The best-known desert of the Bible is the Wihlerness of Sinai, where the tribes of Israel wandered before settling in Canaan. God's care for the people in those days of wandering is re-
peatedly referred to by prophets and psalmists (e.g. Hos 13^, Jer 2^, Am 2i", Ps TS^^ 107'' \W% In the same way the sin and unbelief of the people in the wilderness are mentioned [e.g. Ps 78'*'' 106^'*), while on the other hand several of the prophets seem to look on the time of the sojourn in the wilderness as the ideal period in the story of Israel's relation to God [e.g. Jer 2-, Am 5-^).
In the apostolic writings we have several refer- ences to 'wilderness' or 'desert.' Tiie terms em- ployed are iptj/uLa and Sprjfios, the latter used either as a noun or adjective with Tdwos or X'^pa or some similar word understood. In the life of our Lord the desert holds an important place. It is the scene of the Temptation, of the feeding of the 5000, of midnight prayer and rest from labour. In the life of Sb. Paul we have a reference to his sojourn in Arabia (Gal 1") after his conversion, and un- doubtedly we are to understand that the Apostle had retired to the desert for meditation. The evangelist Philip is instructed by the Spirit to go to meet the Ethiopian eunuch on the road from Jerusalem to Gaza, and the statement follows, 'which is desert' (Ac 8"^). If this refers to the road which passed through the desert, there is no difficulty ; but the natural application of the words is to Gaza itself, which in the time of Philip was a prosperous town. G. A. Smith [HGHL^, 1897, p. 186 f.) supposes that the reference is to Old Gaza, past which the road ran ; but the more likely explanation is that the sentence is a later marginal gloss inserted after Gaza had passed away, and that it at length crept into the text (cf. HDB iv. giS**). In the Epistle to the Hebrews reference is made to the persecuted followers of Christ ' who wandered in deserts and mountains ' (IP^). Prob- ably this refers to the Jewish Christians of the Holy Land during the great war with Kome and after the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus. The apostolic writings also contain repeated allusions to the wilderness of Israel's wanderings. In the speeches of St. Stephen and St. Paul, as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, we And the story of the desert sojourn, in the accounts of the history of God's revelation of Himself to mankind (Ac 7^^* ^** 42.44 i3i8)_ St. Paul in 1 Co 10^ refers to the temptation, sin, and punishment of the people in the wilderness as a warning to Christian believers against giving way to temptation. A similar use of the temptation in the wilderness is made in He 38- ".
In Rev 12^- " ' the woman clothed with the sun ' has a place prepared for her in the wilderness, whither she flees from before the dragon, while in 17^ the seer is carried to the wilderness to see the ' woman sitting upon a scarlet-coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy.' The thought behind the former reference, of the wilderness as a place of refuge for the woman, may be taken from the history of the Jews who fled from Pharaoh to the wilderness, but there may be no more than the general idea of the wilderness as a place of refuge and concealment, so amply illustrated in the life of David. The idea in the latter instance may be connected with the Jewish conception of the desert as the home of demons or evil spirits (cf. art. Demon). W. F. Boyd.
DESTRUCTION.— The material is scanty in St. Paul's writings for ' a detailed theory on this most awe-inspiring of all sulijects,' and it is proper for us to note ' the " wise Agnosticism " (the phrase is Dr. Orr's in discussing the teaching of Scripture on eternal punishment) of St. Paul with the at- tempted theories of the Synagogue-theologians' (H. A. A. Kennedy, .S7. Paul's Conceptions of flu Last Things, 1904, pp. 313, 315 ; cf. also 4 Ezr. ix. I.", ' Enquire not further how the ungodly are to be
DEVIL
DEVIL
293
tormented, but rather investigate the manner in which the righteous are to be saved'). But there can be little doubt that the term ' destruction ' to St. Paul meant, not annihilation, but a continual existence of some sort in the outer darkness away from God. St. Paul has a group of ■words for this idea, d/r/vj (1 Th V, Ro 2^- ^ 5^) is a more general term and applies to the Cay of Judgment. Bdvarcs (Ro 6^^- ^ S**) is not the death of the body, Tvhich is true of all, but rather the second death of Rev 206- 14. The NT gives nc scientific description of death, nor is one possible in the spiritual sphere. The analogy of Nature (see Butler's Analogy, ed. Gladstone, 1896, and Drummond's Natural Laio in the Spiritual World, 1883) does not make an- nihilation necessary. The words (pdeipu and (pdopd (Gal 6^, 2 P 2'-) have the notion of corruption. Note the contrast in 1 Co 15^^ between iv (pdopa and £v d<pdapaia. St. Paul uses <p6eipu in 1 Co 3" for the punishment of one who destroys {(pdeiptxi) the Temple of God. In Ro 3'® destruction {crvv- rpi/Mfxa) and misery (raXaiTrwpia) are coupled together for the ways of tlie sinful. But the chief words for the idea of destruction of the unbelieving are diruiXeia (dfl"oXXi5w) and oXeOpos, both from oXXu/Ut, ' to destroy.' In Rev 9^^ 6 'AiroWvwv, the destroyer, is the title of Satan. The use of diro in dwoWvui and dTTuiXeitt is perfective, and in Greek literature generally the terms mean * destruction.' This fact is used by the advocates of conditional im- mortality in favour of the doctrine of the annihi- lation of the wicked, but it is by no means clear that the v.'ords connote extinction of consciousness. Least of all is this true of the LXX use of the words. In 2 P 3^ dirwXeia is used for the Day of Judgment and punishment of the wicked, which implies life after death. In Ph 1^ the word is in opposition to auirripia, in He 10^^ it is opposed to wepiTTOLTjcns ttjs ^vxv^ (see also Ja 4'-, Jude^, 1 Co P^ 109 I518, 2 Co 2'5'- 43, Ro 212, Ph 313, Rev 17^- "). There seems no good reason for reading into the context the notion of anniliilation of the soul, for that was probably an idea wholly foreign to St. Paul. The term 6\€0pos meets us in 1 Th 5^ 2 Th P, 1 Ti 6'^ (ets oXfepov Kal dTrd,\eiav). In 2 Th 1^ we have TLjovcnv oKedpov aldivicv, which is the only pas- sage that makes a statement about the duration of the destruction of the wicked. Aristotle {de Ccelo, i. 9, 15) defines aiihv as the limit (t6 tAos) either of a man's epoch or the limit of all things (eternity). The word does not in itself denote eternity, but it lends itself readily to that idea. The context in 2 Th 1^ makes the notion of final- ity or eternity necessary (Milliiian, Thess., 1908, ad loc). The word 6\edpos denotes hopeless ruin (cf. Beet, The Last Things, ed. 1905, p. 122 ff.). In 4 Mac 10'^ we have rbv aliiviov tov rvpdwov oXeOpov in contrast with Tof dolotfiov tG>v evae^uif ^lov (cf. Milligan, op. eit. p. 65). St. Paul's natural mean- ing is the ruin of the wicked, which goes on for ever. It is a dark subject from any point of view, but eternal sinning seems to call for eternal punishing. See also artt. on LIFE AND Death, PuxiSHMENT, and Perdition.