medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
> Can someone tell me where the notion of a fire and brimstone hell came
> from? Thanks. yrs, tom ault
Perhaps you're looking for a more historically nuanced answer, but
surely the most immediate source would be the Bible, especially,
assuming that one identifies the ordained destination of the devil
and the wicked dead with 'hell', John's Revelation:
Apoc. 20 (AV). The deuil that deceiued them, was cast into the
lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false
prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night, for euer and euer.
And I saw a great white throne, and him that sate on it, from
whose face the earth and the heauen fled away, and there was
found no place for them.
And I sawe the dead, small and great, stand before God: and
the books were opened: & another booke was opened, which is the
booke of life: and the dead were iudged out of those things
which were written in the books, according to their works.
And the sea gaue vp the dead which were in it: and death and
hell deliuered vp the dead which were in them: and they were iudged
euery man according to their works. And death and hell were cast
into the lake of fire: this is the second death.
And whosoeuer was not found written in the booke of life, was cast into
the lake of fire.
Apoc. 21 (Rheims). To the feareful, and incredulous, and execrable,
and murderers, and fornicators, and sorcerers, and Idolaters, and al
liers, their part shal be in the poole burning vvith fire and brimstone,
vvhich is the second death.
--which passages themselves doubtless depend both on earlier Jewish
apocalyptic and on OT events and passages, eg. the destruction
of the Cities of the Plain in Genesis and more general
passages like this:
Ps. 11 (AV) The Lord trieth the righteous: but the wicked and
him that loueth violence, his soule hateth. Upon the wicked
hee shall raine snares, fire and brimstone.
As for more distant and remote sources (or for sources that
mediated the apocalyptic vision to medieval Europe), others can
say.
pfs
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Paul Schaffner | [log in to unmask] | http://www-personal.umich.edu/~pfs/
316 Hatcher Library N, Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor MI 48109-1205
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