The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1886-12-04
THEY ARE BOTH IN HADES
NOW"

sor Castle, printed in a recent number
of the New York Tribune, we have the
following paragraph: ''Prince Leo
"pold invited General Grant to the bill
''liard room 1 accompanied the
General, and Prince Leopold came
"down in smoking suit of gorgeous
''purple and yellow satin, and played a
''game with the conquerer of Vicks-
"burg. They are both IN Hades no,o."
The words which we have italicised
above would have sounded very harsh
ly On many ears if written of two such
deserving persons as General Grant and
Prince Leopold before the advent of
the Revised Version of the New Tes-
lament Scriptures. 1t is not very long
ago that 'Hades'' was closely associated
with 'Hell'' in the popular mind, that
word indicating a place of punishment
beyond the grave. In King James
translation, this word, which occurs in
the original eleven times, is translated
hell ten times and only once grave. Yet
scholars and biblical students have long
been unanimous in declaring that it is
the equivalent of the Hebrew Sheol, and
denotes simply the state or condition of
the dead. In the Revised Version the
word is now transplanted from the
Greek into the English, and ordinary
readers of the Scriptures are no longer
misled by the false translation. Hades
now signifies very clearly ''the under
world, the region of the dead, the grave,
the sepulchre." When, therefore, Gen
eral Badeau uses the word, and says of
General Grant and Prince Leopold,
''they are both in Hades now," we
understand him to mean, in harmony
with the original Specification OF the
word, that both these distinguished
personages are with the dead; in the
place of the dead.
The good effects of the Revised YER
sion are becoming more evident every
day. Inasmuch as hadeS appears in
the texts in which the word occurs
in the original, no attempt being made
to continue the false Impressions created
by King James's translation, it is pos
sible to use the term without being
grossly misunderstood, as would have
been the case had the revisers not cor
rected the error which has been perpet-
uated for many generations. Hereafter,
where we read, for example, in the old
version, Matt. XII, %, and Luke XII, Is:
"And thou Capernaum, which art ex-
allied unto heaven, shalt be brought
down to hell,' we find "hades' in the
text of the new version, and the horrible
form of the prophecy is forever gone.
In our Lords words, Capernaum was
to be thrust down, not to hell as a
place of torment, but "to the silence
and desolation of the grave" And so
in the case of the famous proof text of
modern orthodoxy, the rich man and
Lazarus, we read no longer, "And in
hell he lifted up his eyes, being in tor
ment," but hades, and hell vanishes
from this long misunderstood parable.
The rich man, says Farrar, is sin the
intermediate hades, where he rests till
the resurrection to judgment in which
signs are not wanting that his soul may
have been meanwhile ennobled and
purified" We quote this remark, not
to approve the idea of hades as an inter-
mediate state, but simply to show that
when it takes the place of hell in the
text, it brings an entirely new view
of the passage to the front.
There is no question but that hades
in the New Testament means precisely
what SheOl did in the Hebrew Scriptures,
and it is possible that the word, now
sanctioned by the revisers' usage, will
become more and more common in
English speech as denoting the place of
the dead. The classical usage is not
far removed, if any, from that of the
ancient Scriptures, if we separate the
word from its pagan corruptions. 1t
signitied "the place of departed spirits"
"In the view of Greeks and Romans"
says Prof. Stuart, blades was the I'M
derworld, the world of the dead, place
deep in the earth, dark and cheerless,
where everything was unsubstantial
and shadowy."
While General Badeau probably
meant no more in the words on which
we comment than the primary signifi-
cation of Hades as the place of the
dead, the Christian view is not presen-
ted in the thought that hades is the
abiding place of those who pass away
from these earthly scenes. The body
may be said properly enough to rest in
hades, but the immortal spirit cannot
find there a home. Jesus died and
descended into the state of the dead;
but Acts ii, 81 says: Ellis soul was not
left in hades, neither his flesh did see
corruption" What was true of Jesus
is true also of the race of which he is
the representative. Hades cannot con-
tain the immortal part of man. The
ancient Scripture well states the phil
osophy of the whole matter: "Then
shall the dust return unto the earth as
IL uuaa hut the shirt shall 90 to tho