the place of divine punishment after death.

As all religions have supposed a future state of existence after this life, so all have their hell or place of torment in which the wicked are supposed to be punished. The hell of the ancient heathens was divided into two mansions, the one called Elysium, on the right hand, pleasant and delightful, appointed for the souls of good men; the other called Tartara, on the left, a region of misery and torment appointed for the wicked. The latter only was hell, in the present limited sense of the word. See ELYSIUM.

The philosophers were of opinion, that the infernal regions were at an equal distance from all the parts of the earth; nevertheless it was the opinion of some, that there were certain passages which led thither, as the river Leth, near the Syrtes, and the Acherusian cave in Epirus. At Hermoine it was thought, that there was a very short way to hell; for which reason the people of that country never put the fare into the mouths of the dead to pay their passage.

The Jews placed hell in the centre of the earth, and believed it to be situated under waters and mountains. According to them, there are three passages leading to it; the first is in the wilderness, and by that Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, descended into hell; the second is in the sea, because Jonah, who was thrown into the sea, cried to God out of the belly of hell; the third is in Jerusalem, because it is said the fire of the Lord is in Zion, and his furnace is in Jerusalem. They likewise acknowledged seven degrees of pain in hell, because they find this place called by seven different names in Scripture. Though they believed that infidels, and persons eminently wicked, will continue for ever in hell; yet they maintained, that every Jew who is not infected with some heresy, and has not acted contrary to the points mentioned by the rabbins, will not be punished therein for any other crimes above a year at most.

The Mahometans believe the eternity of rewards and punishments in another life. In the Koran it is said, that hell has seven gates, the first for the Mussulmans, the second for the Christians, the third for the Jews, the fourth for the Sabians, the fifth for the Magians, the sixth for the Pagans, and the seventh for the hypocrites of all religions.

Among Christians, there are two controverted questions in regard to hell; the one concerns locality, the other the duration of its torments. 1. The locality of hell, and the reality of its fire, began first to be controverted by Origen. That father, interpreting the Scripture account metaphorically, makes hell to consist not in external punishments, but in a consciousness or sense of guilt, and a remembrance of past pleasures. Among the moderns, Mr Whitton advanced a new hypothesis. According to him, the comets are so many hells appointed in their orbits alternately to carry the damned into the confines of the sun, there to be torched by its violent heat, and then to return with them beyond the orb of Saturn, there to starve them in those cold and dismal regions. Another modern author, not satisfied with any hypothesis hitherto advanced, affixes the sun to be the local hell. 2. As to the second question, viz. the duration of hell torments, we have Origen again at the head of those who deny that they are eternal; it being that father's opinion, that not only men but devils, after a due course of punishment suitable to their respective crimes, shall be pardoned and restored to heaven. The chief principle upon which Origen built his opinion, was the nature of punishment, which he took to be emendatory, applied only as physic for the recovery of the patient's health. The chief objection to the eternity of hell torments among modern writers, is the disproportion between temporary crimes and eternal punishments. Those who maintain the affirmative, ground their opinions on Scripture accounts, which represent the pains of hell under the figure of a worm which never dies, and a fire which is not quenched; as also upon the words, "These shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal."

HELLENICUS of Mitylene, a celebrated Greek historian, born before Herodotus, flourished about 485 B.C. He wrote a history of the ancient kings and founders of cities, but which hath not come down to us.