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History of Hell
Though Christian theology gave its underworld the name of the Goddess Hel, it was quite a different place from her womb of regeneration. The ancients didn't view the underworld as primarily a place of punishment. It was dark, mysterious, and awesome, but not the vast torture chamber Christians made of it.
Greeks called the underworld Erebus, Hades, or Tartarus, from the "tortoise" incarnation of Vishnu, who was supposed to support the earth in the form of a tortoise. Shades of the dead dwelling in Tartarus endured no torment other than the general cheerlessness of being dead. Lacking blood, shadows, voices, and vital energy, they waited yearningly for rebirth.
Like the realms of earth and heaven, the underworld had its social heirarchy. Queen Persephone or Hecate, her consort Pluto or Hades, ruled magistrates like Aeacus, Rhadamanthys, and Minos, who were wizard-kings on earth. There were spirits like Hypnos (Sleep), Morpheus (Dream), and Thanatos (Death). Sometimes, as in the medieval vision of fairyland, the underworld was a place of sensual delight. In the Elysian Fields, souls of the enlightened ones were tended by the Goddess's divine nymphs.
Like the Egyptian nether god, seker or Amen, Hades was "the unseen one"--the ubiquitous Hidden God in his intra-uterin, sleeping, or dead Black Sun phase. Lord of the Underworld or Lord of Death, he was also a phallic deity, holding the "key" to the nether yonic gate, as his heavenly counterpart Petra (Peter) held the key to the Pearly Gate of Celestial Aphrodite. The nether god was supposed to deposit his semen in rocks, where it solidified into precious gems, a western version of the Jewel in the Lotus. Thus he was Lord of Riches also. Romans called Hades by the name of Dis, short for Dives, "the rich god." Most savior-gods who "harrowed hell," or plowed the earth-womb, were credited with the power to reveal buried treasure, a power inherited by the Christian devil.
Egyptian pictures of "the wicked" being destroyed in the underworld fire-pits were interpreted by christians as torments of damned souls. However, these "wicked" were not necessarily human. They were supernatural enemies of the sun god: spirits of darkness, mist, storm. The fire-pits seem to have represented the burning clouds of sunrise and sunset. Even when victims were human, their burning was not eternal.
Egyptians did not believe in purgatory or everlasting punishment...
The wicked were slaughtered daily and their bodies consumed by fire,
but each day brought its own supply of these, and thus the avenging gods
were kept busy daily, and the fire-pits were filled with victims daily.
There is no evidence in the texts that the Egyptians thought the burning
of the same victims could go on forever.
The idea of eternal torture in hell arose with ascetic patriarchal religions like that of Zoroastrian Persia. Masculine preoccupation with pain stood in contrast to the matriarchies' preoccupation with pleasure, a psychic outgrowth of the severities of the ascetic life. There is reason to believe hell's nastier torments were invented primarily to intimidate women into obeying new patriarchal laws.
Zoroastrian priests insisted women who were unfaithful to their husbands would go to hell and have their breasts torn open with iron combs. Women who showed disloyalty to men would be hung up by one let, while scorpions, snakes, ants, and worms dug their way in and out of their bodies. A similar vision inspired Grunewald's medieval picture of the hellish torments in store for those who commited the crime of loving. But not even the Persians supposed the torments of hell would go on forever. That refinement of cruelty was left to the Christians.
The Jews adopted the Persian's hell as a place for the punishing the majority of women, judged hopelessly unworthy of the Father-god's heaven. Men could be consigned to hell for holding too much unnecessary conversation with their wives, or for taking feminine advice. The female creation-river Gihon was converted into Gehenna, the Jewish hell's river of fire, whos name was sometimes applied to the whole land. The kingdom of Genenna was 60 times as large as the world. Each of its "palaces" had 6000 "houses," and each house had 6000 vessels of fire and gall awaiting the sinner. Prince of Gehenna was Arsiel, copied from the Chaldean "Black Sun" Aciel, the negative deity corresponding to the god of light in the celestial realm.
Judeo-Christian tradition populated hell with all the biblical baalim, even those who had been identified with Yahweh himself: Behemoth, leviathan, Baal-Peor, Baal-Zebub, Baal-Rimmon, Belial, Asmodeus, Molech, Lucifer, Satan, Tammuz, Dagon, Nehushtan, Chemosh (Shamash), Apollyon: even Baal-Berith, the "god of the Covenant." These were joined by gods and goddesses of classical religions: Hades, Pluto, Diana, Persephone, Hermes, Python, Hecate, Minerva, Venus, Cybele, Attis, Jupiter, Neptune, Saturn, Adonis, Pan, Lamia, Medusa, Lilith--Plus all the gods and goddesses of Germanic and Celtic Paganism. Even those who were artificially canonized, to convert their old shrines into churches, were often simultaneously diabolized and consigned to hell in the guise of demons.
There was a curious medieval passion for identifying, classifying, and naming all the demons. Sorcery required knowledge of their names and titles. An exorcist could do nothing until he learned the name of the demon he dealth with. The Gospels said even Jesus needed to learn the names of the Gadarene devils he exorcised (Mark 5:9). Thus, many sources provided lists of femonic names.
One of the most interesting dissertations on hell was Johann Weyer's Pseudomonarchia Daemonum, Published in the 16th century when Weyer served the Duke of Cleves as a healer and diviner. Weyer said there were exatly 7,405,926 demons, divided into 72 companies. These figures had already been reported in the Talmud. Supreme Chief of the Inferrial Empire and founder of the Order of the Fly was Beelzebuth (Baal-Zebub), the old Philistine Lord of Flies. His lieutenants included Satan, Leader of the Opposition; Pluto, Prince of Fire; Moloch, Prince of the Land of Tears and Grand Cross of the Order of the Fly, Baal, Commander-in-Chief of the Infernal Armies and another Grand Cross of the Order of the Fly; and Lucifer, Lord Chief Justice of hell. Baal-Berith, erstwhile God of the Covenant,filled the post of Minister or Treaties, nergal, husband of the Babylonian underground Goddess Eresh-kigal, became hell's Chief of Secret Police. The Royal Household included Melchom (Milcom) as Paymaster, and the Philistine god Dagon as Grand Pantler. The Hebrew elephant god Behemoth (originally Ganesha, father of Buddha) was Grand CupBearer. Among the Masters of the Revels, Asmodeus held the post of Superintendent of Casinos. Antichrist was only an insignificant judggler and mimic.
The infernal heirarchy also maintained embassies in various European countries. Thamuz or Tammuz, was Ambassador to Spain. Baal-Rimmon, Phoenicia's "Lord of the Pomegranate," was Ambassador to Russia. England's ambassador was Mammon, whos appointment reflected continental resentment of the English zeal for commerce.
Sexual prejudice also extended to the denizens of hell. There was only one token female among hell's governing spirits: Proserpine, called Arch-she-devil and Sovereign Princess of Mischievous Spirits. Astaroth (Astarte) was present only in masculine disguise, as a "duke" of hell and its Grand Treasure. The Goddess Belili took two male shapes, as Belial and Belphegor, hell's ambassadors to Turkey and France.
Masculinized Goddesses appeared also in Collin de Plancy's Dictionnaire infernal, an imitation of Weyer's Pseudomonarchia, showing portraits of a male "demon Ashtoreth" and a male "demon Eurynome." Even Lilith was masculinized as a hellish "prince" in Alexis de Terreneuve du Thym's list of devils: "Beelzebub, the supreme chieftain; Satan, the dethroned prince; Eurinome, prince of death; Moloch, prince of the Land of Tears; Pluto, prince of fire; Pan, prince of incubi; Lilith, prince of succubae; Leonard, grand master of the Sabbaths; Daalberith (Baal Berith), high pontiff; and Proserpine, the arch she-devil."
What Weyer's solemn imitators never understood was that the Pseudomonarchia was really and elaborate joke, invented as a caricature of earthly hierarchies. Humor and skepticism were equally foreign to the Age of Faith, when the core of learning was credulity. It was a childlike age. Generations of would-be Magi soberly studied Weyer's mockery in search of demonic names to use in magic charms.
Weyer not only mocked the Christian hierarchy; he also defended witches. As a physician, he was called to examine some of the Inquisition's victims, and pronounced them harmless, deluded women who could not be held responsible for the statements wrung from them by torture. He tried unsuccessfully to halt the tortures and burnings. For this he was accused of heresy and indecency. Father Bartolomeo da Spina scorned Weyer with heavy-handed irony: "Recently Satan went to a Sabbath attired as a great prince, and told the assembled witches they need not worry since, thanks to Weyer and his followers, the affairs of the Devil were brilliantly progressing."
But, Weyer aside, hell was not a joke. It was perhaps the most sadistic fantasy ever conceived my the mind of man. It was described, painted, and contemplated with incredibly perverse relish. Berthold of Regensburg said sinful folk must imagine their punishment in hell as the pain of a body made white-hot in a white-hot universe. "Let them count the sands of the sea-shore, or every hair that has grown upon man and beast since the days of Adam; let them reckon a year of torment for each of those hairs and, even then, the sinner will be only at the outset of his unending agony."Martin of Braga said anyone who renounced Christianity would be "put physically into eternal fire in hell, where the inextinguishable flames burn for ever...and such a man shall long to die again, and not feel the punishment, but he will not be allowed to."
Churchmen claimed the fires of sexual passion were transmuted into the fires of hell, blown by the breath of God into a heat fiercer than any earthly flame. A single drop of sweat from a damned soul would pierce living flesh like an arrow and burn like acid. One was told to imagine the pain of being covered with such sweat, forever. The story of sinner's sweat was often told throughout the Middle Ages. It may have been inspired by a passage from the Mahabharata: "As the lord of gods, whose energy is infinite, became angry, a terrible drop of sweat came out of his forehead; and as soon as that drop of sweat had fallen to the earth, and enormous fire like the fire of doomsday appeared."
Perhaps the worst part of the hell-vision was theologians' insistence that the joy of the blessed ones in heaven couldn't be complete unless they were permitted to gloat over the sufferings of the damned. St Gregory the Great assumed with appalling naturealness that is "good" people in heaven would be entirely without pity. St. Thomas Aquinas wrote: "In order that nothing may be wanting to the felicity of the blessed spirits in heaven, a perfect view is granted to them of the tortures of the damned." Other fathers of the church proclaimed that, while the greatest pleasure of the saved would be contemplating the Divine Essence, their second greatest pleasure would be watching the damned writhing in hell. They couldn't feel sorry for loved ones or friends in torment, because their opinions would always be identical with God's; and God apparently reveled in sinners' pain.
Thomas of Cantimpre mentioned some "simple folk" who worried about having to watch former friends or relatives suffering in hell. He said these worries were foolish, because no one in heaven could grieve for anything. He cited the Blessed Marie d'Oignies, who saw in a vision that her dead mother was damned, and so stopped mourning for her at once.
St. Bernardino of Siena argued that heaven must be perfect, and perfection couldn't be achieved without "due admixture of groans from the Damned." Only a few people were good enough to be saved; the vast majority would go to hell. This was the orthodox opinion. Raymond Lull was condemned as a heretic for trying to teach that Christ's mercy would save nearly all men. Christ was not that merciful; only the mother Mary was that merciful. An Ethiopian Christian legend said Mary was distressed to see her kinfolk in hellfire, and asked God to give humanity hold writings that would save them.
The sadism implicit in the fantasy of hell was all too graphically enacted by the inquisitors' totures and burnings. The Inquisition's handbook directed that "eternal damnation should begin in this life, that it might be in some way shown with what will be suffered in hell." The inquisitor Bodin considered even slow burning a negligible punishment in view of its sequel: "Whatever punishment one can order against witches by roasting and cooking them over a slow fire is not really very much, and not as bad as the torment which Satan has made for them in this world, to say nothing of the eternal agonies which are prepared for them in hell, for the fire here cannot last more than an hour or so until the witches have died." Of course, the witches so mercifully slain often had been subjected to unendurable tortures already for weeks, months, or even years.
In the end, scholars were forced to renounce hell because it made God look more vindictive than man, though few dared admit that the vindictiveness sanctioned and stressed by the church was really man's alone. Shaftesbury said it was impossible to adore a God "whose character is to be captious and of high resentment, subject to wrath and anger, furious, revengeful...Of a fraudulent disposition, encouraging deceit and treachery among men, favorable to a few, thought for slight causes, and cruel to the rest." Bayle found it impossible to exonerate "a good and omnipotent God" from responsibility for the world's evils, thought he made humanity suffer for them. The problem became "infinitely more difficult when He has also to be exonerated from causeing the suffering and wickedness of the next world."
History of Hell
Though Christian theology gave its underworld the name of the Goddess Hel, it was quite a different place from her womb of regeneration. The ancients didn't view the underworld as primarily a place of punishment. It was dark, mysterious, and awesome, but not the vast torture chamber Christians made of it.
Greeks called the underworld Erebus, Hades, or Tartarus, from the "tortoise" incarnation of Vishnu, who was supposed to support the earth in the form of a tortoise. Shades of the dead dwelling in Tartarus endured no torment other than the general cheerlessness of being dead. Lacking blood, shadows, voices, and vital energy, they waited yearningly for rebirth.
Like the realms of earth and heaven, the underworld had its social heirarchy. Queen Persephone or Hecate, her consort Pluto or Hades, ruled magistrates like Aeacus, Rhadamanthys, and Minos, who were wizard-kings on earth. There were spirits like Hypnos (Sleep), Morpheus (Dream), and Thanatos (Death). Sometimes, as in the medieval vision of fairyland, the underworld was a place of sensual delight. In the Elysian Fields, souls of the enlightened ones were tended by the Goddess's divine nymphs.
Like the Egyptian nether god, seker or Amen, Hades was "the unseen one"--the ubiquitous Hidden God in his intra-uterin, sleeping, or dead Black Sun phase. Lord of the Underworld or Lord of Death, he was also a phallic deity, holding the "key" to the nether yonic gate, as his heavenly counterpart Petra (Peter) held the key to the Pearly Gate of Celestial Aphrodite. The nether god was supposed to deposit his semen in rocks, where it solidified into precious gems, a western version of the Jewel in the Lotus. Thus he was Lord of Riches also. Romans called Hades by the name of Dis, short for Dives, "the rich god." Most savior-gods who "harrowed hell," or plowed the earth-womb, were credited with the power to reveal buried treasure, a power inherited by the Christian devil.
Egyptian pictures of "the wicked" being destroyed in the underworld fire-pits were interpreted by christians as torments of damned souls. However, these "wicked" were not necessarily human. They were supernatural enemies of the sun god: spirits of darkness, mist, storm. The fire-pits seem to have represented the burning clouds of sunrise and sunset. Even when victims were human, their burning was not eternal.
Egyptians did not believe in purgatory or everlasting punishment...
The wicked were slaughtered daily and their bodies consumed by fire,
but each day brought its own supply of these, and thus the avenging gods
were kept busy daily, and the fire-pits were filled with victims daily.
There is no evidence in the texts that the Egyptians thought the burning
of the same victims could go on forever.
The idea of eternal torture in hell arose with ascetic patriarchal religions like that of Zoroastrian Persia. Masculine preoccupation with pain stood in contrast to the matriarchies' preoccupation with pleasure, a psychic outgrowth of the severities of the ascetic life. There is reason to believe hell's nastier torments were invented primarily to intimidate women into obeying new patriarchal laws.
Zoroastrian priests insisted women who were unfaithful to their husbands would go to hell and have their breasts torn open with iron combs. Women who showed disloyalty to men would be hung up by one let, while scorpions, snakes, ants, and worms dug their way in and out of their bodies. A similar vision inspired Grunewald's medieval picture of the hellish torments in store for those who commited the crime of loving. But not even the Persians supposed the torments of hell would go on forever. That refinement of cruelty was left to the Christians.
The Jews adopted the Persian's hell as a place for the punishing the majority of women, judged hopelessly unworthy of the Father-god's heaven. Men could be consigned to hell for holding too much unnecessary conversation with their wives, or for taking feminine advice. The female creation-river Gihon was converted into Gehenna, the Jewish hell's river of fire, whos name was sometimes applied to the whole land. The kingdom of Genenna was 60 times as large as the world. Each of its "palaces" had 6000 "houses," and each house had 6000 vessels of fire and gall awaiting the sinner. Prince of Gehenna was Arsiel, copied from the Chaldean "Black Sun" Aciel, the negative deity corresponding to the god of light in the celestial realm.
Judeo-Christian tradition populated hell with all the biblical baalim, even those who had been identified with Yahweh himself: Behemoth, leviathan, Baal-Peor, Baal-Zebub, Baal-Rimmon, Belial, Asmodeus, Molech, Lucifer, Satan, Tammuz, Dagon, Nehushtan, Chemosh (Shamash), Apollyon: even Baal-Berith, the "god of the Covenant." These were joined by gods and goddesses of classical religions: Hades, Pluto, Diana, Persephone, Hermes, Python, Hecate, Minerva, Venus, Cybele, Attis, Jupiter, Neptune, Saturn, Adonis, Pan, Lamia, Medusa, Lilith--Plus all the gods and goddesses of Germanic and Celtic Paganism. Even those who were artificially canonized, to convert their old shrines into churches, were often simultaneously diabolized and consigned to hell in the guise of demons.
There was a curious medieval passion for identifying, classifying, and naming all the demons. Sorcery required knowledge of their names and titles. An exorcist could do nothing until he learned the name of the demon he dealth with. The Gospels said even Jesus needed to learn the names of the Gadarene devils he exorcised (Mark 5:9). Thus, many sources provided lists of femonic names.
One of the most interesting dissertations on hell was Johann Weyer's Pseudomonarchia Daemonum, Published in the 16th century when Weyer served the Duke of Cleves as a healer and diviner. Weyer said there were exatly 7,405,926 demons, divided into 72 companies. These figures had already been reported in the Talmud. Supreme Chief of the Inferrial Empire and founder of the Order of the Fly was Beelzebuth (Baal-Zebub), the old Philistine Lord of Flies. His lieutenants included Satan, Leader of the Opposition; Pluto, Prince of Fire; Moloch, Prince of the Land of Tears and Grand Cross of the Order of the Fly, Baal, Commander-in-Chief of the Infernal Armies and another Grand Cross of the Order of the Fly; and Lucifer, Lord Chief Justice of hell. Baal-Berith, erstwhile God of the Covenant,filled the post of Minister or Treaties, nergal, husband of the Babylonian underground Goddess Eresh-kigal, became hell's Chief of Secret Police. The Royal Household included Melchom (Milcom) as Paymaster, and the Philistine god Dagon as Grand Pantler. The Hebrew elephant god Behemoth (originally Ganesha, father of Buddha) was Grand CupBearer. Among the Masters of the Revels, Asmodeus held the post of Superintendent of Casinos. Antichrist was only an insignificant judggler and mimic.
The infernal heirarchy also maintained embassies in various European countries. Thamuz or Tammuz, was Ambassador to Spain. Baal-Rimmon, Phoenicia's "Lord of the Pomegranate," was Ambassador to Russia. England's ambassador was Mammon, whos appointment reflected continental resentment of the English zeal for commerce.
Sexual prejudice also extended to the denizens of hell. There was only one token female among hell's governing spirits: Proserpine, called Arch-she-devil and Sovereign Princess of Mischievous Spirits. Astaroth (Astarte) was present only in masculine disguise, as a "duke" of hell and its Grand Treasure. The Goddess Belili took two male shapes, as Belial and Belphegor, hell's ambassadors to Turkey and France.
Masculinized Goddesses appeared also in Collin de Plancy's Dictionnaire infernal, an imitation of Weyer's Pseudomonarchia, showing portraits of a male "demon Ashtoreth" and a male "demon Eurynome." Even Lilith was masculinized as a hellish "prince" in Alexis de Terreneuve du Thym's list of devils: "Beelzebub, the supreme chieftain; Satan, the dethroned prince; Eurinome, prince of death; Moloch, prince of the Land of Tears; Pluto, prince of fire; Pan, prince of incubi; Lilith, prince of succubae; Leonard, grand master of the Sabbaths; Daalberith (Baal Berith), high pontiff; and Proserpine, the arch she-devil."
What Weyer's solemn imitators never understood was that the Pseudomonarchia was really and elaborate joke, invented as a caricature of earthly hierarchies. Humor and skepticism were equally foreign to the Age of Faith, when the core of learning was credulity. It was a childlike age. Generations of would-be Magi soberly studied Weyer's mockery in search of demonic names to use in magic charms.
Weyer not only mocked the Christian hierarchy; he also defended witches. As a physician, he was called to examine some of the Inquisition's victims, and pronounced them harmless, deluded women who could not be held responsible for the statements wrung from them by torture. He tried unsuccessfully to halt the tortures and burnings. For this he was accused of heresy and indecency. Father Bartolomeo da Spina scorned Weyer with heavy-handed irony: "Recently Satan went to a Sabbath attired as a great prince, and told the assembled witches they need not worry since, thanks to Weyer and his followers, the affairs of the Devil were brilliantly progressing."
But, Weyer aside, hell was not a joke. It was perhaps the most sadistic fantasy ever conceived my the mind of man. It was described, painted, and contemplated with incredibly perverse relish. Berthold of Regensburg said sinful folk must imagine their punishment in hell as the pain of a body made white-hot in a white-hot universe. "Let them count the sands of the sea-shore, or every hair that has grown upon man and beast since the days of Adam; let them reckon a year of torment for each of those hairs and, even then, the sinner will be only at the outset of his unending agony."Martin of Braga said anyone who renounced Christianity would be "put physically into eternal fire in hell, where the inextinguishable flames burn for ever...and such a man shall long to die again, and not feel the punishment, but he will not be allowed to."
Churchmen claimed the fires of sexual passion were transmuted into the fires of hell, blown by the breath of God into a heat fiercer than any earthly flame. A single drop of sweat from a damned soul would pierce living flesh like an arrow and burn like acid. One was told to imagine the pain of being covered with such sweat, forever. The story of sinner's sweat was often told throughout the Middle Ages. It may have been inspired by a passage from the Mahabharata: "As the lord of gods, whose energy is infinite, became angry, a terrible drop of sweat came out of his forehead; and as soon as that drop of sweat had fallen to the earth, and enormous fire like the fire of doomsday appeared."
Perhaps the worst part of the hell-vision was theologians' insistence that the joy of the blessed ones in heaven couldn't be complete unless they were permitted to gloat over the sufferings of the damned. St Gregory the Great assumed with appalling naturealness that is "good" people in heaven would be entirely without pity. St. Thomas Aquinas wrote: "In order that nothing may be wanting to the felicity of the blessed spirits in heaven, a perfect view is granted to them of the tortures of the damned." Other fathers of the church proclaimed that, while the greatest pleasure of the saved would be contemplating the Divine Essence, their second greatest pleasure would be watching the damned writhing in hell. They couldn't feel sorry for loved ones or friends in torment, because their opinions would always be identical with God's; and God apparently reveled in sinners' pain.
Thomas of Cantimpre mentioned some "simple folk" who worried about having to watch former friends or relatives suffering in hell. He said these worries were foolish, because no one in heaven could grieve for anything. He cited the Blessed Marie d'Oignies, who saw in a vision that her dead mother was damned, and so stopped mourning for her at once.
St. Bernardino of Siena argued that heaven must be perfect, and perfection couldn't be achieved without "due admixture of groans from the Damned." Only a few people were good enough to be saved; the vast majority would go to hell. This was the orthodox opinion. Raymond Lull was condemned as a heretic for trying to teach that Christ's mercy would save nearly all men. Christ was not that merciful; only the mother Mary was that merciful. An Ethiopian Christian legend said Mary was distressed to see her kinfolk in hellfire, and asked God to give humanity hold writings that would save them.
The sadism implicit in the fantasy of hell was all too graphically enacted by the inquisitors' totures and burnings. The Inquisition's handbook directed that "eternal damnation should begin in this life, that it might be in some way shown with what will be suffered in hell." The inquisitor Bodin considered even slow burning a negligible punishment in view of its sequel: "Whatever punishment one can order against witches by roasting and cooking them over a slow fire is not really very much, and not as bad as the torment which Satan has made for them in this world, to say nothing of the eternal agonies which are prepared for them in hell, for the fire here cannot last more than an hour or so until the witches have died." Of course, the witches so mercifully slain often had been subjected to unendurable tortures already for weeks, months, or even years.
In the end, scholars were forced to renounce hell because it made God look more vindictive than man, though few dared admit that the vindictiveness sanctioned and stressed by the church was really man's alone. Shaftesbury said it was impossible to adore a God "whose character is to be captious and of high resentment, subject to wrath and anger, furious, revengeful...Of a fraudulent disposition, encouraging deceit and treachery among men, favorable to a few, thought for slight causes, and cruel to the rest." Bayle found it impossible to exonerate "a good and omnipotent God" from responsibility for the world's evils, thought he made humanity suffer for them. The problem became "infinitely more difficult when He has also to be exonerated from causeing the suffering and wickedness of the next world."