hell

• primitives entertained no ideas of

86:4.7Early man en­ter­tained no ideas of hell or fu­ture pun­ish­ment. The sav­age looked upon the fu­ture life as just like this one, mi­nus all ill luck. Later on, a sep­a­rate des­tiny for good ghosts and bad ghosts—heaven and hell—was con­ceived. But since many prim­i­tive races be­lieved that man en­tered the next life just as he left this one, they did not rel­ish the idea of be­com­ing old and de­crepit. The aged much pre­ferred to be killed be­fore be­com­ing too in­firm.

• invented for punishment of taboo violators

89:2.4The ha­bit­ual vi­o­la­tion of a taboo be­came a vice; prim­i­tive law made vice a crime; re­li­gion made it a sin. Among the early tribes the vi­o­la­tion of a taboo was a com­bined crime and sin. Com­mu­nity calamity was al­ways re­garded as pun­ish­ment for tribal sin. To those who be­lieved that pros­per­ity and righ­teous­ness went to­gether, the ap­par­ent pros­per­ity of the wicked oc­ca­sioned so much worry that it was nec­es­sary to in­vent hells for the pun­ish­ment of taboo vi­o­la­tors; the num­bers of these places of fu­ture pun­ish­ment have var­ied from one to five.

• in Egyptian religion

95:2.9When Mel­chiz­e­dek ap­peared in the flesh, the Egyp­tians had a re­li­gion far above that of the sur­round­ing peo­ples. They be­lieved that a dis­em­bod­ied soul, if prop­erly armed with magic for­mu­las, could evade the in­ter­ven­ing evil spir­its and make its way to the judg­ment hall of Osiris, where, if in­no­cent of “mur­der, rob­bery, false­hood, adul­tery, theft, and self­ish­ness,” it would be ad­mit­ted to the realms of bliss. If this soul were weighed in the bal­ances and found want­ing, it would be con­signed to hell, to the De­vouress. And this was, rel­a­tively, an ad­vanced con­cept of a fu­ture life in com­par­i­son with the be­liefs of many sur­round­ing peo­ples.

• Jewish traditions derived from Zoroastrianism

95:6.6The Jew­ish tra­di­tions of heaven and hell and the doc­trine of dev­ils as re­corded in the He­brew scrip­tures, while founded on the lin­ger­ing tra­di­tions of Lu­cifer and Cali­gas­tia, were prin­ci­pally de­rived from the Zoroas­tri­ans dur­ing the times when the Jews were un­der the po­lit­i­cal and cul­tural dom­i­nance of the Per­sians. Zoroaster, like the Egyp­tians, taught the “day of judg­ment,” but he con­nected this event with the end of the world.

• wicked destroyed by fire under Mithraism

98:5.4The ad­her­ents of this cult wor­shiped in caves and other se­cret places, chant­ing hymns, mum­bling magic, eat­ing the flesh of the sac­ri­fi­cial an­i­mals, and drink­ing the blood. Three times a day they wor­shiped, with spe­cial weekly cer­e­mo­ni­als on the day of the sun-god and with the most elab­o­rate ob­ser­vance of all on the an­nual fes­ti­val of Mithras, De­cem­ber twenty-fifth. It was be­lieved that the par­tak­ing of the sacra­ment en­sured eter­nal life, the im­me­di­ate pass­ing, af­ter death, to the bo­som of Mithras, there to tarry in bliss un­til the judg­ment day. On the judg­ment day the Mith­raic keys of heaven would un­lock the gates of Par­a­dise for the re­cep­tion of the faith­ful; where­upon all the un­bap­tized of the liv­ing and the dead would be an­ni­hi­lated upon the re­turn of Mithras to earth. It was taught that, when a man died, he went be­fore Mithras for judg­ment, and that at the end of the world Mithras would sum­mon all the dead from their graves to face the last judg­ment. The wicked would be de­stroyed by fire, and the righ­teous would reign with Mithras for­ever.