HELL
174
HELLENIST
regard these expressions as figurative representations of the positive penalties of hell. Docklridge remarks that, " On the whole, it is of very little importance whether we say there is an external fire, or only an idea of such pain as arises from biu-ning ; and should we think both doubtful, it is certain God can give the mind a sense of agony and distress which shoiUd answer and even ex- ceed the terrors of those descriptions ; and care should certainly be taken so to explain Scripture metaphors as that hell may be considered as consisting more of mental agony than of bodily tortures" {Led. onDivin. ccxxiii).
Of similar tenor are the following remarks by Dr. Warillaw : " What the nature of that suffering shall be it is vain for us to attempt to conjecture. It has been conceived that if we suppose clear apprehensions of God and sin in the miderstanding ; an unslumbering con- science ; an unceasing conflict between fidl, irrepressible convictions of all that is awful in truth, and an enmity of heart remaining in all its virulence ; passions raging in their unmitigated violence ; regrets as unavailing as they are torturing; conscious desert and unalleviated hopelessness; with the entire removal of all, in what- ever form, that on earth enabled the sinner to banish thought and exclude anticipation, we have materials for a sufficient hell. I will not deny it. ... I cannot but think, therefore, that there must be something more than conscience, something of the nature of positive punitive infliction: conscience attesting its justice, cer- tifying its being all deserved. What shall be the pre- cise nature of that infliction is another question. There may surely be something of the nature of punitive in- fliction without adopting the theory of literal fire, of a lake of fire, a lake burning with brimstone. I have no more beUef, as I have just said, in a literal fire than in a literal worm ; and no more belief in either than in the existence, for the heaven of the Bible, of a literal para- dise, in the centre of which grows the tree of life, or of a literal city, of which the length, and breadtll, and height are equal, of which the foundations are precious stones, the gates of pearl, and the streets of gold, with a pure river of living water flowing through the midst of it. But the mind of fallen man is in love with sin, and ill selfish hatred of God and holiness. In a mind of this character the difficulty may amount to impossibility of awakening any adequate sense of future suffering, or any salutary alarm in the anticipation of it, by any rep- resentation of it more directly spiritual, or even mental. In these circumstances, then, if an impression of ex- treme suffering is to be made, it seems as if figure, taken from what is still in the midst of all the perversions of depravity felt to be fearfid, were almost, if not altogeth- er, indispensable for the purpose. The figures of Scrip- ture on this subject are felt, and felt powerfully, by ev- ery mind. The very mention of the " worm that dieth not" awakens a more thrilling emotion, undefined as it is (perhaps, indeed, the more thrilUng that it is unde- fined), than anything you can say to an unregenerate man about the operations of conscience , and the " fire that never shall be quenched" than any representation you can ever make to him of sin, and the absence of God, and the sway of evil passions, and the pangs of remorse, and horribleness of sin-loving and God-hating company. Such images have the full effect intended by them. They give the impression, the vivid and in- tense impression, of extreme suffering; although what proportion of that suffering shall be the native and nec- essary result of the constitution of human nature when placed in certain circumstances, and what proportion of more direct penal infliction, the Scriptures do not tell us, entering into no such discussions. And it woiUd be useless for us to conjecture, or to attempt the adjustment of such proportions" (S;/sfemcitic Theolof/i/, Edinbiugh, 1857, iii, 700). For a copious list of books on the sub- ject, see Abbot's bibliographical appendix to Alger, His- tcri/ of the Doctrine of a Future Life, § iii, F, 3.
On the Duration of the punishment of hell, see Uni-
VERSALISM.
Hellenist (E\\i]vi(tt>/c, A. V. " Grecian ;" comp. 'E\X?/i/((T/xof , 2 Macci iv, 13). In one of the earliest no- tices of the first Christian Church at Jerusalem (Acts vi, 1), two distinct parties are recognised among its mem- bers, ^^ Hebrews" and Hellenists, who appear to stand to- wards one another in some degree in a relation of jeal- ous rivalry. So, again, when Paid first visited Jerusa- lem after his conversion, he spoke and disputed with the Hellenists (Acts ix, 29), as if expecting to find more sym- pathy among them than with the rulers of the Jews. The term Hellenist occurs once again in the N. T. ac- cording to the common text, in the account of the foim- dation of the Church at Antioch (Acts xi, 20), but there the context, as well as the form of the sentence {kciI irphq Tovg 'E., though the Kai is doubtful), seems to re- quire the other reading " Greeks" ("EXX?jv£(,')) which is supported by great external e\'idence as the true anti- thesis to " Jews" {'lovSaioig, not 'EjSpaioLg, v, 19). See Hebrews.