John Milton
Abandon All Hope | The History of Hell From Hades to Dante
On Dante, Augustine & 3 more
The idea of hell did not enter history in one finished form. This reading follows Egyptian judgment, Hebrew Sheol, Greek Hades, the Zoroastrian bridge, Gehenna, and arguments in early Christianity about the reach and duration of judgment. Dante gives the tradition its most enduring imaginative architecture; Milton, Swedenborg, and modern philosophers change its terms again. The focus stays on ideas about justice and the human conscience, rather than scenes of torment.
