Perdition (Hastings' Dictionary)

One of the renderings of ἀπώλεια in NT (AV and RY), but not found at all in OT, in either version. It occurs eight times both in AV and in RV, but the latter has substituted " perdition’ for ‘destruction’ at Ph 3" (‘whose end is perdition ’), and ‘destruction’ for ‘perdition’ at 2 P 37 (‘destrue- tion of ungodly men’), a parently because in the former Pees the ‘final perdition’ (cf.

τέλος) of the soul is the prominent sense, and in the latter the OT Messianic destruction of the present bodily mode of existence. It would seem as if the Re- visers took this view of the eschatology of 2 P generally, for ney have translated ἀπώλεια by ‘destruction’ in the five passages containing It, even in 2? and 3156. It is difficult, however, to see why, if this distinction between destruction ΑἹ and perdition is to hold (cf.

Gwynn’s note in Speaker’s Commentary on Ph 3), the Revisers did not carry it out more consistently. At Ro 95 (xarnpricuéva els ἀπώλειαν) ‘destruction’ has no doubt been allowed to remain as more suitable to the figure of the potter and the clay ; but why is it left at Mt 7'* ‘broad is the way that leadeth εἰς τὴν ἀπώλειαν" The more technical and complete sense of ἀπώλεια as perdition (Ph 3%, Mt 10%) in comparison with the more general sense of ὄλεθρος as Bene (cf.

1 Co 55), comes out at 1 Ti 6°, where ἀπώλεια serves as a definitive climax—‘ hurt- ful lusts, such as drown men in destruction and perdition.’, The question whethe: the word ἀπώλεια, with its correlates, (a) involves annihilation, (6) admits of unending existence and punishment, or (6) gives room for restoration, has already been dealt with in the article on ESCHATOLOGY (see vol. i. esp. pp. 738-740, 752f., and 756).

It is a question which (as it seems to us) can never be absolutely decided by the phraseology. An objection to the uncon- ditional acceptance of (a) lies in the Jewish views of Sheol and Gehenna, and in such a moral use of ἀπόλλυμι and its correlates as in the phrase (Lk 1919), ‘The Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost (τὸ dwodw)és),’-—a moral use which can be illustrated from the Greek prose of Polybius and Plutarch, and from the exegesis of Philo.

* (6) is rendered uncertain, notonly by a priori considera- tions as to the character of God, but by the proved relativity in the sense of αἰών and αἰώνιος. It is impossible to dogmatize in the direction of (c) in face of the manifest efforts of our Lord and the writers of the NT to depict a finality of destiny for those who reject the truth. But when these can be said finally to reject it we are not distinctly informed.

Without doubt, it is to men in the present state of existence that the gospel makes its urgent appeal. But nowhere in the NT are unbelievers warned that after the cessation of the present mode of existence all chance is gone. Of two things only can we speak with any confidence: freewill will never be forced; repentance will never be spurned. J. MASSIE.