The Penguin Book of Hell

by Scott G. Bruce

  A LIVING DEATH SHALL FEED UPON THEM1

  John Bunyan (1628–88) was a Puritan preacher and author. His best-known book was an immensely popular Christian allegory called The Pilgrim’s Progress (1678), but he wrote dozens of other religious pamphlets as well. Among his lesser-known works is a treatise on the Christian afterlife titled The Resurrection of the Dead and Eternall Judgement, or, The Truth of the Resurrection of the Bodies Both of Good and Bad at the Last Day (1665). This book repeated many of the tropes about the miseries of Hell well known from other seventeenth-century authors, but Bunyan made his mark on the history of the fate of the damned by imagining the resurrection of their bodies on the Day of Judgment. While every other account of the horrible fate awaiting wicked souls commenced with their sentence to an eternity in Hell, Bunyan dared to imagine the damned rising to the call of the angel’s horn as rotting corpses even before the Last Judgment. According to his logic, the blessed and the damned are opposed in all things. If the blessed rose for the Judgment in spiritual bodies, it followed that the wicked rose up in bodies plagued with decay and corruption. He called this terrifying moment in salvation history “the resurrection of damnation.” Thus, even before God issued his judgment, the wicked wore their sins for all to see on the wreckage of their reeking corpses, “having yet the chains of eternal death hanging on them.”

  Having in the first place shewed you that the wicked must arise, I shall in the next place shew you the manner of their rising. And observe it, as the very title of the just and unjust are opposites, so they are in all other matters, and in their Resurrections.

  First then, as the just in their Resurrection do come forth in incorruption, the unjust in their Resurrection shall come forth in their corruptions; for though the ungodly at their Resurrection shall forever after be incapable of having Body and Soul separate, or of their being annihilated into nothing, yet it shall be far from them to rise in incorruption, for if they arise in incorruption, they must arise to life, and also must have the Conquest over sin and death. But that they shall not, for it is the Righteous only that put on incorruption, that are swallowed up of life. The wicked’s Resurrection, it is called the Resurrection of damnation. These in their very Resurrection shall be hurt of the second Death. They shall arise in death and shall be under it, under the gnawings and terrors of it, all the time of their Arraignment. As it were, a living death shall feed upon them; they shall never be spiritually alive, nor yet absolutely dead, but much after that manner, that natural death, and Hell, by reason of guilt, doth feed on him, that is going before the Judge to receive his Condemnation to the Gallows. You know, though a Felon go forth to the Gaol, when he is going to the Bar for his Arraignment, yet he is not out of prison or out of his Irons for that, his Fetters are still making a noise on his heels, and the thoughts of what he is to hear by and by from the Judge, is still frightening and afflicting his heart; Death, like some evil Spirit or Ghost, doth continually haunt him, and playeth the Butcher continually in his Soul and Conscience with frights and fears about the thoughts of the sudden and unsupportable after-clap by and by he is to meet withal.

  Thus, I say, will the wicked come out of their Graves, having yet the Chains of eternal death hanging on them, and the talons of that dreadful Ghost fastened to their Souls. So that life will be far from them, even as far as Heaven is from Hell. This morning to them is even as the shadow of death . . . From Death to Eternity, it never shall be quenched; their bed is now among the flames. And when they rise, they will rise in flames. While they stand before the Judge, it will be in flames, even in the flames of a guilty Conscience. They will in their coming before the Judge be within the very Jaws of death and destruction. Thus, I say, the ungodly shall be far from rising as the Saints, for they will be even in the Region and shadow of Death. The first moment of their rising, Death will be ever over them, ever feeding on their Souls, and ever presenting to their hearts the heights and depths of the misery that now must seize them, and like a bottomless Gulf, must swallow them up . . .

  The ungodly at their death are like the Thistle-seed, but at their rising they will be like the Thistle grown: more noisome, offensive, and provoking to rejection abundance. Then such dishonor, shame, and contempt will appear in them that neither God nor Christ, Saints nor Angels, will so much as once regard them or vouchsafe one to come near them . . . Their rising is called the Resurrection of the unjust, and so they at that day will appear and will more stink in the nostrils of God and all the Heavenly Hosts, than if they had the most irksome Plague-sores in the World running on them. If a man at his Birth be counted as one cast forth to the loathing of his person, how loathsome and irksome, dishonorable and contemptible, will those be that shall arise Godless, Christless, Spiritless, and Graceless, when the Trumpet sounds to their Judgment, they coming out of their Graves far more loathsome and filthy than if they should ascend out of the most filthy hole on Earth . . .

  As the Just shall arise as spiritual Bodies, so the unjust shall arise only as mere and naked lumps of sinful nature, not having the least help from God to bear them up under this condition. Wherefore, so soon as ever they are risen out of their Graves, they will feel a continual sinking under every remembrance of every sin and thoughts of Judgment; in their rising, they fall, fall I say from thenceforth, and forever. And for this Reason, the Dungeon into which they fall is called bottomless. Because, as there will be no end of their misery, so there will be no stay or prop to bare them up in it . . .

  Now when the wicked are thus raised out of their Graves, they shall together with all the Angels of darkness, their fellow Prisoners, be brought up, being shackled in their sins, to the place of Judgment, where there shall sit upon them Jesus Christ, the King of Kings, and Lord of Lords, the Lord chief Judge of things in Heaven, and things in Earth, and things under the Earth. On whose right hand and left shall sit all the Princes, and Heavenly Nobles, the Saints and the Prophets, the Apostles and Witnesses of Jesus, every one in his Kingly Attire upon the Throne of Glory . . . When every one is thus set in his proper place, the Judge on his Throne, with his Attendants, and the prisoners coming up to Judgment, forthwith there shall issue forth a mighty fire and tempest from before the Throne, which shall compass it round about. Which fire shall be as Bars and bounds to the wicked, to keep them at a certain distance from the Heavenly Majesty . . . This Preparation being made, to wit, the Judge with his Attendants on the Throne, the Bar for the Prisoners, and the Rebels all standing with ghastly Jaws, to look for what comes after. Presently the Books are brought forth, to wit, the Books both of Death and Life. And every one of them opened before the sinners, now to be judged and condemned.

  THE DREAD OF HELL PEOPLES HEAVEN: THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

  Premodern traditions about eternal punishment in Hell slipped into decline in the nineteenth century as old certainties about the reality of infernal torments came under attack from two different fronts. Secular critiques of Christian doctrines multiplied. Armed with new information about the world gained from advances in the geological sciences and new theories like Darwinism, scholars and scientists called into question the divine authority of the Bible. At the same time, many Christians had a change of heart about Hell. Was God an immoral tyrant, they asked, to make human souls suffer such a cruel fate in the afterlife? The late nineteenth-century author Lionel A. Tollemache (1838–1919) thought so: “The wiser among us are seeking to drop Hell out of the Bible as quietly, and about as logically, as we already contrive to disregard the plain texts forbidding Christians to go to law, and Christian women to plait their hair.” Catholic authors held firm, however, to their convictions about the meaning and character of the punitive afterlife. Throughout the nineteenth century, they produced innumerable treatises, sermons, and poems about the torments awaiting sinners there, confident that Hell was necessary as a moral sanction for an increasingly faithless human race. The dread of Hell, they argued, encouraged virtuous behavior that directed souls to Heaven.

/>   HELL FOR CHILDREN1

  The Catholic priest John Furniss (1809–65) stands alone in the history of Hell as the only author to have published a treatise on infernal punishment written specifically for “children and young persons.” Furniss organized Christian camps for children in England and wrote religious tracts in simple language directed at young readers to motivate them to cultivate good behavior. His pamphlet The Sight of Hell embraced the premodern Catholic tradition of depicting the sufferings of Hell in the most lurid and visceral terms. Though it was praised by William Meagher, the vicar general in Dublin, as a work boasting “a great deal to charm, instruct, and edify our youthful classes, for whose benefit it has been written,” modern readers can draw their own conclusions about the merits of a religious tract for young people that depicts the souls of children trapped in burning ovens and forced to stand on red-hot floors.

  1. WHERE IS HELL?

  Every little child knows that God will reward the good in Heaven and punish the wicked in Hell. Where, then, is Hell? Is Hell above or below? Is it on the earth, or in the earth, or below the earth?

  It seems likely that Hell is in the middle of the earth. Almighty God has said that “He will turn the wicked into the bowels of the earth.”2

  3. HOW FAR IT IS TO HELL

  We know how far it is to the middle of the Earth. It is just four thousand miles. So, if Hell is in the middle of the Earth, it is four thousand miles to the horrible prison of Hell.

  It is time now to do what St. Augustine bids us. He says—“Let us go down to Hell while we live, that we may not have to go down to Hell when we die.”3 If we go and look at that Terrible Prison, where those who commit mortal sin are punished, we shall be afraid to commit mortal sin. If we do not commit mortal sin, we shall not go to Hell.

  4. THE GATES OF HELL

  St. Frances of Rome lived a very holy life.4 Many times, she saw with her eyes her Angel Guardian at her side. It pleased the Almighty God to let her see many other wonderful things. One afternoon the Angel Gabriel came to take her to see Hell. She went with him and saw that terrible place. Let us follow in her footsteps, that we may see in spirit the wonderful things that she saw. Our journey is through the deep dark places under the earth. Now we will set off. We pass through hundreds and hundreds of miles of darkness. Now we are coming near the terrible place. See, there are the gates of Hell! When St. Frances came to the gates of Hell, she read on them these words written in letters of fire—“This is Hell, where there is neither rest, nor consolation, nor hope.” Look, then, at those tremendous gates in front of you. How large they are. Measure, if you can, the length and breadth, the height and depth of the terrible gates. “Therefore hath Hell opened her mouth without any bound. Their strong ones, and their people, and their glorious ones go down into it.”5

  See also the vast thickness, the tremendous strength of those gates. In a prison on earth, there are not, perhaps, more than two or three hundred prisoners; still the gates of a prison are made most strong with iron and with bars and with bolts and with locks, for fear the prisoners should break down the gates and get away. Do not wonder, then, at the immense strength of the Gates of Hell. In Hell, there are not two or three hundred prisoners only. Millions upon millions are shut up there. They are tormented with the most frightful pains. These dreadful pains make them furious. Their fury gives them strength, such as we never saw. We read of a man who had the fury of Hell in him. He was so strong that he could easily break in pieces great chains of iron.6 The vast multitudes in Hell, strong in their fury and despair, rush forward like the waves of the sea. They dash themselves up against the gates of Hell to break them into pieces. This is the reason why those gates are so strong. No hand of man could make such gates. Jesus Christ said that the Gates of Hell should not prevail against His Church, because in Hell there is nothing stronger than its gates.

  Do you hear that growling thunder rolling from one end of Hell to the other? The Gates of Hell are opening.

  5. THE FIRST LOOK INTO HELL

  When the Gates of Hell had been opened, St. Frances with her angel went forward. She stood on the edge of the abyss. She saw a sight so terrible that it cannot be told. She saw that the size of Hell was immense. Neither in height, nor in depth, nor in length, could she see any end of it. “None shall ever pass through it.”7 She saw that Hell was divided into three immense places. These three places were at a great distance from one another. There was an upper Hell, and a middle Hell, and a lower Hell. “Night came upon them from the lowest and deepest Hell.”8 She saw that in the upper Hell the torments were very grievous. In the middle Hell, they were still more terrible. In the lowest Hell, the torments were above all understanding. When she had looked into this terrible place, her blood froze with fright!

  6. FIRE

  Now look into Hell and see what she saw. Look at the floor of Hell. It is red-hot like red-hot iron. Streams of burning pitch and sulfur run through it. The floor blazes up to the roof. Look at the walls, the enormous stones are red-hot; sparks of fire are always falling down from them. Lift up your eyes to the roof of Hell; it is like a sheet of blazing fire. Sometimes when you get up on a winter’s morning, you see the country filled with a great thick fog. Hell is filled with a fog of fire. In some parts of the world, torrents of rain come down which sweep away trees and houses. In Hell torrents, not of rain, but of fire and brimstone, are rained down: “The Lord shall rain down on sinners fire and brimstone.”9 Storms of hailstones come down on the earth and break the windows in pieces. But in Hell the hailstones are thunderbolts, red-hot balls of fire: “God shall send thunderbolts against him.”10 See that great whirlwind of fire sweeping across Hell: “Storms of winds shall be the portion of their cup.”11 Look how floods of fire roll themselves through Hell like the waves of the sea. The wicked are sunk down and buried in the fiery sea of destruction and perdition. You may have seen a house on fire. But you never saw a house made of fire. Hell is a house made of fire. The fire of Hell burns the devils who are spirits, for it was prepared for them. So it will burn the soul as well as the body. Take a spark out of the kitchen fire, throw it into the sea, and it will go out. Take a little spark out of Hell less than a pin-head, throw it into the ocean, it will not go out. In one moment, it would dry up all the waters of the ocean and set the whole world in a blaze: “The fire, above its power, burned in the midst of the water.”12 Set a house or town on fire. Perhaps the fire may burn for a week, or a month, but it will go out at last. But the fire of Hell will never go out; it will burn forever. It is unquenchable fire. St. Teresa says that the fire on the earth is only a picture of the fire of Hell.13 Fire on earth gives light. But it is not so in hell. In Hell, the fire is dark.