Question Two
Where the place of hell is situated and positioned
It is asked whether hell is situated at the center of the earth, or where it is situated and positioned.
To this it is answered that the theological doctors do not establish with certainty where the place of hell is. For the Master of the Sentences, near the end of Book IV, distinction 45, says as follows: “What kind of thing the eternal fire is, and in what part of the world or earth it will be, I think no human being knows, unless perhaps one to whom the divine Spirit has shown it.”
And Augustine, in Book I of the Retractations, chapter 29, retracting what he had said in Book XII of On Genesis, speaks as follows: “It appears to me that I ought rather to have said that it is beneath the earth than to give a reason why it is believed to be beneath the earth.”
And Gregory, when asked in Book IV of the Dialogues whether hell should be believed to be upon the earth or beneath it, says: “On this matter I do not dare to define rashly. For some think that hell is in a certain part of the earth, while others judge it to be beneath the earth.” Thus Gregory.
Others say that hell is opposite the arid zone, which is between the equinoctial circle and the Arctic pole, in which place an excess of heat prevails. Or it is beneath one of the poles, where there is an excess of cold.
It can also be some region on the surface of the earth, beneath water or above the water in the manner of a great island, most intemperate, most troublesome, most horrible, and most deformed, which is called hell. With this conception agrees what certain persons dwelling in the extreme regions of the north beyond the Norwegians say: that there are many demons there, and that cries and horrible tumults are heard by the inhabitants of the islands.
But Master Peter of Tarentaise, Thomas, Richard, Master Bonaventure in Book IV, distinction 41, and Master Henry of Hesse on Genesis persuade us by three congruities that hell is at the center of the earth.
First, by reason of divine ordering, as follows. Since God is most wise, he established and ordered all things in their places according to the requirement of their natures. For it belongs to the wise person to order, Book I of the Metaphysics.
And Augustine says in Book XIX of The City of God, chapter 13, that order is “the disposition of equal and unequal things, assigning its own place to each.”
Therefore, just as he assigned to opposite natural and corporeal things diverse and opposite places corresponding to their proper natures - for example, to light things a place above and at the circumference, and to heavy things a place below and at the center of the world - so he ought also to have established for spiritual things places fitting their natures.
Thus light, that is, spiritual, human beings, who fixed their hearts above the earth upon celestial and spiritual things, were to be established at the circumference of the whole world and at the summit of heaven. But heavy persons, weighed down by sins, who unduly fixed their hearts upon earthly goods on the earth, were to tend toward the middle of the whole and around the center of the world, and into the depth of hell.
Second, the same thing is proved by reason of assimilation. For place and that which is placed ought to be assimilated or proportioned, Book IV of the Physics.
Sinners have three conditions: distance, darkness, and coldness. For sin divides and distances the human being from God. Proverbs 15: “The Lord is far from the impious.”
Sinners are dark: “For their wickedness has blinded them,” Wisdom 2. Therefore they walk in darkness, and their ways are “darkness and a slippery place, and the angel of the Lord constraining them.”
Sinners are cold through sin, which is called the poison of the soul by Augustine in the book Eighty-Three Questions. Poison, as Isidore says in Book I of the Etymologies, is most cold. Therefore the most remote, dark, and cold place is owed to them.
But hell, existing in the middle and at the center of the world, is supremely distant from heaven. It is naturally dark, deprived of every influx of celestial light, because the element of earth surrounding this region is simply opaque, altogether lacking transparency, without which light can never be diffused or penetrate.
It is naturally most cold; hence it is called Tartarus from trembling with cold, as Isidore says, because neither a ray of the sun penetrates there nor is the movement of air present.
Third, the same thing is proved by reason of opposition, as follows. Opposite places are accustomed to have opposite and contrary conditions and natures. But the terrestrial Paradise is a certain most temperate region on the surface of the earth, situated in the eastern region and on the right side of heaven. This region is most pleasing in all delights. Therefore hell ought, from the opposite, to be posited in the lower parts of the earth: either in the inner or central parts of the sphere, or in superficial parts of the earth opposite the axis, which are called lower with respect to us. This region is most intemperate, most remote from heaven, and full of every trouble and contrariety.
Likewise, the terrestrial Paradise opposed to hell, as the doctors and historians say, has all things that are required for the goodness of a place, city, and region. For these are required: a fitting arrangement of mountains, the springing-up of fountains, the course of rivers, the nobility of plants, the pleasantness of animals, the goodness of influences, the regularity of breezes or winds, and the tempering of the elements.
Hence Damascene also says in Book II of the Sentences: “The terrestrial Paradise is situated in the east, loftier than all the earth, shining with temperate, very subtle, and very pure air, always flourishing with plants, filled with good fragrance, and full of all the most pleasing delights.”
Therefore hell ought to have all things contrary to the terrestrial Paradise; and consequently, if Paradise is at the highest place, hell ought to be at the lowest place in the world.
Second, the same conclusion is proved by authorities.
Jonah 2 says: “You cast me into the deep, into the heart of the sea.” There the gloss says that, just as the heart is in the middle and center of an animal, so hell is in the middle of the earth; and the middle of the earth is its center.
And Job 10: “Release me, therefore,” and so forth.
And the Psalm says: “You have delivered me from the lower hell.” There the gloss of Augustine says that there are two hells, an upper and a lower. The earthly habitation, where there are flesh and blood, decease and succession, mortality and mutability, is the upper hell. But from this earthly habitation and hell one goes to the lower hell.
Because of these two hells, the Son of God was sent everywhere to liberate: to one hell he was sent by being born, and to the other by dying. Thus Augustine.
And Isaiah 14: “Hell beneath was disturbed.”
And Matthew 12: “Just as Jonah was in the belly of the whale for three days and three nights, so the Son of Man will be in the belly of the earth for three days and three nights.”
And Proverbs 9: “Her guests are in the depths of hell.”
And it is said in Revelation 5 that when John had seen the book sealed with seven seals, he wept because he saw no one worthy to open it, neither in heaven, nor on earth, nor beneath the earth. The book is sacred Scripture; opened means disclosed by Christ, who was from the tribe of Judah.
John indicates beings beneath the earth, as though there were some endowed with knowledge there: such as demons, the souls of the dead who were held wise here, the holy fathers, prophets, and many philosophers.
And in the gloss on causa 13, question 2, chapter The Time, at the word hidden, it is said: “Hell is beneath the earth, and heaven above.”
Likewise, in causa 23, question 4, chapter This Present Life.
And Gregory, determining in Book IV what ought to be believed concerning the place of hell, says: “This strikes my mind: hell is called infernus because it lies lower.”
Isidore says the same in Book IV of the Etymologies. Hence hell is also called Gehenna, from geos, which is “earth,” and hennos, as though “the deep,” because it is situated as though in the deep.
And Virgil, in Book VI, introduces Aeneas addressing Dido and saying:
Unhappy Dido, then the report that came to me was true: that you had died and sought your end by the sword. Alas, was I the cause of your death? By the stars I swear, and by the gods above, and by whatever faith is beneath the deepest earth, unwillingly, O queen, I withdrew from your shore.
And Seneca in tragedy 5 introduces Theseus invoking: “By every law of the world, I pray you who rule the capacious kingdom, and you whom your mother Aetna sought in vain throughout her whole extent, that it may be permitted to speak with impunity of the laws hidden and covered by the earth.”
And in the final tragedy, speaking of virtue, he says:
Renowned virtue is never borne to the Stygian shades. Live bravely; nor will cruel fates drag you through Lethean years. But when the final day has exacted its hours, glory will open a path to those above.
The aforesaid truth can also be evident from examples in Gregory, Book IV of the Moralia, chapter 32, and from Saint Cyril to Augustine, in the passing of the blessed man.
These things are collected here from Book IV of the Sentences and from Henry.
Addition
It appears consonant with reason to me that the vilest place should correspond as a perpetual prison to unclean and most vile sinners. Such a place is at the middle of the earth, where, as though into a sewer, the dregs of the whole world are compelled to descend.
They say that many harmful qualities are there, and they have reported the distance to that place to be three thousand two hundred and forty-five miles. Pliny, however, in Book II, relates that a letter was found in the tomb of Dionysodorus the geometer, saying that he had arrived from the tomb at the middle of the earth and that the distance to that place was forty-two thousand stadia.
It is called infernus because nothing is lower than it. Others call it Tartarus, because it signifies impiety and cruelty, for there all act impiously.
Others call it Styx, which is interpreted as sadness. Others call it Erebus and Orcus. It is called Erebus because it is dark; for darkness is there both with respect to the absence of the divine vision and with respect to the absence of grace.
M. T. reported that this one was the son of Erebus and Night, of a degenerate spirit and an incorrupt will. It is called Orcus from the likeness of the sea beast called the orca, which is hostile to the whale.
The poets invented that the rule of the lower world was given to Pluto, son of Saturn, and said that his appearance was terrible. Hence Statius:
By chance, sitting in the midst, in the citadel of his unhappy kingdom, the ruler of Erebus was demanding from the peoples the crimes of their lives, pitying no human being and angry with all the shades.
Virgil, however, in Book VI of the Aeneid, said that Rhadamanthus, the son of Jupiter, who was king of Lycia, an equitable man, and an executor of justice, examines the crimes of the guilty among the dead:
Cnossian Rhadamanthus holds these most harsh realms; he chastises, hears deceits, and compels each to confess what he…
And in the same book Virgil described the evils that are in hell in these words:
And in the first jaws of Orcus, Grief,
and so forth.