Question Three
Whether, elsewhere than at the center of the earth, places are found on the surface of the earth in which the souls of the damned undergo punishments
It is asked whether, elsewhere than at the center of the earth, places are found on the surface of the earth in which the souls of the damned undergo punishments.
To this it is answered thus: as Gregory says in Book IV of the Dialogues, almighty God, for the correction of those living in this world, wished to show that in certain parts on the surface of the earth certain souls of the damned undergo punishments, so that the minds of unbelievers, who do not believe that the torments of hell exist, may see the places of torments which they refuse to believe when they hear of them.
And in chapter 24 of the book cited above he adduces that a certain holy hermit who was dwelling on the island of Lipari in Sicily saw that the soul of King Theodoric was cast into the pot of Vulcan boiling there by Pope John and the patrician Symmachus, whom that king had killed before. And blessed Gregory rightly says there: “He appeared to be cast into the fire by those whom he had unjustly judged in this life.”
Likewise, in chapter 3 he relates concerning a certain Roman, to whom, while he was laboring at the point of death, a ship appeared ready, by which he himself and a certain neighbor of his were to be brought to Sicily; immediately after this they died together. And, continuing, Gregory says: “What else can be understood from the fact that that dying man testified that he was to be led to Sicily, except that, beyond other places, in the islands of that land the pots of torments, belching fire, have opened? These, as those who know are accustomed to relate, with their bounds widened daily grow, so that, as the end of the world draws near, to the extent that it is certain that more are gathered there to be burned, to that extent those same places of torments seem to be opened more widely.” Thus Gregory.
From this account, however, it appears that by the pots of Vulcan are understood certain flame-vomiting pits, or certain caverns of the earth breathing forth a sulphurous flame.
Why, however, those pots are attributed to Vulcan is evident from Isidore in Book 22 of the Etymologies. He says that, according to the superstition of the gentiles, Vulcan is said to dwell in smiths’ furnaces as though the God of fire, and fire is customarily understood figuratively through him. Indeed, on account of the many useful things that it confers upon the human being, enumerated there by Isidore, the gentiles established it as a god, naming it Vulcan, whom they say then to return when fire emits things like thunder and crackles with sparks.
And again Isidore says in Book XV that certain islands around Sicily are called Vulcanian because they themselves burn like Mount Etna, and that there are eight, whose names he sets down there. The first is Lipari, and so forth.
Etna, however, is a mountain breathing flames from burning sulphur, of which it is full. And Isidore says that that mountain has, on the side where Eurus and Africus blow, caverns full of sulphur which, agitated and moved by those winds, emit terrible flames. Thus it has been proclaimed by some that hell is there.
But the things said above concerning the situation of hell do not permit their opinion to stand. For not every place in which, or by which, a soul undergoes the punishment of damnation until the day of judgment is the principal place of hell. But there are certain particular places in which, for a reason known to God, certain souls of the damned undergo punishments until the day of judgment.
These things are from Henry of Hesse on Genesis.