# The Devil Tormenting Sinners. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 5, 2019, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-devil-tormenting-sinners/830595 "2019-03-05T21:46:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Jim\_B](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jim_b/32/4338_2.png) [@Jim\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_B)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2019, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-devil-tormenting-sinners/830595/1 "2019-03-05T21:46:18Z")
Why is the Devil usually depicted tormenting sinners? The Devil is often shown using his trident for this purpose (forgetting for the moment his trident is an adaptation from the god Neptune). In Dante’s _Inferno_ he is shown eternally chewing the three great traitors of all time. Satan is supposedly the author of evil. The chief advocate of evil. He rewards evil, at least when you do it on earth. Why is he classically shown tormenting sinners in hell then? This is as much a literary question as it is a theological one. But I put it in GD just in case. :):)🙂 ---
**Author:** ![senoy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dbc845/32.png) [@senoy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/senoy)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2019, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-devil-tormenting-sinners/830595/2 "2019-03-05T21:54:11Z")
Theologically, he isn’t traditionally. Hell is a punishment for Satan as well as evil-doers. Satan does not reside there theologically speaking although since Hell is not a physical place, there might be some debate about that. He exists in this world. Literarily? I would say that it is Dante’s doing, but perhaps Dante got it from other sources that may no longer exist or be oral in nature. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2019, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-devil-tormenting-sinners/830595/3 "2019-03-05T22:06:01Z")
Even in Dante, Satan himself is depicted as being frozen in ice at the center of hell, his three monstrous heads gnawing on some of history’s most infamous traitors (Judas Iscariot and two of the guys who offed Julius Caesar). Note: I’ve never actually read Dante’s _Divine Comedy_; from secondary sources I know there’s a lot of tormenting going on, but I’m hazy as to who or what is actually inflicting all those fiendishly ironic punishments of the assorted sinners. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2019, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-devil-tormenting-sinners/830595/4 "2019-03-05T22:18:00Z")
It’s a mis-depiction. Hell is where Satan himself will be suffering as well. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2019, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-devil-tormenting-sinners/830595/5 "2019-03-05T22:31:35Z")
> [@Jim\_B](#): > > …He rewards evil, at least when you do it on earth… As a trick, so that you get suckered into condemnation to hell… where he gets what he really wants, a soul to torment for eternity. Because, you know, he’s evil. I mean, the part where God can’t forgive us unless he sacrifices his son (who is him) to himself… that’s a little shaky. But the Satan part seems to hold up ok. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2019, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-devil-tormenting-sinners/830595/6 "2019-03-05T22:34:46Z")
As I understand it (witnessing), the Devil built his kingdom on the backs of his angels (aka demons) - passing the suffering onto them, who then passes it on to those people they can deceive and control to take on that suffering. That is the reason, people are deceived into taking on the suffering of the devil. The Devil’s kingdom is a pyramid scheme. People are suffering (on earth and in Hell), paying for the sin of the devil, willingly in a contractual way as they have accepted the way of sin. > [@senoy](#): > > Theologically, he isn’t traditionally. Hell is a punishment for Satan as well as evil-doers. Biblically Hell was made for the devil and his angels (Matt 25:41). > [@](#): > > Satan does not reside there theologically speaking although since Hell is not a physical place, there might be some debate about that. He exists in this world. Satan is also said to be before the throne of God accusing us night and day Rev 12:10, ---
**Author:** ![GinoC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/f4b2a3/32.png) [@GinoC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GinoC)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2019, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-devil-tormenting-sinners/830595/7 "2019-03-05T23:13:28Z")
My favourite part is where the Jury of the Damned is rounded out by the starting lineup of the 1976 Philadelphia Flyers. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2019, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-devil-tormenting-sinners/830595/8 "2019-03-05T23:27:35Z")
> [@MEBuckner](#): > > Even in Dante, Satan himself is depicted as being frozen in ice at the center of hell, his three monstrous heads gnawing on some of history’s most infamous traitors (Judas Iscariot and two of the guys who offed Julius Caesar). > > Note: I’ve never actually read Dante’s _Divine Comedy_; from secondary sources I know there’s a lot of tormenting going on, but I’m hazy as to who or what is actually inflicting all those fiendishly ironic punishments of the assorted sinners. I have read the Inferno (and the other two books also, not as good.) Mostly the torments are from the environment, though sometimes the sinners torture each other. I don’t remember a lot of demons running around doing the torturing. BTW, Dante clearly knows that the Earth is round, since he places the mountain of Purgatory on the other side of the Earth from Jerusalem IIRC. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2019, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-devil-tormenting-sinners/830595/9 "2019-03-06T00:20:07Z")
Thanks, **Voyager**. Another Great Literary Work I haven’t actually read, but _Paradise Lost_ by John Milton has definitely done a lot to form the popular conception of Satan and Hell. I don’t _think_ Milton really gets into the “torments of Hell” part so much–_Paradise Lost_ is more about the Fall (of angels and of men) than about the consequences thereof–but Milton definitely did a lot to cement the popular idea of Satan “reigning” in Hell. So, from the New Testament, we get the notion of Hell being a place of torment. From Dante we get the idea of Hell being a place of _ironically appropriate_ torments (arranged by sin); or at the very least, Dante really popularized that idea and fixed it in everyone’s imagination. From Milton, we get the idea of Satan as the King of Hell; or, again, at least in the English-speaking world, Milton really popularized the idea and fixed it in everyone’s imagination (and may even have straight up invented it). Adding up the original New Testament idea of Hell as a place of torment; and the idea (from Milton) of Satan as being ruler there; and you get the popular notion of Satan as being the chief torturer of sinners, even though the idea isn’t really there in the original descriptions of Hell in the New Testament. To complete the Western cultural triptych of Influential Depictions of Hell, Hieronymus Bosch (over a century after Dante, and a century or so before Milton) painted [some infamously freaky pictures](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Garden_of_Earthly_Delights#Right_panel) which probably helped cement the idea of the torments of Hell specifically being inflicted by grotesque demons. None of that is necessarily from the Bible, though. From [chapter 20 of the Book of Revelation](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation+20&version=NIV), we get the idea of Satan being “bound” in Hell, or some sort of abyss, anyway: > [@](#): > > [An angel] seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil, or Satan, and bound him for a thousand years. He threw him into the Abyss, and locked and sealed it over him, to keep him from deceiving the nations anymore until the thousand years were ended. Note that Christians have never been able to agree on the chronology of the End of the World; [premillennialism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premillennialism) gets a lot of attention in pop culture Christianity, but [amillennialism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amillennialism) and [postmillennialism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmillennialism) are and have been adhered to by more Christians over the years than premillennialism, and under those views it could easily be interpreted that Satan is in fact already locked up in “the Abyss”. At any rate, returning to Revelation 20, after the “thousand years” (whenever that time period may be, and exactly how long it actually is) > [@](#): > > And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night for ever and ever. Which clearly (well, as clearly as anything in Revelation, anyway) says that Satan isn’t the one doing the tormenting. As for human sinners, we have [Revelation 14:9-11](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation+14%3A9-11&version=NIV) > [@](#): > > A third angel followed them and said in a loud voice: “If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives its mark on their forehead or on their hand, they, too, will drink the wine of God’s fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. They will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment will rise for ever and ever. There will be no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and its image, or for anyone who receives the mark of its name.” Note that here sinners are described as being tormented “in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb”. In contrast, we have [Matthew 8:12](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matthew+8%3A12&version=NIV) > [@](#): > > But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. (Or in the King James Version, “…shall be cast out into outer darkness”.) This language has sometimes been taken to imply Hell as “separation from God”, which doesn’t really fit with the language in Revelation implying people being tormented “in the presence of…the Lamb”. But that’s the Bible for ya. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2019, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-devil-tormenting-sinners/830595/10 "2019-03-06T02:54:06Z")
> [@Jim\_B](#): > > Why is the Devil usually depicted tormenting sinners? The Devil is often shown using his trident for this purpose (forgetting for the moment his trident is an adaptation from the god Neptune). In Dante’s _Inferno_ he is shown eternally chewing the three great traitors of all time. > > Satan is supposedly the author of evil. The chief advocate of evil. He rewards evil, at least when you do it on earth. The traditional position, I believe, is that the Devil tries to convince humans on earth that evil deeds are good, fun, and enjoyable. Those who believe the Devil, turn to evil, and are not saved then descend to Hell, where they find that the Devil was a liar and that the end result of their sin is torment, rather than fun and enjoyment. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2019, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-devil-tormenting-sinners/830595/11 "2019-03-06T19:53:28Z")
By contrast, God punishes good people. ---
**Author:** ![SigMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@SigMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SigMan)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2019, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-devil-tormenting-sinners/830595/12 "2019-03-08T05:24:19Z")
Fairy tales. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2019, 9:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-devil-tormenting-sinners/830595/13 "2019-03-08T09:06:21Z")
> [@senoy](#): > > Literarily? I would say that it is Dante’s doing, but perhaps Dante got it from other sources that may no longer exist or be oral in nature. Dante lived in the 14th century, depictions of Hell with devils tormenting people long predate him. Example : [this](https://www.revistamirabilia.com/sites/default/files/styles/featured/public/untitled-1.jpg?itok=YoBQqnym) from 12th century Germany IIRC (but that course was a long time ago) the whole pitchfork and hooves thing was about early Christians poo-pooing Roman gods or various other horned gods from pagan tradition and depicting them as being in Hell too - the trident identified Neptune, the goats legs were for Bacchus, and so on. ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2019, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-devil-tormenting-sinners/830595/14 "2019-03-08T15:06:02Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > I have read the Inferno (and the other two books also, not as good.) Mostly the torments are from the environment, though sometimes the sinners torture each other. I don’t remember a lot of demons running around doing the torturing. There are a few like the demons slicing up schismatics with a sword and tossing grafters into boiling pitch. ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2019, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-devil-tormenting-sinners/830595/15 "2019-03-08T16:13:23Z")
There is no “Devil” in the classical sense in the Bible. The point of the books of the Bible is that there is only one God. There isn’t a good god (God) and an evil god (The Devil) battling it out on Earth. There is only one God. The Devil is mentioned in the Bible, but the Devil in the Bible is not a big red dude with a pitchfork. There also is no “Hell”. The closest thing to it is the lake of fire mentioned in Revelations, though judgement and burning are referenced elsewhere. So where did Hell and the Devil come from? They were borrowed from other religions as Christianity spread. The Devil’s form is based a lot on the Greek god Pan and the Satyrs. The pitchfork comes from Pluto/Hades, aka the Greek/Roman god of the underworld. The common vision of Hell as a place filled with fire and brimstone and tortured souls also comes from Greek and Roman mythology. Throw in a few other references, like the Jewish Gehenna (often translated as Hell), the Philistine god Beelzebub and the Canonite god Baal, and throw in a bunch of wild interpretations from western literature over the years, and you have the modern version of Hell and the Devil. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2019, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-devil-tormenting-sinners/830595/16 "2019-03-08T17:13:05Z")
> [@engineer\_comp\_geek](#): > > The common vision of Hell as a place filled with fire and brimstone and tortured souls also comes from Greek and Roman mythology. There are references to a place filled with fire and brimstone and tortured souls in the Bible (that is, the New Testament). I already mentioned [Revelation 14:9-11](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation%2014%3A9-11&version=NIV;KJV): > [@](#): > > A third angel followed them and said in a loud voice: “If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives its mark on their forehead or on their hand, they, too, will drink the wine of God’s fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. They will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment will rise for ever and ever. There will be no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and its image, or for anyone who receives the mark of its name.” (In the King James Version, “burning sulfur” is “fire and brimstone”.) There’s also [Revelation 20:10](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation%2020%3A10&version=NIV;KJV): > [@](#): > > And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night for ever and ever. And [Revelation 21:8](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation%2021%3A8&version=NIV;KJV): > [@](#): > > But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death. The reference to “the second death” leads some to interpret this as supporting “annihilationism”; all those bad people will simply be burned _up_ in the “fiery lake of burning sulfur”; presumably only “the devil” and “the beast” and “the false prophet” will be “tormented day and night for ever and ever”; and in Revelation 14, it just says that “_smoke_ of their torment will rise for ever and ever”, so maybe those human followers of “the beast” will be tortured a little bit before “the second death”, and the _smoke_ from this will go on and on, but not the sinners themselves. Some people will also raise questions about the meaning of [the Greek words here translated as “for ever and ever”](https://www.blueletterbible.org/kjv/rev/14/11/t_conc_1181011), saying it doesn’t literally mean “for all eternity” but something more like “for [eons](https://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=G165&t=KJV) and eons”. Moving beyond Revelation, we have [Luke 16:19-31](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2016%3A19-31&version=NIV;KJV); there’s no sulfur (brimstone), but there is fire, and someone being tormented in the fire: > [@](#): > > So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’ The whole passage seems more of a parable than a cosmological description; the “rich man” being tormented in Hades can apparently talk to people in Heaven(?), even though there is a “great chasm” between them. Still, while there are ways you can quibble about all of these passages (and all the other bits of the New Testament that have been interpreted to be talking about “Hell”, a place of “fiery” torment that lasts for eternity), the Christian church didn’t have to ransack Greek or Roman mythology to come up with the doctrines like [“the souls of the wicked are cast into hell, where they remain in torments and utter darkness”](https://reformed.org/documents/wcf_with_proofs/index.html?body=/documents/wcf_with_proofs/ch_XXXII.html) and at the Last Judgment the wicked [“shall be cast into eternal torments”](https://reformed.org/documents/wcf_with_proofs/index.html?body=/documents/wcf_with_proofs/ch_XXXIII.html); or that [“The Holy Bible is quite explicit in teaching the eternity of the pains of hell”](http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07207a.htm). (That second source is a Catholic Encyclopedia published in 1917, so it isn’t necessarily authoritative about what the Catholic Church teaches in 2019–although [some people like it well enough to keep it on the web](http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/00002a.htm).) Put it another way, if Judeo-Christians swiped the idea of bad people being punished eternally from Greco-Roman thought ([Sisyphus](https://pantheon.org/articles/s/sisyphus.html) and [Tantalus](https://pantheon.org/articles/t/tantalus.html) and [Ixion](https://pantheon.org/articles/i/ixion.html) and so forth), that particular act of “cultural appropriation” seems to have already taken place by the time the various texts which make up the New Testament were written. ---
**Author:** ![SigMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@SigMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SigMan)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2019, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-devil-tormenting-sinners/830595/17 "2019-03-08T22:29:42Z")
IIRC the devil who’s known as Satan was St Lucifer who was God’s Angel before he was fallen for turning against God. ---
**Author:** ![Dale\_Sams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/779978/32.png) [@Dale\_Sams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dale_Sams)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2019, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-devil-tormenting-sinners/830595/18 "2019-03-14T20:04:11Z")
I want to know how Satan got Jesus to the top of the tallest building in Jerusalem? Teleportation? Who was the first guy who thought up that? ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2019, 9:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-devil-tormenting-sinners/830595/19 "2019-03-18T09:11:31Z")
> [@MEBuckner](#): > > From Dante we get the idea of Hell being a place of _ironically appropriate_ torments (arranged by sin); or at the very least, Dante really popularized that idea and fixed it in everyone’s imagination. No, it was popular throughout the Middle Ages. Sculptures and paintings were used as a visual aid for teaching: having appropriate punishments was handy for remembering which sins were being referenced. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2019, 11:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-devil-tormenting-sinners/830595/20 "2019-03-18T11:21:28Z")
> [@SigMan](#): > > IIRC the devil who’s known as Satan was St Lucifer who was God’s Angel before he was fallen for turning against God. From what religion did you get this from? I don’t think I’ve ever heard this version before. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-devil-tormenting-sinners/830595.md?page=2)