Apocryphal Descriptions of Hell

Heaven and Hell: A History of the Afterlife - Bart D. Ehrman

Discovered in 1886 by a French archeologist team in Egypt, a book claiming to be by Peter held some fascinating accounts of the afterlife. This was an account, written in the first person, of a guided tour of the afterlife, a detailed description of the torments of sinners in hell, and, in far less detail, the blessings of saints in heaven. It is the earliest Christian forerunner of Dante’s Divine Comedy and the most authoritative such account ever to appear—allegedly authenticated by one of Jesus’s own apostles. 

The account begins with Jesus seated on the Mount of Olives, speaking to his disciples, who want to know what will happen at the end of the world, a discussion familiar to readers of the New Testament (Matthew 24; Mark 13).2 Jesus responds by telling them that false Christs will appear before the end of time, and there will be unimaginable cosmic disasters: cataracts of fire will be let loose, the whole earth will burn, the stars will melt, the heavens will pass away, and the entire creation will dissolve.

The account proceeds to describe in graphic and stunning detail the torments awaiting the damned, who are being punished for their most characteristic sin while living, often following the famous “lex talionis” (“the law of retaliation”), in which the punishment is modeled directly on the transgression (an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth). And so those who “blasphemed the way of righteousness”—that is, those who maligned both the ways of God and the saints who tried to practice them—are hanged over “unquenchable fire” by their tongues, the body part most culpable in their sin. Women who plaited their hair, not just to make themselves beautiful but also to seduce men into fornication, are hanged by their necks and hair over the eternal flames. The men they seduced are hanged by their genitals. In their case they make a perpetual lament: “We did not know we should come to everlasting punishments” (ch. 7).

Somewhat less expectantly, women who procured abortions are cast into an extremely deep pit up to their necks in excrement and foul substances. Opposite them are their aborted children, who send forth flashes of lightning, piercing the eyes of their mothers who “for fornication’s sake have caused their destruction” (ch. 8). So too, men and women who committed infanticide (i.e., by exposing unwanted children to the elements) are tormented forever while their murdered children look on from a place of delight. The mothers experience a particularly graphic torment: milk flows perpetually from their breasts and congeals; out of the milk come beasts that devour the parents’ flesh. (ch 8)

There are also strictly religious crimes and punishment: Those who persecuted Christians are cast into an area of darkness with half their bodies aflame and worms devouring their entrails (ch. 9). Those who slandered God’s righteousness are placed in eternal darkness where they have red hot irons, continuously thrust into their eyes (ch 9) 

Those who lent money at interest spend eternity in a pit with filth up to their knees; those who disobeyed their parents are hanged and ceaselessly pecked by flesh-devouring birds; girls who lost their virginity before marriage have their bodies torn to shreds; slaves who disobeyed the masters are forced to gnaw their tongues endlessly.

Altogether there are twenty-one sins and punishments. None of the punishments is reformatory: they are not meant to teach sinners a lesson so they will do better next time. On the contrary, they are all retributive and vindictive. And they will never, ever end.

The Apocalypse of Paul is a fourth-century non-canonical apocalypse and part of the New Testament apocrypha. The full original Greek version of the Apocalypse of Paul is lost, although fragmentary versions still exist. Using later versions and translations, the text has been reconstructed, notably from Latin and Syriac translations of the work.

The text purports to present a detailed account of a vision of Heaven and Hell experienced by Paul the Apostle. While the work was not accepted among Church leaders, it was quite commonly read in the Middle Ages and helped to shape the beliefs of many Christians concerning the nature of the afterlife. 
 

From Wikipedia

The Apocalypse of Paul, a fictional narrative of a personal tour granted to the apostle. The book was widely read in the Middle Ages and influenced the great Dante himself. It probably comes from the end of the fourth century or beginning of the fifth.11 One of its obvious sources was the second-century Apocalypse of Peter,

Like its predecessor, this apocalypse is firmly rooted in its own day and time: now, being written after Christianity was a religion endorsed by the Roman imperial authorities, there is no longer a place in hell especially reserved for pagan persecutors and idolaters (who are no longer a threat). Instead we read of the horrific punishments reserved for slack Christians, unruly officers of the church, and heretics. When Paul first arrives in the heavenly realm he sees the angelic tormentors of the damned: they are pitiless, with no compassion, with faces filled with wrath, teeth projecting from their mouths, and sparks of fire flashing from their heads. On the other hand, the faces of the blessed angels of the saved shine like the sun; these beneficent beings are dressed in golden girdles and have palms in their hands; they are filled with gentleness and pity, and on their raiment is written the name of the Son of God (Apocalypse of Paul 11–12).

When Paul first arrives in the heavenly realm he sees the angelic tormentors of the damned: they are pitiless, with no compassion, with faces filled with wrath, teeth projecting from their mouths, and sparks of fire flashing from their heads. On the other hand, the faces of the blessed angels of the saved shine like the sun; these beneficent beings are dressed in golden girdles and have palms in their hands; they are filled with gentleness and pity, and on their raiment is written the name of the Son of God (Apocalypse of Paul 11–12). 

Paul is then taken to the other side of things, outside the city of Christ, to see the torments of “the souls of the godless and sinners” (Apocalypse of Paul 31). What is most striking is that many of the worst punishments are not for wicked sinners from outside the church but for the ecclesiastical transgressors within. He first sees groups of believers punished in a river of boiling fire. Some stand in the torrent up to their knees; these are the ones who came out of church to engage in idle disputes. Others are up to their navels: they are those who committed sexual immorality even after receiving communion. Yet others are up to their lips: the slanderers of other Christians. Still others are up to their eyeballs: believers who agreed together to harm their neighbors. Sinful leaders of the church are treated with special severity. A presbyter who offered communion after committing fornication finds himself in a river of fire, tortured by angels vigorously piercing his intestines with a three-pronged iron instrument—for all time. A church officer responsible for liturgical reading but who didn’t himself follow God’s laws has his lips and tongue lacerated with a red-hot razor forever, while standing up to his knees in a river of fire. Monks, both men and women, who seemed to renounce the world but “did not maintain” a single Eucharistic meal (it’s not clear what that means), who did not pity widows and orphans, welcome strangers and pilgrims, or show mercy to their neighbors, are clothed in rags filled with burning pitch and fiery sulfur; dragons coil around their necks and bodies, and angels with fiery horns beat and suffocate them (Apocalypse of Paul 34–40).

Sinful leaders of the church are treated with special severity. A presbyter who offered communion after committing fornication finds himself in a river of fire, tortured by angels vigorously piercing his intestines with a three-pronged iron instrument—for all time. A church officer responsible for liturgical reading but who didn’t himself follow God’s laws has his lips and tongue lacerated with a red-hot razor forever, while standing up to his knees in a river of fire. Monks, both men and women, who seemed to renounce the world, but it “did not maintain” a single Eucharist meal, who did not pity widows and orphans, welcome strangers and pilgrims, or show mercy to their neighbours, are clothed in rags filled with burning pitch in fiery sulfur.  Dragons coil around their necks and bodies and angels with fiery horns beat and suffocate them. (Apocalypse of Paul 41) 

More common sins and punishments are on full display as well, with appropriate torments assigned to magicians, adulterers, the wealthy who loaned out money on interest, and girls who lost their virginity outside of marriage. But, interestingly enough, the worst punishment of all, “seven times greater” than all the others, comes to bad theologians, who are enclosed in a deep well with a completely unbearable stench. These are sinners who “do not confess that Christ has come in the flesh and that the Virgin Mary brought him forth, and those who say that the bread and cup of the Eucharist of blessing are not the body and blood of Christ” (Apocalypse of Paul 41).