ANCIENT AND MODERN IDEAS OF HELL. 495 



artless question : " If the dead be not raised with flesh and bones, 

 how can the damned, after the judgment, gnash their teeth in 

 hell ? " " Origen, who was a Platonist, and a heretic on many 

 points," says Alger,* "was severely condemned for saying that 

 the fire of hell was inward and of the conscience rather than out- 

 ward and of the body." Tertullian says, " The damned burn 

 eternally without consuming, as the volcanoes, which are vents 

 from the stored subterranean fire of hell, burn forever without 

 wasting."! These words point also to the belief, noted above, 

 that hell was located under the earth. 



In the middle ages the Christian conception of hell became 

 more detailed and more terrible. The details can be found not 

 only in the books of the period, but they were favorite subjects 

 for miracle-plays and for works of art, especially for the pict- 

 ures, carvings, and painted windows with which cathedrals were 

 adorned. The monks of the period produced an extensive litera- 

 ture of visions describing the torments of hell. In these visions, 

 according to Lecky — 



The devil was represented bound by red-hot chains on a burning gridiron in 

 the center of hell. The screams of his never-ending agony made its rafters to 

 resound ; but his hands were free, and with these he seized the lost souls, crushed 

 them like grapes against his teeth, and then drew them by his breath down the 

 fiery cavern of his throat. Demons with hooks of red-hot iron plunged souls 

 alternately into fire and ice. Some of the lost were hung up by their tongues, 

 others were sawn asunder, others gnawed by serpents, others beaten together on 

 an anvil and welded into a single mass, others boiled and then strained through 

 a cloth, others twined in the embraces of demons whose limbs were of flame. 

 The fire of earth, it was said, was but a picture of that of hell. The latter was 

 so immeasurably more intense that it alone could be called real. \ 



By far the most elaborate description of the punishments of 

 sinners which the middle ages produced is that of Dante, whose 

 Inferno combines the torments of the classical Tartarus and the 

 horrors of the Christian hell. In this poem, which was written 

 about 1300, the author represents himself as being conducted 

 through the infernal regions by Virgil. Within the gates of hell, 

 but before crossing the river Acheron, the visitors found those 

 who had lived " withouten infamy or praise," and angels who had 

 been neither faithful nor rebellious, but only selfish. They " were 

 naked and were stung exceedingly by gad-flies and by hornets 

 that were there." # Beyond Acheron were found the great ones 

 of old, whose sin was lack of baptism. These were " only so far 

 punished that without hope we live on in desire" (iv, 41, 42). 

 In the third circle, rain, snow, and hail constantly poured down 



* Future Life, p. 516. f Apologia, cap. 47, 48. 

 \ History of European Morals, vol. ii, pp. 235, 236. 



# Divine Comedy : Inferno, Canto III, lines 65, 66, Longfellow's translation. 



