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the subject of the soul, He wilfully, and without explanation, took those very words
concerning the very same subject, and used them in an altogether contradictory sense!
The idea is impossible. With reference to the philosophic usage of apollumi, we give the
following extract from the Phædon:--
"Socrates, having said these things, Cebes answered: I agree Socrates, in the greater
part of what you say. But in what relates to the soul men are apt to be incredulous, they
fear. . . . that on the very day of death she may be destroyed and perish. . . . blown away
and perishes immediately on quitting the body, as the many say? That can never be. . . .
the soul may utterly perish. . . . the soul might perish. . . . if the immortal be also
perishable. The soul when attacked by death cannot perish."
To those who knew these words, who taught them, and argued about them, was sent a
"teacher from God," and standing in their midst He reiterated the fact that Plato was
wrong, that the soul could be destroyed, that it would perish. What would any of that day
have thought of the suggestion to make such words convey the sense of endless misery,
so diametrically opposed to their meaning? Would he not have been justified in replying
in the language of a well-known public school headmaster:--
"My mind fails to conceive a grosser misinterpretation of language than when the five
or six strongest words which the Greek tongue possesses, signifying 'destroy,' or
'destruction,' are explained to mean maintaining an everlasting but wretched existence.
To translate black as white is nothing to this."
We believe sufficient has been shown to establish the fact that, in the usage and
meaning of apollumi and apôleia, destruction, utter and real, is the true meaning, and that
this is the wages of sin.