Volume 1

Encyclopædia of religion and ethics / edited by James Hastings ; with the assistance of John A. Selbie ... and other scholars.

Date:
1908-1926
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Encyclopædia of religion and ethics / edited by James Hastings ; with the assistance of John A. Selbie ... and other scholars. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    82/932
    Jahweh has ‘ founded it upon seas and established it upon floods’ (Ps 24^). The disc of the earth rests on the all-surrounding ocean, and the ‘ waters under the earth ’ are called tehom or tehom rabbd, ‘ abyss,’ ‘ great abyss ’ (Gn 7“ Dt 8’ Am 7^ Pr 8^^), whose fountains are broken up at the Flood, from which well up the sources that fer- tilize the land and (Ezk 31^) refresh the trees. It is in this sense that Cleip. Kom, (i. xx.) speaks of the inscrutable depths of the abysses (d^i/o-croiv re dve^LX’^^aa-ra). Trevisa also says : ‘ Abyssus is depnesse of water vnseen, and therof come and springe welles and ryuers.’ Tehom or ‘Abyss’ is a frequent designation of the oceans and seas, without any reference to their being ‘under the earth.’ And although there is no trace of the refractoriness of matter in the narrative of Gn 1, this comes out strongly in many references to the sea (Is 50* 51'®, Jer 5**, Ps 77'® 104®-® 106® 107*^ 135® 148*, Pr 8*®, Job 7'* 26'* 38®-, Sir 43*®, Pr. Man 3, En 60*®, Rev 21'). The question has been raised whether the nicnn of Ps 71*® should not be corrected to nVpnn (cf. Ps 63'® 139'®, Is 44*®). However that may be, the LXX has ‘ abysses ’ {S.pv(r<roi), which word, either in the sing, or the plur., became one of the names for Hades. In the verse in question it points to the profound depths of the invisible world, from which the persecuted are to be brought back again. The Bab. scheme of the universe also locates the abode of the dead in the heart of the earth, making the entrance thereto lie in the extreme west {KAT^ 636), designating it ‘the country whence none return,’ dividing it into seven zones, corresponding to the seven planetary spheres (Lenormant, Chald. Magic, 165, 169); cf. Mt 12®», Ph 2'®. Enoch (17®) sees in the west the great streams and the great flood, and enters into the great darkness [of Hades], into which all flesh comes. In the only classical passage where d/Siurcros is a noun, it is employed for Hades (Diog. Laert. Epig. iv. 27, KaTrjhdes els fx^Xaivav II\ovt4(os Apvacrop). To take yet another step is easy, d; (Job 41*®) is represented in the LXX by rbv Sb rdprapov rijs 6L§d(T(Tov. This is a free translation by an Alex- andrian Hellenist, who knew his classics (Swete, Introd. to OT in Greek, pp. 256, 318), and remem- bered that Tartarus was a prison, a murky pit, into which Zeus threatens to cast any god who may venture to oppose him (iZ. viii. 11-16), as far beneath Hades as this is below the earth (cf. Taprapd t Tjvep-bePTa p!,x/x<p evpvodelrjs, Hes. Theog. 120). Now at Job 38'® Sheol is at the bottom of the sea, and we here (41*® LXX) find hell in the same locality, for the sea-monster Leviathan considers the Tartarus of the abyss his captive. The Book of Enoch often speaks of the abyss as a place of punishment. The traveller reaches a deep abyss, in which are lofty pillars of fire, some of them prostrate (18''®). Here is the prison of the rebellious angels; he sees a place with a cleft or chasm (diaKowri) running down into the abyss. Uriel informs him that the angels are imprisoned there for ever (21*-) ; judgment began with the stars, which were found guHty and cast into an abyss full of fire (90*^). English writers have freely used the word as an equivalent for ‘hell.’ Lydgate (1413) says : ‘ This pytte is the chyef and the manoyr of helle that is clepid Abissus.’ We pass to the NT. The abyss is the ordinary abode of demons who, having been permitted to take temporary possession of a man, now deprecate being remanded to their own place, because their power of doing mischief is thus terminated (Lk 8®'); it is Hades, where the spirits of the departed dwell, where Christ spent the interval between death and resurrection (Ro 10*). ‘Ipsa anima fuit in abysso’ (Ambrose). The impression con- veyed by St. Paul’s language is of the vastness of that realm, as of one that we should vainly attempt to explore. The abyss communicates with our earth by a pit or shaft (<j>piap). Rev 9', with which the buiKOTrri of En 21* should be compared. Accord- ing to the Tractate Sukkah of the Talmud, the mouth of this pit is under the foundations of the temple, and can be closed by magical formulae: ‘Qua hora David fodiebat fundamenta templi, exundavit abyssus mundum submersurus. Dixit David: Estne hie, qui sciat, an liceat testae inscribere nomen inett'abile, et projiciemus illam in abyssum, ut quiescat?’ (Bousset, Die Offen- barung Johannis, p. 251). When the (ppiap of Rev 9 is opened, there issue from it poisonous, stinging locusts, which cause exquisite anguish to men. Over them is a king, ‘the angel of the abyss,’ whose Greek name, Apollyon, represents pretty accurately his Heb. title Abaddon. This is a different point of view from that of En 20', where Uriel is designated the holy angel who presides over both the angelic host and Tartarus. At Pr 15 27*® etc., Abaddon is parallel to Sheol, and the Rabbis make it a name of the lowest pit of hell. The abyss, then, in the present passage, as in Lk 8®', is the abode of the ministers of torment, from which they go forth to do hurt. In the Bab. docu- ments, demons and spirits of disease proceed from hell: uble, and below they bnng confusion.’ (Lenormant, ChxM. Magic, p. 30). The Rabbis, too, represent Sammael and his angels as emerging thence (Eisenmenger, Entdeckt. Jud. ii. 336 f.). The abyss of Rev 11* 17® is put in the same light: a beast which occasions calamities to the saints arises out of it. The dragon, ‘ that old serpent, which is the devil, and Satan,’ is shut up therein, and its month is sealed for a thousand years (20®). The language in which this is set forth should be compared with Prayer of Manasses 3 : 6 TreSrjffas 6(i\a(ra-a.v r(p \6y(p rod irpotXT&yparos abroO, 6 Khelaas tt)v Afivacrov Kal <7<j>pa.XL<rip.evos airrjv rip ipofiepip xal dvBb^ip BvApjarl cov. In the Rituale Bomanum, part of the formula of Exorcism runs: ‘Cede Ergo Deoqui te, et malitiam tuam in pharaone, et in exercitu ejus per Moysen servmm suum in abyssum demersit ’: with this cf. Jubilees 48''*. The Gnostics, as might have been expected, made an altogether different use of the idea of the abyss. Their special name for it was Bv06s, Bythus, and by this they meant the Divine first principle, the fountain of all existence, the infinite, unfathom- able, inscrutable abyss of Deity : ‘ ‘l vast, unfathomable sea, all our thoughts are drowned.’ Alyoviri ydp riva etva.i ev dopdrois koX dKarovop-darois v\j/dip.a(Xi riKeiov AlQva irpobvra- rovrov SB Kal [irpoapxv’' Kol] TrpoTrarbpa Kal fivObv KoXoCaiv (Iren. adv. Emr. i. 1: ‘ For they sa;^ that in the invisible and name- less heights there is a certain perfect, pre-existing Alon. And they call him [first principle and] pro- genitor and Bythus’). Hippolytus (vi. 37) bears the same testimony: speaking of Valentinus, he says : virearfiaaro rbv irdvrwv ^aaCKia Sv ^rprj HKdraiv, offros vardpa Kal ^vBbv Kal [■Trpoapx^i' ?] _ rwv 6\ajv ahhvtav (‘He whom Plato spoke of as King of all, this man postulated as father and Bythus and first principle [?] of all the aeons’). The Valentinians held that by a process of self-limitation the Bythus evolved a series of pairs of aeons, male and female, any pair of which may be called the pleroma, the latter name being also given to the whole series taken together, w’hich then stands to the Bythus in the feminine relation, as Tidmat did to Apsu. But Gnosticism never formed a homogeneous body of opinion. There were, as Hippolytus warns us.