We now consider the word Tartarus:
"For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to Hell
(Tartarus), and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto
judgment." II Peter 2:4. The word in the Greek is Tartarus, or rather it
is a very from that noun. "Cast down to hell" should be tartarused,
(tartarosas). The Greeks held Tartarus, says Anthon, in his Classical
Dictionary to be "the fabled place of punishment in the lower
world." "According to the ideas of the Homeric and Hesiodic ages, it
would seem that the world or universe was a hollow globe, divided into two
equal portions by the flat disk of the earth. The external shell of this globe
is called by the poets brazen and iron, probably only to express its solidity.
The superior hemisphere was called Heaven, and the inferior one Tartarus. The
length of the diameter of the hollow sphere is given thus by Hesiod. It would
take, he says, nine days for an anvil to fall from Heaven to Earth; and an
equal space of time would be occupied by its fall from Earth to the bottom of
Tartarus. The luminaries which give light to gods and men, shed their radiance
through all the interior of the upper hemisphere, while that of the inferior
one was filled with eternal darkness, and its still air was unmoved by any
wind. Tartarus was regarded at this period as the prison of the gods and not
as the place of torment for wicked men; being to the gods, what Erebus was to
men, the abode of those who were driven from the celestial world. The Titans,
when conquered were shut up in it and Jupiter menaces the gods with banishment
to its murky regions. The Oceanus of Homer encompassed the whole earth, and
beyond it was a region unvisited by the sun, and therefore shrouded in
perpetual darkness, the abode of a people whom he names Cimmerians. Here the
poet of the Odyssey also places Erebus, the realm of Pluto and Proserpina, the
final dwelling place of all the race of men, a place which the pet of the
Iliad describes as lying within the bosom of the earth. At a later period the
change of religions gradually affected Erebus, the place of the reward of the
good; and Tartarus was raised up to form the prison in which the wicked
suffered the punishment due to their crimes." Virgil illustrates this
view, (Dryden's Virgil, Encid, 6): 'Tis here, in different paths, the way
divides: -- The right to Pluto's golden palace guides, The left to that
unhappy region tends. Which to the depths of Tartarus descends - The scat of
night profound and punished fiends.
The gaping gulf low to the centre
lies,
And twice as deep as earth is from
the skies.
The rivals of the gods, the Titan
race,
Here, singed with lightning, roll
within th'unfathomed space.
Now it is not to be supposed that Peter
endorses and teaches this monstrous nonsense of paganism. If he did, then we
must accept all the absurdities that went with it, in the pagan mythology. And
if this is an item of Christian faith, why is it never referred to, in the Old
or New Testament? Why have we no descriptions of it such as abound in classic
literature?
THE BOOK OF
ENOCH
Peter alludes to the subject
just as though it were well-known and understood by his correspondents.
"If the angels that sinned."-what angels? "were cast down to
Tartarus," where is the story related? Not in the Bible, but in a book
well-known at the time, called the Book of Enoch. It was written some time
before the Christian Era, and is often quoted by the Christian fathers. It
embodies a tradition, to which Josephus alludes, (Ant. 1:3) of certain angels
who had fallen. (Dr. T. J. Sawyer, in Univ. Quart.) From this apocryphal book,
Peter quoted the verse referring to Tartarus Dr. Sawyer says: "Not only
the moderns are forced to this opinion, but it seems to have been universally
adopted by the ancients. 'Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen and Hilary,'
say Professor Stuart, 'all of whom refer to the book before us, and quote from
it, say nothing which goes to establish the idea that any Christians of their
day denied or doubted that a quotation was made by the apostle Jude from the
Book of Enoch. Several and in fact most of these writers do indeed call in
question the canonical rank or authority of the Book of Enoch; but the
apologies which they make for the quotation of it in Jude, show that the
quotation itself was, as a matter of fact, generally conceded among them.'
There are it is true some individuals who still doubt whether Jude quoted the
Book of Enoch; but while as Professor Stuart suggests, this doubt is incapable
of being confirmed by any satisfactory proof, it avails nothing to deny the
quotation; for it is evident if Jude did not quote the Book of Enoch, he did
quote a tradition of no better authority." This Book of Enoch is full of
absurd legends, which no sensible man can accept.
WHAT DID
PETER MEAN?
Why did Peter quote from it?
Just as men now quote from the classics not sanctioning the truth of the
quotation but to illustrate and enforce a proposition. Nothing is more common
than for writers to quote fables: "As the tortoise said to the
hare," in Aesop. "As the sun said to the wind," etc. We have
the same practice illustrated in the Bible. Joshua, after a poetical quotation
adorning his narrative, says: "Is not this written in the Book of Jasher?
Josh. 10:13 and Jeremiah 48:45 says: "A fire shall come forth out of
Heshbon," quoting from an ancient poet, says Dr. Adam Clarke. Peter
alludes to this ancient legend to illustrate the certainty of retribution
without any intention of teaching the silly notions of angels falling from
heaven and certainly not meaning to sanction the then prevalent notions
concerning the heathen Tartarus. There is this alternative only: either the
pagan doctrine is true and the heathen got ahead of inspiration by
ascertaining the facts before the authors of the Bible learned it-for it was
currently accepted centuries before Christ and is certainly not taught in the
Old Testament - or Peter quotes it as Jesus refers to Mammon rhetorically to
illustrate the great fact of retribution he was instilling. If true, how can
anyone account for the fact that it is never referred to in the Bible, before
or after this once? Besides, these angels are not to be detained always in
Tartarus, they are to be released. The language is, "delivered them into
chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment." When their judgment
comes, they emerge from duress. They only remain in Tartarus "unto
judgment." Their imprisonment is not endless so that the language gives
no proof of endless punishment even if it be a literal description.
But no one can fail to see that the
apostle employs the legend from the Book of Enoch to illustrate and enforce
his doctrine of retribution. As though he had said: "If, as is believed
by some, God spared not the angels that sinned, do not let us who sin, mortal
men, expect to escape." If this view is denied, there is no escape from
the gross doctrine of Tartarus as taught by the pagans and that, too, on the
testimony of a solitary sentence of Scripture! But whatever may be the intent
of the words, they do not teach endless torment, for the chains referred to
only last unto the
judgment.
