It has further to be asked whether the term ' hell,' Gehenna, in the NT expresses the idea of a penal condition that is permanent. What the common belief of the Jews was on the subject if the nature and the duration of the final retri'iutiun at the time to which the NT writings belong, is a di.sputcd question, and one by no means easy to answer. The literature, however, that is most pertinent to the question does not favour the idea that the doctrine of an ultimate restoration of all souls wius the prevalent doctrine among the Jews of that period. It leaves us a choice between two views, annihilation and everlasting punishment
SiS
HELL
HELM
un i the conclusion to which it points is that the latter was the hulief of the great mass of the I/fople. The apocryphal books sjieak in the most unambiguous terms of the lot of the wicked ileaJ ns linal and enduring, in the Bk. of Judith, for example, the vengeance of the day of judgment is described as ' lire and worms ' in the Uesli of those « lio rise up against Israel, which ' tlie3' shall feel and weep lor ever' (10"). In one of the Uks. of Maccabees the lot of the tjTant is declared to be ' eternal torture by lire,' and ' interminable tor- ments' (4 Mac 9»» 10'"). Another of these books speaks of the ' furnace of hell,' and of the despisers of the Most High as doomed to be * henceforth in torments, always in pain and anguish of seven kinds ' (4 Ezr 1"- "• •*). As a general rule, the pseudepigraphic writings are equally explicit. They speak of the penalty of the wicked as an 'everlasting curse' ; of the last <hiy as a 'day of judgment and punishment and allliction upon llie levilers to eternity'; of the 'abyss of fire' in wliich the impious shall be 'locked up for all eternity'; of a 'just judgment, in eternity for ever ' (6k. of Enoch 5»- « 22^-" 10'>" i?^- ' ; cf. Apoc. Bar 44'" etc.). The testimony of Josephus, too, with all neces.sary abatements, is to the etl'ect that both Pharisees and Essenes believed in everlast- ing punishment (BJlI. viii. 11, 14; Ant. xvill. i. 3). On the other hand, the final retribution of the impenitent is in not a few cases expressed in terms of a destruction, a, perdition, and tlie like (Ps. Sol 3" 9» 1'28 13i» 15", Bk. En 99'" etc.) ; from which it is inferred that the penalty in question was re- garded as an ultimate extinction of being. Such expressions have to be read, however, in the liglit of the general Jewish conception of Sheol. So read they may convey the idea tliat there is no deliverance for the wicked from Sheol, but do not necessarily mean tliat tlie doom in question was absolute extinction of existence. They are also to be measured by other statements of a more definite and unmistakable kind, with which they are accompanied, and by the contrasts in which they are placed with descriptions of the lot of the righteous as an enduring one. In the Ralibinical books there is a wider variety of opinion. Gehenna appears there at times as a purgatory, and state- ments are found which indicate that at least at certain periods there were those who favoured the doctrine of anniliilation, and those who inclined to the hope of a final universal restoration. But these were rather the dogmas or speculations of the schools than the belief of the people, and they belon^to a later period. Even in the case of the great Kabbis who spoke of a limited punishment, exception was made of certain classes of sinners. The school of Hillel, e.g., taught that sinners of the heathen and others were punished in Gehinnom for a space of twelve months, and afterwards were consumed. But the Minim (the Christians), the Epicureans, those who deny the divine origin of the Torali and the truth of the resurrection, and those who sin like Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, were said to 'go down to Gehinnom,' and to be 'punished there to ages of ages.' The same is the statement made, but at greater lengtli and in still more ex- plicit terms, in tlie Eosh Haslisluniah, in a passage which is described as the ' classical passage of the Talmud' on the subject (Plumptre, The Spirits in Prison, p. 52). The most probable conclusion appears to be this — that, while there were varia- tions in belief from time to time, especially in the direction of anniliilation, and divergent specu- lations in the Rabbinical schools, the idea gener- ally connected with the term Gehenna, ' hell,' in our Lord's time was that of an irreversible doom for the wholly wicked, and that in His teaching as well as in that of His apostles the word was used
3 [lopular and prevalent sense (see Scliiirer, ' II. ii. 183 ; Edersheim's Je.tits the Mcssiiih, ii.
in its
UJPl
pp. 440, 791 ; Meyer, Cvmm. on Mt 5- ; Holtzniann,
HandCum. on Mt 5", Mk 3-" 9*»).
Other terms are also used in the NT to express the penalty and the condition indicated by the word Gehenna, 'hell.' In the evangelical records of Christ's own discourses such terms are found employed as ' eternal fire ' ; ' unquenchable lire ' ; the place where ' their worm dieth not, and their fire IS not quenched ' ; the ' prison ' from which there is no coming out until ' tiie last farthing' is paid; 'eternal punishment' as contrasted with 'eternal life'; exclusion from the kingdom; banishment from Christ ; ' weeping and wailing, and gnashing of teeth ' ; the ' outer darkness,' etc. (Mt 18"- », MTc 9"-^, Mt 5-'»--'«, Lk 12'>»-% iMt 2.5" 7-'--^ 13« 25*)). Elsewhere the final destiny of the unrighteous is described as ' the mist of darkness for ever' (2 P 2'') ; the ' blackness of darkness for ever' (Jude '^) ; the 'fierceness of fire' and 'per- dition' (UelO^-''"); 'great tribulation,' 'burning with fire,' being 'without,' the 'second dcatli, being cast into the 'lake of fire,' the 'lake that burneth with brimstone and fire' (Kev 2-- ^ IS'-' '22'" 2" 20»-'^21» 20'"' 19™); the 'wrath to come,' ' wrath and indignation, tribulation and anguish,' 'death,' ' punishment,' 'destruction,' 'eternal de- struction Irom the face of the Lord ' (Ko 2', 2 Th 1», Ko '2» 6-', Ph 3"', 2Th 1»). Beyond these terms of large suggestion, wliicli are as remarkable for their variety as for their figurative force, the NT does not carry us. Theologians liave gone further, and have ventured on many definitions of things left unilelined in the Scriptures. They liave distinguished between two forms of the future penaltj', the jicena setisus and the poena damni. They have spoken sometimes of the ' fire ' of Gehenna as a material tire (cf. Petavius, Ve Angel, iii. 5), and sometimes as a figurative (Origen, De Frin. ii. 4). They have indulged in fruitless questions regarding tlie locality of hell, the Limbus or ' fringe ' of hell, and much else. The NT is silent on many things on which imagination and specu- lation have both spent themselves largely and to little profit. It speaks much less of the retri- bution of the impenitent than of the reward of the righteous. In what it does say of the former it gives no satisfaction to curious inquiry. It limits itself to intimations which address themselves to character and conduct, and which convey tlie im- pression of the untold moral issues that depend upon the present life.