This word is believed to be from the Teutonic root helan (to cover), designating a subterranean or hidden place. It is sometimes used in the form of Hel to mean simply a place of the dead, with no mention of punishment. "Hel" or "Hela" is also the name of the mythical Teutonic goddess who was guardian of the dead.
This concept has a somewhat clear train of evolution. The Christian idea of a place of punishment was directly colored by the Jewish concept of "Sheol," which in turn took shape from Babylonian sources. When exactly hell began to be perceived as a place of punishment is not clear, as among the ancient Semites, Egyptians, and Greeks the underworld was regarded only as a place of the dead.
In Egypt "Amenti" is distinctly a place of the dead, one in which the tasks of life are for the most part duplicated. This was also the case among primitive people, who merely regarded the land of the dead as an extension of human existence in which people led a more or less shadowy life. The primitives did not generally believe in punishment after death and conceived that any breach of moral rule was summarily dealt with in this life. It was usually when a higher moral code emerged from totemic or similar beliefs that the idea of a place of punishment was invented by a priesthood.
However, this was not always the case. In Greece, Rome, and Scandinavia, Hades was merely looked upon as a place of the dead, where shadowy ghosts flitted to and fro, gibbering and squeaking as phantoms were believed to do. According to the Greeks, Hades was only some twelve feet under the surface of the ground, so Orpheus would not have had a long journey from the subterranean sphere to reach Earth once more. Hell was generally regarded as a sovereignty, a place ruled in an ordinary manner by a monarch set there for that purpose by the celestial powers.
Thus the Greek Hades ruled the Sad Sphere of the Dead, Osiris was lord and governor of the Egyptian Amenti, while in Central America there were twin rulers in the Kiche Hades, Xibalba, whose names were given as Hun-came and Vukub-came. The latter were malignant, unlike the Mictlán of Mexico, whose empire was for the generality of the people. These could only exist for four years, after which they became extinct.
The Mexicans represented Mictlán as a huge monster with open mouth ready to devour his victims; this was paralleled in the Babylonian Tiawith. It seems that at a certain stage in all mythologies the concept of a place of the dead was confounded with the idea of a place of punishment.
The Greeks generally bewailed the tragedy of humanity, being condemned to dwell forever in semidarkness after death. The possibility of the existence of a place of reward seems never to have appealed to them. To the Greek mind, life was everything; it was left to the Semitic conscience to evolve in the near East the concept of a place of punishment. Thus Sheol, a place of the dead, became a fiery abyss into which the wicked and unjust were thrust for their sins.
This was foreshadowed by Babylonian and Egyptian ideas, for Egyptians believed that those unable to pass a test of justification were simply refused admittance to Amenti. From the idea of rejection sprang the idea of active punishment. The Semitic concept of hell was probably reinforced with the introduction of Christianity into Europe, and colored by concepts of the underworld belonging to European mythologies.
"Hela" (Death) in Teutonic mythology was cast into the underground realm of Niflheim and given power over nine regions into which she distributed all who died through sickness or old age.
The ideas concerning the Celtic otherworld probably played only a small part in forming the British concept of hell. The Brythonic "Annwyl" was certainly subterranean, but it was by no means a place of punishment; rather, it was merely a microcosm of the world above, where folk hunted, ate, and drank, as in early Britain. The Irish otherworld was much the same.
In southern Europe the idea of hell appears to have been strongly influenced by both classical and Jewish concepts. The best picture of the medieval idea of the place of punishment is undoubtedly found in Dante's Inferno. Basing his description on the teachings of contemporary schoolmen, Dante also acknowledged Virgil as his master and followed him in many descriptions of Tartarus. The Semitic idea crops up here and there, however, such as in the beginning of one of the cantos, where what looks suspiciously like a Hebrew incantation is recorded.
In later medieval times the ingenuity of the monkish mind introduced many apparently original concepts. For instance, hell obtained an annex: purgatory. Its inhabitants took on a form that may be alluded to as European, in contrast to the more satyrlike shape of the earlier hierarchy of Hades. It featured grizzly forms of birdlike shape, with exaggerated beaks and claws, and the animal forms and faces of later medieval gargoyles could well be what the denizens of Hades seemed like in the eyes of the superstitious of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
A modified version of these ideas was passed to later generations, and one may suspect that such superstitions were not altogether disbelieved by our forefathers.
Most Eastern mythological systems possess a hell that does not differ in any fundamental respect from that of most barbarian races, except that it is perhaps more specialized and involved. Many later writers, such as Emanuel Swedenborg, Jakob Boehme, William Blake, and others (including John Milton), have given us vivid pictures of the hierarchy and general condition of hell. For the most part these are based on patristic writings. In the Middle Ages endless controversy took place as to the nature and offices of the various inhabitants of the place of punishment (see Demonology), and the descriptions of later visionaries are practically mere repetitions of the conclusions arrived at then.
The locality of hell has also been a question of endless speculation. Some believed it to be in the sun, because the Greek name for the luminary is "Helios," but such etymologies have been in disfavor with most writers on the subject, and the popular idea that hell is subterranean has had no real rival.
Sources:
Bernstein, Alan E. The Formation of Hell: Death and Retribution in the Ancient and Early Christian Worlds. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1993.
Fox, Samuel J. Hell in Jewish Literature. Wheeling, Ill.: Whitehall, 1969.
Kohler, Kaufmann. Heaven and Hell in Comparative Literature. Folcroft, Pa., 1923.
Kvanvig, Jonathan L. The Problem of Hell. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.
Lehner, Ernest, and J. Lehner. Picture Book of Devils, Demons, and Witchcraft. New York: Dover Publications, 1972.
MacCullough, John A. The Harrowing of Hell: A Comparative Study of an Early Christian Doctrine. London: T. & T. Clark, 1930. Reprint, New York: AMS Press, 1981.
Mew, James. Traditional Aspects of Hell. London: Swan, Sonnenschein, 1903. Reprint, Detroit: Gale Research, 1971.
Swedenborg, Emanuel. Heaven and Hell. 1758. Reprint, New York: E. P. Dutton, 1931.
Walker, Daniel P. Decline of Hell: Seventeenth Century Discussions of Eternal Torment. London: Routledge, 1964.
