sheol by the word aons, yet do they not thereby always understand "hell;" as it is manifest in all those places, where the scripture speaketh of a receptacle of dead bodies. But now you will bear us down with rabbins, Talmudists, and Chaldee paraphrases. And first you say that all these, handling that verse of the 49th psalm, "He will deliver my soul from the hand of sheol," interpret it by gehinnom, that is, "hell." I grant that rabbi Joseph, using the liberty of a paraphrast, rather than a translator, interpreteth the word by gehinnom, that signifieth "hell-fire:" and so the sense is true; for God delivered David from eternal damnation : but rabbi David Chimchi, expounding the same place according to the proper signification of sheol, saith, "I DON , &c. "The prophet said, when he saw the destruction of the souls of the wicked in their death, In the day in which my body shall go down to (sheol) the grave, God shall deliver my soul from the hand of (sheol) the grave, that my soul shall not perish with my body.'" You see, therefore, that all the rabbins be not of your side; no, nor rabbi Salomon Jarchi, whom you cite. For upon Genesis xxxvii. 35, where Jacob saith he will go down to the grave mourning, .אבל שאולה : כפשוטן לשון קבר הוא וגו" : thus he writeth Mourning to sheol: according to the plain and literal sense, the interpretation thereof is the grave,' in my mourning I will be buried, and I will not be comforted all my days: but after the midrash, or exposition, not according to the letter, it is hell.' This sign was delivered by hands, or by tradition, from the mouth of his power, (that is, from a divine oracle;) if not one of my sons shall die in my life-time, I had confidence that I should not see hell." By this saying it is manifest, that this rabbin acknowledged the true and proper translation of this word sheol was "to the grave;" although after figurative, and sometimes fond, expositions, it was interpreted for "hell." Likewise you say, but untruly, of this verse, Psal. ix. 18, "Let all sinners be turned to sheol;" for there the Chaldee paraphrast retaineth the word sheol, and doth not give any other word for it. David Chimchi inter ישובו רשעים לקבר ,preteth it according to the literal sense "Let the wicked be turned into the grave;" which is so strange with you to be answerable to sheol, although, as R. Salomon saith, it may be understood of their burial in hell. That sheol in the Proverbs and Job is joined with abaddon, it Job xxvi. hindereth it not to signify the grave, where is the destruction Prov. xv. and consumption of the body. And Proverbs xv. 11, the Chaldee paraphrast retaineth sheol, which Kabuenaki expoundeth thus: "NI, &c. It is said of sheol and abaddon, that sheol is "the grave," p, and abaddon is "hell," which is deeper than the grave, &c." And although in Job rabbi Levi and others expound sheol for a secret place about the centre of the earth, which should seem to be hell; yet they say not that this is the proper signification of the word sheol. For in Job xxi. 13, the Chaldee paraphrast for sheol interpreteth kebureta, "the grave"; and in the xiv. 13, beith kebureta, "the house of the grave;" and xvii. 12 and 15, "the grave." In both which places rabbi Abraham Peritsol joineth sheol and keber together, both signifying the grave"; and in the latter verse he maketh Job to say to his friends, " 72, the bars of lies with which you comfort me, into the midst of the pit of the grave shall go down with me when I die." By all which testimonies it is manifest, that sheol is not the proper word for "hell," the receptacle of souls; but for "grave," the common dwelling-house of men's bodies. 66 מיד שאול But you will press us yet further with the authority of rabbi Abraham upon Jonas ii. Indeed, in Abraham Aben Ezra I read as you say: but this is only his opinion of the figurative sense of that place; for upon Hosee xiii. 14, he expoundeth TD thus, "I have been a redeemer of thy fathers; now I will be a destruction of death which is to thee." And so do R. Shelomo Jarchi, and rabbi David Chimchi: yea, so doth St Paul, more worth than all the rabbins that ever were, expound it. קְבוּרְתָּא בית Martin. This being the opinion and the interpretation of the He- MARTIN, brews, see the skill or the honesty of Beza, saying that sheol, with the 28. Hebrews, signifieth nothing but "grave." Whereas indeed, to speak skilfully, uprightly, and not contentiously, it may signify "grave" sometime secondarily, but "hell" principally and properly, as is manifest; for that there is no other word so often used, and so familiar in the scriptures to signify "hell," as this; and for that the Septuaginta do always interpret it by the Greek word adŋs. Fulke. The opinion of the Hebrews being as I have FULKE, rehearsed out of their own words, "see the skill or honesty" 28. of Martin, which dare open his mouth against Beza in this matter, and tell us that sheol may secondarily signify "a grave;" whereas it doth first and principally so signify, howsoever the Septuaginta do interpret it by ans, which signifieth an obscure dark place under the earth, and not "hell" properly. Martin. The which Greek word is so notorious and peculiar for "hell," that the pagans use it also for "Pluto," whom they feigned to be god of hell, and not god of "graves ;" and if they would stand with us in this point, we might beat them with their own kind of reasoning out of poets and profane writers, and out of all lexicons. Unless they will tell us, contrary to their custom, that we Christians must attend the ecclesiastical use of this word in the bible and in christian writers, and that in them it signifieth "grave." For so Beza seemeth to say, that the Greek interpreters of the bible translated the Hebrew word aforesaid by this Greek word, as signifying "a dark place;" whereas the Greek poets used it for that which the Latins called inferos, that is "hell." "Which ambiguity," saith he, "of the word made many err, affirming Christ's descending into hell. So was limbus builded, whereunto afterward purgatory was laid." Fulke. That Pluto of the poets is feigned to be the god of hell, it was hereof that they imagined hell to be a place under the earth, which was his palace, as earth was his kingdom; or else, what becometh of the triple division of all the world, if Jupiter having heaven, Neptune the sea, Pluto should not have the earth? who had his name of the riches inclosed in the earth, and was also called "Adns, or Aions, as in Homer Il. xv. Ζεὺς καὶ ἐγώ, τρίτατος δ' Αίδης ἐνέροισιν ἀνάσσων. Jupiter and I, and Pluto the third that ruleth over the dead." Whereof it is put in the genitive case, after such prepositions as govern an accusative or dative, where oikos "the house of Pluto" is to be understood. I might here cite divers places out of Nonnus, the christian Greek poet, who seemeth to use aïs and didns for "the grave," speaking of the resurrection of Christ, John ii. and of Lazarus, xi. But of the translation of the Greek word is not our question, but of the Hebrew word sheol, which the Septuaginta turning into adns, mean a place generally to receive the dead, which sometimes is the "grave" of the bodies, sometimes "hell" of the souls. 30. Martin. I see Beza's wiliness very well in this point: for here the MARTIN, man hath uttered all his heart, and the whole mystery of his crafty meaning of this corrupt translation: that to avoid these three things, "Christ's descending into hell," limbus patrum, and purgatory, he and his companions wrest the foresaid words of the holy scriptures to the signification of "grave." But let the indifferent christian reader only consider Beza's own words in this place, point by point. and purgatory, 30. Fulke. Beza useth no wiliness or craft at all; for he doth FULKE, always openly detest the dreams of limbus and whatsoever may depend upon them. what you can gather out of his words. Martin. First he saith, that the Greek poets were wont to use the MARTIN, 31. Greek word for "hell;" secondly, that they which interpreted the bible out of Hebrew into Greek, used the very same word for that Hebrew word, whereof we have now disputed; thirdly, that the ancient fathers, (for of them he speaketh, as a little before he expresseth,) understood the said Greek word for "hell," and thereby grew to those errors, as he Acts ii. 24. impudently affirmeth, of Christ's descending into hell, and of the place in hell where the fathers rested expecting the coming of our Saviour, &c. Whereby the reader doth easily see, that both the profane, and also the ecclesiastical use of the word is for "hell," and not for "grave." 31. Fulke. I looked for some great matter, when you be- FULKE, gan to consider so diligently from point to point: but I see we shall have nothing but this cold collection, "that both the profane and ecclesiastical use of this word dns is for ‘hell,' and not for the 'grave'." That it is used for "hell,” no man denieth but that it is used only for "hell," Beza saith not, and I have proved that it is not. As also it may be proved by divers other places out of the apocryphal writings; namely, Wisd. xvi. 13, where it is translated for "death" by your own Latin translator, being the same verse that is in the song of Anna, 1 Sam. ii., where sheol is used, and is repeated in that signification Tob. xiii. 12. Likewise Wisd. ii. 1, where the ungodly that profess the mortality of the soul say, that none was known to return from adns, the word can signify nothing but "grave." For "hell" it cannot signify in their speech, that believe no hell, and say plainly that their souls shall vanish like smoke or light air. Likewise in Baruch ii. it is taken for the "grave," where he saith the dead, which are in the gons, shall not give honour to God; where it is cer MARTIN, 32. Infernus, inferi. FULKE, 32. MARTIN, 33. If they ob ject unto us some Catho lics, that translate it sepulchrum, is a fault in them also, tain, that by that word is meant the "grave," seeing the souls of the righteous that were in Abraham's bosom did praise God and moreover, he maketh it plain that he speaketh of the dead bodies, when he saith, "their spirit is taken out of their bowels." Martin. And for the Latin word, it is the like case for all the world; and if a man will ask but his child that cometh from the grammar, what is infernus, he will say "hell," and not "grave:" what is Latin for "grave"? he will answer, sepulchrum, or monumentum; but never infernus, unless one of these Calvinistical translators taught him so, to deceive his father. Fulke. I hope they that be wise will believe St Augustine rather than you, that the word inferi, which is the same that infernus, hath diverse and manifold understandings in the scripture, as I have declared before, sect. 21. But with the Latin word infernus we have little to do, which translate not out of Latin, but out of Hebrew or Greek. Martin. Now then, to draw to a conclusion of this their corruption also in their English translation: whereas the Hebrew and Greek and Latin words do most properly and usually signify "hell;" and both Greek and Latin interpreters precisely in every place use for the Hebrew word that one Greek word, and that one Latin word, which by all custom of speaking and writing signify "hell;" it had been the part of sincere and true-meaning translators, to have translated it also in English always by the word "hell;" and afterward to have disputed as they do it of the meaning thereof, whether and when it is to be taken for "hell," or grave," or "lake," or "death," or any such thing. As in one place they have done it very exactly and indifferently, namely when Jonas saith, chap. ii. 2, out of the whale's belly, "Out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice1." So all translate it, and well, whatsoever it signify in this place. They think that "hell" here signifieth nothing else but the whale's belly, and the affliction of Jonas; and so the word may signify by a metaphorical speech, as when we say See their mar. in English, "It is a hell to live thus ;" and therefore* no doubt they did ginal annot. here translate it so, to insinuate that in other places it might as well signify "grave," as here the "whale's belly." but so far less than in the protestants, as chance medley is in respect of wilful mur der. Jonæ ii. 2. FULKE, 33. Fulke. Your conclusion is as good as your premises: because the Greek and Latin interpreters had before us translated amiss, which gave occasion to divers errors, therefore we also, knowing the true signification of the word, [Genevan translation, 1560.] |