which signifyeth earth or clay. Jacobus TawosiusTM, in his Persian translation of the Pentateuch, for Sheol doth always put Gor", that is, the grave. The Chaldee paraphrase upon the Proverbs keepeth still the word by deflected a little from the Hebrew: the paraphrast upon ,קבורתא and קבורא Job useth that word thrice ; but which signifieth the grave, instead thereof five several times. In Ecclesiastes the word cometh but once': and there the Chaldee paraphrast rendereth it nap n'a the house of the grave. R. Joseph Cocus doth the like in his paraphrase upon Psalm 31. ver. 17. and 89. ver 48. In Psalm 141. ver. 7. he rendereth it by the simple , the grave: but in the 15th and 16th verses of the 49th Psalm, by Dana, or Gehenna. And only there, and in Cantic. 8. ver. 6. is Sheol in the Chaldee paraphrases expounded by Gehenna: whereby if we shall understand the place, not of dead bodies (as in that place of the Psalm the paraphrast maketh express mention of the bodiess waxing old or consuming in Gehenna) but of tormenting souls, as the Rabbins more commonly do take it, yet do our Romanists get little advantage thereby, who would fain have the Sheol into which our Saviour went, be conceived to have been a place of rest, and not of torment; the bosom of Abraham, and not Gehenna, the seat of the damned. As for the Greek word Hades, it is used by Hippocrates to express the first matter of things, from which they have their beginning, and into which afterwards being dissolved they make their ending. For having said, that in nature nothing properly may be held to be newly made, or to perish, he addeth this: "But" men do think, m Pentateuch. quadrilingu, a Judæis Constantinopoli excus. n Jer apud Armenios et Turcas terram significat. Job, chap. 11. ver. 8. et chap. 24. ver. 19. et chap. 26. ver. 6. P Ibid. chap. 21. ver. 13. 9 Ibid. chap. 7. ver. 9. et chap. 14. ver. 13. et chap. 17. ver. 13. 16. * Νομίζεται δὲ παρὰ τῶν ἀνθρώπων, τὸ μὲν ἐξ ᾅδου εἰς φῶς αὐξηθὲν that what doth grow from Hades into light, is newly made; and what is diminished from the light into Hades, is perished;" by Light understanding nothing else but the visible structure and existence of things: and by Hades, that invisible and insensible thing which other philosophers commonly call λny, Chalcidius" the Platonic translateth sylvam, the Aristotelians more fitly materiam primam; whence also it is supposed by Master Casaubon, that those passages were borrowed, which we meet withall in the books that bear the name of Hermes Trismegistus. "In the dissolution of a material body, the body itself is brought to alteration, and the form which it had is made invisible:""and" so there is a privation of the sense made, not a destruction of the bodies. I say then that the world is changed, inasmuch as every day a part thereof is made invisible, but never utterly dissolved;" wherewith we may compare likewise that place of Plutarch in his book of Living privately. "Generation" doth not make any of the things that be, but manifesteth them: neither is corruption a translation of a thing from being to not being, but rather a bringing of the thing that is dissolved unto that which is unseen. Whereupon men, according to the ancient traditions of their fathers, thinking the sun to be Apollo, called him Delius and Pythius: (namely from ma γενέσθαι· τὸ δὲ ἐκ τοῦ φάεος εἰς ᾅδην μειωθὲν, ἀπολέσθαι. Hippocrat. de diæta, sive victus ratione. lib. 1. w Chalcid. in Timæum Platonis. * Casaub. in Baron. exercit. 1. cap. 10. * Πρῶτον μὲν ἐν τῇ ἀναλύσει τοῦ σώματος τοῦ ὑλικοῦ, παραδίδωσιν αὐτὸ τὸ σῶμα εἰς ἀλλοίωσιν, καὶ τὸ εἶδος ὃ εἶχεν ἀφανὲς γίνεται. Herm. Pæmand. serm. 1. 2 Καὶ οὕτω στέρησις γίνεται τῆς αἰσθήσεως, οὐκ ἀπώλεια τῶν σωμάτων. Id. serm. 8. * Καὶ τὸν κόσμον φημὶ μεταβάλλεσθαι, διὰ τὸ γίνεσθαι μέρος αὐτοῦ καθ ̓ ἑκάστην ἡμέραν ἐν τῷ ἀφανεῖ, μηδέποτε δὲ λύεσθαι. Id. serm. 11. · Οὐ γὰρ ποιεῖ τῶν γινομένων ἔκαστον, ἀλλὰ δείκνυσιν· ὥσπερ οὐδὲ ἡ φθορὰ τοῦ ὄντος, ἄρσις εἰς τὸ μὴ ὂν ἐστὶν, ἀλλὰ μᾶλλον εἰς τὸ ἄδηλον ἀπαγωγὴ τοῦ διαλυθέντος. ὅθεν δὴ τὸν μὲν ἥλιον Απόλλωνα κατὰ τοὺς πατρίους καὶ παλαιοὺς θέσμους νομίζοντες, Δήλιον καὶ Πύθιον προσαγορεύουσι· τὸν δὲ τῆς ἐναντίας κύριον μοίρας, εἴτε θεὸς, εἴτε δαίμων ἐστὶν, "Αδην ὀνομάζουσιν, ὡς ἂν εἰς ἀειδὲς καὶ ἀόρατον ἡμῶν, ὅταν διαλυ θῶμεν, βαδιζόντων. Plutarch. in illud, Λάθε βιώσαι, nifesting of things): and the ruler of the contrary destiny, whether he be a God, or an angel, they named Hades ;; by reason that we, when we are dissolved, do go unto an unseen and invisible place." By the Latins this Hades is termed Dispiter or Diespiter: which name they gave unto this "lower air that is joined to the earth, where all things have their beginning and ending; quorum quod finis ortus, Orcus dictus," saith Varro. "All this earthly power and nature," saith Julius Firmicus, "they named Ditem patrem, because this is the nature of the earth, that all things do both fall into it, and taking their original from thence, do again proceed out of it." Whence the earth is brought in, using this speech unto God, in Hermes: "I do receive the nature of all things. For I, according as thou has commanded, do both bear all things, and receive such as are deprived of life." The use which we make of the testimony of Hippo-. crates, and those other authorities of the heathen, is to shew, that the Greek interpreters of the old Testament did most aptly assume the word Hades, to express that common state and place of corruption which was signified by the Hebrew Sheol, and therefore in the last verse of the seventeenth chapter of Job, where the Greek maketh mention of descending into Hades; Comitolus the Jesuit noteth that St. Ambrose rendereth it, "in sepulchrum, into the grave;" which agreeth well with that which Olympiodorus writeth upon the same chapter: "Is it not a thing common unto all men, to die? is not hell (or Hades) c Idem hic Diespiter dicitur, infimus aer, qui est conjunctus terræ, ubi omnia oriuntur, ubi aboriuntur: quorum quod finis ortus, Orcus dictus. Varro, de lingua Latin. lib. 4. cap. 10. d Terrenam vim omnem atque naturam, Ditem patrem dicunt: quia hæc est natura terræ, ut et recidant in eam omnia, et rursus ex ea orta procedant. Jul. Firmic. Matern. de errore profan. relig. ex Ciceron. lib. 2. de natur. Deor. • Χωρῶ δ' ἐγὼ καὶ φύσιν πάντων αὕτη γὰρ, ὡς σὺ προσέταξας, καὶ φέρω πάντα, καὶ τὰ φονευθέντα δέχομαι. Herm. Minerva Mundi, apud Jo. Stobæum in eclogis physicis, pag. 124. › f Paul. Comitol. Caten. Græc. in Job. cap. 17. ult. 5 Οὐ κοινὸν ἅπασιν ἀνθρώποις τὸ ἀποθανεῖν; Οὐχ ̓ ᾅδὴς ἅπασι ὁ οἶκος; Οὐκ ἐκεῖ πάντες τῶν ἐνθάδε καταλήγουσι τῶν πόνων; Olympiod. Caten. Græc, in Job, cap. 17. the house for all? doe not all find there an end of their labours?" Yea, some do think, that Homer himself doth take ådns either for the earth or the grave, in those verses of the eighth of his Iliads: Η μιν ἑλών, ρίψω ἐς τάρταρον ήερόεντα, Τῆλε μάλ' ψχι βάθιστον ὑπὸ χθονὸς ἐστὶ βέρεθρον. I'll cast him down as deep As Tartarus (the brood of night) where Barathrum doth steep For Tartarus being commonly acknowledged to be a part of Hades, and to be the very hell where the wicked spirits are tormented: they think the hell from whence Homer maketh it to be as far distant as the heaven is from the earth, can be referred to nothing so fitly as to the earth or the grave. It is taken also for a tomb in that place of Pindarus: · *Απερθεὶ δὲ πρὸ δωμάτων ἕτεροι λαχόντες ἀϊδαν Βασιλέες ἱεροὶ ἐντί. "Other sacred kings have gotten a tomb apart by themselves before the houses," or before the gates of the city. And therefore we see that 'Aidaç is by Suidas in his lexicon expressly interpreted ó rápos, and by Hesychius, Túμẞos, rápos, a tomb, or a grave; and in the Greek dictionary set out by the Romanists themselves, for the better understanding of the Bible, it is noted, that Hades' doth not only signify that which we commonly call hell, but the sepulchre or grave also. Of which, because h Pindar. Pyth. Od. 5. ver. 129. i "Aons, Orcus, Tartarus, sepulchrum. Lexic. Græco-Lat. in sacro apparatu biblior. regior. edit. Antwerp. ann. 1572. Stapleton and Bellarmine do deny that any proof can be brought these instances following may be considered. In the book of Tobit," I shall bring my father's old age with sorrow, is adov, unto hell:" what can it import else, but that which is in other words expressed, "I' shall bring my father's life with sorrow, eiç tòv tápov, unto the grave?" In the 93d, and 113th Psalms, according to the Greek division, or the 94th, and 115th, according to the Hebrew; where the Hebrew hath 17, the place of silence, meaning the grave, as our adversaries themselves do grant, there the Greek hath Hades, or hell. In Isaiah, chap. 14. ver. 19.where the vulgar Latin translated out of the Hebrew, " Descenderunt ad fundamenta laci, quasi cadaver putridum: They descended unto the foundations of the lake or pit, as a rotten carcass:" instead of the Hebrew, which signifieth the lake or pit, the Greek, both there and in Isaiah, chap. 38. ver. 18. putteth in Hades, or hell; and on the other side, Ezechiel, chap. 32. ver. 21. where the Hebrew saith, "The strong among the mighty shall speak to him out of the midst of Sheol, or hell;" there the Greek readeth, εἰς βάθος λάκκου, or ἐν βάθει βόθρου, in the depth of the lake, or pit: by hell, lake and pit, nothing but the grave being understood; as appeareth by comparing this verse with the five that come after it. So in these places following, where in the Hebrew is Sheol, in the Greek Hades, in the Latin Infernus or Inferi, in the English Hell, the place of dead bodies, and not of souls is to be understood. "Yem shall bring down my grey hairs with sorrow unto hell;" and "Thy" servants shall bring down the grey hairs of our father with sorrow unto hell;" where no lower hell can be conceited, into which grey hairs may be brought, than the grave. So David giveth this charge unto Solomon concerning Joab: "Let not his hoary head go down to hell in peace;" and k Chap. 3. ver. 10. m Gen. chap. 44. ver. 29. 1 Kings, chap. 2. ver. 6. 1 Chap. 6. ver. 14. n Ibid. ver. 31. |