 Rwy'n ddim ond ydych chi'n gwybodaeth ar gyfer y cyfaint ystod ym ni, ein bod ymnu'n gwybodaethau a mae'n hypnod rydyn ni i fod i unrhyw ystod rydyn ni'n heddiw ac rydyn ni'n gallu bryd â'r lleiaf i'r parwysau gwrdd. Izi Lawrence, mae'r chwarae phobl yn brwysteru weithraedd wrth newidol, radio four, UK TV, ond ydi'r nhw, mae cyfanyddio â hynny i'r pwladiaeth ar gyfer y Blwydd Brithgiw Mwzium, BBC sounds, a her own popular science podcast about dinosaurs called Terrible Lizards. She's the author of historical fiction for children, with books covering Jiu-Jitsu, suffragettes, female spitfire pilots, and the true lives of pirates on the transatlantic slave trade in the upcoming novel Black Beard's Treasure, due to be published by Bloomsbury Education this autumn. I was about to read out your number, but I won't do that. And joining is Dr Emma Wells. Emma is an award-winning historian, author and broadcaster. She's lecturer in ecclesiastical and architectural history at the University of York, a regular contributor to television and radio, and writes for publications including BBC Countryphile, TLS, BBC History and History Today. She's the author of Heaven on Earth, The Lives and Legacies of the World's Greatest Cathedrals, which is out on the 7th of July, so please check that out in July, and also Pilgrim Roots of the British Isles. And finally, last but not least, is a histfest regular who's usually here, rather than there, and it's Shafi Mustadik, who is a freelance journalist covering politics and culture with a focus on faith frontier communities and minority communities in Britain. Shafi is reported for a range of publications in the UK and Europe, including the BBC, NBC and The Economist. His interests include Islamic influences in Europe and shared interfaith connections. Over to you guys. Well done to Rebecca as well for organising everything and doing amazing. Absolutely fantastic. It is the last event. What better subject than hell? It's where most of us will be ending up, I'm sure. I thought, I literally got dropped into this at the last minute, so I'm absolutely fascinated by the subject. I've done a bit of research over the weekend, just rereading all of the old books that were on my shelves. But what I thought would be the most open question I think we can start with is what purpose does hell serve for religion in general? Because it's across several different religions, not just the Abrahamic ones. So Emma, why don't you go first? Well, very simply, hell is hell because God is God. Easy, we can go home. There we go. That's it, the end. No, we have a hell because we also have, we need to show the holiness of God. So it's a very interesting, of course it's a very interesting concept, but it seems to stem from the idea that not that we will go to some far off or underground place, but that our actions, our deeds, our behaviour will lead to ultimately going somewhere. And this stems from the idea of the sort of immortal, eternal soul when it comes to Christianity at least, and therefore it's a natural end. There has to be some sort of fitting end, and that's why we have hell. We have to be in God's light if we're not, we are in the darkness. Okay, what do you say is happy, what's your theories? Islam is sort of like an updated version of Emma's hell. Yeah, it's like iPhone 10 to iPhone 9. So there's so many crossovers as there is in all Abrahamic faiths. With Islam, what's interesting is in the Quran itself, there's mentions of hell, but it's not very descriptive. So the purpose isn't necessarily laid out, but we know it's purpose because whenever hell is mentioned, as soon as it's mentioned, paradise is mentioned. So there's like, there's hell, but you know what, there's heaven, so it's going to be all right. So we're not all damned, it's fine, but just remember there's something out there that you might fall into. So it's almost like a symmetrical balancing act. We need the equilibrium. You need both, and that is a sign of God's infinite mercy, same in Christianity, but also the scope of human emotions as well. Because as much as this is godly, it evokes very human emotions hell. So Fear, yeah, yeah. And we're talking about 7th century Arabia, you've got even further back in the Middle East, people, the access to education isn't there. So how do you get essentially what we're doing, lectures, but in a way that's for the masses, and this is it. So is the necessary part of hell that not everybody can go to heaven otherwise? What's the point of having a virtuous life and existence? This is where it gets interesting because for Christianity at least, there is a debate over whether there is a predestined plan, and this is God's predestined plan, that you will go to, not you personally. It might be predestined, but then it becomes a problem because then we get to the last judgement. We have the buck of revelation, etc. We have the last judgement, the day of judgement where our souls and the sins that we have committed during our lifetime are weighed. You go to the good space, you go into the bad place. But if it's already predetermined, does it matter what actions we have undertaken during our earthly lifetime? So is during the last judgement you have Christ there, and you have St Michael weighing the souls, and Christ is there, but is he just the intercessor of God's predetermined plan? It sounds very ancient Egyptian, that. That sounds, you know, the weighing of the heart. Yeah, that's where it stems from. The crocodile eating your heart if it weighs more than a feather, which I think is deeply unfair. How big is that feather? But that's, so hell is there basically in order to sort of give the full stop to your existence. This is final judgement, boom, there you go, end of the book, the end, but it is a forever infinite thing. Yes and no. Yes and no. That's good. The problem with all this is there isn't really a concept as in a place. We're talking about hell as a place. We think of this fiery underground pit, this, you know, fiery torment where there's a devil eating our souls, you know, munching on our heads, our souls, our heads, I presume. That doesn't really exist. In the Old Testament, and you have crossover here, we tend to get sheol, which is, you know, the sort of afterworld, underworld. I've heard translations that they translated as literally a graveyard. It's like a tomb. Sort of, yeah, yeah. And from that, you get the, obviously, the ancient Greeks and the concept of Hades, which is similar. It's a place for souls to linger about. It's not until the New Testament that you get Gahanah and that is an actual place, well it was an actual place on the outskirts of Jerusalem. It was seen as essentially a rubbish dump that was supposedly eternally on fire and therefore that became what we would associate with this sort of burning, this burning world and the sort of metaphor for purification. So it's not really until arguably the New Testament that we get this fiery burning underworld. And that's literally based on a rubbish dump. Yeah. So hell is a rubbish dump outside of Jerusalem. You heard it here first. I wouldn't have done that about. Breaks all sorts of health and safety codes. Well it's, oh gosh. But it's interesting. That explains, it is a very unpleasant place and if you're trying to say, because Brejum would talk about Jesus in New Testament and he's preaching about, you know, the, when he doesn't preach about heaven so much as the kingdom of God and it's coming and the kingdom of God, he might have thought was an actual place which would come after the apocalypse, which he also saw as in his lifetime. Yeah, I mean we have this in the book of Daniel, but I mean this is the problem because Jesus talks about hell more than he talks about heaven. And, you know, this idea of a place, it being a place. Well, where does Jesus go when he descends from the cross? He goes to, you know, the realm of the dead. It's known as the harrowing of hell. So if there isn't a concept of an actual space, which is hell, where did Jesus go? Where did Jesus go? That's quite... Still look at the answer. What about in Islam? Is there an actual place where hell is located? There is interestingly, so the word in Arabic is jahannam and it's related to the Hebrew. The Islamic progression is really interesting because it picks up the Jewish location of Jerusalem right at the beginning and as the, as the kind of scholarship evolves into kind of the fifth, by the time you get to the 16th century, hell is an extra-terrestrial place. So there is a progression from it being on the earth and some scholars say it's not just in Jerusalem. There's a sulfuric kind of acidic well in Yemen, apparently. You should go find it. There's a place in Afghanistan, a gorge, that was also located as the gateway to hell. Interesting places to call hell now. There's a place in England as well. A place in England? Oh no, I'd believe that. The Hellfire Caves. Okay, where are the Hellfire Caves? People will know this. Where are the Hellfire Caves? High Wycombe. There we go. High Wycombe. Okay. We just have to go to High Wycombe. That's on the M40. We took a day trip. Well that's... So how are these places depicted though? Because by the time, obviously when Christianity starts, they have, we have an actual location outside of Jerusalem and also when Islam starts, we have an actual, okay, how are these depicted through, because this is your thing Emma, this is, I don't know, we've got a clicker and oh goodness, that's a very sexy Satan. That's why Rebecca chose. But there we go. Yes, there's no guarantee he will look like this. If you look at Dante's Satan, a bit more bone-crunchy three faces, not as good. But that's a very good one. So we should really use the clicker, I imagine, and try and find some pictures here. Oh look, we can start with some Persian Hell. Do you want to go to Persian Hell? Yeah, go to Persian Hell. Okay, so this is a picture of the Prophet Muhammad's night journey and this is where actually the Islamic descriptions of Hell come from. So the Prophet Muhammad is in the middle. You can't see his face. That's the Orthodox version of Muhammad out of respect. He's the Green Fire, Muhammad. And then behind him are all the biblical prophets, Abraham, Jesus, Aaron, etc. They're all behind him. But what's interesting, you can see in the corner, that's not the devil, that's dragons. Nowhere in the Quran there are dragons involved at all. Nor in the prophetic traditions, the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, they're not there either. There's no embellishment of Hell. But this is in the 16th century. So what we're seeing here are ideas taken from China via Persia about mythological creatures, really. This text is not religious. This is a secular political text and this is actually created within the Ottoman empire. Essentially it's a polemic propaganda against the Safavid dynasty. Essentially what it is, it's a similar thing that was happening in Europe between Catholics and Protestants. And they're saying the Safavids are basically the dragons. So the images in Islam, there aren't many. Compared to Emma, Emma will have loads of images. But very similar to this. And that's where the crossovers happen. I think we have another image, the second one possibly. So this is, the devil appears finally, with the horns. This is late. This is in the 16th century now. And this is the first time it appears in any sort of Islamic text. So it's quite late on. And this is a sign actually against Ottoman empire 16th century. This is more of a sign of the interfaith communities in the Ottoman empire, these large Christian populations. More or less this type of devil would have come from those Christian texts, not Islamic texts. So again, this represents more what's happening on earth, the mixing of people, rather than any theological ideas about the devil. It was an amazing thing about the Ottomans and also the Moghul empire, which was starting around the same time as the 1530s is that they were really good at incorporating other faiths into their empire building. And it was actually done out of respect in a way. They worked together. The scholars all worked together. So this is an example of that. I'm just having a look. So I made a note about snakes. And that's again, it's Egyptian again. In Egypt you also get bitten by snakes. And I think there's what is it Nittog in the Norse mythology that you know, go back to Genesis. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Origin of Genesis. Yeah. But you actually go to hell and get bitten by stuff, which is quite cool. So you know, I mean, it's really bad guys, really bad. But you know, snakes as a metaphor through everything is really quite interesting. Here we go. Here's some Christian stuff. But so this is the first time we get the idea what we usually think of as Satan and the devil with the cloven who's. And he sort of stems from the pagan idea, the pagan God of Pan. And it's mixed with and we'll see it on the next slide in a minute. The concept, which we were just looking at, this idea of a dragon or a serpent or a sea creature, sea whale of the hell mouth as well. So they kind of go hand in hand and they derive from the sort of early English Anglo Saxony era. That's the first time though that we really see an idea, a concept of hell being a sort of place with, I was going to say an overlord, but he isn't really an overlord. The problem we get with Satan is complex as hell itself, because Satan becomes at first, he's the adversary to God. We don't see him until much, much later into the Middle Ages become his sort of this rival, this nemesis. He is a fallen angel at the beginning. He was one of God's beings, one of God's angels and decided he was going to overthrow God, as we all do, and therefore God exiled him. He didn't put him in any sort of place, but it's this sort of idea mixed with the sort of early English artistic representations that were going on anyway, and we get this from the pagan God. Has he got, I mean he's a bit nudie-roody, so be careful, you don't look too closely. It seems to have three faces, four faces. Which is interesting because we don't usually get this tall quite, well around this time, so later Middle Ages. Early Middle Ages we get very sort of rather simplistic ideas of Satan and hell. It's not until probably post 14th century once we have the Black Death, we have crisis, we have war, we have famine, we have the birth of the printing press and therefore the spread of ideas and fear mongering, and that's when we really see the concept of hell and the devil ramp up, hence witchcraft etc. Amazing, let's have a look at another one. And that's perfect segue into this, which is, we can see, women associated with Satan. Women go hand in hand with the devil. Yes, so is that, I mean is that a thing in Islam as well, is it seen that women are, because it does tend to be that we are the ones who are very very into, we get tempted by sin all the time. We're just really weak when it comes to that, and then we take men into it. I saw you stuffing your face around the corner. It's really bad. During Ramadan as well, very bad. Bad. Yes and no, so in Islam there is no, in Bible I think it's Eve who's tempted by the fruit, right. In Islam there's no mention of that. It's, we don't know, it might have been Adam. I guess culturally, the thing is that cultures into mix and as Islam solidifies itself, it probably borrows a lot from the Christian ideas. What's interesting, there are mentions of who will go to hell in Islam, so one of them, any points at me. One of them is people who devour the wealth of orphans. It's very specific, because the Prophet Muhammad himself wasn't orphan. He loses his parents by a time he's seven, which is the start of his spiritual journey, so that's quite distinct. People who devour interest, usury, I think that's quite similar in Christianity as well. It's quite, it's very similar to Christianity, but there are certain specifics depending on who we're talking to, so just going back to the night journey image that we showed. The images of, if you can go back one more. That's the one, that's the night journey. Essential of the night journey is, is an episode in the Prophet Muhammad's life where it's just after his first wife dies and he goes on, some people say it's physical, but a lot of like esoteric commentaries say it was more mental journey where he travels up with the angel Gabriel and he goes up through each layer of paradise and he meets each biblical prophet, so he meets Aaron, he says, hey, he says, hey, he says, hey, he says, hey, how you doing? And what's really interesting is the ideas of how come from this specific episode, because when, as he's on his way to meet God, when he gets to the fifth layer of, so there's, sorry, there's layers, we've got to mention there's layers. There's layers in a lot of them. Well, sort of. I don't know. More so the sort of grouping, as we go on, the grouping of sins and the punishment befitting of the sin into sort of groups. We don't really see layers until Giotto, who's, who influences Dante. See that's interesting because in Islam there's layers. Which could be a Chinese influence as well, because I think Diu has like 18 different levels and like 100 something rooms and each room's got its own little, like it's got a room full of tongue ripping, which is one of the worst ones to end up in. But this is such a great point because there's a version in the 15th century, scholarly versions, not from the Quran or the prophetic sayings where Muhammad finds how on the third layer, as he's on his way to heaven, I saw it on the third, the fifth, the interpretation of why he sees hell on the way to paradise, on the fifth layer of paradise, is that that represents Mars, the God of War. So by the time we get to the 15th and 16th century, a lot of Islamic scholars have absorbed the ancient texts of the Romans and the Greeks. So it's, it's, it's not about theology. No. Not at all. It's about culture. Well, yeah, it's all apocryphal. None of this is really Biblical doctrine. I mean, the concept of hell doesn't really come into doctrine into Biblical doctrine until, well, we have the fourth century, the Vulgate, you know, the Latin Bible, but really doctrine, officially fifth century. Fifth century? Yeah. That's when we get hell. But technically. Technically. Technically. Okay. Everybody before then is all right. We'll go with you. Amazing. I'm just going to click through these as well because we, I mean, we talked a bit about, you know, witches and women, you know, and the idea of magic, but presumably this is about Christians trying to overcome paganism and old pagan traditions or is this, because this is later though. Yeah. And this is, but this is what's interesting. We see this sort of shift around what the later middle ages at 14th century, because of obviously the, as I say, the black death crisis, Protestantism is emerging. So there is this concept of fear and wrongdoing and what could be. And it's the first time you really see the concept of Satan as a person on earth who's getting women to do his bidding, to do his bad works. And that's where we get the concept of women. Well, it's not where we get, but it's particularly rife, women being the sort of subordinate, the subordinate sex. And we see counterparts. Helen Heaven, male and female, obviously male being heavenly bodies, of course, and women being rather hellish. And that's, that's the driver behind witchcraft, but that goes way back to, to Genesis and obviously Eve tempting. And even to Lilith, who was Adam's first wife. And it's a pretty much similar story. She tempts him. This is Dead Sea Scroll stuff, isn't it? Is that what we're talking about? Sort of. I don't know much about early theology. It happened to give me. I'm asking, I'm asking questions, which will allow our wonderful audience to ask, seriously, you can ask very dumb questions because you guys know more than I do, I swear. So. Well, Lilith was, Lilith sort of tempts Adam. And she's his first wife after whatever Eve is class does. But she's a sort of angelic, ethereal, winged angel, I suppose, she is, but she's a bit of a succubus. So that too, again, and what becomes really interesting is as we go into Christianity, into the Middle Ages, we get this sort of connection between women and being the sinister sex. Now the Latin sinister is left-handed or left-sided. And therefore, we get a very interesting, the left side will come onto a dune painting, I think. The left side of Christ. Here we go. Perfect. The left side of Christ will be the Virgin and the Damned. And the right side is the saved. We see this even mirrored within ecclesiastical architecture. And it moves towards all sorts of very interesting, mythological ideas of we have the devil's door in churches because during the baptism, you had the north door is classed as the devil's door. Right. The north side of the church is often seen as the sinister side where those who had committed suicide, babies who had not been baptized would be born. This is this is the way the theory goes. And that when one would be baptized, when the child is baptized, you would have to have the north door open so that you could let the devil out. Okay. Problem with that is that baptism occurred in the porch. So the devil would have to run through the church and out the door. Not to mention that many churches have their north doors, their primary entrance, so he's coming through the front door. But a lot of these become blocked over time. So that's where the idea comes from. But the left side is seen as the female side, the sinister side. And this is developed on and on as we go throughout the later Middle Ages. And you see it represented in like Disney cartoons with like a devil and a what devil on this shoulder and an angel on the other shoulder. But the left side is really interesting because like my dad always said to me, don't write with your left hand, write with your right hand. And a lot of Muslim cultures were told, you've got to wipe your behind with your left hand, not with your right hand. Does that make sense? Yeah. That's not just Muslim. That's all over. Everyone I think is, you're not meant to, yeah. Don't eat with the hand that you wipe your bottom with everyone. Just say it. That's just common sense. Top facts from Hisfest. But it is interesting that we're getting this idea of a devil as an actual person. Is there a Satan figure in Islam in the same way that there is, is there a fallen angel or is there a person? Satan is a fallen angel, yes. But he's so he's told to bow down to Adam and the devil says no. I'm better than Adam. There's an interesting element, I think, which probably comes from Zoroastrianism, where Satan, you know, Satan's going to follow humans around till judgment day. I think that's more concept of the battle between good and evil happening. The devil has his little minions. So it's not just the devil. The devil's got kids running around and following everybody, which is why, for example, the concept of Ramadan, right now, where people aren't eating or not drinking, is the idea of limiting that desire. And actually, there's a saying that during Ramadan the devil was locked away. Once a month, he's locked away. That's not literal. That's more the idea that everyone's suppressing their desires. So the devil isn't a thing. It's more an emotion. Again, it's your desires, your impulse to eat or sleep or whatever. Impulse to sort of, you know, have a nice time and eat all the food and be lazy and do all the things. I can see, I think in Christianity as well, fasting used to be much bigger in this country. You'd have lent is the main time it would happen. And you would have special, I went, there was a, there was a in Cambridge recently, they had a display of all of these bowls for fasting. So it's the fasting plates and everything else. They're all made out of horrible crockery. So not only weren't you eating very much, it was out of really ugly bowls. So everything was bad about it. And you were really the sort of self punishment. You're supposed to be atoning for your sins. That's a mirror of Jesus. But atoning for your sins is a bit different to avoiding temptation in the first place, is it not? No, I think they work hand in hand. So for example in Islam, you have the pilgrimage, one of the five pillars, the last one is the pilgrimage and in the Hajj. And in Mecca, there is a representation of the devil. It's a column. It's just a concrete column. And during the, you might have seen this, like, you know, people going round the the Kaaba, which is the cube. And there it is, near that cube, there's a representation of the devil. And it's just like a sphere of a column really. It's nothing massive, but people throw stones at it. That's part of the ritual. And it's the idea that there, the devil tried to tempt Abraham as he was building his shrine. So temptation, atonement. It's very, I was thinking of pilgrimage as soon as you said that. And we have the same thing. You're a turn in for your sins as you are going on peregrinating. And then you touch something at the end to symbolise that is done. I think people would be very shocked at how people in the middle age is actually the pilgrimages they went on and how enormous they were. I mean, they were better travelled than I am. I'm thinking Marjorie Kemp to be fair. She was turning on pilgrimage. But most people only went on the great pilgrimages, probably once in a lifetime event, you probably would go to your local parish church to visit your local saint. But for the same reason, we didn't have modern medicine. So you go for a cure or some sort of ailment. It's for the same thing you are journeying to a place in hopes of whatever it may be. Excellent. Well, this is getting off of hell. So back to hell. So other than, no, it isn't. It isn't. So this symbolise it. I'm just having a look. There's the hell over there. Look on the left, as you say. Oh, it says it's on the right. How does that work? Hang on. What's going on here? No, no, no, no, left. Okay, fair. Yeah. So it's stage left. So what we're seeing here is essentially a doom painting. It's the last judgment, really, for a book of revelation. And you would find these on the Chancellor's Arch. So between the nave and the Chancellor and the church. So the nave is the congregation, the populus is space. They would maintain it, take care of it, and you couldn't enter into the chance, or that's the most sacred area for the clergy. So when you walked into church, you would have this huge painting essentially in front of you, right in front of you, walked in as a sort of great billboard, great advertisement to say, you need to live a faithful life, and this is going to happen on the day of judgment. So you need to ensure that you are ensuring that you fulfil and believe in Christ's sacrifice, but also atone for your sins. But this is the day of judgment. So at this point, are people believing in purgatory? Yes, which is what we were going back to on pilgrimage. Because the concept of purgatory doesn't come in until the 12th century. So it's much, much later on that it actually becomes doctrine. And it's a way of getting around, you're going one place or the other. You can get rid of your sins, if you will, and move through that space. But it becomes problematic because it essentially is a driver for the economic financial enterprise that underfrins the Catholic Church, and perhaps it's corruption, because you can buy an indulgence and essentially have a tone from your sins by just purchasing a piece of paper. And that's the problem. So hence we get to the 16th century, we get to the Reformation, and they push out purgatory. Which easy. Though to Thomas Cromwell for that. There are a bit more. We can blame Luther and everyone for this, but this is essentially this sort of idea here, is you need to live a faithful life. And is there a, in Islam, is there the idea that, you know, between, you know, you dying and judgment? There's no purgatory, but there are, you get a teaser of heaven and hell. So when you're buried, as soon as you're buried, the angels come and visit you. And if you've led a good life, you get kind of sweet air being funneled into your grave, you have a nice lovely sleep. And if you've had a bad life, you might be funneled, some flames, you know, just a teaser. It's not like hell hell. You're getting barbecued. Yeah, you're getting a bit of barbecued. It's not the full thing. Because in Islam you have to be buried very quickly, don't you? Within 24 hours. Very similar to Judaism. A lot of that has to do also, I mean, the heat as well. I mean, you think about Arabia in the least. Practical. Practical. It's going to be decomposed in the 24 hours. So there's an element of that practicality. But there is no purgatory. So it's heaven or hell. We're all waiting. So once you're dead, you wait for the day of judgment. So purgatory seems quite complicated to the Muslim eye. It was quite complicated anyway. It was fought and debated over for centuries. Yes. So next one here we have, I think this must be the circles of hell. Surely. This is where we're getting in to look at you just going, no, I don't want to talk about circles of hell. It's not the circles of hell. But what this is a representation of is the sort of layers of the universe, as opposed to with hell at the centre. So the concept of the circles of hell doesn't really exist. But Geoto painted that is a last judgment painting. And he sort of introduced this idea of circles of hell, layers of hell, or at least these groupings of sins and punishments and all that sort of thing. And Dante sees that, takes it on. So we think that Dante's Inferno is Divine Comedy was inspired by Geoto's painting. But it doesn't really exist. It does a little bit more with you. So there are seven layers of hell. The seven is symbolic to being infinite. So there's eight paradises, seven layers of hell. So the idea that God is more merciful than he is. Oh, that's nice. Rath. Yeah. Yeah, that's nice. It's like getting a supermarket about a show. You might get something back. It's balancing your favour a little bit. Exactly. Exactly. But no, there are layers in Islam. There are gates as well. Yeah, we have gates. We have gates. We've got the pearly gates and other gates of hell, of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not quite the same, but we have gates. But with this, with the idea of this Christian hell, you have all of the, you know, it going, I remember my favourite one was the people with their heads on backwards. And I can't remember what punishment that's for. You've got to walk backwards with your heads on backwards. And I think that's because you're like duplicitous or something. That would make sense. Like that, which is quite original. I quite like the different punishments. Yeah. And then you've got Satan in the centre who just eats people and is trapped there. Isn't he trapped in ice as well? I can't remember it. Honestly. I think he's trapped in ice. But all of this again is not indoctrin. This is all really late medieval early Renaissance, vivid imaginations of artists. So our concept of hell today is created by literature, by artists, and now by Hollywood today. And it's become just a sort of metaphor for just living a good life or trying to live a good life in fear of what may happen next. It's interesting because Dante puts the Prophet Muhammad in his layers of hell. Yeah, no, what a great guy. But like it's a response because when Dante's alive, the Islamic world is very powerful. It's a superpower. It's the America of its day. So there's an element of, it's the element of poking a stick at the giant at that moment in time. So again, it's responding to your environment. And there's interesting manuscripts as well, like similar to what I've said about responding to environment. In Spain, there's the force conversions of Muslims to Christianity when the Inquisition happened. The manuscripts have been found in southern Spain, which is very interesting because there's a language called alchamiado. Alchamiado is basically Arabic script. But when you read it, it's Spanish. The reason why that is is because a lot of the Spaniards are concealing their identity as being Muslim behind closed doors. And in those manuscripts, there are versions of hell. Now it's quite tightly knit to the standard hell devil. But they find one interesting nook, which is wine drinkers will go to hell. And that addition is not in the Arabic scripts. And the reason why that is, is because at that period, they're being forced to pork and drink by the Inquisition. This is when tapas was invented people. Tapas is racist. Yeah, it's a really racist, xenophobic thing. Those lovely prawns and tomato sauce, you can't eat those if you're Jewish or Muslim. And that's the point of the reason why the Inquisition and the Spanish people did it is to out them amongst them. We did give it to each other. Anyway, sorry. I was going to say, we see similar in Christianity, because in some of the Dune paintings in fact, we have the satanic beastial figure. And next year, there's a great one 15th century Dune painting, Last Judgment, in St Thomas's Church in Salisbury. And there's a little ale wife right next to the little huge clovenhoof figure. And she's obviously, she's the temptress because she's bringing the ale and she's lowering us into bad behaviour. And it was often, it was sort of a representation of temptation was the ale wife, because that's what we, you know, Christians were drinking with ale and it was driving leading to all sorts. It's very interesting about Islam and the Wine though, because I've been reading and writing a lot about pirates and about travel and that sort of thing. But it is that thing of how Islamic sailors managed to get by it because, you know, water terms to slime within two days of being at sea and how they were doing. And the Mediterranean, it's kind of all right because you can stop in islands and get fresh water and everything else. But it was understood by a lot of people, a lot of Islamic sailors, that wine was okay. It was just the spirits that were bad. And you can only drink certain things. It's really interesting that came out then. Just on the side that made me go, oh, that's really interesting. Yeah. And it's interesting because, you know, alcohol is forbidden in Islam, but alcohol drinkers are never specified as going to hell in the theological text. A lot of Sufis drank wine. So there is kind of a flexible sort of interpretation when it comes to alcohol. It's quite murky. Of course. Because they're all drunk again. Exactly. But it's always a response to your conditions. That's what hell is. It's a response to your behavior in respect. Yeah. So shall I click and see what else we've got there? What else have we got? Oh look. The Hellmouth. There you go. That's proper, isn't it? Man riding a horse inside a sort of weird crocodile devil thing. Yeah. But we can see how similar is to the first image we were looking at as well. We have this sort of weird sea creaturey, waily, buried, I don't know, some sort of dragon-y thing. But this is the first representation that we get of hell in the early English period. So, you know, eighth to tenth century really. This idea of Hellmouth and, you know, the souls were going into that. We don't see the sort of fiery concept for another few centuries. This is the first representation. Amazing. And that is basically lifted out of revelation. Yes, exactly. That's, you know, pretty much. It's pretty. Marth you to it, yeah. Yeah, excellent. Oh, that's it. So, we've gone through that. We can stay on the Hellmouth for a little bit longer. How are we doing for time? Where's Rebecca? Shall we go to some questions now or shall we? We've got a bit longer. So what we can talk about is this concept of Satan the devil himself and how. Because there seems to be different versions of Satan you do and I know they all cross over a mix of it, but you do have this idea of Satan as being this Hellmouth monster that does literally eat and, you know, torment people forever. Then you have this sort of, I would say, sort of romantic version or at least it's, you know, Milton inspired, Paradise Lost, Satan battling against what he sees as the wrongs and then basically, you know, having, you know, gods in the world turn against him and that this inspired all of these very romantic that first image that we saw of the devil with his nipples out, that sort of very attractive kind of like fallen angel, you know, version of him. And then we also have the one that we get in Goethe and we get with Dr Faustus and Faust is the sort of trickster is somebody who's going to sneak a bit like the alewife. Yeah. Are we missing any of that, which is, which do you, which do you think is is going to last longest? We seem to have gone back, I think to that idea, you know, using about the romantic idea, which stems, I would say, from the fallen angel. So Lucifer, really, and this beautiful ethereal winged being. That's what we seem to have gone back to. It's only after that that we get the idea of Pan, the pagan god with the cloven who's, but, you know, we're going right back to Genesis. That's, but many theologians believe that the concept of Satan actually predates Genesis, in fact, this idea. In the beginning there was the word. In the beginning there was Satan. Before the word there was Satan. The concept. Yeah. And then we go through and we get Lucifer, then we get Pan and then we move into that, you know, mouth eating, eating with his mouth, you know, crunching on the soul. That seems to be inspired by the imaginations of Renaissance. I find it interesting that the depiction of the devil is more or less a man. More or less. Lilith, we get in between, I suppose, which is inspired by Judaism. So the Lilith character does come in. She tends to get sort of conflated with Lucifer, you know, as this sort of incubus versus succubus so-and-deer as well. And, you know, if anyone's watched the most recent Sabrina the Teenage, which, the main character is Lilith. She is the female overlord. If we're going popular culture, she's also Dr Fraser Cain's wife is Lilith, who is. Can we really get that? That's why I think of every time you say it. And I'm just like, that's unfair. I don't know. Okay. If you think of the character, though, in the Sabrina one, she's a very, you know, she's supposed to be beautiful and attractive and she is a luring, seductress, temptress. So I think it's this idea of Satan as disguised. And that was the problem, I think, when we get to the witch trials, et cetera, that Satan was doing his bidding with women on earth and therefore they were Satan in disguise and still are. Now, I was going to say I've heard some people fancied Hades from Hercules. Did she fancied Hades? Pretty much. Anybody in TVV, it's very few passes. Any Disney animation. Pretty much. Yeah. I mean, even Scar from Lion King. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, all of them. How did this topic make it? Skeletor. Yeah, why not? What were we, and I see got me all the stars. Lucifer, Lilith. I think we're moving towards the idea of a futuristic hell. And we were talking earlier about the Metaverse. I hate that word. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Facebook. Just say Facebook. Social media, Facebook, the internet, Mark Zuckerberg. You know, these ideas of hell on earth, but it's not really on earth. It's another domain. It's still ticking. You used the word domain. That's an internet word. Sorry. Yeah. There you go. Yeah. God, I'm corrupted already. That's where we are, right? We talk about the internet as this Wild West, and maybe that's the future. Well, it's because we were saying, are we in hell? If we think of this metaverse. Well, we mentioned Goethe, we mentioned Dr Faustus. I mean, Metastopolis says, if you're out of God's presence, that is hell. That's how it starts. You need to be in God's light. You need to accept Christ's sacrifice if you are not. You are in the darkness, and that's, but Satan himself, he goes from the sort of light and darkness to darkness, but he actually is seen as a, a light type figure at the beginning. And he's, oh, there we go. Is that, is that five minutes till questions? Yes. Cool. Excellent. I do, I do think it's a very interesting idea that a lot of the time Satan's actually depicted as quite sympathetic as well. I don't think Mark Zuckerberg is, but I think, I think that the actual character, particularly the idea of the fallen angel, I think people gravitate to Al Pacino's version of him as well is very, you know, it's fun, and it is also sympathetic. It is cheeky and naughty. Yeah, cheeky and naughty. One of the things I got asked recently was where the idea of like the red suits with the red cape and the red tights comes from, and that is directly from Goethe, and it's Faust, because when they did a stage production of it, he's very sneaky, and he was always dressed in a red cape and red tights, which is where that image of the cheeky devil comes from. See, I think of Britney Spears. Yeah, exactly. That's why Britney Spears was getting her influence. No, I was thinking Coca-Cola with Santa. Oh yeah, that's, that's different. That's different. When you say red suit, doesn't it? But I think that's a good point because the idea of hell that we have today on Satan has been heavily inspired by Hollywood rather than anything doctrinal. Yeah, but isn't, isn't Hollywood also inspired by the doctrinal image? But the doctrine really isn't doctrine, it's apocryphal text. They are far more, I suppose, cultural as the word here. They only become doctrine far later, and that nothing really that we're talking about, this fiery torment, is ever really Christian doctrine. No, they're not in the central text. This is the whole point. They're all embellished, layer upon layer, century upon century. They become embellished. Influenced by society, changes in culture. I just find it fascinating that it isn't just the Abrahamic religions which have the concept of the afterlife, have the concept of hell. If you even look at the Mayans, they had the idea of the trees. You die at the bottom of the tree and you have to slowly ascend up. You have, you know, we've already mentioned the Chinese mythology and their version, where you basically stay in a room until you can work off your sins until you can get reincarnated, and that's something similar with Buddhism and Hinduism. And so, and all of these, you know, zoonastrianism you've mentioned as well. I mean, that, I think you walk over a bridge. I seem to remember a bridge in that one. Yeah, that's in his house as well. Yeah, it is in Christianity. Yeah, it's the bridge, and then you get turned out, and I think you end up in a house, and the favourite, my favourite pomegranation meant about that hell is the food is bad, and that's actually really bad, if you think about it, when you have to eat rotten food forever. That sounds like wet spoons. Yeah, we're already in hand. Other pubs are available. Sorry, yeah. Pub chains. But what is it, do you think about the human condition that requires us to one believe in an afterlife, and to believe in this sort of cosmic justice? That's an interesting question, isn't it? Because we don't know. Because we don't know what happened before, we don't know what happened afterwards. And I think we all have an inherent faith and hope in something, and we're clinging on to memory and nostalgia of those who have gone. So it's that eternal hope that you will meet them in a beautiful paradise, utopian space. But it's also, I mean, the concept of hell really is about ensuring you live an ethical, moral and faithful to God type of life. That's it. It is to control behaviour, let's be very honest. That's at the heart of this, and that's where it stems from in all religions. And it's, I think, hell is needed because essentially what it's saying is life is not happy go lucky. If you just had paradise, we're dancing through grass, dancing with flowers, that's what how life is. You need the duality, you need the complexity, because that's what you go through life. But you also need it to explain all the bad stuff that's happening. It does it though. Right. And the idea of justice is quite strong in Islam, social justice, and in Christianity as well. And I think we talk about social justice set in secular terms, you know, look at what's happening right now in the world, you know, dictators butchering people, like that element of justice still rings in our DNA. Yeah, that is, that's heron, isn't it? So I think we might still need hell. We're always going to need hell, yeah. Well, and with that, ladies and gentlemen, heard it here first, hell's a good thing. We all need it. So if you end up there, your own fault. True. That is, that is some. That is. Unless you get tricked, because Matthew Stockleys does trick, and I think that's really mean. But we're going to open this up for questions. Does anybody put your paw in the air if you have a question for us? Also, look, we've got a question over there. Does Sarah want to run with a microphone, the blue microphone of dreams? And remember, this can be any, any bad question. Setting is setting as well. Please don't. I was just wondering, because you mentioned like some of the contemporary kind of representations like in terms of like Lucifer and Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, but one that really springs to mind for me is The Good Place. Yes. And which I just find a really interesting exploration of like a lot of the stuff that you, you've mentioned today. And I was just wondering what you kind of, how you felt that kind of fed into considering how secular the world kind of claims to be at the moment that we're still creating an entire show that explores these topics. It's interesting. Do you want to answer that one? Briefly explain what The Good Place is. I haven't watched it. Oh, you should. Oh, you'd love it. Yeah, it's really good. So The Good Place is a series on Netflix and the premise starts. I won't ruin the whole thing for you. The premise starts. Oh, we're going to have to ruin it. We're going to have to ruin a bit of it. But the premise starts with the idea that a person ends up, you know, she basically dies and she's there on the couch and God, you know, it's Saint Peter, isn't it? Basically, that sort of character is Saint Peter sort of saying to her, it's all right. You ended up in The Good Place. And she's like, oh, brilliant. But it turns out that everybody around her is like saints. And she's a really horrible person. And she's having to disguise the fact that she's in This Good Place and then further revelations get revealed about what happens to her and actually is this a form of torture? And is she actually in The Bad Place? And it's her trying to work out where she is. So what do you think? What do you think about this? Well, I think that goes back to what we were talking about. Are we in hell? Sorry, I might have given it away. I could still watch it. It's very good. But I think that's a really good question. And this move towards secularism or the secularisation of society. I use the term secular this because in the Christian Church secular also means something different. But I think that's the point, though, is we've said all the way through that this isn't part of doctrine. This was the concept of hell, even the concept really of Satan as we know it, has been influenced by culture, by behaviour, by changes in society, responses to crisis, death, all the bad things in The Bad Place. So I think that's why it's become so ingrained in society and we need it because we need it to, as a sort of conclusion, in a response to the good things. It's the only sort of opposite. I think we've gone full circle because hell starts on earth, sorry. And I think we've gone from that starting point to it being otherworldly, both in Christianity and Islam, and now we've come into the sector of the world and it's back on earth. I think it's now just become a metaphor for purification and doing good. We use it in everyday speech. God, that was hell. Or better the devil you know. It is literally ingrained in our language and our culture, but it's not really exactly come from doctrine. Also, if you like The Good Place, you really like a Radio 4 series from the 90s called Old Harry's Game, which is wonderful because that's a guy going down to hell and he's actually in hell, but because he's atheist he doesn't believe it and just thinks this is brain-sparking while he's in a coma. And it's really fun. But that's the point. This is so complicated and it's gone from one side to the other and it's a place, then it's not, it's just a realm. We still don't know. It goes back and forth and back and forth and I think that's why we're still so fascinated by it because we just don't know. Yeah. And we will never know or we will know. Or we might. Wait till the day of judgment. Yes, so Sarah got the mic. There she comes. Sorry, were you up with somebody there who was asking a question? Okay, there we go. We're going down the steps this time. Yeah, I just wanted to ask the sort of first of all in terms of hell, like I remember, I'm not sure if this was from a, the chronic text or more likely probably a Hadith, a prophetic tradition that hell will talk at some point or rather will speak in heavy-sweet coordination. It's God and I wonder if in overall in Christianity as well as Islam, how much precedent there is for it as an entity and as not necessarily evil in and of itself and as a basically a practical sort of tool really more than anything else and hell is actually like everything else in the world that isn't humans or other salient sentient beings that have free will is like everything else. It's basically a subservient to God and on the back of that similarly because like I know that in the good place they talk about it's literally a place and it's just the ground and it's only because of everyone that's in it and that's really starkly different from a lot of other sort of depictions especially that for example when you think about the good place as a point system which is very similar to Islamic and I think sometimes Christian depictions of the book where it's like angels are writing down your deeds and I wonder so how much precedent there is for really the sentience of hell and it's not just a place but actually like a spiritual sort of entity and yet off the back of that about satan because like in Islam some people say you know there's a big debate if he's seen anjoys here Jin because some people say the angels are actually incapable of disobeying God and actually you know like um is he is he merely a cog in the like I was reading a really interesting Jewish thing about how he's actually a servant of God yeah yeah so is he doing God's will yeah the the Sufis actually have uh that's that last point you make um the Sufis believe that he is an evil he's actually doing God's work um because they take an esoteric form meaning to to the devil um what the interesting whether he's an angel or Jin so Jin is a spirit is what they're made from smoke uh of fire um they're a bit like humans they have families kids they do good and bad whatever humans can't see them they live in another kind of they live on earth but you can't see them so the idea of the devil isn't an angel but he's similar to humanity a spirit lends itself more to the secular version of the devil and that the devil you know has free will in a way he's kind of yeah he's a he's a servant of God um and what you talked about the hell being an entity in itself speaking that's a really interesting point and that does a christianity of hell talking not in the book not in the actual bible not like commentaries not that i'm aware of yeah i can think of but it's similar to you i mean the the devil is starts as a sort of angelic creature a jelly being should i say um but as i've said earlier he he's an adversary to God he is the fallen angel it's only later on where i think he kind of gets annoyed and he thinks well stuff this i want to be the great omnipotent being and the gloves come off um but the the concept of it being um not a place as well it sort of goes back and forth but you do have the idea of like in christianity that you need the antichrist you need all these things happen in order to bring about revelation and have you know heaven on earth kind of yeah so in that sense it's not just part of god's plan anyway and so but this is what we started with just all predestined who know yeah exactly this is the big debate we've got we've got to we've got to ask you rebecca what's i'm getting more cheeky as the days progress i've asked a question every panel but i know i know it's outside of your immediate expertise but i just wondered what your thoughts are as a panel on the rise of things like satanism in the 20th century where people actually go and they actually take the devil as their i don't know what the word is but they they worship him so i just find it really interesting and what that means i think that goes against i don't want to touch this one well yes squeaky that into the devil adorter which one of christoflea's amazing films i can i think it stems from a curiosity which hence why we're here and talking about this but also the fact that perhaps following a certain faith or a christian life or whatever it might be has not panned out the way they thought or they don't accept because of the travesties and crises of the world they looked to another being and which is seen as the opposite and i think that's well it's what marlo sits out at the beginning of dr fastis is dr fastis is an amazing scholar does he become a doctor and help people through medicine well what's the point everybody's gonna die does he go off and discover physics well what's the point because i'm gonna die anywhere and so all of my knowledge will be lost and doesn't really matter anyway because everybody dies may as well so my soul to the devil have a really good time and i probably won't go to hell anyway because i don't believe in it even though the devil's right there he needs a bit of an idiot but that's resigning yourself to what you think may occur anyway so let's have fun in the meantime well it's short termism i believe in his devil worship i can't really see it being the idea of believing in the eternal immortal soul well perhaps they do i don't know i haven't read this tannic bible i mean well this tannic bible is all about just living for now whereas that there's that's the point isn't it it's not it's not really about what comes next it's let's live for the day yeah um because it's all i suppose because we have a predestined fate well no no we have a predestined fate it's literally it's more like atheism in the sense that it is it's not really i mean the tannic bible is just a thing of being cheeky and just pointing out the the silly bits in the christianity and then you know just saying let's all have sex it's fun so they do that in the bible too they do do that in the bible but it's much more prescriptive to be fair in certain cases um but yes but there are ancient i mean satanism might be quite new but there are ancient traditions of the elements fire rather than we're talking about hell and satan but the fire is celebrated and it's in and of itself the element so it's like the whole fire caves i was talking about earlier yeah yeah well i mean if you're going to pick a god to worship i mean the you know the jews picked a god to worship because there's loads of gods hence worship no other gods before me because there are other gods remember there is a pantheon before there is the monotheism and then you've got the sort of weird thing where if there are other gods why not see if any of the others are any good well that's the point isn't it there's a tribe for you by yeah spread your bets out i'll hedge your bets yeah sorry hedge yeah um i should really i feel like we're we're letting um by um people online so um how this i thought this was really interesting i'm not sure if um either of you know the answer to this question but it's um um by and i picked one whose name i can't pronounce but i think it's moray but that's probably i think it's an irish name and i apologize um but um how is the portrayal of hell used as part of sometimes forced conversion to christianity in colonialism do they find ways of relating it to the indigenous belief systems of the people do we know about this not a clue we don't know about this unfortunately if anybody did it was a really cool question it's a good question yeah because there is there is a lot of you know if you go to parts of i'm thinking where am i thinking i'm thinking of leolungway and stuff but there are places in um melawi um there are places where you know certain tribal dances have been banned because they look like satanic worship and that sort of thing and then they brilliantly intertwine christianity and stories into that so it looks kind of christian yeah i think we've done that as well with like a mummy mummy plays and that's yeah mummy yeah so yeah it probably does descend from christianity a lot of that idea and there i can't think of like where it is or what it is but tribes that sort of dress up a little bit devilishly with the horns and things so all these ideas you know have their have their legs in what we're talking about today um but the forced nature i wouldn't like to no no but i can give it to religion and colonialism kind of they go hand in hand don't they it's how you kind of justify ripping off loads of people saying well we're saving their souls so well this is a concept of purgatory and why it was sort of yeah gotten rid of and you look at the caribbean and christianity is still very much alive there yeah obviously it's it's an import so for what i suppose it is forcing and controlling behaviour and we're going right back to the beginning again brilliant well i saw some hands up over there so we should we should go go go at the back there we go hello slightly less academic question yeah um i would just want to know if anyone can confirm whether this is true or not i read it online and you know the picture of the statue on the first slide apparently the pope commissioned someone to make a statue uh and then i'm paraphrasing here um but the pope says why is he hot uh and gets them to redo it or commission someone else i just want to know if that's true or not or if the internet like lied to me is this is this from the legini de mal is that the name of it yeah and the answer to that is i believe that is true however he was just slightly too sexy uh in this statue which you can really understand because wow you look like i put this down to the influence of milton i think this is a paradise lost version of uh of of devil is like this really traumatic batman character who just like oh my god guys like my dad's really bad you know teen angst he's he's very he's very traumatised and a little bit like story and gray reminds me of as well and he asks this and that idea too which i suppose is inherent within all of this but you know while he does look good he has got massive bat wings which is not so hot when you think about it you just pretend they're not there we've probably got time for another quick one question so um so pick pick somebody near you go on there we go we'll have a man there we go um just a question regarding the dragons and the persian manuscript that you showed um because china has between buddhism and sort of folk religion a lot of very interesting ideas of it and visions of its own hell and the various spirits and levels that it entails and so i was wondering if there was a significant degree of influence or crossover between sort of Taoist buddhist ideas of um oven afterlife into sort of persia and uh islamic ideas of hell not necessarily of the afterlife i think those are core concepts that come from the middle east and from christianity and judeism but there are influences uh from the far east not just the dragons i think it's more visual uh influence because islam forbids images it forbids um you know any sort of worship or visual icons but this is kind of a loophole with the persians do you and also remember the persians are mostly shia muslims and they they're okay with images so they import this whereas you won't get that in any in any other part of the islamic world um there are influences um in terms of like sufiism and the veneration of saints that also comes you see that in a lot of like the bengal region at my end my comfort of buddhism as well but in terms of the afterlife it doesn't seep that deep i think christianity kind of took that influence far too early excellent well ladies and gentlemen boys and girls do we have enough time for one question off the internet or do you think okay very quick one off the internet here we go um what do you think um the conception of the devil seems to vary between being a trickster in a lot of cultures or personification of evil in other cultures so what is that why do we have this kind of trickster all the people we get both in everything i think we do get it goes back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and now we just have it all um and then finally this from melinda um is there any history of mutual critique of islamic and christian concepts of hell or do they coexist slash feel pretty comfortable as parallel interpretations what do we think islamic scholars don't critique christian ideas of hell and i know i don't know the christians really do for it's kind of this sort of thing where you guys are just like let's just not talk about each other no we focus on ourselves but what's interesting is that you have the wars in the middle east and yet at the same time there's incredible scholarship you do get it then i suppose you have it then but otherwise you have you know in spain in the middle east you have christian and islamic scholars working together on the same table in sicily as well well so i mean we do have seed fighting over i was just thinking in the isofia constantio of all that era and they're taking down and sort of mocking one another's religion and the devil does come into that and the idea of hell but not not really critiquing and no in a more educational and scholarly sense i mean christ you know muslims and christians have rubbed shoulders for a long time oh yes my favorite i recently read a thing about um it would be 14th century venus and you could tell what boat is coming into trade because venus obviously a big hub big market hub you could tell which boat is coming and who owns it because if it was rode by christians it was a muslim boat and if it was rode by muslims it was a christian boat which i think is a really you know because you know we were all slaves it was fine um but yeah i think i think that wraps up um this wonderful you know hopefully nobody here will find out that hell is real so i hope that for all of you um if not sorry you were borns um so a massive thank you to everybody um in the room a massive thank you to everybody watching over there and a massive thank you to our two panellists um who is Emma and Safi and i've been Izzy and this has been HISTFEST thank you very much