Question Seven
How many mansions the infernal region has
It is asked how many prisons or mansions the infernal region has.
To this it is answered that the whole region of hell has seven prisons, or seems to have been divided into seven partial regions according to the seven mortal sins or to be divided in this way after the judgment.
In support of this conception is blessed Gregory in Book IV of the Dialogues, chapter 26, where he says that whether the elect or the reprobate, those whose cause was common in deed are also led to common places; Christ’s words satisfy us, even if examples should be lacking.
For Truth himself says of the elect in the Gospel: “In my Father’s house there are many mansions.” For if there were not unequal recompense in that eternal blessedness, one mansion rather than many would have had to be mentioned there. Therefore there are many mansions there, in which the distinct orders of the good rejoice together because of their fellowship of merits.
And the same Truth, Gregory says, announcing the day of the final judgment, says: “Then I will say to the reapers: Gather the tares, and bind them into bundles to be burned.”
What, however, is it to bind the tares into bundles, except to join like with like in similar torments: the proud with the proud, the lustful with the lustful, the avaricious with the avaricious, the deceitful with the deceitful, and the unbelieving with the unbelieving? Therefore, when the angels assign those who are alike in fault to similar torments in penal places, they bind, as it were, bundles of tares to be burned. Thus Gregory.
Or it must be said that, just as after the consummation of the world diverse mansions or regions in hell will be ordered according to the hierarchies of the evil angels, so they will be ordered according to the differences in their states and faults.
Thus, namely, those evil angels who were, or who, if they had stood, would have been, from the Seraphim highest in heaven became the lowest when they fell. And those who would have been Cherubim, when they fell, were established in a choir above them, so that those who would have been from the lowest order of the angelic host will be placed in the highest place of hell.
Therefore, just as in heaven some human beings will be placed with each order of angels on account of conformity of merits, so proportionally in the hierarchies of hell, through conformity of demerits, human beings will be placed among the choirs of demons. Thus in the lowest place of the Seraphim of hell will be placed those who here feign that they burn with the love of God, as, for example, religious persons and so forth, and who burn with the ambition of the devil.
In the choir of the Cherubim of hell will be placed those enlightened by knowledge, but not for themselves nor rightly for others.
In the choir of the Thrones of hell will be placed those who pretend to be poor and hoard wealth for a bishopric.
In the order of the Dominations of hell will be placed bad prelates, both spiritual and temporal, kings, dukes, and counts.
In the order of the Virtues of hell will be placed the sowers of tares, and so with each of the orders.
But if someone should object that according to Job 10 there is no order in hell, whereas here an order of seven prisons or of three hierarchies is posited, it is answered that Job means the order of intentions and operations, which are not in hell. For none of the damned has an intention or act duly ordered toward the end, which is God.
These things are drawn from Henry of Hesse on Genesis.