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into man, which is the sign of life; but in conformity with the usage of ' elsewhere, we must hold that it is also the spirit or breath of God which is the source of life in man.

But now, on the other hand, what was this which God breathed into man? Was it His own Spirit? On the one hand, we might strictly adhere to the figure, and say: No man breathes his own spirit-that principle, namely, whereby his own personal existence is continued, and whereby he breathes; but only that whereby his existence manifests itself, viz. breath. And thus what God breathed into man stood related to Himself, as a man's breath is related to him; it was not His own Spirit, but something else, His breath. But, on the other hand, the spiration of a spirit is spirit; the spiration of God gives subsistence to His Holy Spirit. And thus many Psychologists, such as Oehler, Hofmann, and others, hold that there was a real communication of God's own Spirit, which, thus communicated, became, or gave origin to, ', or soul. Thus Oehler says: "' nil aliud nisi inclusam in corpore, spiritus divini, ut ita dicam, particulam." He thinks it needful to defend such a theory from the charge of Pantheism and Emanationism, and he considers it sufficient for that purpose to assert that God communicated His spirit willingly. But if every creature's spirit be God's Spirit, so far as spirit is concerned, Pantheism is the result, though there may not attach to such a pantheistic theory certain characteristics which usually attach to pantheistic theories, such as unconsciousness in that which is Pantheos. On the other hand, this passage in Genesis does not teach that this ' which was put into man was created. It came out of God. He breathed it into man. To our feeble thinking-I ought, perhaps, to apologise for saying feeble, for to some the rigorous and sharp distinction of creation and emanation, and the denial of any other kind of origin whatever, may seem strength,-to our thinking there may be no middle thing between bare external creation and coarse materialistic emanation, and consequent partition of the

Divine; but our thinking may not be entitled to be considered the measure of possibility on a subject so profound. One has a repugnance to believe in the creation of spirit as he does in the creation of matter. And there is a difficulty attaching to the conception of it quite distinct from the difficulty attaching to the conception of creation as such. That any Being, even God, should be able to produce substances and natures the same as His own, by mere outward creation and not by some internal process of generation, is so altogether unlike what we see or can conceive as harmonious in the nature of things, that we almost claim to be allowed to repose in some middle effort of the Divine nature, which shall not be altogether generation nor altogether creation. Scripture calls God "the Father of our spirits." No doubt it does elsewhere say that He formeth, , the spirit of man, within him, Zech. xii. 1.

But thus you will see how the question is encumbered, and that in matters concerning the state of the dead we may find expressions both hard to understand in themselves and not easily reconcilable with one another. Probably all that can be determined meantime with certainty, though it leaves the questions which were raised very vaguely answered, is this: Whether the soul, ', in man be distinct substantially from the spirit or no, the soul is the seat of life and of personality in man, and having received subsistence, no more loses it. At death it parts from the body; if the person who died be restored to life, the soul returns to the body. It has existence apart from the body in Sheol, and the personality is still attached to it in that region. The Old Testament, I think, does not call that which is in Sheol soul, nor yet spirit; it does not condescend upon the quality of any of the individuals there; it calls them all D', that is, either soft, tenues, shadowy, or long-stretched. Again, as to spirit, whether that be man's permanently, or God's actually and man's only in temporary possession, it is said to return to God who gave it (Eccles. xii. 7). Its presence is the source of life in

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man; its withdrawal produces death, and even its partial withdrawal a diminishing of the powers of life.

It might be surmised from the strong expressions used many times of death in the Old Testament, that it was believed that in death the existence of the soul came to an end. So, e.g., in Ps. cxlvi. 4: "His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish"; and in Ps. xxxix. 13: "O spare me, that I may recover strength, before I go hence, and be no more." And perhaps most strongly of all in Job, e.g., vii. 21: "And why dost thou not pardon my transgression? for now shall I sleep in the dust; and thou shalt seek me eagerly, but I shall not be"; and xiv. 7: "For a tree hath hope: if it be cut down it will sprout again; but man dieth, and wasteth away: man giveth up the ghost, and where is he? man lieth down, and riseth not: till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep." But these are only the strong expressions of despondency and regret over a life mournfully soon ended, and that never returns to be lived on this busy earth again. The very name and conception of Sheol is sufficient answer to the contention that they mean more.

4. Conception of Sheol.

The word is, rarely written defectively, is a feminine noun, as most other nouns are which indicate space, though in a few cases it appears as masculine. Its derivation is uncertain. Some derived it from 5, to ask, believing that Hades is so named from its insatiable craving. But it is improbable that this primitive and ancient name for the underworld should be a mere poetical epithet. Others, with more probability, connect the name with the root by, to be hollow, in which case it would resemble our word Hell, Germ. Hölle, that is, hollow; and the name ¬ia, pit, with which it is interchanged in the Old Testament, and aßuogos, its synonym in the New, favour this deriva

tion.1

The Old Testament represents Sheol as the opposite of this upper sphere of light and life. It is "deep Sheol," Ann, Ps. lxxxvi. 13: "Thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell." It is deep down in the earth, Ps. lxiii. 9: "Those that seek my soul, to destroy it, shall go down into the lower parts of the earth." Corresponding to this it is the region of darkness, as Job, mournfully looking to it, says: "A land of darkness, as darkness itself; and of the shadow of death, without any order, and where the light is as darkness" (x. 22, 23). Of course, there is no formal topography to be sought for in Sheol. It is in great measure the creation of the imagination, deep down under the earth, even under the waters, and dark, and all within it chaos. The shades tremble "underneath the waters, and their inhabitants," Job xxvi. 5. Hence it is often decked out with the horrors of the grave. The prophet Isaiah, xiv. 9, represents the king of Babylon as going into Sheol: "Sheol from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming. Thy pomp is brought down to Sheol, and the noise of thy viols: the worm is spread under thee, and the worms cover thee." And so in Ezek. xxxii. 21-23: "The strong among the mighty shall speak to him out of Sheol

...

.. Asshur is there and all her company: his graves are about him: all of them slain, fallen by the sword: whose graves are set in the sides of the pit."

That is a representation, according to which Sheol is a vast underground mausoleum, with cells all around like graves. But it may be asserted with some reason that nowhere is Sheol confounded with the grave, or the word used for the place of the dead body. Sheol is the place of the departed personalities-the Old Testament neither calls them souls' nor 'spirits.' It is the place appointed for all living, the great rendezvous of dead persons; for a strict distinction is not drawn between the body and its place, and the soul and its place. The generations of one's forefathers are all there, and he who dies is gathered

The supposed discovery of Sheol in Assyrian Sualu (as affirmed by Friedrich Delitzsch, Jeremias, etc.) is denied by Schrader, Jensen, etc.

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unto his fathers. The tribal divisions of one's race are there, and the dead man is gathered unto his people. Separated from them here, he is united with them there. And if his own descendants had died before him, they are there, and he goes down, as Jacob to his son, mourning. None can hope to escape passing down among that vast assemblage of thin and shadowy personalities: "What man is he that liveth, and shall not see death? that shall deliver his soul from the hand of Sheol?" (Ps. lxxxix. 48). But it may be of use to put under distinct heads a few things about Sheol.

(1) The state of those in Sheol. As death consists in the withdrawal by God of the spirit of life, and as this spirit is the source, in general, of energy and vital force, the personality is of necessity left feeble and flaccid. All that belongs to life ceases except existence. Hence Sheol

is called, perishing, it is called, cessation (Isa. xxxviii. 11). The personalities crowding there are powerless, and drowsy, and still and silent, like those in sleep. Hence they are called DN (Job xxvi. 5; Isa. xiv. 9). The state is called, silence: "Unless the Lord had been my help, my soul had almost dwelt in silence" (xciv. 17). It is the land of forgetfulness (Ps. lxxxviii. 12); the living know that they must die: but the dead know not any thing. Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished" (Eccles. ix. 5). Yet though they are feeble, as those in Sheol confess to the Babylonian king, "Art thou become weak as one of us?"— (Isa. xiv. 10), thinned, as one worn by sickness,-they know themselves and their state, as this representation shows, and also others. They even seem to keep a kind of shadowy life of their own, a dreamy pomp and ceremonial, sitting with invisible forms upon imperceptible thrones from which they are stirred, with a flicker of interest and emotion, to greet any distinguished new arrival. It is the shadow of earth and its activities; wavering shades of the present life. The things said are not presented to us as matters of faith, they are the creations largely of the writers' imagination.