Dist. 44, Part 2, Art. 1, Q. 2
by St. Bonaventure
Source text: Public Domain Mark 1.0. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://bonaventure.wrootpress.com/browse/4/d/44/q/bon-sent-IV-d44-p2-a1-q2
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### Question II. *Where hell is.*

Secondly it is asked, where hell is. And that it is under the earth seems [to be so]:

1. First, through the *Creed*, where it is said: *He descended into the lower regions* etc. If he descended, since *to descend* signifies motion toward that which is below, and he himself was on the earth: therefore hell is under the earth.

2. Likewise, this is shown through *Scripture*, Isaiah the fourteenth: *Hell beneath was thrown into confusion.*

3. Likewise, this is shown *by denomination [from the name]*: for, as Gregory says in the fourth [book] of the Dialogues, «it is called hell (*infernus*) because it lies lower (*inferius*); for what earth is to heaven, that hell is to earth».

4. Likewise, this seems [to hold] *by reason*: for the nobler a body is, the nobler a place is owed to it: if therefore to the noblest bodies, namely the glorified, the highest place is owed, namely the empyrean, then it remains that to ignoble bodies, namely the bodies of the damned, the lowest place should be owed. But this is under the earth: therefore etc.

5. Likewise, place ought by concordance to correspond to state; but the state of the wayfarer is midway between punishment and glory: therefore the place too ought to be midway; therefore, since it is lower than the place of the Blessed, it ought to be higher than [the place] of the damned.

**On the contrary:** 1. Augustine, on Genesis according to the letter, book twelve: «Under the earth the lower regions are said, or believed, to be, because they are fittingly demonstrated in the spirit through those likenesses of corporeal things»: therefore it seems, according to this, that hell is not under the earth, even though it *appears* to be under the earth.

2. Likewise, the same [Augustine], wishing to assign the reason of the name, says: «They are called *inferi* (the lower ones) in Latin because they are below (*infra*). But just as, according to the body, if they keep the order of their own weight, all heavier things are lower; so according to the spirit all sadder things are lower»: therefore, if *to be sad* does not denote inferiority according to position but rather according to spirit; it seems that hell is not lower according to position, but according to affection.

3. Likewise, place ought to be proportioned to the weight drawing toward the place, otherwise the weight would never draw unless it had a likeness with the place; but the weight  drawing toward hell is sin, and this is something spiritual, not corporeal: therefore the place too ought to have a spiritual position, not a corporeal one, therefore it is not under the earth.

4. Likewise, the damned are far more numerous than the elect; but heaven will be full of the elect, according to what is said in Matthew the twenty-second: *That the house may be filled with those reclining [at table]*: therefore it is necessary that the damned have a greater place than the place of heaven is, since they are far more numerous: therefore, since hell encompasses all the damned, it is necessary that it be of such great size as heaven: therefore it is impossible that it be under the earth.

5. Likewise, the order of the parts in the greater world ought to correspond to the order of the parts in the lesser world; but the noblest part of man is in the middle, namely the heart: therefore, if the middle of the earth is the middle of the world, that place will be the noblest: therefore in that place the noblest part of the world ought to be situated, therefore not sinners: therefore if they are in hell, hell is not under the earth, or in the middle of the earth.

### Conclusion.

> *We can say that hell is a corporeal place, having its position under the earth.*

**I respond:** It must be said that, although it may seem rash to determine this question—for the reason that Augustine judged that no one knows it, according to what is said in the text, but was of the opinion that hell is not a *corporeal* place but a *spiritual* one, according to what is said in the twelfth [book] on Genesis according to the letter—nevertheless it is not presumptuous for moderns to say something about this, since Gregory expressly states, in the fourth [book] of the Dialogues, that he does not doubt hell to be a corporeal place; and he also establishes, by the authority of Scripture, that hell is under the earth, both from that which is said in the Psalm: *Thou hast rescued my soul from the lower hell*; and from that which is said in Apocalypse the fifth: *No one was found, neither in heaven nor on earth nor beneath the earth* etc. And therefore, fortified by his authority, we can say that hell is a corporeal place, having its position under the earth. And with this Scripture agrees, denomination agrees, and reason too agrees. For just as the state of the damned stands at a perfect distance, distant from the state of the Blessed, so also place [is distant] from place; and just as to the state of beatitude the highest place is owed, so also to the state of misery the lowest place, even according to the body.

**1, 2.** To that which is objected on the contrary, it must be said that Augustine did not say this by asserting it, but by reasoning and conjecturing; whence he also retracted it in the second book of the Retractations, saying: «It seems to me rather that I ought to have said of the lower regions that they are under the earth, than to have given the reason why they are believed to be under the earth, as if it were not so».

**3.** To the other [objection] which is raised secondly concerning the weight of sin, it must be said that there is an *order of justice* and an *order of nature*. But sin draws downward not according to the *order of nature*, since it has no conformity to it, but according to the *order of justice*, because sin, since it is most vile, disposes man toward the most vile and lowest place.

**4.** To that which is objected, that heaven is full of the elect; it must be said that this is not understood of a fullness of *crowding*, but of a fullness of *beauty*, by which we say heaven is full of stars, and the sea full of fish, and the world full of men. — But if you seek an imagining of how this is to be grasped, that so great a multitude of men is under the earth; it can be said that all the men who now exist would scarcely fill a thousandth part of the earth, if they were all together at once. If therefore all the men who have been from the beginning unto the end scarcely exceed the men who now exist by a thousandfold proportion, all men together would scarcely occupy the surface of the earth. If therefore the hollow is of greater capacity than the surface is, much more will they be able to be contained in the hollows of the earth, which, although they do not appear to us, nevertheless are many, as the courses of waters from the mountains and the shakings of earthquakes show; and hell is believed to be of the greatest hollowness, and thereby also of great capacity.

**5.** To that which is finally objected concerning order, or concerning position in the parts of man; some wished to say that what the heart is in the body of man, that the body of the sun is in the middle of the world; and according to  this way the earth is not judged to be the middle, but rather the extreme, and the lowest extreme. — Otherwise it can be said that it is not similar: because, since the universe is spherical, and the circumference is of the same nature, any extreme holds the character of the superior, and therefore the middle holds the character of the lowest. But in man it is not so: because one extremity, as the head, is called superior; another, as the feet, is called inferior; and therefore the middle is neither inferior nor superior, but has an influence toward both: and therefore the noble part ought to be situated in man in the middle; not so in the universe, but rather in the extreme.

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