HELIOPOLIS. See [On].
HELL. This is a Saxon word, which is derived from a verb which signifies to hide or conceal. A late eminent Biblical critic, Dr. Campbell, has investigated this subject with his usual accuracy; and the following is the substance of his remarks. In the Hebrew Scriptures the word sheol frequently occurs, and uniformly, he thinks, denotes the state of the dead in general, without regard to the virtuous or vicious characters of the persons, their happiness or misery. In translating that word, the LXX have almost invariably used the Greek term ἅιδης, hades, which means the receptacle of the dead, and ought rarely to have been translated hell, in the sense in which we now use it, namely, as the place of torment. To denote this latter object, the New Testament writers always make use of the Greek word γέεννα, which is compounded of two Hebrew words, Ge Hinnom, that is, “The Valley of Hinnom,” a place near Jerusalem, in which children were cruelly sacrificed by fire to Moloch, the idol of the Ammonites, 2 Chron. xxxiii, 6. This place was also called Tophet, 2 Kings xxiii, 10, alluding, as is supposed, to the noise of drums, (toph signifying a drum,) there raised to drown the cries of helpless infants. As in process of time this place came to be considered an emblem of hell, or the place of torment reserved for the punishment of the wicked in a future state, the name Tophet came gradually to be used in this sense, and at length to be confined to it. In this sense, also, the word gehenna, a synonymous term, is always to be understood in the New Testament, where it occurs about a dozen times. The confusion that has arisen on this subject has been occasioned not only by our English translators having rendered the Hebrew word sheol and the Greek word gehenna frequently by the term hell; but the Greek word hades, which occurs eleven times in the New Testament, is, in every instance, except one, translated by the same English word, which it ought never to have been. In the following passages of the Old Testament it seems, however, that a future world of wo is expressed by sheol: “They,” the wicked, “spend their days in wealth, and in a moment go down to sheol,” Job xxi, 13. “The wicked shall be turned into sheol, and all the nations that forget God,” Psalm ix, 17, 18. “Her feet go down to death, her steps take hold on sheol,” Prov. v, 5. “But he knoweth not that the ghosts are there, and that her guests are in the depths of sheol,” Prov. ix, 18. “Thou shalt beat him with a rod, and shalt deliver his soul from sheol,” Prov. xxiii, 14. Thus, as Stuart observes, in his “Essay on Future Punishment,” while the Old Testament employs sheol, in most cases to designate the grave, the region of the dead, the place of departed spirits, it employs it also, in some cases, to designate along with this idea the adjunct one of the place of misery, place of punishment, region of wo]. In this respect it accords fully with the New Testament use of hades. For though hades signifies the grave, and often the invisible region of separate spirits, without reference to their condition, yet, in Luke xvi, 23, “In hades ἐν τῷ ᾅδη, he lifted up his eyes, being in torments,” it is clearly used for a place and condition of misery. The word hell is also used by our translators for gehenna, which means the world of future punishment, “How shall ye escape the damnation of hell, κρίσεως τῆς γεέννης?“
Hell, Gates of. See [Gates].
HELLENISTS. On this appellation, Dr. Jennings observes, There is a very remarkable appellation which the Apostle Paul, after glorying in his being “of the stock of Israel, and of the tribe of Benjamin,” applies to himself, namely, that he was “a Hebrew of the Hebrews,” Phil. iii, 5. By this expression Godwin understands a Hebrew both by father’s and mother’s side. But if this be all that the phrase imports, there seems to be very little occasion for the Apostle’s using it immediately after having declared, that he was “of the stock of Israel, and the tribe of Benjamin;” which, on Godwin’s supposition, is the same as a Hebrew of the Hebrews; for the Jews were not allowed to marry out of their own nation; or if they sometimes married proselytes, yet their number was comparatively so small among them, especially while they were under oppression, as they were at that time by the Romans, that methinks Paul would hardly have mentioned it as a distinguishing privilege and honour, that neither of his parents were proselytes. It is therefore a much more probable sense, that a Hebrew of the Hebrews signifies a Hebrew both by nation and language, which multitudes of Abraham’s posterity, in those days, were not; or one of the Hebrew Jews, who performed their public worship in the Hebrew tongue; for such were reckoned more honourable than the Hellenistic Jews, who in their dispersion having, in a manner, lost the Hebrew, used the Greek language in sacris, and read the Scripture out of the Septuagint version. We meet with this distinction among the converted Jews, in the Acts of the Apostles: “In those days, when the number of the disciples was multiplied, there arose a murmuring of the Grecians or Hellenists against the Hebrews,” Acts vi, 1. This is what St. Paul probably meant by his being a Hebrew, as distinguished from an Israelite: “Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I,” 2 Corinthians xi, 22. In one sense, these were convertible terms, both signifying Jews by nation and religion; but in the sense just mentioned, there were many, in those days, who were Israelites, but not Hebrews. St. Paul was both, not only an Israelite by birth, but a Hebrew, and not a Hellenistic Jew. Godwin expresses himself inaccurately, when he says that those who lived in Palestine, and who, as using the Hebrew text in their public worship, were opposed to the Ἑλληνιϛαί, are called Hebrews, or Jews. For, though Hebrew and Jew are convertible terms, when opposed to Gentiles, as denoting the seed of Abraham, and professors of the Mosaic religion, see Jer. xxxiv, 9; yet, as opposed to the Ἑλληνιϛαὶ, they are not convertible terms, there being Hebrew Jews and Hellenistic Jews; for it is said, that when “they, who were scattered by the persecution that arose about Stephen, travelled into several countries, preaching the word to none but Jews only,” yet they spoke, ϖρος τοὺς Ἑλληνιϛὰς, to the Hellenists or Grecians, Acts xi, 19, 20. In order to confirm the sense which is here given of the word Ἑλληνιϛαὶ, in opposition to the appellation Hebrews, it is proper we should take notice of the distinction between the Ἕλληνες and Ἑλληνιϛαὶ. The former were Greeks by nation, and as such distinguished from Jews, Acts xvi, 1; xix, 10; and the Greek empire having been rendered by Alexander in a manner universal, and their language being then the most common and general, the appellation Greeks is sometimes given to the whole Heathen world, or to all who were not Jews, Rom. i, 16; ii, 9. These Greeks, called Ἑλληνικοὶ by Josephus, are always styled Ἕελληνες in the New Testament. On which account Grotius, understanding by the Ἑλληνιϛαὶ, or “Grecians, to whom some of those who were dispersed on the persecution which arose about Stephen, preached the Lord Jesus,” Acts xi, 19, 20, Greeks by nation, concludes there is a mistake in the text, and alters it according to the Syriac and Vulgate versions: “Certè legendum,” [it ought certainly to be read,] saith he, “ϖρος τοὺς Ἕλληνας.” So indeed the Alexandrian manuscript reads, but it is supported by no other copy. And this is decisive against it--that from the words immediately preceding, it is evident that these Grecians were by nation Jews, and not Greeks; it being expressly said, that those who were scattered on the persecution “preached the Gospel to the Jews only.” As for the Ἕλληνες, or Greeks mentioned in St. John’s Gospel, as being come to Jerusalem at the passover to worship in the temple, John xii, 20, and likewise those mentioned in the Acts, as worshipping along with the Jews in the synagogues, Acts xiv, 1; xviii, 4; they were doubtless Greeks by birth and nation, yet proselytes to the Jewish religion. There is a distinction made between Jews and proselytes, Acts ii, 10; but none between Hebrews and proselytes, because a proselyte might be either a Hebrew or a Hellenist, according to the language in which he performed public worship. That the Hellenists or Grecians, were Jews, is farther argued from the account we have, that when at Jerusalem St. Paul “disputed against the Grecians, they went about to slay him,” Acts ix, 29, as the Jews at Damascus had done before, Acts ix, 23. Now had these Grecians been strangers of a different nation, it cannot be imagined they durst have attempted to kill a Jew, among his own countrymen, in the capital, and without a formal accusation of him before any of their tribunals. Upon the whole, the Ἑλληνιϛαὶ, or Grecians being Jews who used the Greek tongue in their sacred exercises, the Hebrew Jews and Grecian Jews were distinguished in those days, in like manner as the Portuguese and Dutch Jews are among us, not so much by the place of their birth, (many being born in England, others abroad,) as by the language they use in their public prayers and sermons.
Among the wonderful dealings of God, says Dr. Neander, by which the coming of Christianity was prepared, must be placed the spreading of the Jews among the Greeks and Romans. Those among them who belonged to the Pharisees gave themselves much trouble to obtain proselytes; and the loss of respect for the old popular religion, and the unsatisfied religious wants of multitudes, farthered their views. Reverence for the national God of the Jews, as a mighty Being, and reverence for the secret sanctuary of the splendid temple of Jerusalem, had long gained admittance among the Heathen. Jewish goetæ (enchanters, jugglers, &c) permitted themselves to make use of a thousand acts of delusion, in which they were very skilful, to make an impression of astonishment on the minds of those around them. Confidence in Judaism had in consequence made such wide progress, especially in large capital towns, that the Roman writers in the time of the first emperors openly complain of it; and Seneca, in his book upon superstition, said of the Jews, “The conquered have given laws to the conquerors.” The Jewish proselyte-makers, “blind leaders of the blind,” who had themselves no conception of the real nature, of religion, could give to others no insight into it. They often allowed their converts to take up a kind of dead monotheism, and merely exchange one kind of superstition for another; they taught them, that, by the mere outward worship of one God, and outward ceremonials, they were sure of the grace of God, without requiring any change of life; and they gave to them only new means of silencing their conscience, and new support in the sins which they were unwilling to renounce: and hence our Saviour reproached these proselyte-makers, that they made their converts ten times more the children of hell, than they themselves were. But we must here accurately distinguish between the two classes of proselytes. The proselytes in the strict sense of the word, the proselytes of righteousness, who underwent circumcision and took upon themselves the whole of the ceremonial law, were very different from the proselytes of the gate, who only bound themselves to renounce idolatry, to the worship of the one God, and to abstinence from all Heathenish excess, as well as from every thing which appeared to have any connection with idolatry. The former often embraced all the fanaticism and superstition of the Jews, and allowed themselves to be blindly led by their Jewish teachers. The more difficult it had been to them to subject themselves to the observance of the Jewish ceremonial law, necessarily so irksome to a Greek or a Roman, the less could they find it in their hearts to believe, that all this had been in vain, that they had obtained no advantage by it, and that they must renounce their presumed holiness. What Justin Martyr says to the Jews, holds good of these proselytes: “The proselytes not only do not believe, but they calumniate the name of Christ twice as much as you, and they wish to murder and torture us who believe on him, because they are desirous to resemble you in every thing.” The proselytes of the gate, on the contrary, had taken many of the most admirable truths out of Judaism. Without becoming entirely Jews, they had become acquainted with the Holy Scriptures of the Jews, they had heard of the promised messenger from God, of the King armed with power from God, of whom a report had been spread, as Suetonius says in the life of Vespasian, over the whole of the east. Much of that which they had heard from their Jewish teachers, whose writings they had read, had remained dark to them, and they were still to seek in them. By the notions which they had received from the Jews, of one God, of the divine government of the world, of God’s judgment, and of the Messiah, they were more prepared for the Gospel than other Heathens; and because they still thought that they had too little, because they had no determined religious system, and were curious after more instruction in divine things, and because they had not received many of the prejudices which swayed the Jews, they were more fitted to receive the Gospel than many of the Jews. From the very beginning they must have been attentive to the preaching of the Gospel, which secured to them, without making them Jews, a full share in the fulfilment of those promises of which the Jews had spoken to them. To these proselytes of the gate, (the φοβούμενοι τὸν Θεὸν, the εὐσεβεῖς of the New Testament,) passed, therefore, according to the Acts, the preaching of the Gospel, when it had been rejected by the blinded Jews; and here the seed of the divine word found a fitting soil in hearts desirous of holiness. There were, however, doubtless, among the proselytes of the gate, some who, wanting in proper earnestness in their search after religious truth, only desired, in every case, an easy road to heaven, which did not require any self-denial; and who, in order to be sure of being on the safe side, whether power and truth lay with the Jews or the Heathens, sometimes worshipped in the synagogue of Jehovah, sometimes in the temples of the gods, and who, therefore, fluttered in suspense between Judaism and Heathenism.
HEMLOCK, רוש and ראש, Deut. xxix, 18; xxxii, 32; Psalm lxix, 21; Jer. viii, 14; ix, 15; xxiii, 15; Lam. iii, 5, 19; Hosea x, 4; Amos vi, 12. In the two latter places our translators have rendered the word hemlock in the others, gall. Hiller supposes it the centaureum, described by Pliny; but Celsius shows it to be the hemlock. It is evident, from Deut. xxix, 18, that some herb or plant is meant of a malignant or nauseous kind, being there joined with wormwood, and in the margin of our Bibles explained to be “a poisonful herb.” In like manner see Jer. viii, 14; ix, 15; and xxiii, 15. In Hosea x, 4, the comparison is to a bitter herb, which, growing among grain, overpowers the useful vegetable, and substitutes a pernicious weed. “If,” says the author of “Scripture Illustrated,” “the comparison be to a plant growing in the furrows of the field, strictly speaking, then we are much restricted in our plants likely to answer this character; but if we may take the ditches around, or the moist or sunken places within the field also, which I partly suspect, then we may include other plants; and I do not see why hemlock may not be intended. Scheuchzer inclines to this rather than wormwood or agrostes, as the LXX have rendered it. The prophet appears to mean a vegetable which should appear wholesome, and resemble those known to be salutary, as judgment, when just, properly is; but experience would demonstrate its malignity, as unjust judgment is when enforced. Hemlock is poisonous, and water-hemlock especially; yet either of these may be mistaken, and some of their parts, the root particularly, may deceive but too fatally.”
HEN, ὄρνις, 2 Esdras i, 30; Matt. xxiii, 37; Luke xiii, 34. In these last two passages our Saviour exclaims, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!” The metaphor here used is a very beautiful one. When the hen sees a bird of prey coming, she makes a noise to assemble her chickens, that she may cover them with her wings from the danger. The Roman eagle was about to fall upon the Jewish state; our Lord invited them to himself in order to guard them from threatened calamities: they disregarded his invitations and warnings, and fell a prey to their adversaries. The affection of the hen to her brood is so strong as to have become proverbial. There is a beautiful Greek epigram in the Anthologia, which affords a very fine illustration of the affection of this bird in another view. It has been thus translated:--
“Beneath her fostering wing the hen defends
Her darling offspring, while the snow descends;
And through the winter’s day unmoved defies