Hell

By Carol Zaleski

Main

in many religious traditions, the abode, usually beneath the earth, of the unredeemed dead or
5the spirits of the damned. In its archaic sense, the term hell refers to the underworld, a deep pit
or distant land of shadows where the dead are gathered. From the underworld come dreams,
ghosts, and demons, and in its most terrible precincts sinners pay—some say eternally—the
penalty for their crimes. The underworld is often imagined as a place of punishment rather
than merely of darkness and decomposition because of the widespread belief that a moral
10universe requires judgment and retribution—crime must not pay. More broadly, hell figures in
religious cosmologies as the opposite of heaven, the nadir of the cosmos, and the land where
God is not. In world literature the journey to hell is a perennial motif of hero legends and
quest stories, and hell itself is the preeminent symbol of evil, alienation, and despair.

The Old English hel belongs to a family of Germanic words meaning “to cover” or “to
15conceal.” Hel is also the name, in Old Norse, of the Scandinavian queen of the underworld.
Many English translations of the Bible use hell as an English equivalent of the Hebrew terms
Sheʾōl (or Sheol) and Gehinnom, or Gehenna (Hebrew: gê-hinnōm). The term Hell is also
used for the Greek Hades and Tartarus, which have markedly different connotations. As this
confusion of terms suggests, the idea of hell has a complex history, reflecting changing
20attitudes toward death and judgment, sin and salvation, and crime and punishment.

Mesopotamia

Mesopotamian civilizations from the 3rd to the 1st millennium bce produced a rich literature
dealing with death and hell, much of it designed to impress upon the hearer the vast gulf
separating the living from the dead and the fragility of the cosmic order on which vitality and
25fertility depend. In Mesopotamian traditions, hell is described as a distant land of no return, a
house of dust where the dead dwell without distinction of rank or merit, and a sealed fortress,
typically of seven gates, barred against invasion or escape.

In a cycle of Sumerian and Akkadian poems, the god-king Gilgamesh, despairing over the
death of his companion Enkidu, travels to the world’s end, crosses the ocean of death, and
30endures great trials only to learn that mortality is an incurable condition. Hell, according to the
Gilgamesh epic, is a house of darkness where the dead “drink dirt and eat stone.” More details
of this grim realm emerge in the poems about the Sumerian shepherd and fertility god
Tammuz (Akkadian: Dumuzi) and his consort Inanna (Akkadian: Ishtar), who in her various
aspects is the mistress of date clusters and granaries, the patroness of prostitutes and
35alehouses, a goddess associated with the planet Venus and spring thunderstorms, and a deity
of fertility, sexual love, and war. Inanna is also the sister of Ereshkigal, queen of the dead. An
impulsive goddess, Inanna, according to some versions of the myth, is said to have threatened,
in a fit of pique, to crush the gates of hell and let the dead overrun the earth. In the poem
Descent of Inanna, she sets forth to visit Ereshkigal’s kingdom in splendid dress, only to be
40compelled, at each of the seven gates, to shed a piece of her regalia. Finally, Inanna falls
naked and powerless before Ereshkigal, who hangs her up like so much meat upon a drying
hook. Drought descends upon the earth as a result, but the gods help revive Inanna, who
escapes by offering her husband as a replacement. This ransom secures the fecundity of the
earth and the integrity of the grain stores by reinforcing the boundary between hell and earth.

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 It is the better part of wisdom, the tradition suggests, for mortals to make the most of earthly
life before they are carried off into death’s long exile.

Egypt

The tombs, pyramids, and necropolises of ancient Egypt attest to an extraordinary concern for
5the state of the dead, who, in sharp contrast to Mesopotamian belief, are described as living on
in a multiplicity of forms and locations suitable to their rank and worth—in or near the grave,
in the desert regions of the west, in the fertile fields of Earu, in the heavens with the midday
sun and circumpolar stars, or under the earth, where the sun travels by night. As the mortuary
cult of Osiris developed and the prerogative of surviving death extended from royalty to
10common people, greater attention focused on the underworld. Texts such as the Book of the
Dead, the Book of Amduat, and the Book of Gates exhaustively describe the perilous journey
through the 12 zones of the underworld (corresponding to the 12 hours of night) and the
harrowing judgment over which Osiris presides.

The deceased needed both magical and moral power to be acquitted of offenses when
15appearing before Osiris. Elaborate ritual provisions were made, therefore, to translate the
deceased from a mortal to an immortal condition; they included mummifying the body,
adorning the tomb with prayers and offerings, and equipping the deceased with spells,
amulets, and formulaic affidavits of innocence to win safe passage and ensure success at the
divine tribunal. Those who succeeded won immortality by identification with Osiris or with
20the sun. Those who failed were devoured by a crocodile-headed monster, tormented by
demons, or worse; yet rarely is there the suggestion of eternal condemnation. The tomb
remained a place where the dead could be comforted or appeased by the living, and the
mortuary texts were a constant reminder of the need to prepare for the final passage.

Christianity

25The early Christians proclaimed that Christ had conquered death, opening the door to
resurrection and heavenly immortality. The defeat of death does not necessarily mean the
immediate abolition of hell, however. Gehenna appears in the New Testament 12 times, where
its terrors for the wicked, as a place “where the worm never dies, and their fire is never
quenched” (Mark 9:48, quoting Isaiah 66:24), are stressed. In the great eschatological
30discourse of Matthew 25, Jesus announces that the Son of Man will come in glory to judge the
nations, to separate the sheep from the goats, and to consign sinners to everlasting fire. This
separation is stark, with no explicit provision made for fine gradations of merit or guilt. While
the poor man Lazarus enjoys a blissful repose in the bosom of Abraham, the rich man who
failed to help him in life is tormented in eternal fire without hope of respite, the two realms
35being separated by a great chasm (Luke 16:26). The standard of judgment is right relationship
to Christ, as expressed by deeds of mercy. Jesus himself set this standard when he declares:

You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his
angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to
drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing,
40sick and in prison and you did not visit me. (Matthew 25:41–43)

Ambiguities in the New Testament passages on hell, however, have led to significant
disagreement among Christians. Are sinners and fallen angels tortured forever or only for a
fixed term? Are the pains of hell reserved for the Last Judgment, or do they supervene
immediately upon dying? To what extent has Satan been left in charge of his kingdom and
45free to work his woe? Theological reflection on hell is intimately connected to conceptions of
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 the nature and moral psychology of human beings, in particular their status as free beings
created in the image and likeness of God, the extent of their corruption by the Fall (the fall of
humanity from innocence to sinfulness as a result of the sin of Adam and Eve), the particular
weight attached to specific sins and evil dispositions, and the efficacy of the various means of
5reconciliation to God.

The physical location of hell is similarly ambiguous. Some ancient and medieval Christian
texts describe places of postmortem torment and demonic mischief in the upper atmosphere,
while others locate hell in the centre of the earth, finding entrances in caves, moors, bogs, and
volcanic fissures. Such entrances to hell appear frequently in folk traditions, along with lore
10about the fairy underworlds in which the unwary may be trapped. Virgil’s Lake of Averno and
the infernal rivers Styx, Acheron, Cocytus, Lethe, and Phlegethon, among other Classical
features, recur in Christian literary treatments. Drawing on diverse biblical, Classical, and
folkloric sources, a great variety of cautionary tracts and tales, often cast in the form of
firsthand visions, further developed the imagery of hell, mapping its flaming lakes, perilous
15bridges, demon-infested pits, and stinking cesspools and enlarging its catalogue of torments
while at the same time providing milder sufferings for penitents. In the 2nd-century
Apocalypse of Peter, for example, blasphemers hang by their tongues over a lake of flaming
mire, murderers are tortured in the sight of their victims, and slanderers have their eyes burned
out by hot irons. Hope remains, however, that some sinners can be saved through the prayers
20of the righteous. Anticipating the doctrine of purgatory, the postbiblical apocalypses suggest
that penitents may be purified by the same fires of hell in which the reprobate sink to their
doom.

In his Dialogues, Pope Gregory I (590–604), writing in a time of pestilence and invasions,
included return-from-the-dead accounts from a hermit, a merchant, and a soldier who
25witnessed the terrors of hell and the joys of the blessed before being sent back to warn the
living of what lies in store. Tales of this kind proliferated throughout the Middle Ages,
receiving consummate literary expression in Dante’s The Divine Comedy and providing
matter for allegories such as Guillaume de Deguileville’s The Pilgrimage of the Soul (1358)
and John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress (1678). Dante’s hell, with its nine levels leading to
30Satan frozen in a lake of ice, is a parodistic inversion of the sublime order of heaven; even
here, justice prevails in the precise conformity of punishment to crime.

The older biblical conception of Hades-Sheol as the gathering place of the dead retained its
importance for the Christian tradition, however, as Christians reflected on the redemptive
significance of Holy Saturday, the day between Christ’s Crucifixion and his Resurrection.
35According to the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus and patristic writings from as early as the
2nd century, Christ invaded Hades during the interval in which he lay dead in the tomb and
“made a proclamation to the spirits in prison” (1 Peter 3:19), freeing the just who sat in exile
awaiting their Redeemer. Hell, in this sense, is a waiting place for the righteous before the
coming of Christ, and Christ’s descent into hell is understood to be a rescue mission. In
40support of this teaching, Eastern Christian icons of the Resurrection depict Christ breaking the
jaws of hell, entering in triumph, and drawing Adam upwards by the wrist.

An article of the Apostles’ Creed, the statement of faith used by most Christian churches and a
favourite subject of medieval mystery plays, the theme of Christ’s descent into hell has
persisted in theological discussion as a focal point for debates on the scope of universal
45salvation. Among Christian theologians, Origen of Alexandria (c. 185–c. 254)is the
preeminent advocate of a doctrine of universal salvation (apocatastasis). Origen believed that
after passing through hell, as through a refining fire, all souls—including the fallen angels—
would be restored. Although Origen’s influence on Christian biblical and spiritual theology
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 remained profound, he was condemned for this teaching on universal salvation by the Council
of Constantinople in 553. The major branches of Christianity have traditionally affirmed that
the moral order of the universe and the justice of God require a certain symmetry between
eternal reward for the blessed and eternal punishment for the damned, with the degree and
5kinds of suffering in hell being proportionate to the sins. Hell is the dwelling place of those
who reject God irrevocably, whose alienation from God is a permanent expression of their
own ill-used freedom, and whose suffering is at once physical (burning by fire) and spiritual
(deprivation of God). While modern religious writers tend to interpret the pains of hell
metaphorically, a great many artistic masterpieces derive their compelling power from their
10graphic and dramatic depictions of these torments.

Islam

According to Islamic thought, the existence of hell (Jahannam) bears witness to God’s
sovereignty, justice, and mercy and also stands as a warning to individuals and nations of the
definitive choice to be made between fidelity and infidelity, righteousness and iniquity, and
15life and death. The major Islamic schools agree that it is essential to one’s identity as a
Muslim to believe in and look forward to the day—or, more pointedly, the hour—when God
will bring his creation to an end, raise the dead, reunite them with their souls, judge them one
by one, and commit each individual, as he deserves, to the joys of the garden (paradise) or the
terrors of the fire (hell). Symbols reminiscent of Egyptian, Zoroastrian, Jewish, and Christian
20judgment scenes recur in Islamic accounts, in particular the record of deeds, the weighing of
the soul, and the test-bridge, which widens for the righteous but narrows to a knife-edge for
sinners, who lose their footing and plunge into the flames below. According to Islamic
teaching, God exercises complete authority over the course of events. He has predetermined
human destiny yet justly holds individuals accountable for their choices in life. Immune to
25special pleading, God, in his mercy, reserves the power to save those whom he wills and to
look favourably upon those for whom the Prophet Muhammad intercedes. He created hell,
with its seven ordered gates, for a deep purpose but has fixed a limit to the suffering of
believers who have sinned. For unbelievers, who refuse to acknowledge their Creator, there is
no hope of final redemption from the fire.

30The Qurʾān has little to say about the interval (barzakh) between death and resurrection, but
later Islamic literature makes the deathbed and the grave the setting of a preliminary
judgment. The soul of the pious Muslim, it is held, will experience an easy death and a
pleasant sojourn in the grave. The infidel’s soul, violently torn from the body and failing
interrogation by the angels Munkar and Nakīr, will suffer torment in the grave until the day
35when it will take up its place in hell, there to dine on bitter fruit and pus and to be roasted and
boiled with all the usual infernal devices for as long as God sees fit. Like the joys of heaven,
the pains of hell are profoundly physical and spiritual. The worst of all torments is the
estrangement from God.

Modern attitudes

40In the modern world, especially in the West, cultural shifts caused by the Enlightenment,
19th-century liberalism, and the psychotherapeutic culture of the late 20th century have
contributed to a decline in the belief in an everlasting hell. Defenders of the belief regard this
as a lamentable loss of nerve, of faith, and of moral seriousness. Hell may not be wished
away, in their view, but must be conquered—by the merciful saviour who liberates the spirits
45from bondage, by the overpowering force of divine forgiveness, or by a final battle, the
ultimate outcome of which, some hope, will be hell emptied, hell despoiled.

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 Additional Reading » General works

A valuable general study is Alan F. Segal, Life After Death: A History of the Afterlife in the
Religions of the West (2004). A detailed examination of hell in Western religion is provided in
Alan E. Bernstein, The Formation of Hell: Death and Retribution in the Ancient and Early
5Christian Worlds (1993), the first volume of a projected multivolume history of hell.
Kaufmann Kohler, Heaven and Hell in Comparative Religion (1923), is an older but still
useful study.

Artistic portrayals, as well as treatments of hell in popular culture, are examined in Clifford
Davidson and Thomas H. Seiler (eds.), The Iconography of Hell (1992); and Alice K. Turner,
10The History of Hell (1993).

Additional Reading » Ancient Middle East and Mediterranean

On the subject of hell in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, there is helpful material in Erik
Hornung, The Ancient Egyptian Books of the Afterlife, trans. by David Lorton (1999;
originally published in German in 1997); and John H. Taylor, Death and the Afterlife in
15Ancient Egypt (2001).

Greco-Roman conceptions of the underworld and postmortem judgment are the subject of
Walter Burkert, Ancient Mystery Cults (1987); Franz Cumont, After Life in Roman Paganism
(1922, reprinted 2002); and Sarah Iles Johnston, Restless Dead: Encounters Between the
Living and the Dead in Ancient Greece (1999).

20Additional Reading » Judaism, Christianity, and Islam

Representations of hell in Jewish and Christian biblical and apocalyptic literature are
examined in John J. Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination: An Introduction to Jewish
Apocalyptic Literature, 2nd ed. (1998); Martha Himmelfarb, Tours of Hell: An Apocalyptic
Form in Jewish and Christian Literature (1983); Jon D. Levenson, Resurrection and the
25Restoration of Israel: The Ultimate Victory of the God of Life (2006); George W.E.
Nickelsburg, Resurrection, Immortality, and Eternal Life in Intertestamental Judaism (1972);
and Nicholas J. Tromp, Primitive Conceptions of Death and the Nether World in the Old
Testament (1969).

Representations of the Devil in early, medieval, and modern Christianity are the subject of
30several works by Jeffrey Burton Russell: The Devil: Perceptions of Evil from Antiquity to
Primitive Christianity (1977, reprinted 1987), Satan: The Early Christian Tradition (1981),
Lucifer: The Devil in the Middle Ages (1984), and Mephistopheles: The Devil in the Modern
World (1986, reissued 1992).

Medieval visions of hell are treated in Eileen Gardiner (ed.), Visions of Heaven and Hell
35Before Dante (1989); Alison Morgan, Dante and the Medieval Other World (1990); and Carol
Zaleski, Otherworld Journeys: Accounts of Near-Death Experience in Medieval and Modern
Times (1987).

Works on hell in early-modern and modern Europe include Piero Camporesi, The Fear of
Hell: Images of Damnation and Salvation in Early Modern Europe (1991; originally
40published in Italian, 1987); D.P. Walker, The Decline of Hell: Seventeenth-Century
Discussions of Eternal Torment (1964); and Geoffrey Rowell, Hell and the Victorians: A
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 Study of the Nineteenth-Century Theological Controversies Concerning Eternal Punishment
and the Future Life (1974, reissued 2000).

Modern theological and philosophical debates on hell may be found in Jonathan L. Kvanvig,
The Problem of Hell (1993); Hans Urs von Balthasar, Dare We Hope: “That All Men Be
5Saved”?: With a Short Discourse on Hell, trans. from German (1988); and Jerry L. Walls,
Hell: The Logic of Damnation (1992).

Islamic conceptions of postmortem judgment and hell are discussed in Jane Idleman Smith
and Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad, The Islamic Understanding of Death and Resurrection (1981,
reissued 2002).

10Additional Reading » Hinduism, Buddhism, and Chinese traditions

Hell in the context of classical Hinduism and Buddhism is discussed in Wendy Doniger
O’Flaherty (ed.), Karma and Rebirth in Classical Indian Traditions (1980). Treatments of hell
and its analogues in Buddhism and East Asian cultures include Bryan J. Cuevas, The Hidden
History of The Tibetan Book of the Dead (2003); Daigan Matsunaga and Alicia Matsunaga,
15The Buddhist Concept of Hell (1972); Stephen F. Teiser, The Scripture on the Ten Kings and
the Making of Purgatory in Medieval Chinese Buddhism (1994, reissued 2003); and Richard
Von Glahn, The Sinister Way: The Divine and the Demonic in Chinese Culture (2004).

Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2009.

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