, and also from its being cited in the Talmud, both Bauer and Jahn date it much later than is generally admitted: the former indeed is of opinion that its true date cannot be ascertained; and the latter, from the inequalities of style and method observable in it, considers it as a compilation from the interpretations of several learned men, made about the close of the third or fourth century.' Ibid. p. 160. Hence it is seen that before the Targums will support the critics in their opinion that Gehenna had, in the days of Christ, acquired this new sense, expressing torments in the future life, it must first be proved, beyond reasonable doubt, that the Targums were then in existence; this is strongly doubted by some of the best critics. (Eichhorn dates Targ. Jonathan in the fourth century, and Bertholdt in the second or third; see also the preceding remarks.) At the least, it must be proved that they were written within a short time after Christ; because if their true date is in the second, or third, or fourth, century, they can yield no conclusive testimony; words change in their signification astonishingly in one or two hundred years. It may not be improper to introduce, in this place, the following passage from Macknight :— Into the deep. The word abyssos in this passage signifies the place where wicked spirits are punished; as it does likewise Rev. xx. 3, where it is translated the bottomless pit; properly it denotes a place without bottom, or so deep that it cannot be fathomed. The Greeks described their Tartarus in this manner, and the Jews, when they wrote Greek, did not scruple to adopt their expressions, because they were universally understood. Besides, the Hebrew language did not furnish proper words for these ideas, which was the reason that the first Christians also, when they had occasion to speak of the state of evil spirits, made use of terms purely Greek, such as Hades, Tartarosas, &c.' Har. Evan. Sec. 32. But if Gehenna, (which is of Hebrew origin, and was |
