Early man, right from Stone Age (from around 3 million years ago), had some rudimentary notions about the 'afterlife'. The dead were buried with provisions which, so the thinking went, were needed for the life after death. Even today, this practice continues among some groups of people. While working in South Africa, the Chief of the area where I lived, died. He was buried with blankets and provisions, along with a man to serve him in the afterlife. Unluckily for this man, he was buried alive with the Chief!
Early man saw many happenings in nature that made him think about the afterlife or death and rebirth. Sun and moon appeared and disappeared. Trees shed leaves in one season only to regrow in the next. An afterlife clearly implies some sort of post-mortem existence. Hence came the idea of a soul. Different people thought differently about the various aspects of the soul. For some, it occupied different parts of the body: the eye, the liver, the heart and so on. Others believed that at death, the soul left the body via the top of the head [hence the trepanning (drilling a hole in the skull) ceremony] and so on.
To the Greeks, who believed in the afterlife, the dead went straight to the underworld called Hades (Hades is also the name of the god of the underworld). This place was guarded by a dog, called Cerberus. The soul had to cross the river Styx to reach this joyless place. The ferryman was Charon who was paid an obol, a small sum of money, to take the soul across. The dead were buried with an obol for this purpose.
Thomas Thayer, in his book The Origin and History of the Doctrine of Endless Punishment, explains that some Jews had borrowed the concept of Hades from the pagans and embellished it with fires, demons, and torments and turned it into the hell myth. But ancient historians knew the hell myth to be a fabrication created to keep the common man on the path of righteousness. Since the hoi poloi is full of evil desires, irrational passions and violence, it is impossible to govern them by philosophical reasoning and lead them to piety, holiness, and virtue. This can only be done by means of myths like eternal fire. These can be used to terrify the naive multitudes.
The word hell is the translation of the Hebrew word Sheol meaning The place or state of the dead. It has no reference to a place of endless torment after death. The idea of hell as a place of eternal torment is not found in Jesus' teachings or in the writings of Paul or in the earliest days of the Church. The idea of hell as a place of torment developed in the second and third centuries by which time Church leaders adopted it to frighten their flocks into obedience. It does not have any basis in scripture.
Under the influence of St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430), the concept of endless conscious torment gained acceptance in the Catholic Church. He taught that all souls were deathless and consequently the lost would experience endless fires of punishment after death. [Augustine is the inventor of the perverse notion of Original Sin - more on this later].
Some types of tortures in hell:
To those who have done well, everlasting enjoyment shall be given; while to the lovers of evil shall be given eternal punishment. "The unquenchable and unending fire awaits the latter and a certain fiery worm which does not die and which does not waste the body but continually bursts forth from the body with unceasing pain. No sleep will give them rest; no night will soothe them; no death will deliver them from punishment; no appeal of interceding friends will profit them. Clever fire burns the limbs and restores them, wears them away and yet sustains them, just as fiery thunderbolts strike bodies but do not consume them."
In the middle ages, Catholic thinkers developed a series of levels in hell, all with no basis in the bible.
Inferno (hell) - the place of torment for the damned and the demons;
Purgatory - the place for saved souls go to be purged of the temporal effects of their sins;
Limbo of the Infants - a place of perfect, natural happiness to which those who died before baptism with no sins on their conscience (e.g unbaptized babies);
Limbo of the Patriarchs - a place where the righteous went before the time of Jesus; it is this part of 'hell' that Jesus descended into. It no longer exists.
Today, the Church is slowly giving up on the 'hell myth' since it has no biblical support, and is incompatible with a loving God. According to a statement by Pope John Paul II, hell is not a place of fire and eternal suffering. He describes the suffering as a separation from God due to sin.
In this context, two poets come to mind. The images of hell we have today, come from poet Dante Alighieri (1265-1321). In his epic poem Divine Comedy, Dante takes the reader through the three regions of the dead: Hell, Purgatory and Paradise. In the process, he creates vivid scenes of these places which have become our conceptions of hell with demons, torments, and fire. The other poet is John Milton (1608-1674) who also deals with these areas in his poem Paradise Lost.
If the Church created hell, Dante and Milton furnished, decorated and, populated it. The Church used these horrific images to frighten the faithful into submission and so it adopted them in toto.
Early man saw many happenings in nature that made him think about the afterlife or death and rebirth. Sun and moon appeared and disappeared. Trees shed leaves in one season only to regrow in the next. An afterlife clearly implies some sort of post-mortem existence. Hence came the idea of a soul. Different people thought differently about the various aspects of the soul. For some, it occupied different parts of the body: the eye, the liver, the heart and so on. Others believed that at death, the soul left the body via the top of the head [hence the trepanning (drilling a hole in the skull) ceremony] and so on.
To the Greeks, who believed in the afterlife, the dead went straight to the underworld called Hades (Hades is also the name of the god of the underworld). This place was guarded by a dog, called Cerberus. The soul had to cross the river Styx to reach this joyless place. The ferryman was Charon who was paid an obol, a small sum of money, to take the soul across. The dead were buried with an obol for this purpose.
Thomas Thayer, in his book The Origin and History of the Doctrine of Endless Punishment, explains that some Jews had borrowed the concept of Hades from the pagans and embellished it with fires, demons, and torments and turned it into the hell myth. But ancient historians knew the hell myth to be a fabrication created to keep the common man on the path of righteousness. Since the hoi poloi is full of evil desires, irrational passions and violence, it is impossible to govern them by philosophical reasoning and lead them to piety, holiness, and virtue. This can only be done by means of myths like eternal fire. These can be used to terrify the naive multitudes.
The word hell is the translation of the Hebrew word Sheol meaning The place or state of the dead. It has no reference to a place of endless torment after death. The idea of hell as a place of eternal torment is not found in Jesus' teachings or in the writings of Paul or in the earliest days of the Church. The idea of hell as a place of torment developed in the second and third centuries by which time Church leaders adopted it to frighten their flocks into obedience. It does not have any basis in scripture.
Under the influence of St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430), the concept of endless conscious torment gained acceptance in the Catholic Church. He taught that all souls were deathless and consequently the lost would experience endless fires of punishment after death. [Augustine is the inventor of the perverse notion of Original Sin - more on this later].
Some types of tortures in hell:
To those who have done well, everlasting enjoyment shall be given; while to the lovers of evil shall be given eternal punishment. "The unquenchable and unending fire awaits the latter and a certain fiery worm which does not die and which does not waste the body but continually bursts forth from the body with unceasing pain. No sleep will give them rest; no night will soothe them; no death will deliver them from punishment; no appeal of interceding friends will profit them. Clever fire burns the limbs and restores them, wears them away and yet sustains them, just as fiery thunderbolts strike bodies but do not consume them."
In the middle ages, Catholic thinkers developed a series of levels in hell, all with no basis in the bible.
Inferno (hell) - the place of torment for the damned and the demons;
Purgatory - the place for saved souls go to be purged of the temporal effects of their sins;
Limbo of the Infants - a place of perfect, natural happiness to which those who died before baptism with no sins on their conscience (e.g unbaptized babies);
Limbo of the Patriarchs - a place where the righteous went before the time of Jesus; it is this part of 'hell' that Jesus descended into. It no longer exists.
Today, the Church is slowly giving up on the 'hell myth' since it has no biblical support, and is incompatible with a loving God. According to a statement by Pope John Paul II, hell is not a place of fire and eternal suffering. He describes the suffering as a separation from God due to sin.
In this context, two poets come to mind. The images of hell we have today, come from poet Dante Alighieri (1265-1321). In his epic poem Divine Comedy, Dante takes the reader through the three regions of the dead: Hell, Purgatory and Paradise. In the process, he creates vivid scenes of these places which have become our conceptions of hell with demons, torments, and fire. The other poet is John Milton (1608-1674) who also deals with these areas in his poem Paradise Lost.
If the Church created hell, Dante and Milton furnished, decorated and, populated it. The Church used these horrific images to frighten the faithful into submission and so it adopted them in toto.
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