You said that devils running hell was a modern notion, 400 - 500 years or so, but devils seem to run hell in Dante’s Inferno, and that was published more like 600 - 700 years ago. Did Dante originate the idea? Satan himself sits at the very core of hell, at the entrance to a tunnel to heaven (purgatory actually.) That tunnel was formed by his fallng body when he was thrown down into hell, but I’m not clear when that happened. I remember he was earth during Jesus’s time, so it must have been after that. The interesting thing about Inferno is that it mixes the Greek Tartarus with the Christian hell without any self consciousness.
400, 600, what’s a few centuries between friends?
I’ll try to find out where that started, I just meant to throw it in as a sop to Cerberus, that the biblical notion and the modern notion are very different.
Agreed, it’s very bizarre to find Dante dealing with Medusa and such.
Link to the Mailbag Article: What is fire and brimstone?
[Note: This message has been edited by CKDextHavn]
Interestingly, the modern, Christian Hell is actually based, for the most part, on extra-Biblical ideas. Many modern Bible translations avoid using the term ‘hell’ since it inaccurately conveys the meaning of the original Hebrew and Greek terms (Sheol and Hades). Those terms actually refered to the abode of the dead, and had no moral implications.
A common misconception is that the lake of fire refered to in Revelation is hell, but reading further at Revelation 20:14 reveals that hell can’t be the same as the lake of fire since it is cast into the lake of fire. Also, Biblical texts never refer to the devil being cast into hell. Revelation 12:7-9 mention him being thrown down to the earth, Revelation 20:1-3 states that the Devil is imprisoned in the abyss for a thousand years, and Revelation 20:10 states that he is thrown into the lake of fire and sulfer.
I would assume that at least the idea of a supernatural being ruling over hell would date back to Greecian times.
In school, we were always told that Satan was a very powerful being. He over-saw the toture of sinners in hell. He basically ran the Democratic party, he wrote most of the popular music, he caused floods, famines, and pestillance. He also built the abortion clinics and Hollywood. He was a very busy guy.
I once was diciplined for asking if he was powerful enough to do all of this, why wasn’t he powerful enough to fix up hell? You know, put in some air-conditioning, cable, window treatments . . . get some new linoleum, and have a fumigator take care of that awful sulfur stench. Maybe put in some track lighting . . .
to Lissa—
you sound like an catholic school girl like me. Laughed my—dare I say it---- bottom–off reading your response.
Not Catholic . . . Baptist/Christian Fundamentalist. We envied the Catholic schoolchildren.
For two modern Christian images of Hell, see “The Screwtape Letters” and “The Great Divorce”, both by C. S. Lewis.
Lissa’s teacher sounds like a Dualist, which is, as a matter of fact, heresy (Baptist, Roman Catholic – doesn’t matter; Dualism is just plain heretical). The Devil has no powers but the power to tempt and the power to bully everyone in Hell weaker than he is – maybe the power to work a few basic magic tricks, too.
For the purposes of Dante’s fiction (and please remember that he was quite aware that he was writing fiction; as a Christian, he believed in Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven, but he didn’t believe that he was writing literal truth about them), he assumes that the Hades of classical myth is the same as the Christiah Hell, so that Virgil can be his guide. (In medieval times, Virgil was considered a [kinda, sorta] honorary Christian, because a certain passage in one of his poems was taken as a prophecy of Christ.)
John W. Kennedy
“Compact is becoming contract; man only earns and pays.”
– Charles Williams
It’s been awhile since I read Dante’s Inferno, but I don’t recall Satan running Hell. He was trapped in a lake of ice–immobolized–not overseeng the torture of others.
If one were looking to poetic literature for the notion of Satan ruling over Hell, then a better source would be Milton’s Paradise Lost, which contains Satan’s famous line, “It is better to reign in Hell than Serve in Heaven.”
Although you are correct that Dante does not show Satan himself as anything but impotent, junior devils generally run the tortures.
But as I said in my initial post on the subject, hey, that’s just cause they’re tougher than the mortals. Hell is the ultimate Hobbesian dystopia.
John W. Kennedy
“Compact is becoming contract; man only earns and pays.”
– Charles Williams
Although you are correct that Dante does not show Satan himself as anything
but impotent, junior devils generally run the tortures. *********** Kids are always up to no good.
Skott–If you’re referring to the idea of Hades, you have to remember that all the dead went there, good and bad. The truly evil were singled out for special torture (remember Sisyphus?), while the truly good were allowed to drink the water of Lethe, forget their old lives, and be reborn. The balance lived their lives as shades, neither happy nor unhappy. Oh, and the people that were buried without coins on their eyes were condemned to wander the banks of the river Styx.
The Jewish concept of Sheol was very similar. Christianity codefied the idea of afterlives for the good, bad, and indifferent, but that’s not to far off from the Norse afterlife, where the valiant were rewarded with perpetual parties.
Not at all. It used to be that the Christians equated every other religion as devil-worship, particularly the old ones. Case in point-- the modern image of the Devil. He looks much like a satyr, no? To tell the truth, before they came up with that image, Lucifer looked like any other angel. I remember from reading “The Devil and Tom Walker (no guarantees on that name, memory fuzzy)” that Beelzebub referred to himself as “the one to whom the Indians consecrated this land”. Hell, even Beelzebub was an old god. Then again, it wasn’t all vilification. You know the face of that hippie on the stick? That was taken directly from a statue of Zeus. And we all know about all the little rituals and festivals that were assimilated, all Borg-like, into Christianity.
It doesn’t stop at Christianity. According to Hinduism, one of the incarnations of Krishna was Buddha-- his purpose was to test the faith of the hindu. A la Satan.
“If A=B, B=C, and C=D, do not get a job proofreading” --Quid’s Theorem
While the “pagan gods = devils” logic has a long history, it does not seem to be operative in Dante, who assumes the historic truth of most classical mythology, but is silent on the Olympians. He appears to use, instead, the alternate paradigm “pagan gods = God, misrepresented”, but never touches the point directly.
John W. Kennedy
“Compact is becoming contract; man only earns and pays.”
– Charles Williams
The idea that the pagan gods represent the Christian God in primitive form has ancient origins. The Romans and Greeks before them, for instance, when they conquered a peoples, simply included their pantheon in the Roman/Greek pantheon. “Oh, you worship Ba’al? Well, that’s just another name for Zeus. Ashante? Same as Hera.” This is why the ancient Greek and Roman empires had relative tolerance of other pagan religions – they could be easily meshed together. There are lots of gods, so yours can fit into our structure easily.
The ancient Israelites and early Christians were a different matter – their God was NOT the same as the old pagan gods, and would not accept these others deities. Thus, the Greeks and Romans viewed the Jews (and early Christians) as obstinate, thick-headed, religious loonies.
Christianity later turned the tables, by taking pagan ceremonies and practices and covering them with a Christian (and monotheist) guise. However, there were some strange juxtapositions; there is no doubt that some of the early conversions were made by saying that Jesus was “the same as” Mithra, or Mary was “the same as” the earth goddess, of some of the northern pagan religions. The idea was (as I understand it) to convert them first, and clear up these peculiar identifications later.
So Dante was following a time-honoured tradition in shuffling the pagan deities and mythology into the Christian hell.
Concerning the old ones that the Judeo-Christian tradition supplanted, when I’ve read the parts of the Bible that seem to pertain, I see a lot of “I am a jealous God” or “have no gods before me” etc. but can’t remember anywhere it claims He says He’s the only one. I’m sure, however, if its there, someone will tell me where in Gehenna to look.
>>Concerning the old ones that the Judeo-Christian tradition supplanted, when I’ve read the parts of the Bible that seem to pertain, I see a lot of “I am a jealous God” or “have no gods before me” etc. but can’t remember anywhere it claims He says He’s the only one. I’m sure, however, if its there, someone will tell me where in Gehenna to look.<< --Alan Q
The Bible was not written in a day. And unfortunately, the one you buy at the bookstore contains stories NOT in the order they were written. If you read the stories of the Bible in the order they were written, you see the development of monotheism.
Yes, as originally conceived, Adonai, the G-d of the Jews was one of many gods-- the greatest, though, make no mistake. Ex. 15:11 says “Who among the gods is like You, Adonai?” cf. Ps. 86:8.
There’s even a place in Ezekiel, which eludes me now, where Adonai is given the people Israel. Given by whom? Well, uh…
You won’t find much in the Bible that regards Adonai as the only true god. You’ll find that in later literature-- the Book of Maccabees, the so-called “New Testament,” the Dead Sea pesherim, et al.
When ever possible, Torah references to many gods are reconstrued to fit the idea of one true god. For example, it the Exodus passage quoted above, rabbis tell us it means “Who is like You among the gods that are worshipped?” In other words, the “other gods” are not necessarily real gods; they exist only in the imaginations of their worshippers.
It’s disingenuous, of course. But if you insist on believing that the Bible is true verbatim, then you run into real trouble when the plain meaning of something doesn’t match your theology.
So where in gehenna do you look? Don’t bother.
–Rowan
If my mother had been in charge of the War on Drugs,
it would be "Just say 'No thank you.'"I think that the modern concept of hell is an after the facts invention to coerce folks into believing in christianity. Its been a while since I read the Bible, but i seem to remember nothing being in there about the average sinner being tortured for eternity. I seem to remember it saying non christians and sinners would be consumed by fire and it would be as if they’d never been born. In otherwords- no afterlife, but no eternal torture either. btw lissa. Track lighting? what is this? hell as a 70’s bachelor pad? Perhaps a waterbed also, huh?
Cecil said it. I believe it. That settles it.
You should read the Bible again.
John W. Kennedy
“Compact is becoming contract; man only earns and pays.”
– Charles Williams
Along with the zebra striped sofa, like Larry had on Three’s Company, couple of lava lamps . . . I hear Satan’s a real swingin’ guy, but that he drew the line at the mirrored disco ball on the ceiling.