Hell

Last week Pope Benedict remarked, apparently with regret, that nowadays ‘little gets said’ of hell. In these days when loan sharks are everywhere, my own feeling about all the Christian churches is that I’d like to hear them say a great deal more in a traditional way about usury. They could always combine both these themes; that would be thoroughly traditional:

In another great lake full of foul matter (pus) and blood and boiling mire stood men and women up to their knees. And these were they that lent money and demanded usury upon usury.

Apocalypse of Peter (early 2nd century), Akhmim Fragment, 31

And I saw another multitude of pits in the same place, and in the midst thereof a river filled with a multitude of men and women, and worms devoured them. But I wept and sighed and asked the angel: Lord, who are these? And he said unto me: These are they that extorted usury on usury and trusted in their riches, not having hope in God, that he was their helper.

Apocalypse of Paul (later 4th century), 37

trans. M. R. James in The Apocryphal New Testament


<link>