Inspired by the apostle Paul’s cryptic claim to have been “caught up to the third heaven” where he heard things that cannot be told (2 Corinthians 12:1–4), an anonymous Christian author writing between 250 and 400 CE confected a story about the apostle’s journey to the otherworld, where he witnessed the glories awaiting the saints in Heaven and the horrors in store for sinners in Hell. The Apocalypse of Paul portrayed for Christian readers a terrifying tableau of torments, where the souls of false Christians and impious clergy suffered punishments befitting their crimes. While demons held sway over the earth in the early Christian imagination, they were not yet inhabitants of Hell. The tormentors who tortured the damned in the Apocalypse of Paul were “angels of Tartarus,” an allusion to the fallen angels of Satan’s retinue fated to join him in the lake of fire after the final judgment (Revelation 20:10).
When the angel had ceased speaking to me, he led me outside beyond the city through the midst of trees and back from the places of the land of good things, and he set me at the river of milk and honey. And after that, he led me to the ocean that bears the foundation of heaven. The angel responded and said to me, “Do you know that you are departing this place?” And I said, “Yes, Lord.” And he said to me, “Come and follow me, and I will show you the souls of the impious and the sinners, so that you may know what kind of place they have.” And I went with the angel and he took me toward the setting of the sun and I saw the beginning of heaven built upon a great river of water, and I asked, “What is this river of water?” And the angel said to me, “This is the ocean that surrounds the entire earth.” And when I was at the furthest reaches of the ocean, I looked and there was no light in that place, but only shadows and sadness and sorrow, and I sighed.
And I saw to the north a place of various and diverse torments full of men and women, and the river of fire flowed upon them. I looked and I saw pits great in depth and in them were many souls together and the depth of the pit was about three thousand cubits and I saw the souls groaning and crying and saying, “Have mercy upon us, Lord” and yet, no one had mercy upon them. And I asked the angel and said, “Who are they, Lord?” And in response, the angel said to me, “These are the ones who placed no hope in the Lord as a helper.” And I asked and said, “Lord, if these souls remain like this, piled one upon the other for thirty or forty generations, unless they are cast deeper down, I do not believe that the pits will hold them all.” And he said to me, “The abyss has no end, for beyond this follows what lies beneath it. And it is such that if someone hurled a stone with great strength and aimed it into a very deep pit and it took many hours for it to hit the bottom, this abyss is like that too. Indeed, when souls are cast in there, they barely reach the bottom after forty years have passed.” Truly, when I heard this, I mourned and groaned for the human race. In response, the angel said to me, “Why do you mourn? Are you more merciful than God? Indeed, since God is good and he knows that there are punishments, he treats the human race with patience, allowing each person to do their own will during the time that he or she dwells upon the earth.”
Yet I looked back at the river of fire and I saw there a man seized by the throat by angels of Tartarus, holding in their hands an iron implement with three hooks, with which they were piercing the entrails of this old man. And I asked the angel and said, “Lord, who is this old man who suffers such torments?” In response, the angel said to me, “The man whom you see was a presbyter, who did not fulfill his ministry well. When he was eating and drinking and fornicating, he was also offering Lord’s sacrifice at his holy altar.”
And I saw not far off another old man, whom four evil angels were leading, running with great haste, and they submerged him up to his knees in the river of fire and they struck him with stones and wounded his face like a storm and they did not allow him to say, “Have mercy on me.” And I asked the angel, and he said to me, “This one whom you see was a bishop, and he did not fulfill his duties well. Indeed, he received a great title, but he did not enter into the holiness of the one who gave the name to him for his entire life, because he made no just judgment and he had no pity for widows and orphans. But now it is paid back to him according to his iniquity and his works.”
And I looked and saw at his side another man, whom they brought out in haste and they cast him into the river of fire, and he was sunk up to his knees. And an angel in charge of his torments arrived with a long flaming knife, with which he sliced the lips of this man and his tongue as well. And with sighs, I wept and asked, “Who is that man, Lord?” And he said to me, “That one whom you see was a lector and he read to the people, but he did not follow God’s commandments, so now he suffers this particular torment.”
And I saw there girls draped in black garments and four terrifying angels holding in their hands flaming chains, which they put on the necks of the girls and led them into the darkness. And again with tears I asked the angel, “Who are these ones, Lord?” And he said to me, “These are girls who had been virgins, but had lost their virginity without their parents’ knowledge. For this reason they suffer these particular torments forever more.
And I looked and saw other men and women upon a flaming spit, and beasts were tearing at them, and they were not allowed to say, “Have mercy upon me, Lord.” And I saw the angel of torments subjecting them to the worst torture and saying, “Recognize the son of God. For it was preached to you, but you did not listen when the holy scriptures were read to you. Because of this, the judgment of God is just. Your own evil actions have seized you and led you into these torments.” But with sighs and tears, I asked, “Who are these men and women who are strangled in this fire and suffer these torments?” And he responded to me, “These are women who defiled the creation of God when they aborted infants from the womb, and those are the men who lay with them.” Indeed, the infants of these women addressed the Lord God and the angels in charge of the torments, saying, “Protect us from our parents, for they have defiled the creation of God. They possessed the name of God, but did not follow his commandments. They abandoned us to be eaten by dogs and trampled by pigs. Others they cast into the river.” But these infants were delivered to the angels of Tartarus in charge of the torments, who led them to a spacious place of mercy. But their fathers and mothers were tortured in everlasting torment.
And after this, I saw men and women wrapped in clothing full of pitch and burning sulfur and there were dragons coiled around their necks and shoulders and feet, and angels with fiery horns grasped them and struck them and blocked up their nostrils, saying to them, “Why did you not know the time when it was right for you to repent and serve God and you did nothing?” And I asked, “Who are these ones, Lord?” And he said to me, “These are people who seemed to make a renunciation to the Lord [during baptism], wearing our habit, but the hindrances of the world made them miserable and unable to show love. They had no pity on widows and orphans, received no stranger or pilgrim, made no offering, and had no pity on their neighbor. Their prayer did not ascend pure to the Lord God even one day, but the many hindrances of the world held them back and they could not do right in the sight of God, and the angels surrounded them in the place of torments.”