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Limb, and in fact, speaking about him, the poet talks not so much about hell as about purgatory. It is in Limbo that the children who died before baptism, as well as all the pagans glorious in their deeds, get. It is there that Virgil and many ancient philosophers, poets, playwrights, warriors are located. Limbo is not a terrible place at all, and there is no torment there, since the people who are on it are only to blame for the fact that they were not Christians during their lifetime.

Near the descent to the second circle, the demon Minos distributes sinners according to them and decides who deserved what punishment during his lifetime. Once on the second circle, the poet sees an infernal whirlwind in which the souls of voluptuous people endlessly whirl. There are many lovers who do not part after death, and Cleopatra and Elena the Beautiful were also there.

The ruler of the third circle is Cerberus. There he guards those who during their lifetime often sinned by gluttony. The souls that are in this place are in the mud under a terrible downpour. Going down to the fourth circle, the poet sees the demon Plutos - the one who guards and punishes the miserly and spendthrifts. In this place you can see many cardinals, popes and other clerics who thoughtlessly spent wealth and appropriated other people's money. The fifth circle represents the Stygian lowland, where people endlessly drown and suffer, whose sin has become anger and laziness. They are immersed in a swamp that does not allow them to get out, but does not destroy them either.

The four lower circles of hell

The sixth circle of hell is terrifying even for those who only have to go through it. It is full of tombs on fire. From these tombs come the screams of heretics locked inside, forever burning and not burning. To pass between them, you have to step very carefully, because a narrow road leads to the seventh circle, and flames blaze around. Near the next "floor" of hell, Virgil and Dante see the grave of Pope Anastasius, who also received his punishment for heresy.

The seventh circle is an area compressed by mountains, in the middle of which a boiling bloody river flows. Tyrants, rapists and robbers are endlessly boiled in it, and centaurs shoot at these sinners with bows. It is there that the poet sees the Minotaur and the centaur Nessus. Having accidentally broken one of the branches of the bush, seeing black blood and hearing a painful moan, he learns from his escorts that the souls of suicides are enclosed in these bushes. In the same place, those who indulged in same-sex love are tormented, burned by fire, and among them the teacher Dante Brunetto Latini.

Having descended to the eighth circle on the flying beast Gerion, the poet sees 10 ditches - one for a crime. There languish seducers of women, flatterers, dealers in church positions, sorcerers, bribe-takers, hypocrites, thieves, insidious advisers, sowers of discord and alchemists. Finally, the ninth circle of hell is an icy lake in which Lucifer eternally tortures traitors, including Judas, those who went against relatives, murderers, tormentors.

Sooner or later it will be for everyone. It would be ridiculous to think that after such a life we ​​will somehow be able to seep through the gates of heaven or deceive the archangel guarding them. The suite is to come to terms with the inevitable: it is not the booths and houris that are waiting for us, but the gloomy landscape of hell, And in order not to get lost behind the coffin, it is worth preparing for this in advance. Moreover, you can find a whole bunch of authoritative evidence on how to navigate in hellish terrain. The main thing is not to panic.

Where is he, the underworld? Some ancient peoples burned the dead: this is a sure sign that the soul must ascend to its new home in heaven. If it was buried in the ground, then it will go to the underworld. If they were sent on their last journey by boat, it sails to the country beyond the sea, at the very edge of the Earth. The Slavs had very different opinions on this matter, but they all agreed on one thing: the souls of those people who are not kept near their former dwellings enter the afterlife, and they lead approximately the same existence there - they harvest, hunt ... The same those who, due to a curse or an unfulfilled promise, or something else, cannot leave their bodies, remain in our world - either moving into their former shells, or taking on the appearance of animals, natural phenomena, or simply ghosts of failure. It can be said that the afterlife of such souls is our own world, so this is not the worst option for an afterlife existence.

egyptian hell

Everything will turn out much worse if you find yourself in the afterlife of the ancient Egyptians, where Osiris reigns. During his earthly incarnation, he was killed and dismembered by his own brother Seth. This could not but affect the character of the lord of the dead. Osiris looks repulsive: he looks like a mummy clutching the signs of pharaoh's power in his hands. Sitting on the throne, he presides over the court that weighs the deeds of newly arrived souls. The god of life Horus introduces them here. Hold on tight to his hand: the falcon-headed Horus is the son of the underground king, so he may well put in a good word for you.

The courtroom is huge - it is the whole vault of heaven. According to the instructions of the Egyptian Book of the Dead, a number of rules must be observed in it. List in detail the sins that you did not have time to commit during your lifetime. After that, you will be offered to leave a memory of yourself and help your relatives by depicting a court scene on a papyrus scroll. If your artistic talent is at its best, you will spend the rest of eternity here, participating in the affairs of Osiris and his numerous divine relatives. The rest will face a cruel execution: they are thrown to be devoured by Ammat, a monster with the body of a hippopotamus, the paws and mane of a lion and the mouth of a crocodile. However, the lucky ones can also be in his mouth: from time to time there are "cleansings", in which the affairs of the ward souls are again reviewed. And if relatives did not supply the appropriate amulets, you will surely be eaten by a ruthless monster.

greek hell

It is even easier to get into the afterlife of the Greeks: the god of death Thanatos himself will take you away, who brings all the "fresh" souls here. During great battles and battles, where he apparently cannot cope alone, Thanatos is helped by winged Kerrs, who carry the fallen to the kingdom of eternally gloomy Hades.

In the far west, at the end of the world, stretches a lifeless plain, here and there overgrown with willows and poplars with black bark. Behind it, at the bottom of the abyss, the muddy bog of Acheron opens. It merges with the black waters of the Styx, encircling the world of the dead nine times and separating it from the world of the living. Even the gods are wary of breaking the oaths given in the name of Styx: these waters are sacred and ruthless. They flow into Cocytus, the river of lamentation, which gives rise to Lethe, the river of oblivion.

You can cross the bed of the Styx in the boat of old Charon. For his work, he takes from each a small copper coin. If you don't have money, all you have to do is wait for the end of time at the entrance. Charon's boat crosses all nine streams and disembarks passengers in the abode of the dead. Here you will be met by a huge three-headed dog Cerberus, safe for those who enter, but ferocious and ruthless to those who try to return to the solar world. On a vast plain, under a freezing wind, among other shadows, calmly wait your turn. The rough road leads to the chamber of Hades itself, surrounded by the fiery stream Phlegethon. The bridge over it rests on the gate, standing on diamond columns. Behind the gate is a huge hall made of bronze, where Hades himself and his assistants, judges Minos, Aeacus and Rhadamanth, sit. By the way, all three were once flesh and blood people like you and me. They were just kings and ruled their peoples so successfully that after their death Zeus made them judges over all the dead.

With a high probability, fair judges will cast you even lower, into Tartarus - the realm of pain and groans, located deep under the palace. Here you will have to get acquainted with the three old women sisters, the goddesses of vengeance, the Erinnias, whom Hades set to look after sinners. Their appearance is terrible: blue lips, from which poisonous saliva drips; black cloaks like bat wings. With coils of snakes in their hands, they rush through the dungeon, illuminating their path with torches, and make sure that everyone completely drinks the cup of punishment laid to him. Among the other "indigenous inhabitants" of Tartarus are Lamia stealing children, the three-headed Hecate, the demon of nightmares, the corpse-eater Evryn. Here you will meet many mythical figures. The tyrant Ixion is forever chained to the fiery wheel. The chained giant Tityus, who insulted the tender Leto, is pecked by two vultures. The blasphemer Tantalus is up to his neck immersed in the freshest pure water, but as soon as he, tormented by thirst, bends down, she recedes from him. The Danaids who killed their husbands are forced to endlessly fill the leaky vessel. The dodgy Sisyphus, who once deceived the spirit of death Thanatos, and the intractable Hades, and Zeus himself, rolls a stone uphill, which breaks off every time it approaches the top.

christian hell

The images of the Christian hell are largely inspired by the ancient Greeks. It is among Christians that the geography of hell has been studied in the most detail. Getting there is somewhat more difficult. Already in the apocryphal books - those that were not included in the Holy Scriptures or were excluded from it later - different opinions were expressed about the location of hell. So, the "Book of Enoch" places the devil himself in the eastern lifeless desert, where Raphael "makes a hole", into which he lowers him, bound hand and foot, and rolls him over with a stone. However, according to the same apocrypha, the soul will head in the opposite direction, to the west, where it will "groan" in the recesses of a high mountain range. At the end of the 6th century, Pope Gregory the Great, distinguishing between two hells - upper and lower - placed one on earth, the second below it.

In his book on the nature of hell, published in 1714, the English occultist Tobias Swinden placed hell in the sun. He motivated his assumption by the simultaneously existing ideas about our luminary as a ball of fire and a quote from the Apocalypse ("The fourth angel poured out his cup on the Sun: and it was given to him to burn people with fire"). And his contemporary and follower William Whiston declared all celestial comets to be hell: when they get into the near-solar hot regions, they fry souls, and when they move away, they freeze them. However, it is unlikely that you should hope to get on a comet. The most widely accepted idea is that hell is located in the center of the Earth and has at least one exit to the surface. Most likely, this exit is located in the north, although there are other opinions. So, an old poem about the wanderings of the Irish saint Brendan tells of his journey to the far west, where he finds not only heavenly places, but also places of torment for sinners.

And in heaven, and under the earth, and on the earth itself, hell is placed in the apocryphal "Walking of the Virgin through the torments." This book is replete with detailed descriptions of punishments. Having asked God to disperse the total darkness that envelops the suffering in the west, Mary sees how burning pitch is poured out on unbelievers. Here, in a cloud of fire, those who "sleep like the dead at dawn on Sunday" are tormented, and those who did not stand in the church during their lifetime sit on red-hot benches. In the south, other sinners are immersed in the fiery river, cursed by their parents - up to the waist, fornicators - up to the chest, and up to the throat - "those who ate human meat", that is, traitors who threw their children to be eaten by beasts or betrayed brothers before the king. But deepest of all, to the crown of the head, perjurers are immersed. The Mother of God sees here other punishments due to lovers of profit (hung by the legs), sowers of enmity and slanderers (hung behind the ears). In the "left side of paradise" in the raging waves of boiling tar, the Jews who crucified Christ suffer torment.

In the realm of eternal chaos, hell is located by John Milton, the author of the poem "Paradise Lost". According to his concept, Satan was overthrown even before the creation of the earth and heaven, which means that hell is outside these areas. The devil himself sits in Pandemonium, the "brilliant capital", where he receives the most prominent demons and demons. Pandemonium - a huge castle with halls and porticos, built by the same architect as the palace of the King of Heaven. The angel-architect, who joined the army of Satan, was expelled from heaven with him. Myriads of spirits rush through the corridors of the palace, swarming in the earth and air. There are so many of them that only satanic witchcraft allows them to accommodate.

Even more confusing is the medieval Christian theologian Emanuel Swedenborg. He distinguished three different hells corresponding to the three levels of heaven. And since God rules over everything, all three hells are controlled by him through specially delegated angels. In his opinion, there is no Satan at all as the lord of the kingdom of evil. The devil in the understanding of Swedenborg is the collective name for the most dangerous "evil geniuses"; Beelzebub unites spirits striving for dominance even in heaven; Satan means "not so evil" spirits. All these spirits are terrible in appearance and, like corpses, devoid of life. The faces of some are black, others are fiery, others are "ugly from pimples, boils and ulcers; in very many the face is not visible, in others only teeth stick out." Swedenborg formulated the idea that just as heaven reflects one person, so hell in the aggregate is only a reflection of one devil and can be represented in this form. The devil's mouth leading to a fetid hell - this is the path that awaits sinners.

Do not rely too much on the opinion of some authors who claim that the entrance to hell can be locked. Christ in the "Apocalypse" says: "I have the keys of hell and death." But Milton claims that the keys to Gehenna (apparently on behalf of Jesus) are kept by a terrible half-woman, half-snake. On the surface of the earth, the gate may look quite harmless, like a pit or a cave, or like the mouth of a volcano. According to Dante Alighieri, author of the Divine Comedy, written at the beginning of the 14th century, souls can go to hell by passing through a dense and gloomy forest.

This poem is the most authoritative source about the infernal device (for more details, see the end of the article). The structure of the underworld is described in all its complexity. The hell of the Divine Comedy is the torso of Lucifer, inside it has a funnel-shaped structure. Having started their journey through hell, Dante and his guide Virgil descend deeper and deeper, without turning anywhere, and eventually end up in the same place from which they entered it. The strangeness of this infernal geometry was noticed by the famous Russian mathematician, philosopher and theologian Pavel Florensky. He quite convincingly proved that Dante's hell is based on non-Euclidean geometry. Like the whole Universe in the ideas of modern physics, hell in the poem has a finite volume, but has no boundaries, which was proved (theoretically) by the Swiss Weil.

muslim hell

It looks like a Christian hell and the underworld that awaits Muslims. Among the stories of the "Thousand and One Nights" is told about its seven circles. The first is intended for the faithful, who died an unrighteous death, the second - for the apostates, the third - for the pagans. Jinn and descendants of Iblis himself inhabit the fourth and fifth circles, Christians and Jews - the sixth. The innermost, the seventh circle awaits the hypocrites. Before getting here, the souls are waiting for the great Judgment Day, which will come at the end of time. However, the wait does not seem long to them.

Like most other sinners, visitors to the Islamic hell are forever roasted on fire, and every time their skin burns, it grows again. Here grows the Zakkum tree, whose fruits, like the heads of the devil, are the food of the punished. You should not try the local cuisine: these fruits boil in the stomach like molten copper. Those who feed on them are tormented by unbearable thirst, but the only way to quench it is to drink boiling water so fetid that they "melt the insides and skin." In short, this is a very, very hot place. In addition, Allah even enlarges the bodies of infidels, intensifying their torment.

Dante hell

Passing through the forest, you will find yourself on the eve of hell, in the "mysterious entrance". This is a gloomy and heavy place where the souls of those "who lived without knowing either the glory or the shame of mortal deeds" are imprisoned. There are quite a few of these. "Scraps of all dialects" merge into a single rumble, on which these people groan and wail, all their lives being neither hot nor cold, but only warm. These insignificant souls torment whole swarms of horseflies and wasps. From wounds, mixed with tears, blood drips, which is devoured by hordes of worms. The angels are also imprisoned here, who, without rebelling against the Lord, did not take the side of Beelzebub, preferring cautious neutrality. Since those times immemorial, their "sad flock" has been uprooted by heaven, but hell does not accept either ...

To be honest, none of the described hells evokes good feelings in us, especially in comparison with our cramped, but generally cozy world. So where exactly to go is up to you. Of course, it is not possible to give a complete information about the structure of hell. However, we hope that our cursory review will help everyone who finds themselves there to quickly orient themselves and greet their new eternity with the words of John Milton: "Hello, sinister world! Hello, hell beyond!"

Sooner or later it will be for everyone. It would be ridiculous to think that after such a life we ​​will somehow be able to seep through the gates of heaven or deceive the archangel guarding them. It is worth coming to terms with the inevitable: it is not the booths and houris that await us, but the gloomy landscape of hell. And in order not to get lost behind the coffin board, it is worth preparing for this in advance. Moreover, you can find a whole bunch of authoritative evidence on how to navigate in hellish terrain. The main thing is not to panic.

Where is he, the underworld?

Some ancient peoples burned the dead: this is a sure sign that the soul must ascend to its new home in heaven. If it was buried in the ground, then it will go to the underworld. If they were sent on their last journey by boat, it sails to the country beyond the sea, at the very edge of the Earth.

The Slavs had a variety of opinions on this matter, but they all agreed on one thing: the souls of those people who are not kept near their former dwellings enter the afterlife, and they lead approximately the same existence there - they harvest, hunt ...

Those who, due to a curse, or an unfulfilled promise, or something else, cannot leave their bodies, remain in our world - either moving into their former shells, or taking on the appearance of animals, natural phenomena, or simply ghosts of failure. It can be said that the afterlife of such souls is our own world, so this is not the worst option for an afterlife existence.

egyptian hell

Everything will turn out much worse if you find yourself in the afterlife of the ancient Egyptians, where Osiris reigns.

Osiris is the god of rebirth, the king of the underworld in ancient Egyptian mythology. Sometimes Osiris was depicted with the head of a bull. According to references in ancient Egyptian texts and the story of Plutarch, Osiris was the eldest son of the earth god Geb and the sky goddess Nut, the brother and husband of Isis, the brother of Nephthys, Seth, the father of Horus.

He was the fourth of the gods who reigned on earth in primordial times, having inherited the power of his great-grandfather Ra-Atum, grandfather Shu and father Geb. Reigning over Egypt, Osiris taught people agriculture, gardening and winemaking, but was killed by his brother, the god Set, who wanted to rule in his place. The wife of Osiris, his sister Isis, found his corpse and began to mourn him along with her sister Nephthys.

Ra, taking pity, sends the jackal-headed god Anubis, who gathered the scattered (and in another version - chopped by Set) members of Osiris, embalmed the body and swaddled it. Isis, in the form of a falcon, descended on the corpse of Osiris and, miraculously conceived from him, gave birth to a son, Horus. Horus is both conceived and born in order to act as a natural avenger for the death of his father.

At the same time, he considers himself the only legitimate heir of the latter. After a long litigation, Horus is recognized as the rightful heir of Osiris and receives the kingdom. He resurrects Osiris by letting him swallow his eye. However, Osiris does not return to earth and remains the king of the dead, leaving Horus to rule the kingdom of the living.

During his earthly incarnation, he was killed and dismembered by his own brother Seth. This could not but affect the character of the lord of the dead. Osiris looks repulsive: he looks like a mummy clutching the signs of pharaoh's power in his hands. Sitting on the throne, he presides over the court that weighs the deeds of newly arrived souls. The god of life Horus introduces them here. Hold on tight to his hand: the falcon-headed Horus is the son of the underground king, so he may well put in a good word for you.

The hall of judgment is huge - it is the whole vault of heaven.

The "Book of the Dead" in ancient Egypt is a collection of religious and legal norms placed in a tomb in order to help the deceased overcome the dangers of the other world and gain enlightened immortality. It is a series of unrelated 186 chapters of various sizes, ranging from long poetic hymns to single-line magic formulas.

According to the instructions of the Egyptian Book of the Dead, a number of rules must be observed in it. List in detail the sins that you did not have time to commit during your lifetime. After that, you will be offered to leave a memory of yourself and help your relatives by depicting a court scene on a papyrus scroll. If your artistic talent is at its best, you will spend the rest of eternity here, participating in the affairs of Osiris and his numerous divine relatives.

The rest will face a cruel execution: they are thrown to be devoured by Ammat, a monster with the body of a hippopotamus, the paws and mane of a lion and the mouth of a crocodile. However, the lucky ones can also be in his mouth: from time to time there are “cleansings”, in which the affairs of the ward souls are again reviewed. And if relatives did not supply the appropriate amulets, you will surely be eaten by a ruthless monster.

greek hell

It is even easier to get into the afterlife of the Greeks: the god of death Thanatos himself will take you away, who brings all the “fresh” souls here. During great battles and battles, where he apparently cannot cope alone, Thanatos is helped by winged Kerrs, who carry the fallen to the kingdom of eternally gloomy Hades.

Thanatos, Tanat, Fanat (Greek Θάνᾰτος, "death") - in Greek mythology, the personification of death, the son of Nikta, the twin brother of the god of sleep Hypnos. Thanatos has an iron heart and is hated by the gods. He is the only one of the gods who does not love gifts. The cult of Thanatos existed in Sparta. Thanatos was most often depicted as a winged young man with an extinguished torch in his hand. In ancient times, there was an opinion that the death of a person depended only on him.

In the far west, at the end of the world, stretches a lifeless plain, here and there overgrown with willows and poplars with black bark. Behind it, at the bottom of the abyss, the muddy bog of Acheron opens. It merges with the black waters of the Styx, encircling the world of the dead nine times and separating it from the world of the living. Even the gods are wary of breaking the oaths given in the name of Styx: these waters are sacred and ruthless. They flow into Cocytus, the river of lamentation, which gives rise to Lethe, the river of oblivion.

You can cross the bed of the Styx in the boat of old Charon.

Charon (Greek Χάρων - “bright”) in Greek mythology is the carrier of the souls of the dead across the river Styx (according to another version - through Acheron) to Hades (the underworld of the dead). Depicted as a gloomy old man in rags. Charon transports the dead along the waters of underground rivers, receiving for this a payment of one obol (according to the funeral rite, located under the tongue of the dead). It transports only those dead whose bones have found peace in the grave. Only a golden branch plucked in the grove of Persephone opens the way for a living person to the kingdom of death.

For his work, he takes from each a small copper coin. If you don't have money, all you have to do is wait for the end of time at the entrance. Charon's boat crosses all nine streams and disembarks passengers in the abode of the dead. Here you will be met by a huge three-headed dog Cerberus, safe for those who enter, but ferocious and ruthless to those who try to return to the solar world.

Cerberus, Cerberus (from Greek Κέρβερος) - in Greek mythology, the offspring of Echidna, which looks like a three-headed dog with a snake tail, is as creepy as his mother. Cerberus guarded the exit from the realm of the dead Hades, preventing the dead from returning to the world of the living. However, this creature, amazing in strength, was defeated by Hercules in one of his labors. In the Middle Ages, Cerberus became a demon guarding the exit from the underworld.

On a vast plain, under a freezing wind, among other shadows, calmly wait your turn. The rough road leads to the chamber of Hades itself, surrounded by the fiery stream Phlegethon. The bridge over it rests on the gate, standing on diamond columns. Behind the gates is a huge hall made of bronze, where Hades himself and his assistants, judges Minos, Aeacus and Rhadamanthus, sit. By the way, all three were once flesh and blood people like you and me. They were just kings and ruled their peoples so successfully that after their death Zeus made them judges over all the dead.

With a high probability, fair judges will cast you even lower, into Tartarus - the realm of pain and groans, located deep under the palace. Here you will have to get acquainted with the three old women sisters, the goddesses of vengeance, the Erinnias, whom Hades set to look after sinners. Their appearance is terrible: blue lips, from which poisonous saliva drips; black cloaks like bat wings.

Tartarus (Greek Τάρταρος) - in ancient Greek mythology - the deepest abyss under Hades, where, after the titanomachy, Zeus threw Kron and the Titans and where they were guarded by the hundred-armed giants of Hekatoncheira, the children of Uranus. This dark abyss, which is as far from the surface of the earth, how far from the earth is the sky: according to Homer, a copper anvil would fly from the surface of the earth to Tartarus within 9 days. Tartarus was surrounded by a triple layer of darkness and an iron wall with iron gates erected by Poseidon. As the personification of this abyss, Tartarus was the son of Ether and Gaia; in Hesiod in Theogony - the son of Gaia, the father is not indicated. In later times, the meaning of Tartarus changed: it began to mean the lower spaces in the kingdom of sinners.

With coils of snakes in their hands, they rush through the dungeon, illuminating their path with torches, and make sure that everyone completely drinks the cup of punishment laid to him. Among the other "indigenous inhabitants" of Tartarus are Lamia stealing children, the three-headed Hecate, the demon of nightmares, the corpse-eater Evryn. Here you will meet many mythical figures. The tyrant Ixion is forever chained to the fiery wheel. The chained giant Tityus, who insulted the tender Leto, is pecked by two vultures.

The blasphemer Tantalus is up to his neck immersed in the freshest pure water, but as soon as he, tormented by thirst, bends down, she recedes from him. The Danaids who killed their husbands are forced to endlessly fill the leaky vessel. The dodgy Sisyphus, who once deceived the spirit of death Thanatos, and the intractable Hades, and Zeus himself, rolls a stone uphill, which breaks off every time it approaches the top.

christian hell

The images of the Christian hell are largely inspired by the ancient Greeks. It is among Christians that the geography of hell has been studied in the most detail. Getting there is somewhat more difficult. Already in the apocryphal books - those that were not included in the Holy Scriptures or were excluded from it later - different opinions were expressed about the location of hell.

Thus, the “Book of Enoch” places the devil himself in the eastern lifeless desert, where Raphael “makes a hole”, into which he lowers him, bound hand and foot, and rolls him on top with a stone.

However, according to the same apocrypha, the soul will head in the opposite direction, to the west, where it will “groan” in the recesses of a high mountain range. At the end of the VI century, Pope Gregory the Great, distinguishing between two hells - the upper and lower.

Gregory I the Great (lat. Gregorius PP. I) (c. 540 - March 12, 604) - Pope from September 3, 590 to March 12, 604. Gregory "was so well versed in the science of grammar, dialectics and rhetoric that they believed that in there was no one equal to him in all of Rome."

Of the countless variety of ideas about the structure of hell, the idea of ​​​​two hells: upper and lower can be attributed to fairly stable and generally accepted ones.

The upper hell is depicted here as “the lower part of this world, full of torments”, “here rage immeasurable heat, great cold, hunger, thirst, various bodily sufferings, such as scourging, and spiritual ones, such as horror and timidity ...; the lower hell is a “spiritual place” (locus spiritualis), where an unquenchable fire burns; its location below should be understood metaphorically: “they say about it that it is underground, because, as the bodies of sinners are covered with earth, so the souls of sinners are buried in hell”

In his 1714 book on the nature of hell, the English occultist Tobias Swinden placed hell in the sun. He motivated his assumption by the simultaneously existing ideas about our luminary as a ball of fire and a quote from the Apocalypse (“The fourth angel poured out his cup on the Sun: and it was given to him to burn people with fire”). And his contemporary and follower William Whiston declared all celestial comets hell: getting into the near-solar hot regions, they fry souls, and moving away, they freeze.

However, it is unlikely that you should hope to get on a comet. The most widely accepted idea is that Hell is located in the center of the Earth and has at least one exit to the surface. Most likely, this exit is located in the north, although there are other opinions. So, an old poem about the wanderings of the Irish saint Brendan tells of his journey to the far west, where he finds not only heavenly places, but also places of torment for sinners.

And in heaven, and under the earth, and on the earth itself, hell is placed in the apocryphal "Walking of the Virgin through the torments." This book is replete with detailed descriptions of punishments. Having asked God to disperse the total darkness that envelops the suffering in the west, Mary sees how burning pitch is poured out on unbelievers.

Here, in a cloud of fire, those who “sleep like the dead at dawn on Sunday” are tormented, and those who did not stand in the church during their lifetime sit on red-hot benches. In the south, other sinners are immersed in the fiery river: cursed by parents - up to the waist, fornicators - up to the chest, and up to the throat - "those who ate human meat", that is, traitors who threw their children to be eaten by beasts or betrayed brothers before the king. But deepest of all, to the crown of the head, perjurers are immersed.

The Mother of God sees here other punishments that are due to lovers of profit (hung by the legs), sowers of enmity and Christian adherents (hung by the ears). In the "left side of paradise", in the raging waves of boiling tar, the Jews who crucified Christ suffer torment.

In the realm of eternal chaos, hell is located by John Milton, the author of the poem Paradise Lost. According to his concept, Satan was overthrown even before the creation of the earth and heaven, which means that hell is outside these areas. The devil himself sits in Pandemonium, the "resplendent capital", where he receives the most prominent demons and demons.

Pandemonium is a huge castle with halls and porticos, built by the same architect as the palace of the King of Heaven. The angel-architect, who joined the army of Satan, was expelled from heaven with him. Myriads of spirits rush through the corridors of the palace, swarming in the earth and air. There are so many of them that only satanic witchcraft allows them to accommodate.

Even more confusing is the medieval Christian theologian Emanuel Swedenborg.

Emmanuel Swedenborg Great Swedish seer and mystic. He was born on January 29, 1688, the son of Dr. Jasper Svedberg, Bishop of Skara in Westgotland; died in London, Great Bass Street, Clapkenville, March 29, 1772.

Of all the mystics, Swedenborg undoubtedly influenced Theosophy the most; however, he left an even deeper imprint on mainstream science. For if as an astronomer, mathematician, physiologist, naturalist and philosopher he had no equal, then in psychology and metaphysics he was undoubtedly behind his time.

When he was 46 years old, he became a "theosophist" and "seer"; but although his life was always spotless and honorable, he was never a true philanthropist or ascetic. His clairvoyant powers, though, were remarkable; however, they did not go beyond this plane of matter; everything that he says about subjective worlds and spiritual beings is obviously more the product of his wild imagination than his spiritual insight.

He left many writings that are horribly misunderstood by his followers.

He distinguished three different hells corresponding to the three levels of heaven. And since God rules over everything, all three hells are controlled by him through specially delegated angels. In his opinion, there is no Satan at all as the lord of the kingdom of evil. The devil in the understanding of Swedenborg is the collective name for the most dangerous "evil geniuses"; Beelzebub unites spirits striving for dominance even in heaven; Satan means "not so evil" spirits.

All these spirits are terrible in appearance and, like corpses, devoid of life. The faces of some are black, those of others are fiery, those of others are “ugly with pimples, abscesses and ulcers; very many of the face is not visible, others stick out only one teeth. Swedenborg formulated the idea that just as heaven reflects one person, so hell in the aggregate is only a reflection of one devil and can be represented in this form. The devil's mouth leading to a fetid hell - this is the path that awaits sinners.

Do not rely too much on the opinion of some authors who claim that the entrance to hell can be locked. Christ in the "Apocalypse" says: "I have the keys of hell and death." But Milton claims that the keys to Gehenna (apparently on behalf of Jesus) are kept by a terrible half-woman, half-snake. On the surface of the earth, the gate may look quite harmless, like a pit or a cave, or like the mouth of a volcano. According to Dante Alighieri, author of The Divine Comedy, written at the beginning of the 14th century, souls can go to hell by passing through a dense and gloomy forest.

This poem is the most authoritative source about the infernal device (for more details, see the end of the article). The structure of the underworld is described in all its complexity. The hell of the Divine Comedy is the torso of Lucifer, inside it has a funnel-shaped structure. Having started their journey through hell, Dante and his guide Virgil descend deeper and deeper, without turning anywhere, and eventually end up in the same place from which they entered it.

The strangeness of this infernal geometry was noticed by the famous Russian mathematician, philosopher and theologian Pavel Florensky. He quite convincingly proved that Dante's hell is based on non-Euclidean geometry. Like the whole Universe in the ideas of modern physics, hell in the poem has a finite volume, but has no boundaries, which was proved (theoretically) by the Swiss Weil.

muslim hell

Jahannam (eng. Jahannam, Arabic. جهنم‎‎) is the most common name for hell in Muslim mythology. The Qur'an mentions it as the place of the coming punishment of sinners:
"Jahannam is the place assigned to them all"

According to the Koran, both people and jinn will fall into Jahannam, some of which will stay there forever, others temporarily. The main torment that awaits sinners in Jahannam is from a burning fire. The image of fire dominates the Quranic description of Jahannam, which is distinguished by naturalistic details.
“And those who are unhappy are on fire, for them there are screams and roars”

“Verily, those who did not believe in our signs, we will burn with fire! Whenever their skin is cooked, we will replace it with another skin so that they will taste the punishment.”

It looks like a Christian hell and the underworld that awaits Muslims. Among the stories of the Thousand and One Nights, seven of its circles are told. The first is intended for the faithful, who died an unrighteous death, the second - for the apostates, the third - for the pagans. Jinn and descendants of Iblis himself inhabit the fourth and fifth circles, Christians and Jews - the sixth. The innermost, the seventh circle awaits the hypocrites. Before getting here, the souls are waiting for the great Judgment Day, which will come at the end of time. However, the wait does not seem long to them.

Like most other sinners, visitors to the Islamic hell are forever roasted on fire, and every time their skin burns, it grows again. Here grows the Zakkum tree, whose fruits, like the heads of the devil, are the food of the punished. You should not try the local cuisine: these fruits boil in the stomach like molten copper. Those who feed on them are tormented by unbearable thirst, but the only way to quench it is to drink boiling water so fetid that they "melt the insides and skin." In short, this is a very, very hot place. In addition, Allah even enlarges the bodies of infidels, intensifying their torment.

Hell in Buddhism

Hell in Buddhism is naraka (नरक) - the world of hellish beings (narakas) who are subject to severe torment due to their karmic deeds (that is, deeds of a past life). Unlike the Christian or Muslim hell, torment is not eternal, and after a fairly long period of atonement, negative karma is cleared, and beings can be reborn in higher worlds.

It is generally believed that the hellish dungeons in this world are located under the Jambudvipa continent. At the same time, it is noted that in an innumerable number of worlds there is also an innumerable number of hells.

In their structure, the hells resemble a deep truncated pyramid of eight layers, the lower layers are much larger than the upper ones. Hells go deep under the continent to the very bottom. The worst hells are at the bottom, the lightest hells are at the top. At each level, the central part is occupied by a hot hell, and a cold hell is located at the periphery. Thus there are eight hot and eight cold hells.

Eight cold hells

1. Arbuda-naraka - hell of blisters. On a dark frozen valley surrounded by cold mountains, there is a constant blizzard and snow storm. The inhabitants of this hell are naked and lonely, and their bodies are covered with blisters from the cold. The time spent in this hell is how long it will take to empty a barrel of sesame seeds, if one grain is taken every hundred years.
2. Nirarbuda-naraka - the hell of swelling blisters. This hell is even colder and the blisters swell and explode, leaving the bodies covered in blood and pus.
3. Atata-naraka - hell when shaking from the cold. When shaking, creatures make the sound aṭ-aṭ-aṭ?.
4. Hahava-naraka - the hell of weeping and groaning. When the victim groans from the cold, making the sounds ha, ho from pain.
5. Huhuva-naraka - the hell of chattering teeth. Terrible chills and teeth chattering, making a hoo-hoo sound.
6. Utpala-naraka - the hell of the blue lotus, when the constant cold makes the whole skin turn blue like a lily.
7. Padma-naraka - lotus hell. A snowstorm covers the frozen body, leaving bloody wounds.
8. Mahapadma-naraka - the great lotus hell. The whole body cracks from the cold, and the internal organs also crack from the terrible frost.

The stay in each next of these hells is 20 times longer than in the previous one.

Eight hot hells

1. Sanjiva-naraka - hell of revival. In this hell, the earth is made of red-hot iron. Creatures reside in this hell in constant humiliation and fear. As soon as the victims begin to fear that others will attack him, other creatures appear and begin to attack him with iron spears. Or the servants of Yama appear and attack the victims with piercing weapons. They pass out and experience death throes, but are immediately restored to consciousness and attacked again. Molten metal can also be poured on them, cut into pieces, they also suffer from red-hot iron under their feet. Staying in this hell takes 162*1010 years.

2. Kalasutra-naraka - hell of black sections. In addition to the torment in the previous hell, black lines are drawn along the body, and the servants of Yama cut the victims along these sections with jagged axes and sharp axes. Staying in this hell takes 1296*1010 years.

3. Sanghata-naraka - crushing hell. This hell is located above red-hot iron and is surrounded by massive rocks that collide and grind creatures into a bloody crumble. When the rocks move apart, life is restored and everything starts all over again. Staying in this hell takes 10.368*1010 years.

4. Raurava-naraka - the hell of screams. Here the ground is burning under the victims and they are trying to hide. When they find shelter, they are trapped in it and are struck by heat from all sides, and they scream in horror. Life in this hell takes 82.944*1010 years.

5. Maharaurava-naraka - hell of great cries. Similar to the previous one, but associated with great torments. Life in this hell takes 663.552*1010 years.

6. Tapana-naraka - hot hell. Yama's servants poke victims with a red-hot spear until flames come out of the mouth and nose. Life in this hell takes 5,308,416*1010 years.

7. Pratapana-naraka - hell of great heat. The torment is similar to that in Tapan's hell, but the victims are also more severely stabbed with a trident. Staying in this hell takes 42,467,328*1010 years.

8. Avici-naraka is the deepest hell, the height of hell is the same as all seven previous hells combined. Staying in this hell takes 339,738,624*1010 years, until the end of Antarakalpa. Therefore, this hell is called "continuous naraka". Creatures are burned on a constant fire, this is accompanied by terrible torment. Those who “cut off the roots of the good” fall into this hell - who, due to adherence to false views, destroyed the sprouts of non-greed, non-enmity, non-ignorance in themselves. In the controversy with Brahmanism, it was pointed out that adherents of the Vedas, the Brahmins, who encourage crime, greed, malice by immorality and unrighteous laws, can sink to such a degree ...

Additional hells and even temporary hells are also described.

Hell in Kabbalah

In Kabbalah, “hell” is the awareness of the difference between a person and the Creator, the Higher power of good. It is a measure of how bad we feel when we suddenly find ourselves opposed to Him. The feeling of shame, remoteness, own insignificance and baseness is so terrible that there is nothing worse than this. Such absolute shame - this is the feeling of "hell", which simply incinerates.

Dante's Hell is full of the same (or slightly outwardly changed) monsters that frightened, tormented and tormented the sinners of pagan Hades. Already at the entrance, the ferocious three-headed Cerberus pounces on Christian sinners. Devils, devils are not here - their evil functions are performed by ancient centaurs and other mythological monsters. The ancient Greek monster Gerion, who allegedly once reigned on some island across the Ocean and then killed by Hercules, is also here.

Dante turned him into a disgusting sea monster that serves the seventh circle of Hell. In addition to what has already been said in this regard, we can add that the fierce guardian of the infernal Stygian swamp is the ancient Greek mythical character - the king of the Lapith Phlegius. The Greek mythical sorceress Erichto is put into action.

Newly arrived sinners in Hell are judged and determined by the norm of punishment Minos - the mythical king of ancient Crete. On guard of the fourth circle of Hell, the ancient Greek god of the Underworld - and therefore wealth - Plutos (Pluto) is placed as a ferocious guardian. The mythical Jason is also executed in Hell - for deceiving the women he seduced. Here is the whore Faida from the comedy Terence "The Eunuch".

No opposition. Dante deliberately mixed and combined ancient Greek mythology and ancient Roman literature: fiction is fiction. All the "bosses" of Dante's Hell are mythological. Ancient Hellenic mythology reigns. Part of the punished - from the same place. The inclusion here of "heroines" from Roman literature was supposed to help the reader to clearly feel the whole frivolity of the "other world", starting from its ancient roots.

But ancient Hades is not an object for ridicule. The ancient Hellenic heritage is alive for Dante. And mythology is alive for him. In Purgatory, in Paradise, Dante calls the appeared rainbow the creation of Iris, the messenger of Juno. In the Earthly Paradise, having met four nymphs - "natural virtues", Dante calls them goddesses (dee).

It is noteworthy that in Dante's Paradise, the glorification of the teachings and deeds of church hierarchs now and then alternates with examples from biblical and church history and mythology with similar moments in ancient history and mythology.

Continuing the tradition of the medieval church, but carefully giving it a skeptical twist, Dante in his Hell expands and renews the circle of the tormented, and especially the circle of the tormentors, at the expense of the characters of ancient history, in particular mythology.

After passing through the forest, you will find yourself on the eve of hell, in the "mysterious canopy". This is a gloomy and heavy place where the souls of those “who lived without knowing either the glory or the shame of mortal deeds” are imprisoned. There are quite a few of these. “Scraps of all dialects” merge into a single rumble, on which these people groan and wail, all their lives being neither hot nor cold, but only warm.

These insignificant souls are tormented by whole goyim of horseflies and wasps. From wounds, mixed with tears, blood drips, which is devoured by hordes of worms. The angels are also imprisoned here, who, without rebelling against the Lord, did not take the side of Beelzebub, preferring cautious neutrality. Since those times immemorial, their “sad flock” has been uprooted by heaven, but hell does not accept either ...

In front of the entrance are pitiful souls who did neither good nor evil during their lifetime, including “bad flock of angels”, who were neither with the devil nor with God.

1st circle (Limb). Unbaptized babies and virtuous non-Christians.
2nd circle. Voluptuaries (fornicators and adulterers).
3rd circle. Gluttons, gluttons and gourmets.
4th circle. Covetous and spendthrifts (love of excessive spending).
5th circle (Stygian swamp). Angry and lazy.
6th round. Heretics and false teachers (the infernal city of Dit).
7th round.

1st belt. Violators over the neighbor and over his property (tyrants and robbers).
2nd belt. Violators of themselves (suicides) and of their property (players and wasters, that is, senseless destroyers of their property).
3rd belt. Violators of the deity (blasphemers), against nature (sodomites) and art (extortion).

8th round. Deceived the disbelievers. It consists of ten ditches (Zlopazuhi, or Evil Slits), which are separated from each other by ramparts (rifts). Towards the center, the area of ​​Evil Slits slopes, so that each next ditch and each next shaft are located somewhat lower than the previous ones, and the outer, concave slope of each ditch is higher than the inner, curved slope (Ad, XXIV, 37-40). The first shaft adjoins the circular wall. In the center gapes the depth of a wide and dark well, at the bottom of which lies the last, ninth, circle of Hell. From the foot of the stone heights (v. 16), that is, from the circular wall, stone ridges go to this well in radii, like the spokes of a wheel, crossing ditches and ramparts, and above the ditches they bend in the form of bridges, or vaults. In Evil Slits, deceivers are punished who deceive people who are not connected with them by special bonds of trust.

1st ditch. Procurers and seducers.
2nd ditch. Flatterers.
3rd ditch. Holy merchants, high-ranking clerics who traded in church positions.
4th ditch. Soothsayers, fortune-tellers, astrologers, sorceresses.
5th ditch. Bribers, bribe-takers.
6th ditch. Hypocrites.
7th ditch. The thieves.
8th ditch. Wicked advisers.
9th ditch. Discord instigators.
10th ditch. Alchemists, false witnesses, counterfeiters.
9th round. Deceived those who trusted. Ice lake Cocytus.

Belt of Cain. Family traitors.
Belt of Antenor. Traitors of the motherland and like-minded people.
Belt of Tolomei. Traitors of friends and companions.
Giudecca belt. Traitors of benefactors, majesty divine and human.
In the middle, in the center of the universe, frozen into an ice floe (Lucifer) torments in his three mouths traitors to the majesty of the earthly and heavenly (Judas, Brutus and Cassius).

Building a model of Hell, Dante follows Aristotle, who refers to the 1st category the sins of intemperance, to the 2nd - the sins of violence, to the 3rd - the sins of deceit. Dante has circles 2-5 for intemperate, 7th for rapists, 8-9 for deceivers. Thus, the more material the sin, the more forgivable it is.

Virtual Tour of Dante's Hell

Hell in "Rose of the World" by Daniil Andreev

In the cosmological picture of Daniil Andreev, set out in his book "Rose of the World", "hell" means Gashsharva - a two-dimensional world where demons live. There also live some people who wished to become carriers of dark missions. They don't suffer there. Therefore, Andreev's descriptions of the "worlds of retribution" are more consistent with traditional Christian ideas about hell. Also, the "Rose of the World" mentions "lunar hell", restored by the lunar demoness Voglea.

Hell in DOOM

In the computer game id Software DOOM, Hell appears as a parallel reality that you can go to by teleportation. Hell also "serves" as a kind of "transfer station" when teleporting in ordinary reality.

The population of Hell is similar in spirit to Hollywood aliens - they also pursue the goal of the complete destruction of mankind, have the appearance of humanoids and do not speak humanly (with the exception of zombies). But there are differences, in particular, the abundance of Satanic symbols, human blood and red in general, which still makes the inhabitants of Hell different from "alien".

Actually Hell is a world similar to ours, but with slightly modified laws of physics. For example, levitation, movement of objects and stones, as well as an abundant number of teleports are possible there. The "climate" is characterized by high temperatures and an abundance of lava.

To be honest, none of the described hells evokes good feelings in us, especially in comparison with our cramped, but generally cozy world. So where exactly to go is up to you. Of course, it is not possible to give a complete information about the structure of hell. However, we hope that our quick review will help everyone who finds themselves there to quickly orient themselves and welcome their new eternity in the words of John Milton:
"Hello, evil world! Hello, Hell beyond!

Alexander Tkachenko

Enraged Rottweiler

If God is Love, why does He punish sinners so severely? What is fiery hell? Where did hell come from and what is the nature of hellish torment? The Holy Fathers answered such questions one and a half millennia ago, but do we know these answers today?

“I will be on a par with eternity. Those who enter, leave hope ... ”In Dante’s Divine Comedy, these words are written above the entrance to hell. And the very description of hell, which the Italian author of the Renaissance gave in his poem, for several centuries became a textbook for all European culture. According to Dante, hell is a vast space specially equipped for the torment of sinners who got there. And the more severe the sins of a deceased person, the more terrible sufferings his soul undergoes in hell after death.

In general, the idea of ​​posthumous retribution for committed evil exists in almost all nations. Despite the multitude and diversity of religious beliefs in our world, one can hardly find one among them that would deny the idea of ​​punishing sinners in the afterlife. And the Christian religion is no exception to the general rule, it also claims that people who commit sin will be tormented in hell.

But this is where the problem arises. The fact is that Christianity is the only religion in world history that claims that there is a God - Love. Moreover, Love is sacrificial! The God of Christians became a Man, lived among people, endured all sorts of hardships, voluntarily accepted a painful death on the cross… God, who came to suffer for the sins of people, God, who knows what suffering is – there is nothing like it in any religion of the world.

And all of a sudden this good God promises unrepentant sinners such afterlife torments, about which the Jewish religious consciousness had no idea even before Christ. In the Old Testament understanding, the souls of dead people went to Sheol, a place of unconscious stay, a country of eternal deep sleep. But Christ says quite definitely: the souls of the righteous go to the Kingdom of God, the souls of sinners go to hellfire, where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched. The image of hell as - a fiery punishment for sins, a place of eternal torment, hell - appears precisely in the Christian doctrine.

What does it mean? It turns out that Christ, Who wept with compassion for someone else's grief, Who prayed on the Cross for the forgiveness of His tormentors; Christ, who did not condemn a single sinner (with a huge multitude of whom He communicated in His earthly life), suddenly changes his attitude towards them after their death? Does Christ really love people only while they are alive, and when they die, does He turn from a loving and caring God into a ruthless and implacable judge for them, moreover, into an executioner and punisher? Of course, we can say that we are talking about sinners who themselves deserved their punishment. But Christ taught his disciples not to return evil for evil. It turns out that this was said only for people, and God himself rewards sinners with such terrible suffering for the evil done, that it’s scary to even think about it? For several decades of sinful life - eternal torment ... But then why do Christians claim that there is a God - Love?

Many people have such questions. But it is easier for believers to resolve their perplexities. Anyone who turned to Christ with a prayer and at least once in his life felt the reciprocal touch of the Hand of God, no longer needs any explanation. A believer knows that God is Love already from his experience of communion with this God. But for an unchurched person, the question of eternal punishment for sins that have an ending often becomes a serious obstacle in understanding Christianity.

Christ really spoke about fiery hell. But what is Gehenna and why is it fiery? Where did this word come from and what does it mean? Without understanding this, it is simply impossible to correctly understand the words of Christ about the posthumous fate of unrepentant sinners.

Spiritual dump of paganism

Reading the Gospel, it is not difficult to make sure that Christ did not use theological and philosophical terms in his sermon. Speaking about the Kingdom of Heaven with fishermen and vine-growers, He used images that were understandable and close to ordinary people who then inhabited Judea. The language of the Gospel is an allegory, a parable, behind which is a spiritual reality. And to treat the Gospel metaphors as a direct description of this reality would be at least naive. Reading the parable in which the Lord likens the Kingdom of God to a mustard seed from which a tree grows, it is unlikely that anyone will seriously puzzle themselves with the problem – how many branches were on this tree, and what breed of birds did Christ mean? But in reasoning about Gehenna, the modern reader of the Gospel is for some reason inclined to understand the words of Christ literally. Meanwhile, in the Gospel times, any Jew knew what Gehenna was and where it was located.

Ge-Hennon in Hebrew means the valley of Hinnom. It began right outside the city wall of Jerusalem. It was a gloomy place, associated for the Jews with the most terrible and disgusting memories. The fact is that after the conclusion of the Covenant with God, the people of Israel repeatedly violated this Covenant, deviating into paganism. And the valley of Hinnom was a place of worship for Moloch and Astarte, whose cults were accompanied by unnatural depraved orgies with temple prostitution, castrati priests and human sacrifices. Tophets were built there (from the Phoenician literally: places of burning people) and the most disgusting and cruel rituals were performed that only existed in ancient paganism. Babies were thrown onto the red-hot hands of the idol of Moloch, and they rolled into the fiery inside of the idol. And in the temples of Astarte, the virgins sacrificed their innocence to her. From the valley of Hinnom this terror spread throughout Judah. Even in the Jerusalem temple, King Manasseh erected an idol of Astarte. Such lawlessness could not continue indefinitely, and the prophet Jeremiah, having gathered the Jewish elders around him, it was in Ge-Hennon that he predicted to the people of Israel the fall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem for apostasy from the True God.

In the VI century BC, the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar conquered Judea, destroyed Jerusalem, plundered and burned the Temple. At the same time, the greatest shrine of the Jewish people, the Ark of the Covenant, was forever lost. Thousands of Jewish families were driven to Babylon. So spiritual depravity, the focus of which was the valley of Hinnom, ended for the Jews in the era of the Babylonian captivity.

When the Jews returned from captivity to their native land, Ge-Henna became a place for them that caused horror and disgust. Rubbish and sewage from all over Jerusalem began to be brought here, and fire was constantly maintained here to prevent infection. Ge-Ennon turned into a city dump, where the corpses of executed criminals were also thrown out.

The Valley of Hinnom became among the Jews a symbol of the death of paganism and depravity. A stench and a fire that never goes out in the landfill reigned there, from where the spiritual infection once spread, which destroyed Israel in the time of Nebuchadnezzar.

Hell was a part of their life for the Jews, as understandable as the burning of tares after threshing the grain. Christ used these images so that the people listening to Him would be imbued as deeply as possible with the thought of the fatality of sin. The words about the unquenchable fire and the undying worm are a literal quotation of the last verse of the book of the prophet Isaiah, which is also well known to the Jews. And there these words refer not to the souls of dead sinners, but to the corpses of the enemies of God.

Behind all these terrible symbols, of course, there is an equally terrible spiritual reality. Fortunately, it is impossible for us to comprehend it completely, since this reality is fully revealed only to unrepentant sinners after death. But one can at least partially understand the causes of hellish suffering by becoming familiar with the teaching on the passions, which was compiled by the Holy Fathers of the Eastern Orthodox Church.

Enraged Rottweiler

What is passion? Imagine that you were presented with a puppy of a dog of a fighting or service breed, say, a Rottweiler. A wonderful gift! If you bring up a dog as it should be, train it, teach it to obey commands, then it will become your true friend and reliable protector. But if such a puppy is not given proper education, then in a few months you will find a powerful, fanged monster in your house, which will begin to dictate the conditions for living together. Such a dog turns into a vicious, uncontrollable beast, capable of biting, maiming and even killing its negligent owner.

Passion acts in a similar way - a certain property of the human soul, which was originally useful and necessary. But, misused by a person, this property has changed, becoming a dangerous and evil enemy for him.

The Church teaches that man is an amazing creature, the only creation that God created in His Image and Likeness, putting reason and creativity into him. But man was not created for blissful idleness. The meaning of his existence was to be a joyful co-creation with his Creator. Having received power over the material world from God, he had to keep and cultivate the Garden of Eden, and later, multiplying and filling the face of the Earth, turn the entire Universe into Paradise. For this lofty goal, God endowed human nature with a colossal creative potential, a huge number of different forces, properties and abilities, using which to fulfill the will of God about himself, a person would become a real king of the created world. But God did not create him like an automaton, hard-coded to carry out this plan. Such co-creation could be realized only in a free union of mutual love and trust of two personalities - God and man. And where there is no freedom, there can be no love. In other words, a person was free to choose - to follow the will of God who loves him, or to violate it. And man could not resist this freedom ...

Corrupted gift

After the fall, he did not lose the qualities and properties received from God. It's just that these qualities suddenly turned into a set of delayed action mines for him. Only by fulfilling God's plan for himself, a person could use his abilities for good. In any other case, they became a source of misfortune and destruction. A simple analogy: an ax is designed and made for carpentry. But, using it for other purposes, you can cut down a fruit-bearing garden, cut off your leg or kill an old money-lender.

So sin has perverted all the properties of the human soul. Instead of realizing oneself as the image of God, a person acquired self-admiration, pride and vanity, love turned into lust, the ability to admire the beauty and greatness of creation - into envy and hatred ... All the abilities that the Lord so generously bestowed on a person, he began to use contrary to their intended purpose. So evil entered the world, so suffering and disease appeared. After all, a disease is a violation of the normal functioning of an organ. And as a result of the Fall, all human nature turned out to be upset and began to suffer severely from this disorder.

By committing any sin, a person violates the will of God and makes his nature work differently than it was intended by God. If this sin becomes a source of pleasure for a person and he commits it again and again, the rebirth of the natural properties used for sinful joys takes place in him. These properties get out of control of the human will, become uncontrollable and require more and more portions of sin from the unfortunate person. And even if later, seeing that this is the path to death, he wants to stop, it will be very difficult to do so. Passion, like a mad Rottweiler, will drag him from sin to sin, and when he tries to stop, he will show his fangs and begin to ruthlessly torment his victim. This action of passions can be easily traced in the tragic fate of drug addicts and alcoholics. But it would be naive to think that hatred, fornication, envy, anger, despondency, etc. - less destructive to a person than an irresistible craving for vodka or heroin. All passions act equally terribly, as they have a common source - human nature crippled by sin.

Fire, worse than fire

The suffering that unsatisfied passion inflicts on a person is very reminiscent of the effect of fire on the human body. It is no coincidence that the Holy Fathers, speaking of passions, constantly used images of flame, burning, burning coals, etc. And in non-church, secular culture, there was no better definition for passions. Here and "inflame with passion", and "burned by passions", and the famous Lermontov: "... one, but fiery passion", and the popular advertising slogan: "Light the fire of passion ...". Lighting it up is easy, but putting it out later is incredibly difficult. But for some reason people treat this fire very lightly, although we all know its effect from our own experience. In some it smolders, in others it burns, and in some it burned to ashes before our eyes. To be convinced of this, it is enough to look at the chronicle of criminal incidents in any newspaper.

…The male. Teetotal. With higher education. During a family scandal, he hit his wife - and accidentally killed him. Then he strangled his young daughter so that she would not betray him. Then he realized what he had done, and hanged himself.

…Woman. Teacher. Out of jealousy, she doused her opponent with sulfuric acid.

…Another woman. Deciding to commit suicide, she drank a bottle of vinegar essence. Her life was saved, but she remained disabled for the rest of her life.

…Father of two children. Director of the institution. A very conscientious worker. In a few months, I squandered a huge amount of government money on slot machines. At the trial, he said: "When I played, I did not control myself ...".

People don't control themselves. The fire of passions unbearably burns them, demanding to commit sin again and again. And in the end he drives them to prison, to a hospital bed, to the grave ... This is very similar to madness, but our life is literally full of such stories. And if death ended these sufferings, it would be the greatest blessing for a person. But the Church directly says otherwise. Here are the words of the saint about the passions operating in the human soul after the death of the body: your friends. When it leaves the body, it remains alone with its passions and therefore is always tormented by them; occupied by them, she is scorched by their rebellion and tormented by them, so that she cannot even remember God; for the very remembrance of God comforts the soul, as in the psalm it is said: “He remembered God and rejoiced,” but passions do not allow her to do this either.

“Would you like me to explain to you by example what I am saying to you? Let one of you come, and I will shut him up in a dark cell, and let him, although only for three days, not eat, drink, sleep, talk to no one, sing psalms, pray, and not at all remember about God, and then he will know what the passions will do in him. However, he is still here; how much more, after the soul leaves the body, when she indulges in passions and remains alone with them, will she then endure, unfortunate?

Passions are compared with fire, but this is not entirely correct. Because passions are much more terrible than fire. Fire can torment a person only for a short time, then a protective reaction of the body is triggered and the person loses consciousness. Then he dies of pain.

But when the fire of passion torments a person all his life, and after death only intensifies many times over ...

That is why sin is terrible because it gives rise to passions in the soul of a person, which after death will become for him an unquenchable hellish flame.

Hell's lies

“My Architect was truly inspired:
I am the highest power, the fullness of omniscience
And created by the first love...
... Incoming, leave hope.

Sooner or later it will be for everyone. It would be ridiculous to think that after such a life we ​​will somehow be able to seep through the gates of heaven or deceive the archangel guarding them. It is worth coming to terms with the inevitable: it is not the booths and houris that await us, but the gloomy landscape of hell. And in order not to get lost behind the coffin board, it is worth preparing for this in advance. Moreover, you can find a whole bunch of authoritative evidence on how to navigate in hellish terrain. The main thing is not to panic.

Where is he, the underworld? Some ancient peoples burned the dead: this is a sure sign that the soul must ascend to its new home in heaven. If it was buried in the ground, then it will go to the underworld. If they were sent on their last journey by boat, it sails to the country beyond the sea, at the very edge of the Earth. The Slavs had very different opinions on this matter, but they all agreed on one thing: the souls of those people who are not kept near their former dwellings get into the afterlife, and they lead approximately the same existence there - they harvest, hunt ... Those who because of a curse, or an unfulfilled promise, or something else, they cannot leave their bodies, they remain in our world - either inhabiting their former shells, or taking on the appearance of animals, natural phenomena, or simply ghosts of failure. It can be said that the afterlife of such souls is our own world, so this is not the worst option for an afterlife existence.

egyptian hell

Everything will turn out much worse if you find yourself in the afterlife of the ancient Egyptians, where Osiris reigns. During his earthly incarnation, he was killed and dismembered by his own brother Seth. This could not but affect the character of the lord of the dead. Osiris looks repulsive: he looks like a mummy clutching the signs of pharaoh's power in his hands. Sitting on the throne, he presides over the court that weighs the deeds of newly arrived souls. The god of life Horus introduces them here. Hold on tight to his hand: the falcon-headed Horus is the son of the underground king, so he may well put in a good word for you.

The courtroom is huge - it is the whole vault of heaven. According to the instructions of the Egyptian Book of the Dead, a number of rules must be observed in it. List in detail the sins that you did not have time to commit during your lifetime. After that, you will be offered to leave a memory of yourself and help your relatives by depicting a court scene on a papyrus scroll. If your artistic talent is at its best, you will spend the rest of eternity here, participating in the affairs of Osiris and his numerous divine relatives. The rest will face a cruel execution: they are thrown to be devoured by Ammat, a monster with the body of a hippopotamus, the paws and mane of a lion and the mouth of a crocodile. However, the lucky ones can also be in his mouth: from time to time there are “cleansings”, in which the affairs of the ward souls are again reviewed. And if relatives did not supply the appropriate amulets, you will surely be eaten by a ruthless monster.

greek hell

It is even easier to get into the afterlife of the Greeks: the god of death Thanatos himself will take you away, who brings all the “fresh” souls here. During great battles and battles, where he apparently cannot cope alone, Thanatos is helped by winged Kerrs, who carry the fallen to the kingdom of eternally gloomy Hades.

In the far west, at the end of the world, stretches a lifeless plain, here and there overgrown with willows and poplars with black bark. Behind it, at the bottom of the abyss, the muddy bog of Acheron opens. It merges with the black waters of the Styx, encircling the world of the dead nine times and separating it from the world of the living. Even the gods are wary of breaking the oaths given in the name of Styx: these waters are sacred and ruthless. They flow into Cocytus, the river of lamentation, which gives rise to Lethe, the river of oblivion.

You can cross the bed of the Styx in the boat of old Charon. For his work, he takes from each a small copper coin. If you don't have money, all you have to do is wait for the end of time at the entrance. Charon's boat crosses all nine streams and disembarks passengers in the abode of the dead. Here you will be met by a huge three-headed dog Cerberus, safe for those who enter, but ferocious and ruthless to those who try to return to the solar world. On a vast plain, under a freezing wind, among other shadows, calmly wait your turn. The rough road leads to the chamber of Hades itself, surrounded by the fiery stream Phlegethon. The bridge over it rests on the gate, standing on diamond columns. Behind the gate is a huge hall made of bronze, where Hades himself and his assistants, judges Minos, Aeacus and Rhadamanth, sit. By the way, all three were once flesh and blood people like you and me. They were just kings and ruled their peoples so successfully that after their death Zeus made them judges over all the dead.

With a high probability, fair judges will cast you even lower, into Tartarus - the realm of pain and groans, located deep under the palace. Here you will have to get acquainted with the three old women sisters, the goddesses of vengeance, the Erinnias, whom Hades set to look after sinners. Their appearance is terrible: blue lips, from which poisonous saliva drips; black cloaks like bat wings. With coils of snakes in their hands, they rush through the dungeon, illuminating their path with torches, and make sure that everyone completely drinks the cup of punishment laid to him. Among the other "indigenous inhabitants" of Tartarus are Lamia stealing children, the three-headed Hecate, the demon of nightmares, the corpse-eater Evryn. Here you will meet many mythical figures. The tyrant Ixion is forever chained to the fiery wheel. The chained giant Tityus, who insulted the tender Leto, is pecked by two vultures. The blasphemer Tantalus is up to his neck immersed in the freshest pure water, but as soon as he, tormented by thirst, bends down, she recedes from him. The Danaids who killed their husbands are forced to endlessly fill the leaky vessel. The dodgy Sisyphus, who once deceived the spirit of death Thanatos, and the intractable Hades, and Zeus himself, rolls a stone uphill, which breaks off every time it approaches the top.

christian hell

The images of the Christian hell are largely inspired by the ancient Greeks. It is among Christians that the geography of hell has been studied in the most detail. Getting there is somewhat more difficult. Already in the apocryphal books - those that were not included in the Holy Scriptures or were excluded from it later - different opinions were expressed about the location of hell. Thus, the “Book of Enoch” places the devil himself in the eastern lifeless desert, where Raphael “makes a hole”, into which he lowers him, bound hand and foot, and rolls him on top with a stone. However, according to the same apocrypha, the soul will head in the opposite direction, to the west, where it will “groan” in the recesses of a high mountain range. At the end of the 6th century, Pope Gregory the Great, distinguishing between two hells - upper and lower - placed one on earth, the second below it.

In his 1714 book on the nature of hell, the English occultist Tobias Swinden placed hell in the sun. He motivated his assumption by the simultaneously existing ideas about our luminary as a ball of fire and a quote from the Apocalypse (“The fourth angel poured out his cup on the Sun: and it was given to him to burn people with fire”). And his contemporary and follower William Whiston declared all celestial comets to be hell: when they get into the near-solar hot regions, they fry souls, and when they move away, they freeze them. However, it is unlikely that you should hope to get on a comet. The most widely accepted idea is that Hell is located in the center of the Earth and has at least one exit to the surface. Most likely, this exit is located in the north, although there are other opinions. So, an old poem about the wanderings of the Irish saint Brendan tells of his journey to the far west, where he finds not only heavenly places, but also places of torment for sinners.

And in heaven, and under the earth, and on the earth itself, hell is placed in the apocryphal "Walking of the Virgin through the torments." This book is replete with detailed descriptions of punishments. Having asked God to disperse the total darkness that envelops the suffering in the west, Mary sees how burning pitch is poured out on unbelievers. Here, in a cloud of fire, those who “sleep like the dead at dawn on Sunday” are tormented, and those who did not stand in the church during their lifetime sit on red-hot benches. In the south, other sinners are immersed in the fiery river: cursed by parents - up to the waist, fornicators - up to the chest, and up to the throat - "those who ate human meat", that is, traitors who threw their children to be eaten by beasts or betrayed brothers before the king. But deepest of all, to the crown of the head, perjurers are immersed. The Mother of God sees here other punishments that are due to lovers of profit (hung by the legs), sowers of enmity and Christian adherents (hung by the ears). In the "left side of paradise", in the raging waves of boiling tar, the Jews who crucified Christ suffer torment.

In the realm of eternal chaos, hell is located by John Milton, the author of the poem Paradise Lost. According to his concept, Satan was overthrown even before the creation of the earth and heaven, which means that hell is outside these areas. The devil himself sits in Pandemonium, the "resplendent capital", where he receives the most prominent demons and demons. Pandemonium - a huge castle with halls and porticos, built by the same architect as the palace of the King of Heaven. The angel-architect, who joined the army of Satan, was expelled from heaven with him. Myriads of spirits rush through the corridors of the palace, swarming in the earth and air. There are so many of them that only satanic witchcraft allows them to accommodate.

Even more confusing is the medieval Christian theologian Emanuel Swedenborg. He distinguished three different hells corresponding to the three levels of heaven. And since God rules over everything, all three hells are controlled by him through specially delegated angels. In his opinion, there is no Satan at all as the lord of the kingdom of evil. The devil in the understanding of Swedenborg is the collective name for the most dangerous "evil geniuses"; Beelzebub unites spirits striving for dominance even in heaven; Satan means "not so evil" spirits. All these spirits are terrible in appearance and, like corpses, devoid of life. The faces of some are black, those of others are fiery, those of others are “ugly with pimples, abscesses and ulcers; very many of the face is not visible, others stick out only one teeth. Swedenborg formulated the idea that just as heaven reflects one person, so hell in the aggregate is only a reflection of one devil and can be represented in this form. The devil's mouth leading to a fetid hell - this is the path that awaits sinners.

Do not rely too much on the opinion of some authors who claim that the entrance to hell can be locked. Christ in the "Apocalypse" says: "I have the keys of hell and death." But Milton claims that the keys to Gehenna (apparently on behalf of Jesus) are kept by a terrible half-woman, half-snake. On the surface of the earth, the gate may look quite harmless, like a pit or a cave, or like the mouth of a volcano. According to Dante Alighieri, author of The Divine Comedy, written at the beginning of the 14th century, souls can go to hell by passing through a dense and gloomy forest.

This poem is the most authoritative source about the infernal device (for more details, see the end of the article). The structure of the underworld is described in all its complexity. The hell of the Divine Comedy is the torso of Lucifer, inside it has a funnel-shaped structure. Having started their journey through hell, Dante and his guide Virgil descend deeper and deeper, without turning anywhere, and eventually end up in the same place from which they entered it. The strangeness of this infernal geometry was noticed by the famous Russian mathematician, philosopher and theologian Pavel Florensky. He quite convincingly proved that Dante's hell is based on non-Euclidean geometry. Like the whole Universe in the ideas of modern physics, hell in the poem has a finite volume, but has no boundaries, which was proved (theoretically) by the Swiss Weil.

muslim hell

It looks like a Christian hell and the underworld that awaits Muslims. Among the stories of the Thousand and One Nights, seven of its circles are told. The first is intended for the faithful, who died an unrighteous death, the second - for the apostates, the third - for the pagans. Jinn and descendants of Iblis himself inhabit the fourth and fifth circles, Christians and Jews - the sixth. The innermost, the seventh circle awaits the hypocrites. Before getting here, the souls are waiting for the great Judgment Day, which will come at the end of time. However, the wait does not seem long to them.

Like most other sinners, visitors to the Islamic hell are forever roasted on fire, and every time their skin burns, it grows again. Here grows the Zakkum tree, whose fruits, like the heads of the devil, are the food of the punished. You should not try the local cuisine: these fruits boil in the stomach like molten copper. Those who feed on them are tormented by unbearable thirst, but the only way to quench it is to drink boiling water so fetid that they "melt the insides and skin." In short, this is a very, very hot place. In addition, Allah even enlarges the bodies of infidels, intensifying their torment.

Hell in Buddhism

Hell in Buddhism - naraka (???) - the world of hellish beings (narakas), who are subject to severe torment as a result of their karmic deeds (that is, deeds of a past life). Unlike the Christian or Muslim hell, torment is not eternal, and after a fairly long period of atonement, negative karma is cleared, and beings can be reborn in higher worlds.

It is generally believed that the hellish dungeons in this world are located under the Jambudvipa continent. At the same time, it is noted that in an innumerable number of worlds there is also an innumerable number of hells.

In their structure, the hells resemble a deep truncated pyramid of eight layers, the lower layers are much larger than the upper ones. Hells go deep under the continent to the very bottom. The most terrible hells are located below, the easiest - above. At each level, the central part is occupied by a hot hell, and a cold hell is located at the periphery. Thus there are eight hot and eight cold hells.

Eight cold hells

1. Arbuda-naraka - hell of blisters. On a dark frozen valley surrounded by cold mountains, there is a constant blizzard and snow storm. The inhabitants of this hell are naked and lonely, and their bodies are covered with blisters from the cold. The time spent in this hell is how long it will take to empty a barrel of sesame seeds, if one grain is taken every hundred years.
2. Nirarbuda-naraka - the hell of swelling blisters. This hell is even colder and the blisters swell and explode, leaving the bodies covered in blood and pus.
3. Atata-naraka - hell when shaking from the cold. When shaken, creatures make the sound a?-a?-a??.
4. Hahava-naraka - the hell of weeping and groaning. When the victim groans from the cold, making the sounds ha, ho from pain.
5. Huhuva-naraka - the hell of chattering teeth. Terrible chills and teeth chattering, making a hoo-hoo sound.
6. Utpala-naraka - the hell of the blue lotus, when the constant cold makes the whole skin turn blue like a lily.
7. Padma-naraka - lotus hell. A snowstorm covers the frozen body, leaving bloody wounds.
8. Mahapadma-naraka - the great lotus hell. The whole body cracks from the cold, and the internal organs also crack from the terrible frost.

The stay in each next of these hells is 20 times longer than in the previous one.

Eight hot hells

1. Sanjiva-naraka - hell of revival. In this hell, the earth is made of red-hot iron. Creatures reside in this hell in constant humiliation and fear. As soon as the victims begin to fear that others will attack him, other creatures appear and begin to attack him with iron spears. Or the servants of Yama appear and attack the victims with piercing weapons. They pass out and experience death throes, but are immediately restored to consciousness and attacked again. Molten metal can also be poured on them, cut into pieces, they also suffer from red-hot iron under their feet. Staying in this hell takes 162*1010 years.

2. Kalasutra-naraka - hell of black sections. In addition to the torment in the previous hell, black lines are drawn along the body, and the servants of Yama cut the victims along these sections with jagged axes and sharp axes. Staying in this hell takes 1296*1010 years.

3. Sanghata-naraka - crushing hell. This hell is located above red-hot iron and is surrounded by massive rocks that collide and grind creatures into a bloody crumble. When the rocks move apart, life is restored and everything starts all over again. Staying in this hell takes 10.368*1010 years.

4. Raurava-naraka - the hell of screams. Here the ground is burning under the victims and they are trying to hide. When they find shelter, they are trapped in it and are struck by heat from all sides, and they scream in horror. Life in this hell takes 82.944*1010 years.

5. Maharaurava-naraka - the hell of great cries. Similar to the previous one, but associated with great torments. Life in this hell takes 663.552*1010 years.

6. Tapana-naraka - hot hell. Yama's servants poke victims with a red-hot spear until flames come out of the mouth and nose. Life in this hell takes 5,308,416*1010 years.

7. Pratapana-naraka - hell of great heat. The torment is similar to that in Tapan's hell, but the victims are also more severely stabbed with a trident. Staying in this hell takes 42,467,328*1010 years.

8. Avici-naraka is the deepest hell, the height of hell is the same as all seven previous hells combined. Staying in this hell takes 339,738,624*1010 years, until the end of Antarakalpa. Therefore, this hell is called "continuous naraka". Creatures are burned on a constant fire, this is accompanied by terrible torment. Those who “cut off the roots of the good” fall into this hell — those who, due to adherence to false views, have destroyed in themselves the sprouts of non-greed, non-enmity, non-ignorance. In the controversy with Brahmanism, it was pointed out that adherents of the Vedas, the Brahmins, who encourage crime, greed, malice by immorality and unrighteous laws, can sink to such a degree ...

Additional hells and even temporary hells are also described.

Hell in Kabbalah

In Kabbalah, “hell” is the awareness of the difference between a person and the Creator, the Higher power of good. It is a measure of how bad we feel when we suddenly find ourselves opposed to Him. The feeling of shame, remoteness, own insignificance and baseness is so terrible that there is nothing worse than this. Such absolute shame - this is the feeling of "hell", which simply incinerates.

Dante hell

Antov Hell is full of the same (or slightly changed outwardly) monsters that frightened, tormented and tormented the sinners of pagan Hades. Already at the entrance, the ferocious three-headed Cerberus pounces on Christian sinners. Devils, devils are not here - their evil functions are performed by ancient centaurs and other mythological monsters. The ancient Greek monster Gerion, who supposedly once reigned on some island across the Ocean and then killed by Hercules, is also here.

Dante turned him into a disgusting sea monster that serves the seventh circle of Hell. In addition to what has already been said on this subject, one can add that the fierce guardian of the infernal Stygian swamp is the ancient Greek mythical character - the king of the Lapith Phlegius. The Greek mythical sorceress Erichto is put into action.

Newly arrived sinners in Hell are judged and determined by the norm of punishment Minos - the mythical king of ancient Crete. On guard of the fourth circle of Hell, the ancient Greek god of the Underworld - and therefore wealth - Plutos (Pluto) is placed as a ferocious guardian. The mythical Jason is also executed in Hell - for deceiving the women he seduced. Here is the whore Faida from the comedy Terence "The Eunuch".

No opposition. Dante deliberately mixed and combined ancient Greek mythology and ancient Roman literature: fiction is fiction. All the "bosses" of Dante's Hell are mythological. Ancient Hellenic mythology reigns. Part of the punished - from the same place. The inclusion here of "heroines" from Roman literature was supposed to help the reader to clearly feel the whole frivolity of the "other world", starting from its ancient roots.

But ancient Hades is not an object for ridicule. The ancient Hellenic heritage is alive for Dante. And mythology is alive for him. In Purgatory, in Paradise, Dante calls the appeared rainbow the creation of Iris, the messenger of Juno. In the Earthly Paradise, having met four nymphs - "natural virtues", Dante calls them goddesses (dee).

It is noteworthy that in Dante's Paradise, the glorification of the teachings and deeds of church hierarchs now and then alternates with examples from biblical and church history and mythology with similar moments in ancient history and mythology.

Continuing the tradition of the medieval church, but carefully giving it a skeptical twist, Dante in his Hell expands and renews the circle of the tormented, and especially the circle of the tormentors, at the expense of the characters of ancient history, in particular mythology.

After passing through the forest, you will find yourself on the eve of hell, in the "mysterious canopy". This is a gloomy and heavy place where the souls of those “who lived without knowing either the glory or the shame of mortal deeds” are imprisoned. There are quite a few of these. “Scraps of all dialects” merge into a single rumble, on which these people groan and wail, all their lives being neither hot nor cold, but only warm.

These insignificant souls are tormented by whole goyim of horseflies and wasps. From wounds, mixed with tears, blood drips, which is devoured by hordes of worms. The angels are also imprisoned here, who, without rebelling against the Lord, did not take the side of Beelzebub, preferring cautious neutrality. Since those times immemorial, their “sad flock” has been uprooted by heaven, but hell does not accept either ...

In front of the entrance are miserable souls who did not do either good or evil during their lifetime, including “bad flock of angels”, who were neither with the devil nor with God.

1st circle (Limb). Unbaptized babies and virtuous non-Christians.
2nd circle. Voluptuaries (fornicators and adulterers).
3rd circle. Gluttons, gluttons and gourmets.
4th circle. Covetous and spendthrifts (love of excessive spending).
5th circle (Stygian swamp). Angry and lazy.
6th round. Heretics and false teachers (the infernal city of Dit).
7th round.

1st belt. Violators over the neighbor and over his property (tyrants and robbers).
2nd belt. Violators of themselves (suicides) and of their property (players and wasters, that is, senseless destroyers of their property).
3rd belt. Violators of the deity (blasphemers), against nature (sodomites) and art (extortion).

8th round. Deceived the disbelievers. It consists of ten ditches (Zlopazuhi, or Evil Slits), which are separated from each other by ramparts (rifts). Towards the center, the area of ​​Evil Slits slopes, so that each next ditch and each next shaft are located somewhat lower than the previous ones, and the outer, concave slope of each ditch is higher than the inner, curved slope (Ad, XXIV, 37-40). The first shaft adjoins the circular wall. In the center gapes the depth of a wide and dark well, at the bottom of which lies the last, ninth, circle of Hell. From the foot of the stone heights (v. 16), that is, from the circular wall, stone ridges go to this well in radii, like the spokes of a wheel, crossing ditches and ramparts, and above the ditches they bend in the form of bridges, or vaults. In Evil Slits, deceivers are punished who deceive people who are not connected with them by special bonds of trust.

1st ditch. Procurers and seducers.
2nd ditch. Flatterers.
3rd ditch. Holy merchants, high-ranking clerics who traded in church positions.
4th ditch. Soothsayers, fortune-tellers, astrologers, sorceresses.
5th ditch. Bribers, bribe-takers.
6th ditch. Hypocrites.
7th ditch. The thieves.
8th ditch. Wicked advisers.
9th ditch. Discord instigators.
10th ditch. Alchemists, false witnesses, counterfeiters.
9th round. Deceived those who trusted. Ice lake Cocytus.

Belt of Cain. Family traitors.
Belt of Antenor. Traitors of the motherland and like-minded people.
Belt of Tolomei. Traitors of friends and companions.
Giudecca belt. Traitors of benefactors, majesty divine and human.
In the middle, in the center of the universe, frozen into an ice floe (Lucifer) torments in his three mouths traitors to the majesty of the earthly and heavenly (Judas, Brutus and Cassius).

Building a model of Hell, Dante follows Aristotle, who refers the sins of intemperance to the 1st category, the sins of violence to the 2nd, and the sins of deceit to the 3rd. Dante has 2nd-5th circles for the intemperate, 7th circle for rapists, 8th-9th for deceivers. Thus, the more material the sin, the more forgivable it is.

To be honest, none of the described hells evokes good feelings in us, especially in comparison with our cramped, but generally cozy world. So where exactly to go is up to you. Of course, it is not possible to give a complete information about the structure of hell on the pages of the magazine. However, we hope that our cursory review will help everyone who finds themselves there to quickly orient themselves and greet their new eternity with the words of John Milton: “Hello, sinister world! Hello, Hell beyond!