The Penguin Book of Hell

by Scott G. Bruce

  And after Inferus had said these things to Prince Satan, then the King of Glory said to Inferus, “Prince Satan will be under your power forever in place of Adam and his sons, my righteous ones.”

  And holding out his hand, the Lord said, “Come to me, all of my saints, who have my image and my likeness. You who have been condemned by the tree and the devil and death, behold now the devil and death condemned by the cross.” Immediately, all of the saints came together under the hand of God. Then, holding the right hand of Adam, the Lord said to him, “Peace be with you and all your sons, my righteous ones.” Then Adam threw himself at the knees of the Lord, offered up a tearful prayer, and proclaimed with a loud voice, “I will praise you, Lord, because you have lifted me up, and you have not let my enemies triumph over me. O Lord, my God, I have cried out to you and you have healed me. Lord, you have brought forth my soul from Hell. You have saved me from those falling down into the pit. Sing to the Lord, O you his saints, and give praise to the memory of his holiness, for there is wrath in his indignation and there is life in his good will.”11 Likewise, all of the saints fell to their knees at the feet of the Lord and said in one voice, “You have come, O redeemer of the world; you have fulfilled with your deeds what you foretold through the law and your prophets. You have redeemed the living by your cross and you have come down to us by your death on the cross, to deliver us from Hell and death by your majesty. Lord, just as you have placed the banner of your glory in heaven and set up the sign of your redemption—your cross—on earth, place here in Hell, O Lord, a token of the victory of your cross, so that death may hold dominion no longer.”

  Then, holding out his hand, the Lord made the sign of the cross upon Adam and upon all of his saints, and holding Adam’s right hand, he ascended from Hell and all of the saints followed the Lord. Then, holy David called out bravely, saying, “Sing to the Lord a new song because the Lord has made wonders. His right hand will make for him salvation and his arm is holy. The Lord has made known his salvation; he has revealed his justice in the sight of the Gentiles.”12 And the entire multitude of saints responded, saying, “This glory is to all of his saints. Amen. Alleluia.”13

  And after this, the prophet Habakkuk called out, saying, “You went forth for the salvation of your people to liberate your chosen ones.”14 And all of the saints responded, saying, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord; the Lord God has illuminated us. Amen. Alleluia.” Likewise, after this, the prophet Micah also called out, saying, “What God is like you, O Lord, who takes away iniquities and removes sins? And now you hold back your wrath as a testimony because you are willingly merciful. And you have turned yourself away [from your wrath] and have had mercy on us and have forgiven all of our iniquities and all of our sins. And you have plunged all of our sins [into the depths] with the throng of death just as you promised to our fathers in the days of old.” And all of the saints responded, saying, “This is our God forever and unto ages of ages and he will rule us forever more. Amen. Alleluia.”15 Thus, as all of the prophets uttered these sacred words with praises that they had already spoken in prophecy and as all of the saints called out “Amen, Alleluia,” they followed the Lord out of Hell.

  ON THE LIP OF THE ABYSS: THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES (c. 500–1000 CE)

  Early medieval Christians inherited from pagan and Jewish traditions a firm understanding of Hell as a place where impious souls suffered after death, but they wrestled with the notion of where it was located. During the “dark ages” of European history (500–750 CE), monastic authors depicted the location and features of Hell in stories about visions of the afterlife. In these stories, the souls of ailing individuals made journeys to the otherworld to witness the horrors of Hell and the pleasures of Heaven, before returning to tell their tales to the living to encourage the cultivation of virtue and the avoidance of sin. The depiction of Hell in these stories was complicated by the fact that Christian thinkers like Pope Gregory the Great (c. 540–604 CE) and the Venerable Bede (672/73–735 CE) were also formulating the earliest ideas about Purgatory, a place between Heaven and Hell where the souls of the dead suffered in fire to purge them of their sins before they entered Heaven.

  The introduction of the concept of Purgatory had a strong influence on depictions of Hell in the early Middle Ages. Whereas souls in Purgatory had every hope of entering Heaven once their painful cleansing by fire was complete, the wicked bound for Hell would never escape the punishments awaiting them there. Their suffering would last forever. As a result, early medieval visions of the afterlife written by Gregory the Great and the Venerable Bede focused on the transient torments of sinful souls preparing for entry into Heaven and brought the reader only to the lip of Hell’s abyss without venturing any further, perhaps because the horrors awaiting unrepentant sinners were not as useful for encouraging the moral reform of individuals as the pains of Purgatory or perhaps because they were simply too terrible to contemplate. In contrast, the story of Saint Brendan’s encounter with Judas Iscariot on the trackless ocean blended elements of pre-Christian Irish mythology, particularily the immram tradition, in which heroes traveled by sea to the otherworld, and the ancient Homeric tradition, which located the entrance to Hades on a dark and distant shore.

  BEYOND THE BLACK RIVER1

  In the sixth century, Pope Gregory the Great answered questions about the fate of the souls of ordinary Christians posed to him by a young disciple named Peter. His answers appeared in the final book of his four-volume Dialogues, which Gregory completed in 594. In response to Peter’s question about souls that seem to have been taken out of their bodies in error, Gregory told three anecdotes he had heard from reliable witnesses about individuals on the brink of death who had been given a glimpse of Hell before returning to their bodies. In some cases, these individuals learned from their experience and embraced a life of repentance in fear of what they had seen in the world to come. In other cases, however, the vision of Hell inspired no correction and served only as a dire foreshadowing of the torments awaiting the sinner.

  For a certain monk from Illyria, who once lived in Rome in the monastery with me, used to tell me that when he still lived in the wilderness, he knew a Spanish monk named Peter, who abided with him in a place of empty solitude called Evasa. He had learned from Peter that, before he had sought the wilderness, he had died due to a sickness of the body, but he was immediately restored to life and claimed that he had seen the punishments of Hell and an endless landscape of flames. He also said that he had seen powerful men of this world suspended in those flames.

  As he was being carried to be plunged into Hell, Peter confessed that an angel in shining raiment suddenly appeared, who prevented him from being thrown into the fire. Indeed, it said to him, “Go back, and pay careful attention to how you live your life from now on.” After this warning, his limbs warmed little by little as he awoke from the sleep of eternal death. He reported all of the things that had happened around him and devoted himself thereafter to so many vigils and fasts that his new way of life spoke of the torments of Hell that he had seen and feared, even though his tongue remained silent. Thus, the wonderous mercy of almighty God brought about his temporary demise so that he did not have to die forever.

  But because the human heart is especially hard, a vision of the torments of Hell is not as useful to everyone. For a distinguished man named Steven, whom you know well, had told me himself that when he tarried in the city of Constantinople for some reason, he was overcome by a bodily illness and died. Since a doctor and an embalmer had been sought to open him up and embalm him, but had not been found on that day, his body lay unburied on the following night.

  Led to the domains of Hell, Steven saw many things that he did not believe in when he had heard about them while he was alive. But when he was brought before the judge who presided there, he was turned away. As the judge said, “I did not order this Steven to be brought, but rather Steven the blacksmith.” Our Steven was immediately sent back
to his own body, and Steven the blacksmith, who lived near him, died that very same hour. Thus, it was shown that the words he had heard were true, as the blacksmith’s death proved.

  Our Steven died three years later during that epidemic that depopulated this city with such vehement destruction, during which, as you know, people saw with their own eyes arrows falling from heaven to strike particular individuals. At this time, a soldier was struck down in our city and brought near to death. As he lay at death’s door, his soul was led from his body, but it quickly returned and he recounted everything that had happened to it.

  For he said—as many reported at the time—that he saw a bridge. Under it flowed a black river veiled in mist that poured forth a cloud of intolerable stench. Across the bridge there were green and pleasant meadows adorned with scented flowers. In the meadows could be seen companies of people all clad in white. There was such an aroma of sweetness in that place that the fragrance pleased everyone who walked about and dwelt there.

  There were dwellings of different sizes, full of light, including a magnificent house, which seemed to have been built of gold bricks, but whose house it was, he could not tell. Upon the banks of the river there were a few smaller dwellings. Some the vapors of drifting stench defiled; others the reek rising from the river barely touched at all.

  Crossing the bridge was a trial. If the unjust tried to cross, they would slip into the black and fetid river, while those who were just and unburdened by sin could traverse it safely and easily to the pleasant meadows beyond.

  The soldier confessed that he also saw Peter there, an overseer of the church, who had died four years before. He was thrust down in a filthy place, mired and bound with a great weight of iron. When the soldier asked why he suffered in this way, he said that he was told things that those of us who knew him in the church recalled, knowing what he had done. For Peter said, “I am suffering this torment because when I was ordered to punish someone, I obeyed and inflicted the blows more out of cruelty than out of obedience.” No one who knew him had any doubts that this was true.

  The soldier said that he saw a foreign presbyter approach the bridge and cross it with great confidence because he had lived with such integrity. On the same bridge, he swore that he recognized our Steven, whom I spoke about before. While he was crossing, his foot slipped and he fell with half of his body dangling from the bridge. Reeking creatures rose up from the river to pull him down by the hips, while the most handsome figures in white pulled him upward by the arms. While this struggle was taking place, as the good spirits tugged him upward and the evil ones dragged him down, the man who witnessed this returned to his body and did not learn any more about Steven’s fate.

  In this story, we learn something about the life of Steven because in this man the evils of the flesh wrestled with the work of almsgiving. Indeed, as he was dragged down by the hips and pulled up by the arms, it is very clear that he had loved to give alms and yet had not completely forsaken the sins of the flesh that pulled him down. But which side won out in that trial of the hidden judge, neither we nor the one who saw him can say.

  It is clear, however, that this Steven returned to his body after he saw the domains of Hell (as I described earlier) and did not completely correct his life. Several years later, he departed from his body, his soul the prize in a contest between life and death. Concerning this, we learn that when people experience visions of Hell, to some it is a help, but to others it serves as a testimony that those who witness evils that they can prevent will be punished all the more because they could not avoid the torments of Hell that they had already seen and known to be true.

  BEHOLD, THE FIRE DRAWS NEAR ME1

  The Venerable Bede, a monk of the abbey of Wearmouth-Jarrow in Northumbria, narrated two accounts of otherworldly journeys in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People (completed 731). The first of these concerned a monk named Fursa. After falling into a trance due to an illness, this ascetic experienced a vision of Hell featuring a dark valley and four balls of fire that floated in the air, each one representing a particular sin. Although he was protected by angelic escorts, Fursa received burns from the scorching soul of a sinner he had known in life. Much to his surprise, upon his return to his own body, he discovered that he bore scars where the hellfire had touched him. These scars served not only as proof that his story was true but also as a painful reminder of the fate in store for sinners in the afterlife.

  Among these stories there is one, which we thought it would be useful to put in this history for the benefit of many. When Fursa had been lifted up on high, he was ordered by the angels who were carrying him to look upon the world. As he directed his eyes downward, he saw some kind of dark valley beneath him far below, and he saw four fires in the air very close to one another. And when he asked the angels what these fires were, he learned that these were the fires that would kindle and eventually consume the world: one is the fire of falsehood, when we do not fulfill what we promised in baptism to renounce Satan and all of his works; another is the fire of avarice, when we place our love of worldly riches before our love of the riches of heaven; the third is the fire of discord, when we do not fear to offend the souls of our neighbors even in superficial matters; and the fourth fire is irreverence, when we think it nothing to despoil and defraud those weaker than ourselves. Little by little, the fires merged together and became one immense conflagration. When the fires approached, Fursa said to the angel in fear, “Lord, behold the fire draws near me.” But the angel replied, “What you did not kindle will not burn you.2 Although this pyre seems great and frightening, it tests each person according to the merits of their works, and the sin of each person will burn in that flame. For just as someone’s body burns due to illicit desire, thus the person freed from the body will burn due to the punishment owed for the sin.”

  Then Fursa saw one of the three angels, who had served as his guides in both of his visions, flying forward to divide the flames, and the other two flew around on either side of him to protect him from the threat of the fires. He also saw demons flying amid the flames to marshal the fury of hostilities against the just. There followed the accusations of evil spirits against him, the defences of good spirits on his behalf, and a fuller vision not only of the heavenly hosts but also of the holy men from his own nation.3 Fursa learned from popular report that they had obtained high ranks of the priesthood in their day and from them he heard not a few things that were beneficial to himself or to anyone who wished to listen. When they had finished speaking and they returned to Heaven once more with the angelic spirits, the three angels, concerning whom we have spoken, remained with the blessed Fursa to take him back to his body. When they drew near to the great conflagration, the angel divided the flames, as before. But when Fursa came to the passage that the angel had opened amid the flames, evil spirits seized one of the souls that was roasting in the fire and hurled it directly at Fursa, striking his shoulder and jaw and burning him. Fursa recognized the man and recalled that he had received some of his clothing when he had died. The holy angel immediately grabbed the soul and cast it back into the fire. The malicious adversary taunted them, “Do not reject the one whom you once acknowledged, for just as you received the sinner’s goods, so too you ought to share in his torments.” The angel spoke against him, saying, “He did not receive it out of greed, but to save his soul.” And just then, the fire died down. And turning to Fursa, the angel said, “What you kindled has burned you. For if you had not received the goods of this man, who died in his sins, his punishment would not have hurt you.” And the angel then taught Fursa many things with saving words concerning what should be done for the salvation of those who repent at death’s door.

  After he had been restored to his body, for the rest of his life Fursa carried on his shoulder and jaw the scars of those burns that he had received in the spirit, visible for all to see. It is amazing that what the soul suffered in secret, the flesh displayed so openly. Fursa always
took care, just as he used to do before, to model for everyone the work of virtues by his example and to preach it with his words. He talked about his visions only to those who asked him because of their desire to repent. There is an aged brother of our monastery who used to tell us that a very truthful and devout man had told him that he had seen Fursa himself in the kingdom of the East Angles and had heard the story of these visions from the saint’s own mouth. He added that their conversation had taken place in a very harsh winter season in the grip of a hard frost. Although he was sitting in a thin garment while they spoke, Fursa was sweating as though in the heat of high summer, either because of the magnitude of the fear evoked by these memories or the enormity of his joy in their recollection.

  DRYHTHELM RETURNS FROM THE DEAD1

  The second otherworldly journey related by the Venerable Bede concerned a monk named Dryhthelm, whose soul journeyed far from his body to witness a variety of torments that the dead endured to prepare them for God’s final judgment. Dryhthelm’s experience unmasked the ambiguous topography of the afterlife in early medieval thought. As the monk watched souls being tortured in turn by scorching heat and painful cold, he wondered if he was looking upon Hell, only to be told by his angelic guide that he was not. Only later did he venture farther on to a shadowy place infested with demons, where jets of flame filled with doomed souls spouted over a dark pit. This was without doubt the entrance to Hell. In the newly converted territories of the Anglo-Saxons, Dryhthelm’s vision of “the flame-spitting abyss” sounded a dire warning. Only those believers who embraced the Christian faith with a true change of heart and a contempt for this world would experience God’s abiding presence in Heaven. The rest could anticipate an eternity of excruciating torment in the company of demons.