FORTY-FIVE MILES TO TARTARUS.
By Uriah Smith
It may surprise some to learn that we are so near to those regions of terrible repute into which the angels that kept not their first estate were cast, when they were expelled from Heaven. Nevertheless, certain facts within our reach seem to weigh strongly in that direction. The word tartarus occurs but once in the New Testament Greek, and then in the form of a verb, “to cast down to tartarus,” or, as rendered in our version, “cast down to hell.” 2 Pet. 2:4. “For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast (them) down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment.” Tartarus, then, is the present hell of the fallen angels. Where, then, is this place? Grove’s Greek and English Dictionary defines it to be “the infernal regions, hell of the poets, a dark place, prison, dungeon, jail.” Dr. Scott says that its meaning “must not be sought from the fables of heathen poets, but from the general tenor of the Scriptures.” Dr. Bloomfield says that it is “an intensive reduplication of the very old word tar, which in the earliest dialects seemed to have signified DARK.” Parkhurst, in his Greek Lexicon, says, “Tartarus, in its proper physical sense, is the condensed, solid, and immovable darkness which surrounds the material universe.” Just what Dr. Parkhurst means by “condensed, solid, immovable darkness,” it would perhaps be difficult to determine; and when he says that it “surrounds the material universe,” it is uncertain whether he means the space around each of the created bodies which compose the universe, or that space which surrounds them all taken together, the space beyond the limits of God’s creative work, beyond where a star-sun shines, or a planet revolves. But however this may be, the definition of the word, as given by all the lexicographers, points unmistakably to surrounding regions of darkness. Its use in the Scriptures implies the same. And we think we find evidence to show that all the intervening spaces between the created worlds of the universe are regions of this character, and are therefore the tartarus of the Scriptures. In a work entitled “Ecce Coelum,” by E. F. Burr, D. D., pp. 40-43, we find the following description of the interplanetary voids:— “Popularly speaking, this great space which environs us on all sides, and contains the heavenly bodies, is empty. It is substantially a vacuum. The ancients said that nature abhors a vacuum; if so, she has plenty of abhorring to do. There is no atmosphere pervading space; we could not breathe in its mid-intervals one single moment; there is nothing there that our senses could perceive. As we ascend from the earth, we find the air gradually becomes thinner; and LaPlace has shown, that, after a few miles, it must cease entirely. Beyond that point, very large solid bodies, though moving with enormous velocity, are found to encounter not the smallest perceptible resistance. Their places, as computed on the supposition that they move in a vacuum, are such as we actually find them. At the same time, there is reason to believe that the vacuum may not be absolutely perfect. Certain facts which have come to light in late years have convinced many astronomers that we must allow the existence of an exceedingly dilute form of matter pervading space. It is nothing that we could detect in the ordinary, sensible way; we could not weigh it, nor see it, nor receive sounds through it; we could not feel it should we strike our hands through it with our utmost force. Such a mere nothing is it. It is only when some very light body goes rushing through it, at the rate of thousands of miles an hour, that its presence becomes sensible in resisting, somewhat, the motion.” “If we could visit mid-space, it would seem a perfect void, also dreadfully cold and dark and silent. The higher we go into our atmosphere, the colder it becomes. All mountain summits, above a few thousand feet, are covered with perpetual snow. Persons ascending in balloons at last reach a cold that is intolerable. They evidently approach the confines of eternal winter, that, for silence and motionless fierceness, laughs to scorn all that we have of arctic and antarctic.” “According to the calculations of Sir John Herschell, we have only to go fifty miles from the earth’s surface to reach—132° Fahrenheit. Could we suddenly set down any moist thing at this point, it would instantly explode like a pistol, though without sound (for mid-space is soundless as well as matterless), and turn to stone as if touched by a magician’s wand. And if, at this short distance from the earth and sun, space is so cold, what must it be in those remote vacancies where the sun shows as a mere star? In thought, we sail away most comfortably among the constellations, without furs or overcoat; and perhaps our fancies make nothing of stopping whole hours in mid-heaven, leaning against the chair of Cassiopeia, or grasping the horns of Taurus, to admire the glory of the trooping stars; but one real bodily expedition of the sort would forever cure us of such fancies. Perhaps of some others also; for, when our thoughts go yachting it through space, they are very apt to take with them, not only our genial parlor temperature, but also our pleasant earthly light and colors. But, in point of fact, the starry spaces are awfully dark. Those who visit the higher regions of our atmosphere, by mountains or balloons, tell us that the pleasant blue gradually passes into an intense black. At last the stars glitter on a background of perfect jet. To an observer out in mid-heaven, the whole sphere would seem muffled in a horrible pall, save just at the points where the heavenly bodies are. He would have the impression of not being able to see an inch before him. He would see sun, moon, and stars, all at the same time; but they would look as if hissing on a sea of ink. The blackness would seem solid enough to be cut with a knife. An Egypt in the sky would seem to him to have completely overrun its Spain, and indeed its whole atlas of celestial empires. And should he try to express his feelings, and to say, ‘How awful is this blackness!’—‘How glorious are these luminaries!’—no sound, nor specter of a sound, could issue from his shouting lips.” It is estimated that the atmosphere of our earth is about forty-five miles deep. That is, if we could ascend from any point on the earth’s surface forty-five miles, we should pass beyond the atmosphere, and into this space so graphically described, of empty, icy, blackness; we should, in other words, be in tartarus. When the fallen angels were cast out into this space, no world or planet was assigned them as a resting place for the soles of their feet. It was a fearful testimony to them, that they were entitled to no place in all the universe. No wonder that they should have attempted to gain possession of some one of the fair worlds of God’s creation. Alas! that ours should have been the unfortunate one. But let us not lose heart; for as much lower as we have fallen, so much higher shall we be raised through the glorious redemption of Jesus Christ, now soon to be accomplished.