The origins of Hell in Christianity...

[Accipeveldare]

For context, I am not Christian. This post is mostly just for the sake of curiousity.

When did the concept of Hell in Christianity become a thing? Where did it come from?
I have heard some say it was a ruse by the church to maintain power over people through fear. I have heard others say the concept is much older.
Anybody know anything?

 

[Aeternus]

For context, I am not Christian. This post is mostly just for the sake of curiousity.

When did the concept of Hell in Christianity become a thing? Where did it come from?
I have heard some say it was a ruse by the church to maintain power over people through fear. I have heard others say the concept is much older.
Anybody know anything?

Well, there are many opinions about Hell, especially in Christianity. In Christianity, the concept of Hell came from a mix of ancient Hebrew ideas (Sheol, Gehenna,) Greek concepts (Hades, Tartarus) surrounding cultural mythologies and later medieval literature.

In the earliest Hebrew Scriptures the afterlife was described in Sheol as a shadowy, silent under-realm where all dead people went to regardless of moral character. It was a place of silence for the dead, not of active torture. When the Hebrew Bible was translated into Greek, translators used Hades instead of Sheol (reasonable since the Greek term for those who died and went to the underworld is Hades).

Gehenna or Valley of Hinnom was a term that Jesus used frequently in his teachings and it relates to the realm that was a literal trash dump where fires burned continuously. This further inspired it to be used as a metaphor for waste, destruction and what is defined as Sin in Christian literature. It is important to note that this place as well is not to be interpreted as one of eternal torture.

Finally, Tartarus, found only once in the New Testament in 2 Peter 2:4, we can see that Tartarus was brought from Greek mythology as a deep abyss reserved for punishing fallen angels (like Lucifer and the third of the fallen angels as well as the Grigori (The Fallen Watchers)).

 

[Eldros]

For context, I am not Christian. This post is mostly just for the sake of curiousity.

When did the concept of Hell in Christianity become a thing? Where did it come from?
I have heard some say it was a ruse by the church to maintain power over people through fear. I have heard others say the concept is much older.
Anybody know anything?

If we view it from a Franciscan perspective - I wouldn't say that the Church simply "invented" Hell to frighten people.
Before Christianity, Jewish thought contained the notion of judgment and vengeance after death.
Over the ages, opinions and understanding of it changed.
To be truthful, St. Francis preached God's empathy and mercy far more than scared them with Hell.
So, while fear of Hell can be used to manipulate people, the concept predates the Church by quite a bit.

 

[MorganBlack]

Heh. I know WAY too much about 'Hell."

Hell and the Underworld are very important to me in the more Folk Catholic / grim trad side of my practice.

Catholicism does Hell the best, I feel. But we really have to go back a ways to the Shamanic Underworld and the Orphic Hades first to appreciate this.

“Hell” probably originally started out with "shamans" (as paleolithic mystics) thousands of years ago grappling with the postmortem experience, which are also reported up to today as traumatic in many cultures. .At this time it was not yet a doctrine or theology but an experience of the dark tunnel, monsters, the fire, the judgment, the feeling of being torn apart and put back together.

The.. let's call it... the Shamanic Hell comes to us from from pretty deep prehistory, maybe Upper Paleolithic, c. 40,000–10,000 BCE? Not sure. We can’t date this. There’s no ancient text that says “and lo, the first shaman saw Hell.” But the recurring motifs are suspiciously Underworld and chthonic, with the descent to an underworld, confrontation with guardians, dismemberment and rebirth, secret names and passwords, a return with knowledge. In many shamanic traditions the initiatory crisis itself is a kind of death, and the the candidate becomes sick, dreams of being cut apart, boiled, eaten by spirits, then reassembled.

It's the original Death and Resurrection show.

Fast forward many thousand of years to the Orphic/Derveni Hades, from around 6th - 4th century BCE and later.

The Derveni Papyrus is from around 340 BC and is the oldest surviving European document. It's a charred scroll found on a funeral pyre in Macedonia. It contains an allegorical commentary on an Orphic poem and is very much explicitly eschatological,and discusses the fate of the soul and the role of the Furies.

The text describes a cosmology in which fire and air are the dynamic, intelligent principles - the instruments through which the cosmic divine Mind (identified with air and the Creator they name as Zeus) organizes matter. In the Derveni Papyrus, the souls must be made light as "fire and air" so they rise to the better part of the afterlife, and not be weighted down and made heavy "like earth and water" with regret and negativity - and sink into Tartarus.

The Orphic influence on Chatholic Eschatology seem pretty clear to me. Scholars have long recognized that Orphic doctrines, transmitted through Jewish and Christian apocalyptic literature, exerted a profound influence on the eschatology of the Christian religion. The Apocalypse of Peter from the first half of the 2nd century CE was the first Christian text to describe the crimes and punishments of those suffering in Hell -apparently borrowed its graphic account of torments from Orphic and Pythagorean religious texts, thereby introducing "pagan" ideas of heaven and hell.

One scholar put it, "The Heaven and Hell and Purgatory of Christian eschatology come not, to any large extent, from Jewish sources, or from the teaching of the Gospels and Epistles, but mainly from the Apocalypses, which are thoroughly Orphic in matter and spirit".

Then notice how the Catholic spiritual system is there to help you do exactly this... letting go of attachment and regret by not doing "sinful" things you will regret on your deathbed, like murder, theft, or covetousness that will make your soul heavy and drag you down to the worser afterlife, now called Hell and Purgatory, rather than Hades and Tartarus.

In original Catholic teachings regarding the afterlife experience, it is actually very "esoteric" (while they deny that word). Especially before the Schism of 1054, Heaven and Hell are not thought of as literal places, but states of mind.

These are very exploratory articles. I do not agree with all of it, but thought it was a good start to re-introduce a more nuanced understanding of "Hell" back into our discourse.

No Eternal Damnation: The Devil as Cosmic Smith
Toward a Positive Theology of the Adversary

,Part 1.

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Part 2.

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Part 3.

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[FireBorn]

I may be wrong here, but Hell through the later Christian lens is quite different from the older Jewish and Near Eastern concept of the underworld.

The underworld is a much older category. Early Hebrew Sheol was essentially the destination of the dead, not a place where evil people were separated out for eternal punishment. Good and bad alike went there.

The later ideas of cosmic good versus cosmic evil, postmortem judgment, resurrection, reward and punishment, etc. developed much more strongly in Judaism during the Second Temple period. There is a longstanding scholar nerd type argument that contact with Persian/Zoroastrian religion influenced that development, although I probably would not state that as a simple one to one borrowing (even if that is my knee jerk inclination).

The older Mesopotamian model is even clearer: immortality belonged to the gods, while humans went to the underworld. Gilgamesh’s whole problem was that, despite being partly divine, he was still mortal and cannot simply become one of the immortal gods. Bummer.

 

[MorganBlack]

The official Catholic position, and even more so it's mystical schools, is similar to but often actually LESS harsh that ancient concepts of Hell

In early Hindu tradition "Hell" - The Naraka - are very similar to the Catholic concept of Purgatory where souls are sent to exhaust their bad karma before being reborn into a new body. The Naraka are not eternal but are temporary purgatorial realms where souls are sent.

But the Garuda Purana and other texts describe 28 or more hells. They have one , the Yuyodakam - the Well of Hell - which is a massive underlife ake filled with worms for those who disrespect their parents, elders, or the brahmins.

Anyway, what I am saying is not actually any "esoteric" or "secret" Catholic or Orthodox teaching of the East-West Church. If I recall this video (below) from a very mainstream, very conservative Catholic Bishop, Bishop Robert Barron says the same thing here. There are plenty of others there if people cann't ne be bothered to read actual Catholic teachings.. Just avoid the Rght-Wing Deliverance Catholics, who are a bleedover from American Evangelical Protestatism.Those guys are terrible.

Bishop Barron says while the doctrine of Hell as a possibility is essential to Christian theology - really the spiritual tradition makes no sense without Hell and overcoming suffering - the Catholic Church has never definitively declared that any specific human being is actually in Hell, leaving it open.

Remember, Catholicism is foremost a mystical practice. Catholics are not actually "People of the Book" becasue they know nobody has ever been convinced by intellecual exercises.

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Modern Christianity Made Hell Harder to Defend

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Hell is not a Place (anymore) [Father Silviu Bunta] | 2025 Public Lecture

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[Firetree]

I may be wrong here, but Hell through the later Christian lens is quite different from the older Jewish and Near Eastern concept of the underworld.

The underworld is a much older category. Early Hebrew Sheol was essentially the destination of the dead, not a place where evil people were separated out for eternal punishment. Good and bad alike went there.

The later ideas of cosmic good versus cosmic evil, postmortem judgment, resurrection, reward and punishment, etc. developed much more strongly in Judaism during the Second Temple period. There is a longstanding scholar nerd type argument that contact with Persian/Zoroastrian religion influenced that development, although I probably would not state that as a simple one to one borrowing (even if that is my knee jerk inclination).

The older Mesopotamian model is even clearer: immortality belonged to the gods, while humans went to the underworld. Gilgamesh’s whole problem was that, despite being partly divine, he was still mortal and cannot simply become one of the immortal gods. Bummer.

NO, you are not wrong .

Also Zoroastrianism supplied a LOT of the framework for the later 'Abrahamic Religions ' . The early stage was more like a 'science of the mind' - nearly like some of Buddhism . It was about cultivating a good or bad 'mainyu' - mind. But like later philosophies , mind, life, spirit , breath all got mixed up somewhat . Eventually mainyu became spirit and good and bad mind became good and bad spirits and bad spirit was Ahriman . . . . When most people followed good mind and other principles , good society generated and that led to a belief in good times coming ; 'Frashokerti' ( with a Sayoshant coming ; savior ) that carried on into Judaism , ( new Jerusalem ) and the return of Christ etc .

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Now (d)evolving into a religion of dualism , well, it only made 'sense ' there must be an opposite nasty place .

'Heaven ' was 'the house of song ' - just over there across the 'Chinvat Bridge ' ( considering song contained , in a pre literate society , ALL their knowledge , it was of supreme importance ).

'Hell' was Druj-Demāna - The House of Lies - again in preliterate society , supremely important ; contacts , trade agreements , land borders , everything depended on word and 'keeping your word ' it wasnt until written contracts that man developed a 'forked - tongue ' .

One later European and folk aspect ; selling your soul to the devil , in part evolved from ( considering they could not win the lotto ) wanting to find treasure ... and where might that be found ? Unless it's someone else's 'lost' wealth and you find it , its found underground . Still today some miners have 'devil' effigies in mines they make offerings to for safety ;

 

[Nembra]

For context, I am not Christian. This post is mostly just for the sake of curiousity.

When did the concept of Hell in Christianity become a thing? Where did it come from?
I have heard some say it was a ruse by the church to maintain power over people through fear. I have heard others say the concept is much older.
Anybody know anything?

There are like three different things that Chrisian folklore - but not necessarily dogma - syncretised into "hell". It was certainly not made up by the Church to frighten people (though it was at times used for that purpose by the clergy). First, there is the Judaic Sheol, in which the dead find themselves in; then there's the concept of separation from God as the archetypal state of spiritual death which is not even a place in Catholic theology that Jesus used Gehenna to symbolise; and then there is the inexplicable Lake of Fire in John's vision that can be interpreted in a number of ways.

Even officially there's a lot of theology that kind of doesn't add up very well around this topic, like the idea of hell as an ultimate destination against the fact that it's not a place at all and the fact that gates of Sheol are supposedly broken by Christ and it stands wide open. The Church these days, I believe, somewhat reluctantly admits it has little idea how this all comes together.

 

[MorganBlack]

Catholicism 'is' Orphic in that is really only concerned with ensuring you have a good post-mortem experience. Go read about Orphism if you need a less "churchy " language around this issue.

Zoroastrianism supplied Zurvan but not directly to Catholicism , but to the Hellenic world as an early version of the Time God - the Demiurge of Plato.

(In my opinion "He" - The Demiurge - preceded even Zoroastrianism from a prior Earth Age. As did the ideas of"Hell")

FYI, Zoroastrianism Zurvan is a boundless Time God who flowed into Hellenistic syncretism as Aion and Chronos, directly influencing the Gnostic and Platonic (and later Hermetic) Demiurge as a craftsman of time creating the material realm, and distinct from the unmanifest Monad.

As to the Local Devils

We have to air-gap the Folkloric Hells from the Catholic Theological Hell, or it is too easy to run around and try to scoop up some local practices and claim this makes the 'real' Catholic Hell.

Local spirit practices USE Catholicism as mythic language and provide symbolism to use in ritual to 'attract the attention.' of the local daimons, spirits, entities, Over time, those novenas, prayers and ceremonies are just accepted in the spirit world as a proper invitation.

(In my view it was pretty much exactly like how the earlier local Bon spirits all converted to were forced to convert to Tibetan Buddhism.)

How ever that went down, the spirits know what you mean, and you are providing a mythic language they can inhabit and use to communicate with you. But that is a one-way street and does not flow back into Catholic theology by mis-applying Neopagan hard polytheism, or Hemetic universalism.

An example from my family's old country . In the transition from pre to post-Columbian Mexico, human-spirit engagement remained the same, even while the ritual grammar changed when Catholicism as intruded, Same landscape, new and often expanded mythic grammar.

The Catholic Anima Sola is a soul in purgatory whose suffering is able to be helped by prayer and offering. The Nahua Mikkiehekatl is a soul that wanders because it cannot rest, often due to a bad death. Both are liminal, suffering souls that occupy the threshold between the living and the dead. Mikkiehekatl is now allpeached as Anima Sola. Butthat does not mean Mikkiehekatl ineed to be ret-conned into the Vatican

The ritual language shifted to one Cathjolcism - Purgatory, candles, novenas, prayers - but the underlying shamanic engagement with suffering spirits as allies or threats remained. The same is true for La Llorona as a weeping woman tied to death and liminality. Mikkiehekatl is a Nahua category of wandering dead, liminal and suffering, often tied to a very bad death. Anima Sola is a folk-Catholic devotion to a soul in purgatory, with regional variations, and is used to rotialize interaction with powerful wandering dead.

But you can't use Neopagan hard polytheism or Hermetic Universalism, and take the Nahua Mikkiehekatl and say she "IS" literally Anima Sola.

To make it even morec omplex the Anima Sola of Haiti is very different from the Mexican Anima Sola. Both hard polytheism and Hermetic Universalism flatten local traditions. Universalism turns all names into masks of one being. Neither respects the actual ritual grammar, geography, or history of real people in living magical and spiritual tradtions.