Page:The New View of Hell.djvu/69

 true key to its meaning. He has given us the spiritual meaning of hell-fire, or the Gehenna of fire, and told us what it is in the human soul that fire corresponds to.

But as the literal sense is the foundation of the spiritual, it is necessary always to give careful attention to this first.

In the original Greek, Gehenna is the word translated hell, where the fire of hell, or the hell of fire, is spoken of. And Gehenna is a Hebrew word transplanted into the Greek, with but little variation in its form. It is composed of two other Hebrew words. Gai or Gē, which means a valley, and Hinnom, the name of a man. The literal meaning, therefore, of Gehenna is, the valley of Hinnom. This valley was south-east of, and near to Jerusalem. The brook Kedron ran through it. Here the Jews at one time practiced the most impious idolatry. They had an image dedicated to Moloch, to which they offered in sacrifice not only bulls, lambs, rams, etc., but even their own children, who were placed in the arms of the image previously heated by a fire within, and thus were quickly destroyed. On this account the place subsequently came to be regarded with such abhorrence, that it was made the common receptacle of all the filth and rubbish of the city. The dead bodies of animals as well as of the most notorious criminals, were there thrown into one common heap. And a fire was kept continually burning to prevent the atmosphere from becoming pestilential—the worms, meanwhile, reveling in