nish any evidence that either of its designations was used as an emblem of the calamities predicted by the prophet. The cause expressly assigned for the change of name, is, that such immense numbers should be buried there, and such multitudes of the dead should be left to decay unburied, in the very place where the apostate people had celebrated the blasphemous rites of their idolatrous worship. We cannot discover in this passage any indications of the figurative use of either Tophet or Gehenna to represent punishment or suffering of any kind. We have just hinted that this prophecy was not improbably delivered before Josiah had commenced his efforts for the suppression of idolatry; and, judging from the tenor of the message, it may well have been the call which determined the king to engage so zealously in that work of purification. In other passages from the same prophet, very similar to the foregoing, though delivered some years later, there appears evidence that Gehenna had been " defiled." 10 But neither in these passages do we discover any figurative use of Gehenna, or Tophet; they are used only in their plain, literal sense. We find indeed but one passage in the Old Testament where either of these terms is used figuratively. Isaiah uses the word Tophet to designate the place where the Assyrian army under Sennacherib was destroyed, and Jerusalem delivered from the intended siege.12 But it is doubtful whether the word in this place has any allusion to the valley of Hinnom; for, so far as we can ascertain, this prophecy was delivered nearly a century before Tophet was used as a synonym of Gehenna. It is called a place of "fire and much wood," possibly, in allusion to the means by which the multitude of dead bodies was disposed of. This constitutes this history of Gehenna, as we find it in the Old Testament. We think we are safe in saying it is never used figuratively; it is never used as an emblem to denote any kind of punishment, present or future-in this world or the world to come. Once, only, to denote the miraculous destruction of the Assyrian army, or, perhaps, the disposal of the dead bodies, Tophet is used, which became a hundred years later the name of a portion of the valley of Hinnom.

10 Jeremiah, xix. 13; xxxii. 35.

11 Isaiah, xxx. 33. 122 Kings, xix. 35. 2 Chron. xxxii. 21. Isaiah, xxxvii. 36.

The examination of this figurative signification has been the more extended, because of the important part which this groundless assumption has long been allowed to play in determining the meaning of Gehenna in the New Testament. Nearly all biblical writers, who accept the common opinions concerning future punishments, contend that Gehenna, after being defiled by Josiah, came in process of time to be used as an emblem of hell, in the sense of a place of endless punishment for the wicked.13 It is quite certain that no such use of the word occurs in the Old Testament. Indeed we cannot find that Tophet is used at all, either literally or figuratively, and Gehenna in but a single instance, (Neh. xi. 30,) in the Old Testament, after the time of Jeremiah. He was contemporary with Josiah, and, hence, too early to be quoted as authority, or illustration, for the figurative usage which these words are said to have acquired in after ages.

If the Jews had

That, in the process of time, these terms came to be used in a figurative signification, to represent extreme judicial penalties, moral pollution and ignominy, is by no means improbable; but that they were used as an emblem of the endless sufferings of the wicked, is an assumption, not only destitute of the least shadow of evidence, but contrary to all the authority we have in the case. any such doctrine or opinion-especially if they obtained it from their sacred writings-they would of course have some method of communication upon the topic, before the figurative use of Gehenna for that purpose. If they had no such doctrine, or idea, they would need no words to express it, either figuratively or literally. Before attempting to prove that they used this or any other term figuratively to represent endless punishment in the future state, let it be shown that they held any such doctrine. Under the peculiar circumstances of the case, the following question seems to be important:-By what word, term, or phrase, did the Jews express their belief in the doctrine of endless suffering, or

13 Dr. A. Clarke, Com. on Joshua, xv. 8; 2 Kings, xxiii. 10; Isaiah, xxx. 33; lxvi. 24; Matthew, v. 22. Robinson's Greek and Eng. Lex. of N. T., Art. Gehenna. Kitto's Cyc. Bib. Lit., Arts. Hinnom, Tophet, Hell. Campbell's Prel. Dis. VI. ii. 2. Macknight, Harm. Evan. 26. Stanley, "Sinai and Palestine," 171. Robinson's Calmet, Art. Gehenna.

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in what phraseology did they allude to such a doctrine, previously to their figurative use of Gehenna for that purpose? Dr. Macknight answers this question briefly and to the point: "The Hebrew language did not furnish proper words for these ideas." If the Hebrew language furnished no words to express the idea of endless suffering, it follows very clearly, we think, that the Hebrew Scriptures never furnished the idea. It would be preposterous to suppose that they held such opinions-especially, that they obtained them from their own sacred writers-and yet could not express them for the want of suitable language. At the time of Josiah, the Jews had been the chosen people for more than twelve hundred years-for more than eight hundred, a nation. Their instructors, during all this time were the inspired prophets of the Lord, yet they had no word, or form of speech, by which they could allude even figuratively to the place of the damned; and, so far as we can judge, they never would have had, if Josiah had failed to make the valley of Hinnom so utterly loathsome that its name might be used as an emblem to denote a place of endless misery, in which, we are told, they had long believed, but for which as yet they had no name. With these facts and suggestions we close the question concerning the meaning of Gehenna, so far as the ancient Jews are concerned, with the following conclusion: There is not in the Old Testament, a single instance in which this term or its equivalent, either literally or figuratively, refers to the future state.

Having disposed of this point, we come now to consider, 2d. the assumption of the common theology, already alluded to, that, "to destroy both soul and body in Gehenna," as it is recorded by Matthew, or "to cast into Gehenna," as it is given by Luke, means to inflict endless punishment upon the persons to whom the language refers, as the objects of such treatment. During the interval between the last writers of the Old Testament and the days of the Saviour, the Jewish people passed through great vicissitudes, socially and civilly, at least, if not religiously. By the conquest of Alexander the Great, they were brought directly in contact with the literature, philosophy and religion of Greece. Colonies of Jews were removed from their native land to reside in foreign cities; surrounded by foreign manners and customs; subject to foreign rulers and

foreign laws; pervaded by foreign forms of thought; witnesses, occasionally at least, of the rites and ceremonies of a foreign religion. And besides these influences which the pioneers of foreign residence would experience, the second or third generation, except a few of the better educated among them, would lose the common use of their native language, and be obliged to receive religious instruction, and to communicate with each other, through the medium of a foreign tongue. Under such circumstances, it would be hardly expected that their religious opinions should remain in all respects the same as those taught in their Scriptures. And among the changes of opinion which such circumstances might introduce, we should not be surprised to find new views concerning the future state. And, indeed, it is pretty certain that views on this point, entirely foreign to Moses and the prophets, were accepted by a portion at least of the Jewish people; but to what extent the new opinions prevailed, it is useless to inquire; for there are no means to determine. From some source, the doctrine of punishment in the future state did find its way into the religious opinions of the Jews, between the close of the Old Testament and the days of the Saviour. And if they had found Gehenna so admirably adapted to serve as an emblem of the place of future punishment, as many modern critics regard it, we should expect to find it freely used whenever such opinions are spoken of. But instead of this, not an instance has yet been found, in any Jewish writer, satisfactorily ascertained to have been earlier than the days of the Saviour, of the use of Gehenna, to designate a place of misery in the future state. If the Jewish writers, belonging to the period between the Old Testament and the New, had found this term so well adapted, as it is now thought to be, to express the idea of punishment hereafter, they would undoubtedly have used it in that sense; yet not a single instance of such usage has ever been produced. This would appear to be very decisive evidence, that up to the times of the Saviour, no Jewish writer whose works have come down to us, ever used Gehenna in the sense attached to it by theological writers of the present day. If therefore, the Saviour used the word in such a sense, without giving his hearers any notice of the fact, he would only mislead them, by attaching to a familiar term, a meaning of which they had never heard.

Would they not reasonably expect him to use the word in the sense invariably attached to it by their sacred writers, and by all their learned men up to that time, rather than to depart from such usage and deceive his hearers, by using a term so familiar, in a sense entirely unprecedented in all Jewish literature?

But, aside from these considerations, let us take the language of the Saviour, as recorded by either of the Evangelists, and can any fair interpretation make it mean endless suffering? If both soul and body be literally destroyed in Gehenna, then of course neither soul nor body can suffer any more; for literal destruction must cut off all further possibility of suffering or enjoyment. The language of Matthew, then, taken literally, would prove, not the doctrine of endless suffering, but annihilation ;-a doctrine in which a number of very respectable men, from the ranks of Orthodoxy, have recently sought a refuge from the horrible dogma of endless anguish. And if the advocates of the latter doctrine find the record of Matthew unavailable, they will find that of Luke still less to their purpose. "To cast into Gehenna," in itself considered, is not so strong an expression as that of Matthew; and both of them, in their literal signification, are rendered sufficiently clear by the remarks already submitted, on the history and meaning of the term Gehenna. In the passages under consideration, however, it is generally admitted that these phrases are used figuratively; and the legitimate object of our inquiry is, not only to ascertain the meaning of Gehenna when used literally as in the Old Testament, but also, when it is used, as here and in some other texts of the New Testament, to represent something else. To this part of our labor we proceed.

In attempting to ascertain what these passages meanwhat thought or doctrine the language was intended to convey to the hearers, and the object designed to be promoted by its use, it will be well to bear in mind that the Saviour addressed this language to his disciples only; that, so far as appears from the record, he used such expressions but once during his whole ministry; and that, so far as we know, neither of his disciples ever repeated these sentiments, or any bearing the slightest resemblance to them, either to Jew or Gentile. If the common interpretation is correct, how