The horror of this strait and dark prison is increased by the awful stench. All the filth of the world, all the offal and scum of the world, we are told, shall run there as to a vast reeking sewer when the terrible conflagration of the last day has purged the world. The brimstone, too, which burns there in such prodigious quantity fills all hell with its intolerable stench; and the bodies of the damned themselves exhale such a pestilential odour that, as saint Bonaventure says, one of them alone would suffice to infect the whole world. ibid.
The second pain which will afflict the souls of the damned in hell is the pain of conscience. Just as in dead bodies worms are engendered by putrefaction, so in the souls of the lost there arises a perpetual remorse from the putrefaction of sin, the sting of conscience, the worm, as Pope Innocent the Third calls it, of the triple sting. ibid.
Last and crowning torture of all the tortures of that awful place is the eternity of hell. Eternity! O, dread and dire word. Eternity! What mind of man can understand it! And remember, it is an eternity of pain. Even though the pains of hell were not so terrible as they are, yet they would become infinite, as they were destined to last for ever ... To bear even the sting of an insect for all eternity would be a dread torment. What must it be, then, to bear the manifold tortures of hell for ever? For ever! For all eternity! ibid.
Hell is separated from heaven; for all who are in hell, when they lived in the world, were in the mere delights of the body and the flesh from the love of self and the world; but all who are in heaven, when they lived in the world, were in the delights of the soul and the spirit from love to the Lord and love toward the neighbour. Because these loves are opposite, therefore the heavens and the hells are so entirely separated, that a spirit who is in hell dares not raise the crown of his head, or even put forth a finger thence; for the moment he attempts it, he is racked and tortured. Emanuel Swedenborg, Heaven and Its Wonders and Hell
If there is in fact, a heaven and a hell, all we know for sure is that hell will be a viciously overcrowded version of Phoenix. Hunter S Thompson, Gonzo Papers
But quiet to quick bosoms is a hell,
And there hath been thy bane. Lord Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage
Nor ear can hear nor tongue can tell
The tortures of that inward hell! Lord Byron, The Giaour l748
We have over thirty heavens and thirty hells ... A Buddhist goes to Heaven or to Hell because of what they think, what they say, what they do. Reverend Kusala Bhikshu, Buddhist minister
There is no concept of Heaven or Hell anywhere in the Hebrew Bible. Professor James D Tabor
The Egyptians built monuments to the dead far larger than any to the living. Mysteries of the Bible s3e9: Heaven & Hell, National Geographic 1996
Most cultures believe in a Heaven ... Many cultures have a Hell. ibid.
None has developed the broad range of specific punishments as introduced in the New Testament. ibid.
The Divine Comedy would be the first major work written in vernacular Italian. ibid.
Those who committed suicide suffered alongside murderers. ibid.
O what a Heaven is love! O what a Hell! Thomas Dekker
Each of us bears his own Hell. Virgil, Aeneid
We are prepared to go to the gates of Hell – but no further. Pius VII, attempting to reach agreement with Napoleon
Hell is a city much like London - A populous and smoky city. Percy Bysshe Shelley
The Goetia shows you how King Solomon invoked all of the seventy-two demons of Hell. And he questioned these demons and wrote down their replies. And what is revealed in the Goetia or the book of Howling as it is known in Europe is that Hell has its own royal hierarchy: the demons and devils are divided into royal rank, so you have marquesses, earls, viscounts, princes and kings of hell. Chris Everard, interview Now That’s Weird! 10th October 2008
Hell is home to our most primal fears. It is full of torture, torment, pain for all eternity. George Kourounis, Explorers’ Club
There are eerie similarities in the history of all these places. George Kourounis
Hell is fraught with peril every step of the way. George Kourounis
The idea of Hell is deep inside of us, and it sort of feeds off of our most primal fears. George Kourounis
From the earliest texts that we have, these little demons play a very important part in the descriptions of Hell. They are the agents of the devil. Eileen Gardiner, Medievalist
The Book of Revelation talks about the Gates of Hell opening. Elaine Pagels, author The Origin of Satan
Hell: does this eternity abyss of death, damnation and evil truly exist? But is Hell anything other than a myth? Gates of Hell, 2010
These remote places share something in common: they are all believed to be entrances to Hell ... Six Hell-mouths around the globe are believed to connect the Land of the Living with the Land of the Dead. ibid.
In the heart of Nicaragua, twelve miles from the capital city Managua, is a massive chasm. A volcano called Masaya ... On seeing Masaya the Friars were convinced this was it. ibid.
Nearly four thousand years ago the Sumerians believed in a Great Below where the dead resided. Ancient Greeks wrote of an Abyss so deep that a soul could fall for a year and not reach the bottom. In the Hebrew book of Job the underworld is called Sheol and is described as a dark pit beneath the Earth. In fact almost all ancient cultures accepted the idea of an underworld, a universe of dead beneath the Earth. ibid.
The accounts of Hell are often strikingly similar. ibid.
A second gateway to Hell: the Mayan people believe that this cave is the entrance to the underworld known as Xibalba, or place of fear: even today surviving Maya fear the Hell’s mouth. ibid.
Throughout history the gates of Hell have been connected by an acceptance of a painful but necessary journey into the world of the dead. ibid.
On his descent into the underworld the Greek hero Theseus lost his memory. For four years he was trapped there constantly goaded and attacked by serpents. ibid.
In Egypt the descent to the underworld began with a door inside the deceased person’s tombs. After passing through the door the departed spirit would face a series of hazards and trials uncannily similar to those of Xibalba. ibid.
On his descent Christ faced the momentous task of rescuing the good souls already in Hell ... But Jesus only rescued a few select souls. What happened to those left behind? ibid.
Christian visions of hell depict a place of unspeakable torture. ibid.
Hades was the Hell of the ancient Greeks. ibid.
On the southernmost tip of the Greek mainland on the Peloponnese coast portals to Hades have been identified. ibid.
The concept of eternal punishment for human wickedness as seen in Tartarus isn’t limited to Greek mythology. ibid.
Torture would be seen in almost every depiction of Hell that came afterwards [the Greek], including the Christians. ibid.
In one Islamic text Muhammad warns sinners about snakes whose venom burns for forty years, and flames sixty-nine times hotter than those on Earth. ibid.
But mysteriously the Bible itself is virtually silent on the subject. ibid.
Even today the Christian Hell evokes vivid images of vicious punishment. ibid.
But it was Christianity that described the balance between sin and punishment in the most excruciating detail. And one Christian in particular was responsible. Dante’s epic description of Hell – The Inferno – offers an extremely lurid vision of its punishments. ibid.
In The Inferno Dante imagined a purpose-built torture chamber awaiting the wicked. ibid.
Who exacts the penalty? ibid.
Another volcano long believed to be a portal into Hell. Could a momentous supernatural event have taken place at Hekla? ... Medieval legends say nine hundred years ago an enormous eruption at Hekla broke the barriers of Hell. ibid.