"Quæ rapidus flammis ambit torrentibus amnis "The hero, looking on the left, espy'd "With treble walls which Phlegeton surrounds; "And press'd betwixt the rocks, the bellowing noise resounds." The accordance between the Hell or place of the departed of the Heathen Poets, and that of the Jews; and the division of it into two separate abodes for the souls of the righteous and the wicked, are thus clearly established by Dr. CAMBELL, in the explanation of the Parable of the rich man and Lazarus. "The Jews did not indeed adopt the pagan fables on this subject, nor did they express themselves entirely in the same manner; but the general train of thinking in both came pretty much to coincide. The Greek Hades they found well adapted to express the Hebrew sheol. This they came to conceive as including different sorts of habitations for ghosts of different characters. And though they did not receive the terms Elysium or Elysian fields, as suitable appellations for the regions peopled by good spirits, they took instead of them, as better adapted to their own theology, the garden of Eden or Paradise, a name originally Persian, by which the word answering to garden, especially when applied to Eden, had commonly been rendered by the Seventy. To denote the same state, they sometimes used the phrase Abraham's bosom, a metaphor borrowed from the manner in which they reclined at meals. But, on the other hand, to express the unhappy situation of the wicked in that intermediate state, they do not seem to have declined the use of the word * Virg. Æn. vi. 548. * of evil angels that tartarus. The Apostle Peter, says God cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment. So it stands in the common version, though neither yɛvvα nor dns are in the original, where the expression is, agaïs ζόφου ταρταρώσας παρέδωκεν εἰς κρίσιν τετηρεμένους. The word is not γέεννα ; for that comes after judgment; but ταρταρος, which is, as it were, the prison of hades, wherein criminals are kept till the general judgment. And as in the ordinary use of the Greek word, it was comprehended under hades, as a part; it ought, unless we had some positive reason to the contrary, by the ordinary rules of interpretation, to be understood so here. There is then no inconsistency in maintaining that the rich man, though in torments, was not in gehenna, but in that part of hades called tartarus, where we have seen already that spirits reserved for judgment are detained in darkness.” According to this explication, the rich man and Lazarus were both in hades, though in very different situations, the latter in the mansions of the happy, and the former in those of the wretched. Let us see how the circumstances mentioned, and the expressions used, in the parable, will suit this hypothesis. First, though they are said to be at a great distance from each other, they are still within sight and hearing. This would have been too gross a violation of probability, if the one were considered as inhabiting the highest heavens, and the other as placed in the infernal regions. Again, the expressions used, are such as entirely suit this explanation, and no other; for, first, the distance from each other is mentioned, but no hint that the one was higher in situation than the other; secondly, the terms, whereby motion from the one to the * 2 Peter ii. 4. * other is expressed, are such as are never employed in expressing motion to or from heaven, but, always, when the places are on a level, or nearly so. Thus Lazarus, when dead, is said avevaι, to be carried away, not απενεχθήναι, avεvex vaι, to be carried up, by angels into Abraham's bosom; whereas, it is the latter of these, or one similarly compounded, that is always used, where an assumption into heaven is spoken of. Thus, the same writer, in speaking of our Lord's ascension, says + ἀνεφέρετο εἰς τον οὐρανον, and Mark in relation to the event, says | ἀνελήφθη eis Tov Ougavov he was taken up into heaven. These words. are also used, wherever one is said to be conveyed from a lower to a higher situation. But what is still more decisive in this way; where mention is made of passing from Abraham to the rich man, and inversely, the verbs employed are, διαβαίνω and διαπεράω, words which always denote motion on the same ground or level; as, passing a river or lake, passing through the Red Sea, or passing from Asia to Macedonia. But, when heaven is spoken of as the termination to which, or from which the passage is made, the word is, invariably either in the first case, avaßaiva, and in the second, naτaßaivw, or some word similarly formed, and of the same import. Thus both the circumstances of the story, and the expressions employed in it, confirm the explanation I have given. For, if the sacred penmen wrote to be understood, they must have employed their words and phrases, in conformity to the current usage of those for whom they wrote." That region of the departed, where the souls of the righteous repose, in the interval between death and the resurrection, is denominated by our Saviour, Paradise * Luke xvi. 22. + Luke xxiv. 51. Mark xvi. 19. "This day," says he to the penitent thief," thou shalt be with me in Paradise," not in Heaven, the region of the blessed. For, as Bishop Horsley observes *, "Paradise was certainly some place where our Lord was to be on the very day on which he suffered, and where the companion of his sufferings was to be with him. It was not heaven; for to heaven our Lord ascended not till after his resurrection, as appears from his own words to Mary Magdalen. He was not therefore in heaven on the day of the crucifixion; and, where he was not, the thief could not be with him. It was no place of torment; for to any such place the name of paradise never was applied. It could be no other than the region of repose and rest, where the souls of the righteous abide, in joyful hope of the consummation of their bliss." "Paradise among the Jews," observes Bishop Bull, primarily signified the Garden of Eden, that blessed garden wherein Adam in his state of innocence dwelt. By which, because it was a most pleasant and delightful place, they were wont symbolically to represent the place and state of good souls separated from their bodies, and waiting for the resurrection; whom they believed to be in a state of happiness, far exceeding all the felicities of this life; but yet inferior to that consummate bliss which follows the resurrection. Hence it was the solemn good wish of the Jews (as the learned tell us from the Talmudists) concerning their dead friend, Let his soul be in the garden of Eden, or, Let his soul be gathered into the Garden of Eden. And in their prayers for a dying person, they used to say, Let him have his portion in Paradise, and also in the world to come-In which form Paradise and the World to come, are plainly distinguished. Sermons, Vol. ii. 92. According to which notion, the meaning of our Saviour in his promise to the penitent thief, is evidently this: That he should presently after his death enter with him into that place of bliss and happiness, where the souls of the righteous, separated from their bodies inhabit, and where they wait in a joyful expectation of the resurrection, and the consummation of their bliss in the highest heaven. For that our Saviour here did not promise the thief an immediate entrance into that Heaven, the Ancients gathered from hence, that he himself, as man, did not ascend thither till after his resurrection, as our very Creed informs us; which is also St. Austin's argument in his fifty-seventh epistle." Dr. Adam Clarke observes in his Commentary, that "the garden of Eden mentioned Gen. ii. 8. is also called from the Septuagint, the garden of Paradise.-Hence the word has been transplanted into the New Testament, and is used to signify a place of exquisite delight. The word Paradise is not Greek, but is of Asiatic origin. In Arabic and Persian it signifies a garden, a vineyard, the place of the blessed. Our Lord's words intimate that this penitent should be immediately taken to the abode of the spirits of the just, where they should enjoy the presence and approbation of the Most High *." Dr. WHITBY considers Paradise as "the place into which pious souls separated from the body, were immediately received +." Dr. DODDRIDGE also speaks of Paradise as "the abode of happy spirits when separate from the body, that garden of God which is the seat of happy spirits in *Clarke's Com. on Luke xxiii. 43. |