The Formation of Hell: Death and Retribution in the Ancient and Early Christian Worlds by Alan E. Bernstein
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Threat of the Dead

It is easy to consider Hell as a strictly ideological concept, developed and used by religious leaders to intimidate believers. And this could quite easily be so especially in the advanced stages of Christianity. But Bernstein’s narrative also suggests another possibility. Historically, the dead have been a source of intense popular fear. Their presence among the living was suspect as the source of not just bad luck, but actual physical harm. Could it be that one of the compelling attractions of early Christianity was the taming of the power of the dead to inflict harm? Here are some thoughts provoked by Bernstein:

The dead have always been a worrisome lot, at least since the Babylonians started writing about them 4000 years ago. The possibility that they might remain in some way among the living is an understandable taboo. Proper disposal of the dead is not something to be treated lightly given either respect for family dignity or concerns about hygiene.

So mythologically the place of the dead has been particularly inaccessible, not primarily to keep the living out but the dead in. It seems the original Babylonian stories of this place are meant to define a kind of finality to death that wasn’t instinctively obvious to the populace. The living are unable to reach them. But more important, they are unable to affect the living. The gates of this underworld, in other words, are there for a very good reason - to keep the dead in their place.

It is apparently the Egyptians who raise the possibility that the dead could be helpful to the living and also that they might be subjected to retributive suffering. The reason for their punishment was made clear; they are doomed to “the fiery incarceration of opponents of a god who aids souls through death and is himself an example of resurrection.” The god in question being Osiris, the Great One, who provides an important trope of the dying and returning god for the Christian narrative (but interestingly not the Jewish one)

Horus, the son of Osiris (an interesting inversion of Christian doctrine) acts in a way worthy of the Christian book of Revelation: “My father having [once] been helpless hath smitten you, he hath cut up your bodies, he hath hacked in pieces your spirits and your souls, and hath scattered in pieces your shadows, and hath cut in pieces your heads; ye shall never more exist, ye shall be overthrown, and ye shall be cast down headlong into the pits of fire; and ye shall not escape therefrom, and ye shall not be able to flee from the flames which are in the serpent.” Unlike in the ‘loving’ Christianity, these torments are not said to be eternal, however. The villainous could return at anytime.

Such retribution for a divine victim seems to be the main concern of the Egyptians. But the underworld is also divided into zones which are provided for the dead depending on their level of devotion to particular gods. One thinks of not just the Christian division between Heaven and Hell, and still latter Purgatory, but also Dante’s nine circles. Whatever else is involved in the assignment of the dead to their places, the Egyptian believer may be assured that they will be protected against the dead by the gods themselves since it is their interests. But then again, how reliable are the gods, especially one who allows himself to be chopped to bits?

The Greeks were less fussy; they had two ‘compartments’ in the underworld - one in which the typical human soul wandered indefinitely; and another for the legendary losers of previous battles among the gods. This latter was placed at considerable distance from the habitation of the living; and it involved the restraint and torture of the so-called Titans. This idea “provided crucial ingredients within the cultural background out of which the concept of hell developed.” But, once again, how assiduous have the gods been in their security precautions. Who knows but that the continuing politics among the gods could allow the Titans and all the dead back into the world of the living.

But Greek culture also evolved a view that we can recognise as ‘modern,’ that is to say, Christian. Aristophanes’s play The Frog contrasts the fate of not those whom the gods find either respectful or offensive but rather either good or wicked. This shift from theology to ethics is arguably monumental and implies a greatly reduced cultural fear of the dead in favour of an attitude of moral judgement over them. Morality, in a sense, puts the dead under the thumb of the living. We judge them, not they us. Plato, himself was fascinated by the idea of postmortem retribution, not for impiety but for bad behaviour according to the mores of the day.

But the problem of the threat of the dead nevertheless remained, even among contemporary intellectuals. Ghosts, often vengeful, are a commonplace of late Greek and Roman culture. Cicero and Pliny took ghosts seriously, for example. Ghosts could do harm to the living either as ‘payback’ for bad behaviour or because of errors in the rituals of death carried out on behalf of the dead. Ghosts may also offer affection, but the fact of their possible existence remains disconcerting if not downright frightening.

The way in which these ancient myths evolved and were adapted, especially into the Christian cosmology, is fascinating. The Christian ritual of baptism, Christ’s descent into hell, the tortures to be expected there, and even the Resurrection are all ‘prefigured’ (as the evangelical apologists say) by the Babylonian and Akkadian stories of several millennia before the gospels. The idea of Graeco-Roman ghosts implies souls, and an after-life, and some sort of cohabitation of the living and the dead. All this seems a particularly auspicious time for the emergence of a religion which could coalesce this various cultural elements coherently.

While it is clear that the Christian narrative relies a great deal on these ancient myths, what Christianity does to these earlier stories is significant. Christianity domesticates, as it were, the land of the dead. According to Christianity, and later Judaism, the dead are our friends, at least those who have lived up to communal expectations. And the rest we don’t have to be concerned about. They are securely locked away in a heavenly Alcatraz, to which not even God has given himself a key. The Greek Hades and the Hebrew Sheoul share this characteristic segregation of the dead. But in Christianity, almost simultaneously with pharisaic Judaism, the dead are no longer considered “the life-devouring” but the life-promoting of the Jewish Avot Zachuth, the Treasury of the Fathers; and the Christian Communion of Saints.

I find the idea that we’re all in it together, not just those alive today, but those who have lived and those yet to be born, to be emotionally stirring even though I worry very little about contamination from contact with the dead. According to this ethos, it is a good thing that the dead mix with us - as sources of wisdom, as companions, as intercessionaries with the divine. Christianity makes an implicit distinction between ghosts, the spirits of the departed, and demons, unborn spirits who have gone astray. The spirits of the dead, the ones who are not condemned, are beneficial. The remainder are corralled and are harmless. So, while evil may always be with us, it is not the dead who are its carriers.

It occurs to me that this attitude toward the dead and its implications for the relationship with the dead are much more important for the success of Christianity than any abstract doctrinal assertions. Hell serves a therapeutic, or at least palliative, purpose as well as any intimidation it may provoke. Even today, no one but the professional theologians understand the meaning much less the import of doctrinal assertions. But to be given a reason to be comfortable with the continued existence of ones deceased friends, relatives, and ancestors is certainly easy to assimilate without need for further dogmatic explanation. ‘You are safe in Christianity’ is the appealing message, safe from not just death but also from the ravages of the dead. A winner of a cultural coup therefore.

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