Advent Calendar Day 5: Hell - A conversation starter
Five Images of Hell 1. Hot (Dante) “amongst the tombs were scattered flames, whereby they were made all over so glowing- hot, that iron more hot no craft requires” (Inferno IX.118-20) 2. Cold (Dante) “How icy chill and hoarse I then became … The Emperor of the dolorous realm, from mid breast stood forth out of the ice” (Inferno XXXIV.22, 28-29) 3. The Mouth of Hell (‘Hell’s Teeth!’) (Medieval Art) “high up on hell is a mouth ever open, those who enter in experience everlasting death” – Mechtild of Magdeburg, The Flowing Light of the Godhead 4 4. A small place (C.S. Lewis) “All Hell is smaller than one pebble of your earthly world: but it is smaller than one atom of this world, the Real World … For a damned soul is nearly nothing: it is shrunk, shut up in itself” ( The G...