From Funk and Wagnall's Encyclopedia
(1961 Edition)

 

Hell, in theology, any place or state of punishment and privation for human
souls after death. More strictly, the term is applied to the place or state
of eternal punishment of the damned, whether angels or human beings. The
doctrine of the existence of hell is derived from the principle of the
necessity for vindication of divine justice, combined with the human
experience that evildoers do not always appear to be punished adequately in
their lifetime.

Among the early Teutons the term "hell" signified a place under the earth to
which the souls of all mortals, good or bad, were consigned after death; it
thus denoted a conception similar to that of the Hebrew Sheol. Among the
early Jews, as in other Semitic nations, existence in Sheol was regarded as a
shadowy continuation of earthly life where "the wicked ceased from troubling
and the weary were at rest". Later the dictum of Isaiah (chap. 14) that the
king of Babylon "shall be brought down...to the uttermost depths of Sheol"
gave rise to the concept of various depths of Sheol, with corresponding
degrees of reward and punishment.

Early Christian writers used the term hell to designate (1) the limbo of
infants, where the unbaptized enjoy a natural bliss but are denied the
supernatural bliss of the vision of God; (2) the limbo of the fathers, in
which the souls of the just who died before the advent of Christ await their
redemption, and which is mentioned in the Apostles’ Creed, "He [Christ]
descended into hell"; (3) a place of purgation from minor offenses leading
inevitably to heaven (see PURGATORY); and (4) the place of punishment of
Satan and the other fallen angels and of all mortals who die unrepentant of
serious sin.

The duration of the punishments of hell has been a subject of controversy
since early Christian times. Origen and his school taught that the purpose of
these punishments was purgatorial, and that they were proportionate to the
guilt of the individual. Origen held that, in time, the purifying effect
would be accomplished in all, even devils; that punishment would ultimately
cease; and that everyone in hell eventually would be restored to happiness.
This doctrine was condemned by the Second Council of Constantinople in 553, and a belief in the eternity of the punishments in hell became characteristic of both the Orthodox church and the Roman Catholic church. It also passed into the creeds of the churches of the Reformation but the doctrine of hell was rejected by many of the more radical thinkers of the Renaissance, especially in the Baptist and Unitarian churches.

In modern times the belief in physical punishment after death and the endless duration of this punishment has been abandoned by certain Protestants, and the endless duration of this punishment has been rejected by many more. The question about the nature of the punishment of hell is equally controversial. Opinions range from holding the pains of hell to be no more than the remorse of conscience to the orthodox belief that the "pain of loss" (the consciousness of having forfeited the vision of God and the happiness of heaven) is combined with the "pain of sense" (actual physical torment).