LXII. Omnipresence of the Divine Justice. Remarkable Resemblance of Plato's Language to some Passages from the Bible. 66 PAGE 63, LINE 1. οὐ γὰρ ἀμεληθήση ποτὲ ὑπ' αὐτῆς. In this passage avτñç refers to Aíkη, the Divine Justice or Law, which is so frequently personified by the Grecian poets as ever sitting on the right hand of Jove and sharing his throne. There is a very strong resemblance between these declarations and Psalm cxxxix., 7. You shall never be neglected by it. You cannot, being small, so descend into the depths of the earth, nor, being raised on high, so fly up into Heaven, but that you shall pay the fitting penalty, whether remaining in this world, or having passed through life into Hades, or having been borne to a region still more wild than these." The expressions of the Psalmist are strikingly similar, although not directly applied to the transgressor. Whither shall I go from thy Spirit, and whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into Heaven, behold, thou art there. If I make my bed in Hades, behold, thou art there. If I should take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. More in accordance with the spirit, although with less similarity of expression, is the passage, Job, xxxiv., 21: His eyes are upon the ways of man, and all his steps he beholdeth. There is no darkness, no land of the shades of the dead (no py, or terra umbrarum), where the workers of iniquity * * Is there not some reason to believe that this word, which is generally rendered shadow of death, may, more properly, mean the spiritual world itself, the land of the shades, as though it had been instead of having the punctuation צֶלֶם plural feminine of צְלָמוֹת which it has received from the Masorites? may hide themselves. Compare, also, Amos, ix., 2: If they dig down into Sheol (or Hades), from thence shall my hand take them. If they ascend up into Heaven, from thence will I bring them down. If they be hidden in the top of Carmel, from thence will I discover and take them. If they would conceal themselves from mine eye in the bottom of the sea, from thence will I command the serpent, and it shall bite them. How vividly, too, is this doctrine of an ever. wakeful, retributive justice presented by Sophocles: ἡγεῖσθε δὲ βλέπειν μὲν αὐτοὺς πρὸς τὸν εὐσεβῆ βροτῶν, Bethink you, then; Heaven hath its eye upon the pious man, LXIII. Doctrine of a Final Judgment. Use of the Word Evvré-λεια. PAGE 64, LINE 1. οὐκ εἰδὼς αὐτῶν τὴν συντέλειαν ὅπη ποτὲ τῷ παντὶ ξυμβάλλεται. Ast translates this, nesciens eorum collatio quomodo universo conducat, “not knowing their contribution," &c. He takes ouvréλeta in what is perhaps the more usual signification in classic Greek, namely, a contribution by members of a society, a share or assessment, and which agrees well with vμbáλλɛrai. The other sense, however, of termination, consummation, &c., suits far better with the context of this most important and solemn passage. It recommends itself, too, to us by its striking resemblance to the use of the word in certain declarations of the Scriptures. Both the ideas, however, may be united in our word reckoning, or final settlement of an account which has been long deferred. We prefer this, because the whole passage has reference to a judgment or final disposition of the wicked, and would, therefore, render it, "not knowing their end or consummation, in what way it contributes to the whole," that is, in what way the present suspension of punishment, and their final doom, sustain the universal government. Probably both senses were present to the mind of the writer, and both seem necessary to complete the harmony of the conception. Viger, in his Latin version of Eusebius, Præp. Evang., page 635, D., prefers this second sense, which, although the least used, comes the nearest to the radical and etymological meaning of the compound. He translates the passage, ignorans videlicet qui tandem aut qua parte istorum FINIS et EXITUS cum universi rationibus cohæreret. The reader may find this deeply interesting subject of the delay of God in the punishment of the wicked treated at great length by Plutarch in his treatise, Περὶ τῶν ὑπὸ τοῦ θείου βραδέως τιμωρουμένων ; a very excellent edition of which has been lately edited by Professor Hackett of the Newton Theological Seminary. The work is accompanied by notes, chiefly of a theological character, exhibiting much real and useful learning, with no display of that philological pedantry which deforms so many modern editions of ancient writers, and, on the whole, forming one of the most valuable additions to our theological and classical literature. Σvvréλɛta, in the sense of completion, summing, or winding up, and in a connexion impressively similar to the passage in our text, is found in the explanation of the parable of the tares and the wheat, in which the former are said to be permitted to grow for the sake of the latter, and where, as is here intimated by Plato, all things are referred to some final period of decision and development: 'O dè depropòs συντέλεια τοῦ αἰῶνος ἐστιν—The harvest is the end (the day of reckoning) of the world. So shall it be in the end of the world (the winding up, the conclusion, the final account, the catastrophe of the great rpağıç, or drama of life); they shall gather out all things that offend and all that do iniquity. Matthew, xiii., 39, 41. The same remarkable word is found, Hebrews, ix., 26: ἅπαξ ἐπὶ συντελείᾳ τῶν αἰώνων once in the winding up of the ages. Συντέλεια signifies not only an end, like τέλος, but an ending together, a con-clusion, an accomplishment of great purposes brought about by a long series of means, which, although, at times, ever so apparently divergent, have all, finally, converged to one grand result. On this doctrine of the Divine delay in the punishment of sin, compare Job, xxi., 29: The wicked is reserved (Heb. qon, held back) unto the day of doom: unto the day of wrath shall they be brought forth. No text in the Old Testament, as is shown by the context, points more clearly to a future judgment of a general and concluding kind. Very similar language is held respecting the fallen angels, Jude, 6: Reserved in chains to the judgment of the great day. Compare, also, Prov., xvi., 3: All things (Tò nãν, Tò öλov) hath the Lord made for himself, yea, the wicked for the day of evil; which is almost equivalent to the declaration in our text: συντέλεια αὐτῶν τῷ παντὶ ξυμβάλλεται. In like manner, the Psalmist, when he ceased to look upon appearances, or, in the language of our author (page 63, line 10), ŵs Év kaτόπτροις τὰς πράξεις τῶν ἀνθρώπων καθορᾷν—when he "entered into the sanctuary," into the study and contemplation of the higher counsels of the Divine government— " then saw he their end”—τὴν συντέλειαν αὐτῶν. As a dream when one awaketh, so, O Lord, when they* awake, or * Psalm lxxiii., 20. Thus, we are satisfied, should the Hebrew y be rendered, as applying to the sinner, and not to God; or it may, perhaps, be translated, "When their image (shade, umbra, manes, in the awaking (that is, in the resurrection morning, at the great day of account), wilt thou despise their image (Ophy), their ghost or umbra (LXX., Tò εïdwλov avτwv). We would not engage in the superfluous work of endeav. ouring to prop, by the supports of human reason and human feelings, any truth clearly revealed in the Holy Scriptures. There is, however, no one which, if it were necessary, might be more safely trusted to such a defence than this doctrine of a general final judgment. Here the long and steady voice of humanity may be safely appealed to. From the time when the smoking blood of Abel invoked the Divine justice, there has ever been something in the human breast which has declared the necessity of a judgment, of a fixed time, when there shall be a ovvтéλɛia, or winding up; when it will be found that the Judge of all the Earth has done right, and must do right; when every wrong which has been seemingly neglected shall be made right; when "all that is crooked shall be made straight," and everything that is dark and mysterious shall be made clear. The alarmed conscience, even while it dreads, demands it. We cannot read a poor work of fiction without experiencing a painful feeling when the termination of the story crosses these instinctive sentiments of the soul, or, in common parlance, does not end well, has no proper ovvτéhɛia; when virtue (even the poor, miserable, low virtue which is held in repute by the world) is not rewarded, and vice does not receive its fitting punishment. The reader, in such cases, feels that a wrong has been done to his moral sense-that the universal instinct of justice, which even bad men possess, has been violated. How, then, can the thought be or ghost) arises, thou wilt reject it." We would also suggest, although with much diffidence, whether there may not be a similar idea in the parallel Hebrew word, as applied to a different character, Psalm xvii., 15: "When thine image awakes," that is, the new spiritual form which thou wilt bestow. See, also, Job, iv., 6. |