Sheol

SHEOL. - A term (feminine) that in Israel (not among the other Semites) designated the subterranean region where the dead dwell.

The etymology is uncertain: perhaps from the Common Semitic s'l "to ask, to question" (W. Gesenius), or as an insatiable abyss that demands ever new additions ("orcus rapax," Catullus), or as the place of interrogation or judgment (E. König). Very probable is the etymology proposed by L. Koehler: šā'āh ("to be desolate, desert-like"), considering the final l not radical (as in 'āri'el, harmel, etc.); so that it, akin to šā'ōn (Ps. 39:3 "he drew me up from the pit of destruction, bōr šā'ōn") and šē'ijāh ("desolation, ruin"), would mean "desert territory." W. Baumgartner, after W. F. Albright and others, refers to the Babylonian Šū'āra (or Šubāra: A. Ugnad), the subterranean dwelling of Tammūz and Nergal. The word occurs 66 times in the Hebrew Bible (the Septuagint translates it as šēns 59 times), besides several times in the recovered text of Ecclus. (14:12; 51:2, 6, 9). The Vulgate translates it as infernus, inferna, inferi ("subterranean, -i").

This world of the dead is in the subterranean cavity, opposed to the height of heaven (Job 11:8); into this depth (Ps. 48:15; 62:12; Is. 5:14; Ecclus. 17:19) one

"descends" or "plunges" (Is. 14:9-15; 57:9; Ez. 31:15-17; 32:21; Am. 9:2; Ps. 85:13; 138:8; Prov. 15:24). The deep f. is a synonym of "death" that sweeps away (Job 24:19; Ecclus. 14:12; 51:2-9; cf. Apoc. 1:18 and 20:13-14), and "to descend into it" is equivalent to "to die" (Job 14:13; 17:13, 16); and it is a synonym of "sepulcher," "pit," "darkness," "dust" of the sepulcher. No one can escape it by a "pact" (Is. 28:15, 18). The sorrows of the f. are those of death (II Sam. 22:6; Ps. 17:6; 115:3). With one foot in the abyss, the faithful one "cries out from the depths" to God to be delivered (Ps. 129:1; Ecclus. 51:9). The f. personified like death (Job 28:22; Is. 5:14; Ecclus. 14:12-19), is poetically depicted as an insatiable monster with enormous jaws (Is. 5:14; Hab. 2:5; Ps. 141:7; Prov. 1:12; 27:20; 30:16), with a vast belly (Ios. 2:3; Ecclus. 51:5). The fruit of the power of the f.-death is destruction (Os. 13:14 = I Cor. 15:54): v. ABADDON. At their death all men descend to the f. (Gen. 37:35; 42:38; 44:29, 31; Num. 16:30, 33; etc.) where they "are gathered to their fathers" (Gen. 25:8, 17; 35:29; 49:29, 33). All the dead are under the dominion of the f. (Os. 13:14; Ps. 15:10; 48:16; 88:49; Prov. 5:5; 23:14), which lies beneath the ocean (Job 26:5) and swallows all without distinction (Ps. 88:49). The "gates of the f." (Is. 38:10; Job 38:17; Ecclus. 51:9; Sap. 16:13; Ps. Sal. 16:2; III Mach. 5:51; cf.: God has "the keys" of it, Apoc. 1:18) express the invisible power of the empire of death (Mt. 16:18: portae inferi has a moral tinge). On the whole, this representation of the afterlife coincides with the Babylonian one: semi-unconscious, devoid of activity as of enjoyment, a shadow (edimmu), the dead man is in the arallā, a dark and dusty horrid cavern in the depths of the earth, beneath the lower waters, situated at the extreme West, a prison-city (with streets and quarters) surrounded by 7 walls furnished with 7 double gates (corresponding to the 7 spheres of the planets: F. Hommel); it is the "land from which one does not return" (ersit lā tari), cf. Job 7:9-10 and 10:21; its master is Nergal (cf. II Reg. 17:30; Ier. 39:3, 13) and his wife Ereshkigal, in a subterranean palace (cf. "the king of terrors": Job 18:14); there Tammūz disappears ("descends"), to revive whom the ātar seeks the source of life; Gilgamesh (tablet XII) arrives, after Nergal opens for him "the hole of the earth," at the dwelling of the dead, where his deceased friend Eabani reveals to him "the law of the earth." In the mythical poems of Ugarit, to the underworld, kingdom of the god Mot ("death"), descend Baal and Alijan, then the goddesses 'Anat and Sapas.

Life in the f. is the pale sequel of death. It would have been contradictory to say that the dead live, all the more so since the idea of the soul surviving alone, separated from the body, was not explicit. The deceased, called (Is. 14:9; 26:14, 19; Ps. 87:11; Prov. 2:18; 9:18; 21:16; Job 26:5) rēphā'im ("weak, flaccid, evanescent," Vulg. gigantes), as among the Canaanites-Phoenicians (Ugarit, inscriptions of Eshmun'azar and Tabnit), lead there, in an amorphous throng (Prov. 26:16), a diminished life, inert and sad, silent like that of shadows. The "sleepers in waiting" (Manzoni) are inactive, and forever, poets affirmed in moments of discouragement (Job 7:9 ff.; 16:22; Eccle. 12:5). But their spiritual life endured, with the highlighting of the qualities and merits they had in earthly life. King Saul obtains the response of the deceased prophet Samuel (I Sam. 28:7-20) by means of a necromancer (ba'alath 'ōbh "mistress of a spirit": 'ōbh is the spirit of a dead person); Samuel appears as "a god (spirit) rising from the earth." Saul venerates him prostrate, and Samuel reproaches him: "Why have you disturbed me, making me come up?", and concludes: "Tomorrow you and your sons shall be with me" in the f., without escape. The evocation of the spirits ('ōbhōbh) of the dead, although forbidden by the Law (Lev. 19:31; 20:6, 27; Deut. 18:11), was practiced in Israel until the Talmudic era; it is mentioned in the Manual of Discipline (ca. 100 B.C.) of Hirbet Qumrān.

Since paradise (v.) had been closed because of sin, of which death is the punishment, the f. always appeared as a place of penalty, and the righteous man prays to be delivered from it. In that dark underworld silence reigns inexorable: praise to God does not echo there, nor is his worship carried out (Is. 38:18; Ps. 6:6; 113:17-18); the living God is absent from it, but he scrutinizes and governs "the f. and the abyss" (Job 16:5-6; Prov. 15:

11). Although it is the "end of acting and thinking" (Eccles. 9:10), the wicked have far more to fear it (Ps. 48:15) than the righteous do. There is also mention of the fire that devours (Deut. 32:22; Is. 50:11; Eccl. 51:4); for the wicked "their worm shall not die and their fire shall not be quenched" (Is. 66:24; Eccl. 7:17; Jud. 16:21; Mk. 9:23), an allusion to cadaveric corruption and to the valley of Gehenna (v.). Like death, the f. is connected with sin. Already in Num. 16:30-33 it is associated with the idea of divine punishment: there the rebels of Korah "go down alive"; in Ps. 54:24 it is the "pit of perdition" into which God "brings down" the perverse. The wicked are on the road to it (Ps. 9:18; 30:18; 54:16), as are the shameless woman and her accomplices (Prov. 2:18; 7:27); there are heaped up those who forget God, sinners (ibid. 9:18; 21:16), despisers of the Law (Eccl. 41:11). It appears ever more as the "wages" of sin (cf. Rom. 2:7; 5:12, 21; 6:23), in opposition to the "life" reserved for the good (Prov. 3:18; 8:35; 9:6; 12:2; 16:21); to the f. that is below is opposed "the way of life" that leads on high (Prov. 15:24). Even after the exile, the twofold conception coexists, partly interpenetrating, of the f. as the receptacle of all the dead and as the punishment of the wicked. The prospect of death, the grave, the universal f., distressed Job: although the f. is a rest ("sleep") compared with earthly turmoil and abolishes social inequalities (Job 3:13-26), whoever falls into that place of darkness (ibid. 10:21 ff.) does not return from it, "he will lie down and not rise, he will not awake from his sleep" (ibid. 14:7-22). This pessimism is of a moral order; it coincides with the faith, later reaffirmed in the Gospel, that every man is in himself a sinner, "unclean" (ibid. 14:4). However, Job's pathetic description, like the topography of the f. (the "channel" that leads into the pit: ibid. 33:18; the "chambers of death" Prov. 7:27), is hyperbolic-allegorical and does not correspond to the general representation of it held in Israel. The f. was held to be an impenetrable secret, inviolable, except for God (Job 11:8; 38:17). In Eccl. (ca. 200 B.C.), the f. is the abode of the departed (9:12), whether sinners (21:9-10) or righteous (41:4); it is a place of rest (22:9; 30:17; 38:23; 46:19), a tranquil sleep in which the dead subsist without activity (9:10), without light (22:9), nor joy (14:16), nor praise of God (17:26-27); man can hope for nothing other than worms (7:17 Heb.).

The f. is an ogre that does not release its prey (Prov. 1:12) without ransom: wealth is of no avail (cf. Mt. 16:26; Lk. 12:20), but with Yahweh "the bundle of the living" remains (I Sam. 25:29), and God delivers his faithful one from the f. (Ps. 48:15-18; I Sam. 2:6); he will not abandon him to the f. but will show him "the way of life" (Ps. 15:8-11) and will "take him up in glory" (ibid. 72:23 ff.). The two categories of the damned and of the eternally glorified are described in Dan. 12:2-3, at least from the moment of the resurrection. This distinction between the reprobate and the rewarded is presented as current in the oldest part of Enoch (ca. 170 B.C. onward): Enoch 22 divides the f. into four compartments, the first two for the righteous "near the spring of living water, light," the other two for sinners, whose punishment is definitive; in Enoch 54:2 the king and the mighty are punished in the "deep valley," while the righteous are in the "garden of life" or paradise (60:8, 23; 61:12; 70:3-4); in the last part of Enoch the righteous appear in the f. together with the wicked, but at the final judgment the righteous will be rewarded and the wicked, cast down into the f., tormented forever in darkness and fire (102:4-8; 103:1-4; 104:1-6): the f. here is a place of torment reserved for the wicked. In Enoch 51:1-2 "Š. will give back what it has received": the righteous will rise again and, guided by the Elect One, will reach the Fathers in paradise. Sinners will be punished by not rising again (Enoch 22:10-13; Ps. Sal. 3:16 and 14:2; cf. Ps. 1:5), thus remaining in the f., which becomes the hell of the damned; it is affirmed on the contrary that the righteous are or will be gathered in paradise (Gan'édhen: Strack-Billerbeck [v. bibl.], pp. 1118-65). Like the apocalyptic writers, the Pharisees advocated the resurrection of the dead, but only for the good (Fl. Josephus, Antiq. Iud., XVIII, 14).

This concept was already hinted at in the biblical texts that oppose the f. to life for sinners (Prov. 2:18;

10:18; 15:24; 23:18; 24:14; Ps. 48:15-20). Perhaps in this sense Eccles. 3:21 asks whether the human breath "goes up on high," instead of descending into the f. Indeed the spirit of Adam ascends to God in Apoc. Mos. 32:4; 35:2; and the Essenes held "the immortal soul... freed from the flesh to fly upward" (Fl. Josephus, Bell. Iud., II, 8, 11; VII, 8, 7). Wis. 1:12-4:20 insists on future retribution: the glorious immortality of the righteous and the punishment of the wicked in the afterlife, which will be ratified by divine judgment (ibid. 5:1-25). In the martyrdom of the seven brothers shines the hope of glory in the afterlife "in the bosom of divine mercy" (II Mach. 7:9-29); the departed saints follow what happens on earth and intercede for Israel (ibid. 15:12-16: the high priest Onias, Jeremiah); the f. is also conceived as a place of purification (ibid. 12:43). Even before Jesus, f. or ᾱᾱᾱ bore the two meanings. It was the world of all the dead (at least until the resurrection: so the Pharisees) in II Mach. 6:23; Enoch 22:1-14; 51:1; 102:5; 103:7; IV Esd. 4:41; 7:32; Bar. syr. 11:6; 21:23. It was the prison of the wicked and sinners alone in Wis. 2:1; 17:14 (21); Enoch 63:10; Jubil. 7:29; 22:22; Filonc. Som. I, 151; Bar. gr. 4. The two conceptions alternate within the same book: Ps. Sal. understands Hades as the receptacle of all souls (4:15) and as the hell of the damned (14:6; 15:11; 16:2); in Enoch 3, they seem to merge (10; 40:12-42:1). In the manuscripts of H. Qumrān the same oscillation appears: in the 3rd Psalm (ca. 100 B.C.) the f. is the world of all the dead, and its deepest part is Abaddôn; in the Commentary on Habakkuk the wicked man is in the "house of condemnation," a prison in the f., and at the final judgment he will be cast into the fire of sulfur. Among the post-Christian rabbis the f. ("never filled" Eccles. R. 1:19) will be identified with Gehenna, considered likewise the receptacle of all the dead (Šabbāth 104 a; Ērābhīn 101 a: the righteous trample the nations there; Bābhā' mēṣī'ā' 58 b; Pēsiqā' R. 109 b). Šammaj in Tōsephtā' Sanhedrīn XIII, 3 (11th cent.) distinguished 3 categories of the departed: the glorified and the eternally damned, and those who purify themselves by passing through the fire of Gehenna.

There remained a deep hope of leaving the "region of the shadow of death" (Is. 9:1) and the confinement without return. In Is. 26:19 is the oldest explicit attestation of the resurrection (= "going up" from the f.: Job 7:9). The divine promises of redemption and spiritual restoration present themselves as liberation from the f. (Hos. 13:14 = I Cor. 15:55; Is. 25:8; 26:19, etc.; Ez. 37:1 ff.; Job 19:15 ff.; Dan. 12:2) as "resurrection from the dead" (Rom. 11:15); rising again from the abyss-necropolis ("from the dead") is the supreme messianic hope (cf. I Cor. 15:54-58; Apoc. 20-21).

In the time of Jesus a clear distinction is made between the f. for sinners and the "bosom of Abraham" (v. LIMBO): an impassable abyss separates the righteous from sinners (Lk. 16:22-26), although all are under the earth. But for the abode of the righteous, the image of "eternal tents" and the heavenly paradise prevails (Lk. 16:9; 23:43; "heavenly world": Fl. Josephus, Bell. Iud., III, 8, 5). In the New Testament the f. is called ᾱᾱᾱ, whose dominion is not over the earth (cf. Wis. 1:14), but beneath it (Mt. 11:23 = Lk. 10:15; Rev. 9:1). God cast the rebel angels down into Tartarus (ἐταρτάρωσα), shutting them in those dark cavities (II Pt. 2:4); so too Enoch 10:12; 18:11-19:1; 88:1; there Satan is imprisoned for 1000 years (Rev. 20:7). The hell (v.) of the damned is called gehenna (v.); Jesus insists on the eternal torment of the reprobate in the "outer darkness" (Mt. 8:12; 22:13; 25:30) where there is "weeping and gnashing of teeth" (Mt. 13:42, 50; 24:51) because they are excluded from the Kingdom of God (Lk. 13:28) for having rejected the invitation of God (Mt. 24:13; 24:51; 25:30; Lk. 14:24) and of neighbor (Mt. 25:41-45); cf. II Thess. 1:9. Into the dark underworld (ὁ ἕδρος τοῦ ἀκόνους, II Pt. 2:17; Jude 13) the smoke of the torments of the wicked will rise (Rev. 14:10-11). The hades-death for all will be transformed, after the resurrection and the judgment of all according to their works, into a "second" (definitive) hades-death for the damned alone (Rev. 20:13-15). Among the Fathers, the term ᾱᾱᾱ or inferi will long remain multivalent. In Tertullian inferi has a broad sense and includes purgatory (A. d'Alès, La théologie de Tertullien, Paris

1905, pp. 131-34); St. Hippolytus, Adv. Graec., I, 2, divides Hades into two sections: on the left the damned, on the right the "bosom of Abraham" with the good. Down to St. John Damascene (PG 96, 28) the mysterious biblical indeterminacy was lost. Only at the time of scholastic specialization were the various subterranean places of the dead explicitly distinguished, with clearly distinct terms: the hell of the damned, purgatory, the limboes.

Antonino Romeo