will (wishes to-beλe) come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me.' Then come the words which we have already

.the Christian hell (גיא בן הנם or uncontracted גיהנם

Precisely the same views will be found set forth in the following places.-Luke ix. 23-27; xiv. 26, 27; xvii. 33. John xii. 25, 26. There is, however, one passage of this class which requires a word of explanation.-Matth. x. 28.-"Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear him which is able to destroy both body and soul in hell." (See also Luke xii. 4, 5.) It has been thought that this passage proves the immateriality and immortality of the soul; and that by "him which is able to destroy both body and soul in hell,' we are to understand the devil. Very different things, however, are meant here. There is in the passage no reference at all to an immaterial principle. The verb, translated kill, is añoкTELvw, meaning to slaughter, or massacre, and the other, translated destroy, anоλλvw, meaning to destroy, kill, perish, die, &c. The word translated soul here, again is uxn, and that for which the word body stands, is owμa; so that thus far the passage is translated very fairly. The word rendered hell is yɛɛvva, a word composed, or rather corrupted from yn, land, earth, and Hinnon; or the Hebrew words 2 (valley,) and Hinnom; the latter being the name of a person who once possessed the Valley of Hinnom, which was situated near Jerusalem, and in which there were furnaces, particularly in that spot of it called Tophet, (which word appears to signify a furnace) where human beings were burnt alive to Moloch and other gods. See Josh. xv. 8. 2 Kings xxiii. 10. 2 Chron. xxviii. 3; xxxiii. 6. Jer. xix. 2; xxxii. 35. In all these passages the Valley of Hinnom is in Hebrew called Gehenna, In reference to this place Christ says that whosoever should call his brother a fool should be in danger of the fire of Gehenna, or rather of a Gehenna of fire, (yɛɛvva Tov #upoç,) translated in our version hell-fire. (Matth. v. 22.) The same Gehenna or hell he means where, in the same chapter, he exhorts people to pull out their right eye, and cut off their right hand, in order to avoid it. (ver. 29, 30; xviii. 8, 9. Mark ix. 43—47.) Also the same when he tells the Pharisees that they made their proselytes twofold more the children of hell (yɛɛvva) than themselves; and when he calls this religious sect, serpents, and a generation of vipers who could not escape the damnation of hell. (chap. xxiii. 15, 33.) The hell of Jesus Christ, therefore, was in the Valley of Hinnom, where human beings, particularly children, were burnt alive to Moloch. (See Park. Greek Lex. infra yɛɛvva.) Christ mentions Hades but in few instances; and only in one instance he connects the idea of fire with it. Hades, in Grecian and other ancient mythologies, means a dark place where the dead were supposed to be shut up, and where there was a gate to let them in, ―a deep pit, a cavern, the grave. Accordingly we find Christ saying that Capernaum should be reduced to Hades, (Matth. xi. 23. Luke x. 15.) that the gates of Hades should not prevail against the rock upon which he was building his church, (chap. xvi. 18.) and that in Hades the rich man lifted up his eyes, (Luke xvi. 23.) in which last instance only is the least allusion made to fire. The hell, however, in which Christ says the body and life should be destroyed was not Hades, but Gehenna, or rather the furnace Tophet, in the Valley of Hinnom. But it is questionable, whether in any of the foregoing passages, which are the whole to be found in the Gospels where hell is mentioned, he means the punishment to be inflicted on those who were to be burnt at the End of the World.The furnace of fire, however, in which he says the wicked should be burnt at the End of the World, would seem to indicate that he thought his enemies should then be burned in some such place as Tophet.

In corroboration of the correctness of these explanations of Christ's pagan or mythological hell, it may render some degree of satisfaction, if not solace to the Christian reader, smarting under the loss of his Tophet, of which the foregoing facts have just deprived him, to cite a few passages from some standard and orthodox writers on the point. Parkhurst, in his Greek Lexicon to the New Testament, under the word yɛɛvva writes, inter alia,—“ Gehenna of the New Testament, is in like manner a corruption of the two Hebrew words a valley, and on the name of a person..... "A Gehenna of fire, Matth. v. 22. does, I apprehend, in its outward and primary sense, relate to that dreadful doom of being burnt alive in the Valley of Hinnom.. "And in ix. 43, 44, &c. our Lord seems to allude to the worms which continually preyed on the dead carcases that were cast out into the Valley of Hinnom-Gehenna, and to the perpetual fire kept up there to consume them." Under the word Moloch he says, that this fiery idol worshipped by the apostate Israelites, means a king or ruler. He also, under

examined. The whole is to the following effect :-Christ tells his disciples that the Jews would put him to death by crucifixion. Peter entreats him to

Tophet, in his Hebrew Lexicon, defines the word-a furnace, which was in the Valley of 'Hinnom. The pious and learned Cruden, in his Concordance, under the same word, says;-"It is thought that Tophet was the butchery, or the place of slaughter, at Jerusalem, lying on the south of the city, in the Valley of the children of Hinnom."...... Others think that the name of Tophet is given to the Valley of Hinnom, because of the sacrifices that were offered there to the god Moloch, by beat of drums, which in Hebrew is called Toph..... They lighted a great fire within the statue, and another before it. They put upon its arms the child they intended to sacrifice, which soon fell into the fire at the foot of the statue, putting forth cries, as may easily be imagined. To stifle the noise of these cries and howlings, they made a great rattling of drums and other instruments, that the spectators might not be moved with compassion at the clamours of these miserable victims." Such is the account these two divines give of Gehenna. Of course both of them spiritualize this pagan and material hell a little, and apply it to the prevalent Christian notion of Tophet. It is, however, indisputable that this pagan fire-worship in the Valley of Hinnom was the hell described by Christ. Moreover, we have positive proof in the Old Testament, not only that the Jews offered human sacrifices in the Valley of Hiunom, but that they believed that Jehovah was the Moloch, or statue-king of this Gehenna. Isaiah, (xxx. 27-33.) in his description of the rites of Tophet, after stating that there would be song, tabrets, drums, and harps, when Jehovah, (or the statue Moloch) would show the lighting down of his arm, with the flame of devouring fire, in the destruction of the Assyrians, adds;-"Tophet is ordained of old; yea for the king (775—Moloch) it is prepared; he hath made it deep and large; the pile thereof is fire and much wood; the breath of the Lord (-Jehovah) like a stream of brimstone doth kindle it." There is not the least room to doubt that the same personage is meant, in one part of this passage, by Moloch or king, as in another part of it by Jehovah. Hence, it is clear, that the Jewish and pagan Gehenna were the same, and both the same as Christ's Gehenna or hell. Jehovah was the king of the Gehenna of the ancient Jews; and we shall have reason hereafter to see that Jehovah-"the Father," was the king of Christ's Gehenna, whom he says was to be feared, because he was able to destroy both body and soul in this Gehenna, by casting a person from his arms down to the deep pit of fire at his feet, till he was annihilated, just as the custom was in the Valley of Hinnom to place the victim on the arms of the idol-Moloch, which held it in a half-bending posture in his fiery arms, and which, being thought to possess life, &c., was supposed, presently, to throw the unfortunate individual into the pit of fire at its feet, so as to be seen no more; whereas, in reality, the victim rolled off itself to this pit when half burnt.-Εκτετακως τας χείρας υπτίας της γης, ώστε τον συντίθεντα των παίδων αποκυλιεσθαι και πιπτειν εις τι χασμα πλήρες πυρος.-Diodor. Sic. This was the Jehovah, who had his fire in Zion, and his furnace in Jerusalem, (Isa. xxxi. 9.)—the same furnace of fire as that into which Christ says his enemies should be cast at the End of the World, to wail and gnash their teeth. (Matth. xiii. 42, 50.)—

lib. xx.

Having thus explained Christ's confused and mythological notion of hell, let us see what he means by killing the body and life, destroying both in hell, and so on. He encourages his disciples to brave persecutions, and even death; he tells them, that as he was persecuted and his life sought, such treatment they might expect; for a disciple could not expect better treatment than his master; he further gives them to understand that all that would be done to them should be revealed,should be made known to him, whether present or absent; and then he tells them, therefore, not to fear those persecutors who might be able to put them to death,-to slaughter, destroy, or kill their bodies, -but who would not be able to put an ultimate end to their lives, as he was going to give them Eternal Life, even if they were dead and buried; but to fear him who was able to destroy both soul and body in hell. (Gehenna.) But who is meant by "him"? The Father; from whom Jesus continually says he received the Eternal Life he promises to his followers. The same is meant by him here, as is meant in the passage just cited from Isaiah ;-Jehovah, or the king, who had power to burn into ashes in the fire of Moloch, the furnace Tophet,-the Gehenna of Christ,-and the Hell of the English translators of the Bible;-so that, after this process of supposed annihilation in the fire of Gehenna, resurrection would, as supposed by Christ, be impossible, and therefore, the Eternal Life he promised would be lost. That Christ means the Father,

abandon such apprehensions. Christ tells Peter that he hindered him in fulfilling the purposes of his mission; and adds that, instead of displaying the cowardly spirit of Peter, any one that wished to be a disciple of his should be ready to take up his cross with him, and carry it to the place of execution, (a thing which those who were put to death, anciently, were made to do,) for whoever, like Peter, wished then to save his life, would lose it when the Son of man should come to destroy the world; but whoever would at the time being lose his life in the cause of Christ should find it thereafter, by being raised at his coming into the enjoyment of Life Eternal. Then the following words expatiate on the folly of any one trying to save his life under these circumstances.-For what is a man profited if now he shall gain the whole world, and at the coming of the Son of man here, by him, is proved by the context. In verse 20, he says that the breath or spirit of his Father spoke in his apostles. In the verses immediately following the passage under examination, he says that not a sparrow fell to the ground without the Father; that the very hairs of the apostles' heads were numbered; that they should, therefore, not fear, for they were more valuable than sparrows; and that he should confess some, and deny others, before his Father in heaven. The whole context proves that the Father is meant here, as having power to annihilate, in the fire of Gehenna, both the body and soul, or rather life. There is nothing more frequently inculcated in the Gospels, particularly in the Gospel of John, as well as throughout the Epistles, than that the lives of Christ's followers were safe, whatever happened to their bodies;-meaning, the Eternal Life he was to give them. Paul forcibly expresses this when he tells the Colossians (iii. 3.) that their life was hid with Christ in God. Any one, on taking his Concordance and referring to the quotations under the word-life, will have ample proof that the life of the saints,-meaning, the Eternal Life Christ was to give them,-was hid in him. The only way to lose this life, was by forsaking him; in which case, life was to be irrevocably destroyed with the body in the fire of Gehenna.

It may further be remarked that the verb-arouw, in the passage under consideration, translated destroy,-namely, "destroy both soul and body in hell,"—not less than the foregoing verb-аTокTεIVO), translated kill, means, taking away life, in the ordinary acceptation of the phrase, so as utterly to invalidate any argument for the immateriality or indestructibility of the soul that may be built upon the words,-"Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul." Besides the remainder of the verse refers to a power able to destroy or kill both soul and body in hell. The verbажоλλv, translated destroy (soul and body in hell,) here, is used, in a great number of instances, to denote, simply, the taking away of life, such as-to destroy the child Jesus; (Matth. ii. 13.)-to crucify Christ; (Matth. xxvii. 20.)—to die by the sword; (Matth. xxvi. 52.)-to be drowned; (Mark iv. 38.)-to be massacred; (Luke xi. 51.)-in short, to lose one's life in any manner. (Matth. x. 39; xvi. 25.) So also in profane authors,→ AñoλEσει Tηy vxn-will lose his life.-Herodot, lib. 1. c. 112. The soul, therefore, as well as the body, was to be killed or destroyed in Christ's Gehenna or hell. His meaning, however, as already stated, is, that if a person lost his life in his cause by means of persecution, he should be raised afterwards to Eternal Life; but that if a person renounced him, his Father would annihilate him in the fire of Gehenna. This notion is continually held forth by him in different words, such as;—" He that findeth his life shall lose it; and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it."-" Whosoever will save his life shall lose it; and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it."

There is nothing clearer than that neither in the New Testament nor in the Old is the present Christian notion of Hell entertained. Nor is there in the Bible so much as a name for a place of torment for the souls of the dead.

שאול-The Hebrew word

(Shaol) often translated Hell in the English, and Hades in the Greek version of the Old Testament, means nothing more than the grave, a pit, a great depth, a cave or cavern, where anciently they buried the dead. And, indeed, the very Saxon word-hell is of the same import:-hillon or helon, hol, to be concealed; hence hole, hollow, &c. See the Hebrew word-Shaol in Gen. xxxvii. 35; xlii. 38. Deut. xxxii. 22. and a great many other places. The whole of this investigation irresistibly leads to the conclusion that the Christian Hell, like the Christian Heaven, is clearly of a pagan origin.

lose his own life? or what shall a man then give as a ransom for his life?* That this is the real meaning, is clearly shown by the words which immediately follow." For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works. Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom."+ These words are evidently uttered as a reason for saying that it would profit nothing for a man to gain the whole world and lose his life, and that he could find nothing that would be accepted as a ransom for his life.The passage, therefore, implies the following points :-that there was what is called Eternal Life, (wn awvios) to be given to those who were to be the subjects of Christ's kingdom, while those who did not merit this favour, were to lose their lives in the destruction of the world, at the coming of Christ with his angels ;-that those who should lose their lives, were to be overtaken by this calamity, and those who should obtain Life Eternal, were to receive this boon, at the same period of time; namely, when the Son of man should come to reward every man according to his works ;—and lastly, that these things were to take place before some of those who were then present hearing Christ uttering these words should die :-" There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom." This very passage, in itself, conclusively proves that the coming of Christ with his angels,-the end of the world,— the day of judgment,—the establishing of Christ's kingdom,-the reward of eternal life and the punishment of eternal death, were, all of them, to take place during the lifetime of the generation of men existing at the time Christ spoke these words. But the passage does not contain one syllable about man's soul; although a thousand times has it been taken as a text to prove the existence of an immaterial entity. To ascertain the real existence of such, however, is not the object of our present inquiry.

The following passages, like the foregoing, identify the act of entering into life with that of entering into the kingdom of heaven.-" If thy hand offend thee, cut it off; it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell; (yeevva) into the fire that never shall be quenched; where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.— And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell; into the fire that never shall be quenched; where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire; where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched."‡ Here, entering the kingdom of God and entering life, are phrases used precisely in the same connection, and evidently mean the same thing. Nor is there anything in this passage, any more than in the preceding passages, which suggests that the language is figurative. The injunction to pluck out an eye, amputate a leg, or lop off an arm, together with many other self-inflicted cruelties, in order to secure Eternal Life,

See the preceding Note which, properly, should be attached to this sentence. The mistake of the Compositor was not discovered till it was too late to correct it. Mark ix. 43-47. Matth. v. 28, 29; xviii. 8, 9.

† Matth. xvi. 27, 28.

doubtless, in ancient times, was literally carried out by Thyestean Christians, who frequently were convicted of feasting on the flesh of murdered infants.* The same Life is again connected with the kingdom of God in the following instance.-The Pharisees demanded of Christ" when the kingdom of God should come." He replied to them, that it did not come with observation; meaning that it would come suddenly, when they little expected it; and he added ;-"The kingdom of God is within you;" that is, within your reach, or within your possession. Supposing the kingdom of heaven to mean the Gospel Dispensation, as Christians tell us, still Christ could not, in this passage, (which the advocates of the Christian religion claim for themselves to show that Christ's kingdom was spiritual,) mean that the kingdom of God, if he meant the Gospel Dispensation, was within the Pharisees, who were open enemies to its doctrines, and who now, apparently in derision, asked when it would come. The words areΗ βασιλεια του Θεου εντος υμων εστιν. Here is another instance of the verb epi, as already noticed, with a genitive case,-the genitive vuwv, and the adverb evros, which always governs the genitive,-elliptically signifying possession; and, in this instance, meaning, within your possession, or reach. Overlooking this peculiarity of eu, Biblical critics have been much puzzled by this expression.† Christ proceeds to give utterance to predictions, precisely like those in Matth. chap. xxiv. relating to the End of the World; and among other things, says that the Son of man should come as lightning, and that whosoever should seek to save his life should lose it; but whosoever should lose his life should preserve it.‡ We have already seen what is meant by losing and finding life, and now it remains only to observe that here, again, this "life" is connected with the "kingdom of God," and that the striking similarity of the language of the whole passage, just pointed out, to that in Matth. chap. xxiv. which is a series of predictions of the End of the World, proves both to bear relation, as to time and other particulars, to the coming of Christ in Judgment.

SECTION VI.-CHRIST'S PREDICTION OF THE NEAR APPROACH OF THE END OF THE WORLD AND THE FINAL JUDGMENT AT VARIANCE WITH FACT.

The next question to be decided, is;-Was Christ a true prophet, in predicting what, in the foregoing sections, he has been shown to have predicted? What the Evangelists state that he uttered, with regard to his coming in the clouds with his angels and a great sound of a trumpet, while the heavenly bodies were being disruptured,-his sitting in judgment to reward every man according to his works, punishing some in unquenchable fire, and receiving others into the kingdom of heaven, in which he was to

Euseb. Hist. Eccles. lib. v. c. 1. Agreeably to this Christian doctrine and practice, Paul exhorts his brethren to mortify their members, (Col. iii. 5. Rom. viii. 13.) and Origen undergoes a most painful and inhuman operation, (Euseb. Hist. Eccles. lib. vi. c. 8.) which Christ sanctions in Matth. xix. 12. The Christian monk, Ammon, even as late as the fourth century, cut off his ear in order to avoid being made a bishop.-Sozom. Hist. Eccles. lib. vi. c. 30. Evagrius also appears to have cut off his tongue in order to preserve silence.-Socrat. Hist. Eccles. lib. iv. c. 23.

Vid. Park. infra Evros.

Luke xvii. 20-37.