WHAT THE HELL IS HELL? (Documentar)

 

The Ancient Inventors of Hell's torment

 

Or WHY the pagan hell was invented? Why was a hell invented by pagan philosophers?

 

 

Proof texts about Everlasting destruction

Greek-olethros 2 Thessalonians 1:7-10, 1 Thessalonians 5:3, 1 Corinthians 5:5

Proof texts about Consume or perish

Greek-apollumi 2 Thessalonians 2:8-12

proof text about Perpetual sleep

Jeremiah 51:39,57cf, Jeremiah 18:13-17, Jeremiah 25:8-11, Malachi 4:1-3, Obadiah 1:15,16, Matthew 10:28

Proof texts about Second death

Revelation 20:11-15

Other proof texts of annihilation

Judges 5:31, Psalms 37:20,  Psalms 92:9, Luke 19:27, 1 Corinthians 15:25,2, 2 Peter 3:10-12, Hebrews 6:4-8, Matthew 25:31-46, John 3:16, John 3:36, 1 Timothy 6:9

 

So, who invented that eternal torment?

 

Some resources from the ancient time:

"Polybius, the ancient historian, says: "Since the multitude is ever fickle, full of lawless desires,

irrational passions and violence, there is no other way to keep them in order but by the fear

and terror of the invisible world; on which account our ancestors seem to me to have acted judiciously,

when they contrived to bring into the popular belief these notions of the gods, and of the infernal

regions." B. vi 56.

"Livy, the celebrated historian, speaks of it in the same spirit; and he praises the wisdom of Numa, 

because he invented the fear of the gods, as "a most efficacious means of governing an ignorant 

and barbarous populace." Hist., I 19.

"Strabo, the geographer, says: "The multitude are restrained from vice by the punishments the gods are

said to inflict upon offenders, and by those terrors and threatenings which certain dreadful words and

monstrous forms imprint upon their minds...For it is impossible to govern the crowd of women, and all the

common rabble, by philosophical reasoning, and lead them to piety, holiness and virtue - but this must be

done by superstition, or the fear of the gods, by means of fables and wonders; for the thunder, the aegis, 

the trident, the torches (of the Furies), the dragons, &c., are all fables, as is also all the ancient theology.

These things the legislators used as scarecrows to terrify the childish multitude." Geog., B. I

"Timaeus Locrus, the Pythagorean, after stating that the doctrine of rewards and punishments after

death is necessary to society, proceeds as follows: "For as we sometimes  cure the body with

unwholesome remedies, when such as are most wholesome produce no effect, so  we restrain

those minds with false relations, which will not be persuaded by the truth.  There is a necessity,

therefore, of instilling the dread of those foreign torments: as that the  soul changes its habitation;

that the coward is ignominiously thrust into the body of a woman; the murderer 

imprisoned within the form of a savage beast; the vain and inconstant changed into birds, and 

the slothful and ignorant into fishes."

"Plato, in his commentary on Timaeus, fully endorses what he says respecting the fabulous invention of these foreign torments. And Strabo says that "Plato and the Brahmins of India invented fables concerning the future judgments of hell" (Hades). And Chrysippus blames Plato for attempting to deter men from wrong by frightful stories of future punishments.

Plato himself is exceedingly inconsistent, sometimes adopting, even in his serious discourses, the fables of the poets, and at other times rejecting them as utterly false, and giving too frightful views of the invisible world. Sometimes, he argues, on social grounds, that they are necessary to restrain bad men from wickedness and crime, and then again he protests against them on political grounds, as intimidating the citizens, and making cowards of the soldiers, who, believing these things, are afraid of death, and do not therefore fight well.

But all this shows in what light he regarded them; not as truths, certainly, but as fictions, convenient in some cases, but difficult to manage in others. 

Seneca says: "Those things which make the infernal regions terrible, the darkness, the prison, the river of flaming fire, the judgment seat, &c., are all a fable, with which the poets amuse themselves, and by them agitate us with vain terrors." Sextus Empiricus calls them "poetic fables of hell;" and Cicero speaks of them as "silly absurdities and fables" (ineptiis ac fabulis). Aristotle. "It has been handed down in mythical form from earliest times to posterity, that there are gods, and that the divine (Deity) compasses all nature. All beside this has been added, after the mythical style, for the purpose of persuading the multitude, and for the interests of the laws, and the advantage of the state." Neander's Church Hist., I, p. 7. 11

The Origin and History of the Doctrine of Endless Punishment by Dr. Thomas Thayer.

4^ Fitzmeyer IX, Ad populum I (CSEL 18.91), spelled Finees; and in Ps.-Cyprian, De pascha computus 17 (CSEL 3/3.265), spelled Finaeus

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_man_and_Lazarus

"A fourth view holds that the story was not told by Jesus. Proponents of this view suggest that it is significant that only the Gospel of Luke mentions Jesus telling the story" (This proposition was cut out many times from Wikipedia, of course by eternal tormentist).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lazarus_and_Dives 

"Strabo calls the lamp in the Parthenon, and Plutarch calls the sacred fire of a temple 

"unquenchable," though they were extinguished ages ago. Josephus says that the fire on the altar 

of the temple at Jerusalem was "always unquenchable," asbeston aei, though the fire had gone 

out and the temple was destroyed at the time of his writing. Eusebius says that certain martyrs of 

Alexandria "were burned in unquenchable fire," though it was extinguished in the course of an 

hour, the very insult in English, which Homer has in Greek, asbestos gelos, (Iliad, 1: 599), 

unquenchable laughter."

You are not satisfied? Read it again.

 

Proof texts about Everlasting destruction

Greek-olethros 2 Thessalonians 1:7-10, 1 Thessalonians 5:3, 1 Corinthians 5:5

Proof texts about Consume or perish

Greek-apollumi 2 Thessalonians 2:8-12

proof text about Perpetual sleep

Jeremiah 51:39,57cf, Jeremiah 18:13-17, Jeremiah 25:8-11, Malachi 4:1-3, Obadiah 1:15,16, Matthew 10:28

Proof texts about Second death

Revelation 20:11-15

Other proof texts of annihilation

Judges 5:31, Psalms 37:20,  Psalms 92:9, Luke 19:27, 1 Corinthians 15:25,2, 2 Peter 3:10-12, Hebrews 6:4-8, Matthew 25:31-46, John 3:16, John 3:36, 1 Timothy 6:9

 

So, who invented that eternal torment? Who invented the pagan hell?

"Polybius, the ancient historian, says: "Since the multitude is ever fickle, full of lawless desires, irrational passions and violence, there is no other way to keep them in order but by the fear and terror of the invisible world; on which account our ancestors seem to me to have acted judiciously, when they contrived to bring into the popular belief these notions of the gods, and of the infernal regions." B. vi 56.

Livy, the celebrated historian, speaks of it in the same spirit; and he praises the wisdom of Numa, because he invented the fear of the gods, as "a most efficacious means of governing an ignorant and barbarous populace." Hist., I 19.

Strabo, the geographer, says: "The multitude are restrained from vice by the punishments the gods are said to inflict upon offenders, and by those terrors and threatenings which certain dreadful words and monstrous forms imprint upon their minds... For it is impossible to govern the crowd of women, and all the common rabble, by philosophical reasoning, and lead them to piety, holiness and virtue - but this must be done by superstition, or the fear of the gods, by means of fables and wonders; for the thunder, the aegis, the trident, the torches (of the Furies), the dragons, &c., are all fables, as is also all the ancient theology.

These things the legislators used as scarecrows to terrify the childish multitude." Geog., B. I

Timaeus Locrus, the Pythagorean, after stating that the doctrine of rewards and punishments after death is necessary to society, proceeds as follows: "For as we sometimes cure the body with unwholesome remedies, when such as are most wholesome produce no effect, so we restrain those minds with false relations, which will not be persuaded by the truth. There is a necessity, therefore, of instilling the dread of those foreign torments: as that the soul changes its habitation; that the coward is ignominiously thrust into the body of a woman; the murderer imprisoned within the form of a savage beast; the vain and inconstant changed into birds, and the slothful and ignorant into fishes."

Plato, in his commentary on Timaeus, fully endorses what he says respecting the fabulous invention of these foreign torments. And Strabo says that "Plato and the Brahmins of India invented fables concerning the future judgments of hell" (Hades). And Chrysippus blames Plato for attempting to deter men from wrong by frightful stories of future punishments.

Plato himself is exceedingly inconsistent, sometimes adopting, even in his serious discourses, the fables of the poets, and at other times rejecting them as utterly false, and giving too frightful views of the invisible world. Sometimes, he argues, on social grounds, that they are necessary to restrain bad men from wickedness and crime, and then again he protests against them on political grounds, as intimidating the citizens, and making cowards of the soldiers, who, believing these things, are afraid of death, and do not therefore fight well.

But all this shows in what light he regarded them; not as truths, certainly, but as fictions, convenient in some cases, but difficult to manage in others. Seneca says: "Those things which make the infernal regions terrible, the darkness, the prison, the river of flaming fire, the judgment seat, &c., are all a fable, with which the poets amuse themselves, and by them agitate us with vain terrors." 

Sextus Empiricus calls them "poetic fables of hell;" and Cicero speaks of them as "silly absurdities and fables" (ineptiis ac=fabulis). 

Aristotle. "It has been handed down in mythical form from earliest times to posterity, that there are gods, and that the divine (Deity) compasses all nature. All beside this has been added, after the mythical style, for the purpose of persuading the multitude, and for the interests of the laws, and the advantage of the state." Neander's Church Hist., I, p. 7. 11"

Resources, idem.

 

Read also:

 

The story of The rich man and the beggar Lazarus: A fake, a literal history or parable? See why is a fake...

Try with Google Translate from Romanian

http://sufletulestemuritor.blogspot.ro/2013/07/cat-ne-putem-permite-sa-ne-incredem-in.html

 

APPENDIX

 

THE FIRE THAT CONSUMES: "Eternal" with Words of Action

 "Of the 70 usages of the adjective "eternal" (aionios) in the New Testament, six times the word qualifies nouns signifying acts or processes, as distinct form persons or things. These cases call for special consideration. They are "eternal salvation" (Heb. 5:9), "eternal redemption" (Heb. 9:12), "eternal judgement" (Heb. 6:2), "eternal sin" (Mark 3:29), "eternal punishment" (Matt. 25:46) and "eternal destruction (2Thess. 1:9). Three occur in Hebrews; all six have to do with final judgement and its outcome.

 Here we see again the other-age quality of the "eternal". There is something transcendent, eschatological, divine about this judgement, this sin, this punishment and destruction, this redemption and salvation. They are not merely human, this-age matters, but are of an entirely different nature. On the other hand, something about this judgement, sin, punishment, destruction, redemption and salvation will have no end. If in one sense these things are timeless, they are in another sense without temporal limits. They belong to that Age to Come which is not bound by time and which will never end.

 "Eternal Judgement" (Heb. 6:2). Among the "elementary teachings" which make up the "foundation" of Christian teaching are "the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgement". This is literally the resurrection "of the dead ones" (plural, nekron), seemengly both good and bad, and it is linked to that judgement which is of the Age to Come, not merely a judgement made by man or God in the here and now. That is quality, but what of its duration? How is the last judgement "eternal" in the sense of everlasting?

 The act of judging will certainly not last forever. But we notice that the text speaks of judgement (kirimatos) and not judging. There will be an act or process of judging, and then it will be over. But the judging results in a judgement - and that will never end. The action itself is one thing; its outcome, its issue, its result, is something else. "Eternal" here speaks of the result of the action, not the action itself. Once the judging is over, the judgement will remain - the eternal, everlasting issue of the once-for-all process of judgement.

 "Eternal Redemption" (Heb. 9:12). Christ has entered upon His high-priestly service through the greater tabernacle that is not hand-made or a part of this creation. "He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but He entered the Most Holy Place once for all by His own blood, having obtained eternal redemption." It is clear that "eternal" here also has a qualitative aspect. These matters are of that order which is not a part of this creation (v. 11). They pertain to the "eternal Spirit" (v. 14), not the flesh. They belong to the new covenant and the "eternal inheritance" (v. 15). By faith these "eternal" things are already operative and even visible (Heb. 11), though they are of an order different from the space-timpe creation of which we are presently a part.

 This redemption is also "eternal" in the sense of everlasting. Not that the act or process of redeeming continues without end - Christ has accomplished that once for all! Our author specifically makes the point that Christ did not have to suffer "many times since the creation". Rather, "He has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of Himself" (Heb. 9:25,26). But this once-for-all act of redeeming, which is finished, will never be repeated and can never be duplicated, issues in a redemption which will never pass away. "Eternal" speaks here again of the result of the action, not the act itself. Once the redeeming has taken place, the redemption remains. And that "eternal" result of the once-for-all action will never pass away.

 "Eternal Salvation" (Heb. 5:9). Trough reverent submission and perfect obedience, Jesus became "the source of eternal salvation for all who obey Him." This salvation partakes of the eternal quality of the new order - that order in which Jesus may be priest like Melchizedek (v. 10). It is already a reality (Heb. 4:15,16), for it partially intersects the present order even while it transcends it. But this salvation is also "eternal" in that it will have no end. Jesus is not forever saving His people; He did that once for all, as we have already seen. This salvation is eternal because it is the everlasting result which issues from once-for-all process or act of saving. The result remains even after the act has ended.

 The expression "eternal salvation" here may come from Isaiah 45:17. There God promissed that "Israel will be saved by the Lord with an everlasting salvation." It is clear from the following words that God has in mind the result He will accomplish rather than the act He will perform. "You will never be put to shame or disgraced, to ages everlasting." Once the saving has taken place, the salvation remains. And that "eternal" outcome of God's finished action will never pass away.

 "Eternal Sin" (Mark 3:29). In a controversy with some teachers of the law, Jesus said: "Whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; he is guilty of an eternal sin." Mark's next statement tells us what this "eternal sin" was. "He said this because they were saying, 'He has an evil spirit' "(Mark 3:30). This sin of attributing to the demonic the Holy Spirit's power manifested in Jesus had a quality other sins did not. It was "eternal" in that sense because it resisted and contradicted the power of the Age to Come. It stood in opposition to the inbreaking kingdom of God, as Luke points out in the parallel passage (Luke 11:20). Nor will it be forgiven, even in the Age to Come, which for Matthew is equivalent to saying it is an "eternal sin" (Matt. 12:32). The act of sinning does not continue forever; it was committed on that occasion in Jesus' ministry and may possibly never be repeated in exactly the same way. Men are punished in hell for sins committed during this Present Age, not for evil done following the last day (Rom. 2:6-16). This "eternal" sin was committed once. But its result remains for eternity.

 "Eternal Destruction" (2Thess. 1:9). When Jesus comes, He will punish His enemies who have refused to know God and to obey His gospel. "They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of His power." 

 This destruction clearly partakes of the Age to Come. It belongs to those eschatological realities which are now unseen and mysterious to our Present Age. In that sense it is "eternal" in quality. In keeping with what we have seen already, we suggest that the destruction is also everlasting and unending. 

 The New International Version uses two verbs to describe what will happen to the wicked on that day. "They will be punished" (with everlasting destruction), and they will be "shut out" from the Lord's presence and power. The second verb is not in Greek but is supplied by the New International Version's  translators to express what they think it means. We will discuss that more later. For now it is important to see that whatever happens will happen "on the day He comes" (v. 10). It will not be happening forever, but when He has brought about their destruction, its result will never end.

 In keeping with the rest of the teaching of both Old and New Testaments, to be examined in following chapters, we here suggest that this "eternal destruction" will be extinction of those so sentenced. This retribution will be preceded by penal suffering exactly suited to each degree of quilt by a holy and just God, but that penal suffering within itself is not the ultimate retribution or punishment. There will be an act of destroying, resulting in a destruction that will never end or be reversed. The act of destroying includes penal pains, but they will end. The result of destruction will never be reversed and will never have an end.

 "Eternal Punishment" (Matt. 25:46). Jesus concludes His Parable of the Sheep and Goats with the statement that the wicked "will go to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life." Both the life and the punishment partake of the quality of the Age to Come. We have some experience here and now of life and of punishment. But we cannot know now what the eternal life will be - in its fullness - nor can we know now what the eternal punishment will be - in its actual horror. There is more to either than a timeless extension of what we can now experience. We are acquainted to some extent with the nouns; the adjective tells us they will then be of a quality we do not yet comprehend. There is a clearly a qualitative aspect to "eternal" punishment.

 At the same time, the life and the punishment of this passage are never to end. They are "eternal" in the sense of everlasting. But we need to note, as in the five cases above, that "punishment" is an act or process. In each case so far, and indisputably in the firs four, the act or process happens in a fixed period of the time but is followed by a result that lasts forever. In keeping with that scriptural usage, we suggest that the "punishment" here includes whatever penal suffering God justly issues to each person but consists primarily of the total abolition and extinction of the person forever. The punishing continues until the process is completed, and then it stops. But the punishment which will remain forever.

 Conclusion. This is a powerful argument which conditionalists have pressed with vigor. In all the literature covered by this study, no traditionalist writer has dealt with it at all except perhaps to assert that it is false without giving any reasoning evidence - and that but rarely. Like most of the conditionalistst arguments, this one has simply been ignored. If the traditionalist understanding of hell is to stand, a cogent and persuasive answer must be forthcoming. Since all we want to know is God's truth as revealed in Scripture, no one need be threatened on either side of the discussion. This is a challenge which calls for careful exegesis and prayerful study within a commitment to the final authority of the Word of God."

With the kind permission of the author: 

Edward William Fudge: The Fire That Consumes, chapter 3, page 44-48

http://edwardfudge.com/written/fire.html 

The movie: Hell and Mr. Fudge

http://www.hellandmrfudge.com/

 

See also:

The story of The rich man and the beggar Lazarus: A fake, a literal history or parable? See why is a fake...

Try with Google Translate from Romanian

http://sufletulestemuritor.blogspot.ro/2013/07/cat-ne-putem-permite-sa-ne-incredem-in.html

The Ancient Inventors of Hell's eternal torment http://waitingforthefinaltest.blogspot.ro/2012/12/the-ancient-inventors-of-hell.html

 

 

 What is a man, that I still believe in resurrection?

 

“What is a man?” Psalms 8:4

The man is very close to any intelligent machine. In fact a creator (a man), an engineer, simply copy what the high Creator made. Especially in these times, some engineers have been trained “borrowing” some “technical” in humans, animals or plants.

My opinion is that currently, synthetic machine, namely the Bionic Robot, is the closest to humans. The big challenge for bionic engineering, is to copy and restore the man in synthetic.

The man has two “parts” as systems, that are self-interacting, and couldn't be man and alive, if one of them would not work at all (die).

So, as living humans, we have:

Flesh - which is intended to be a factory that made energy, the gross energy i.e. what you keep in shape;

Spirit – i.e. a program (like on the computer), which is coordinated and managed the smooth operation of these two parts: flesh and spirit;

This two systems, in connection (union) produce an another system, a living human body, called in the Bible as "living soul" - Genesis 2:7. Is like the H2O and the product of the water. Two different systems, the H2 and the O produce another system, the water.

Now you have to understand that the soul is not equal to the spirit, but are two different things. 

What happens at death? 

All these three systems stop, but the “data” is not lost of any system, just backed like the computer; but something more like the computer because it keeps a kind of “black box” in the "ADN", a type of “seed” (1Corinthians 15:35-38), which contains all the data from the three systems. To understand me better, what I think: man is born from a “seed” that fell from the "tree" called Adam, and then who grow to maturity. When man dies, "seed" decreases and goes where it started, waiting in the ground the “reactivation” i.e. the restart activation. Therefore says our Lord Jesus so clear that:

"Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out -- those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned." John 5:28,29. 

So, it is clear that exist something in us, that can not be seen by us, the “black box”, like a type of “seed”. Everyone is in there and keep it in the ground, and the Son of God work on (“Resurrection”) of each “seed” at the time set by our heavenly Father, our dear Father Yah, the Creator.

Some statements about the resurrection

Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho: About resurrection

Trypho: “Do you really admit that this place Jerusalem shall be rebuilt? And do you expect your people to be gathered together, and made joyful with Christ and the Patriarchs...?”

Justin: “I and many others are of that opinion, and believe that this will take place, as you are assuredly aware; but on the other hand, I signified to you that many who belong to the pure and pious faith think otherwise. Moreover I pointed out to you that some who are called Christians, but are godless, impious heretics, teach doctrines that are in every way blasphemous, atheistical and foolish…I choose to follow not men or men’s teachings, but God and the doctrines delivered by Him. For if you have fallen with some who are called Christians, but who do not admit the truth of the resurrection…who say that there is no resurrection of the dead, and that their souls when they die are taken to heaven, do not imagine that they are Christians…But I and others who are right-minded Christians on all points are assured that there will be a resurrection of the dead, and a thousand years in Jerusalem, which will then be built, adorned and enlarged, as the prophets Ezekiel, Isaiah and others declare…We have perceived, moreover, that the expression, ‘The Day of the Lord,’ is connected with this subject. And further, there was a certain man with us, whose name was John, one of the Apostles of Christ, who prophesied by a revelation that was made to him that those who believed in our Christ would dwell a thousand years in Jerusalem; and that thereafter the general and the eternal resurrection of all men would take place.”

Justin Martyr’s Statement on the resurrection (ca 150 AD)

“For if you have fallen in with some who are called Christians, but who do not admit the Truth of the resurrection and venture to blaspheme the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; who say that there is no resurrection of the dead, and that their souls when they die are taken to heaven: do not imagine that they are Christians; just as one, if he would rightly consider it would not admit that the Sadducees, or similar sects of the Genistae, Meristae, Galilaeans, Hellenists, Pharisees, Baptists, are Jews, but are only called Jews, worshipping God with the lips, as God declared, but the heart was far from Him. But I and others, who are right-minded Christians on all points, are assured that there will be a resurrection of the dead, and a thousand years in Jerusalem, which will then be built, adorned and enlarged, as the prophets Ezekiel and Isaiah and others declare” (Dialogue with Trypho, ch. 80, Anti-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 1, Eerdmans, p. 239).

The protest of Justin Martyr against those who denied the resurrection of the flesh

From Dialogue with Trypho, ch. 80.

“They who maintain the wrong opinion say that there is no resurrection of the flesh… As in the case of a yoke of oxen, if one or other is loosed from the yoke, neither of them can plough alone; so neither can soul or body alone effect anything, if they be unyoked from their communion [i.e. the soul can have no separate, active existence]…For what is man but the reasonable animal composed of body and soul? Is the soul by itself man? No; but the soul of man. Would the body be called man? No; but it is called the body of man. If then neither of these is by itself man, but that which is made up of the two together is called man, and God has called man to life and resurrection, He has called not a part, but the whole, which is the soul and body…Well, they say, the soul is incorruptible, being a part of God and inspired by Him…Then what thanks are due to Him, and what manifestation of His power and goodness is it, if He purposed to save what is by nature saved…but no thanks are due to one who saves what is his own; for this is to save himself…How then did Christ raise the dead? Their souls or their bodies? Manifestly both. If the resurrection were only spiritual, it was requisite that He, in raising the dead, should show the body lying apart by itself, and the soul living apart by itself. But now He did not do so, but raised the body…Why do we any longer endure those unbelieving arguments and fail to see that we are retrograding when we listen to such an argument as this: That the soul is immortal, but the body mortal, and incapable of being revived. For this we used to hear from Plato, even before we learned the truth. If then the Saviour said this and proclaimed salvation to the soul alone, what new thing beyond what we heard from Plato, did He bring us?”

Irenaeus of mid-second century about resurrection (Against Heresies, Bk. 5): 

“Some who are reckoned among the orthodox go beyond the prearranged plan for the exaltation of the just, and are ignorant of the methods by which they are disciplined beforehand for incorruption. They thus entertain heretical opinions. For the heretics, not admitting the salvation of their flesh, affirm that immediately upon their death they shall pass above the heavens. Those persons, therefore, who reject a resurrection affecting the whole man, and do their best to remove it from the Christian scheme, know nothing as to the plan of resurrection. For they do not choose to understand that, if these things are as they say, the Lord Himself, in Whom they profess to believe, did not rise again on the third day, but immediately upon his expiring departed on high, leaving His body in the earth. But the facts are that for three days, the Lord dwelt in the place where the dead were, as Jonas remained three days and three nights in the whale’s belly (Matt. 12:40)…David says, when prophesying of Him: ‘Thou hast delivered my soul from the nethermost hell (grave).’ And on rising the third day, He said to Mary, ‘Touch me not, for I have not yet ascended to my Father’ (John 20:17)…How then must not these men be put to confusion, who allege…that their inner man [soul], leaving the body here, ascends into the super-celestial place? [Irenaeus thus reckons today’s teaching as shameful!] For as the Lord ‘went away in the midst of the shadow of death’ (Ps. 86: 23), where the souls of the dead were, and afterwards arose in the body, and after the resurrection was taken up into heaven, it is obvious that the souls of His disciples also…shall go away into the invisible place [Hades]…and there remain until the resurrection, awaiting that event. Then receiving their bodies, and rising in their entirety, bodily, just as the Lord rose, they shall come thus into the presence of God. As our Master did not at once take flight to heaven, but awaited the time of His resurrection…, so we ought also to await the time of our resurrection.

“Inasmuch, therefore, as the opinions of certain orthodox persons are derived from heretical discourses, they are both ignorant of God’s dispensations, of the mystery of the resurrection of the just, and of the earthly kingdom which is the beginning of incorruption; by means of this kingdom those who shall be worthy are accustomed gradually to partake of the divine nature.”

Tertullian about the resurrection (Treatise on the Soul, ch. 55) 

There is some stupid argues abou the hades, but right questions about the resurrection.

 “Plato...dispatches at once to heaven such souls as he pleases…To the question, whither the soul is withdrawn [at death] we now give the answer…The Stoics place only their own souls, that is, the souls of the wise, in the mansions above. Plato, it is true, does not allow this destination to all the souls, indiscriminately, of even all the philosophers, but only those who have cultivated their philosophy out of love to boys [homosexuals]…In this system, then, the souls of the wise are carried up on high into the ether…All other souls they thrust down to Hades.

“By ourselves the lower regions of Hades are not supposed to be a bare cavity, nor some subterranean sewer of the world, but a vast deep space in the interior of the earth, and a concealed recess in its very bowels; inasmuch as we read that Christ in His death spent three days in the heart of the earth, that is, in the secret inner recess which is hidden in the earth, and enclosed by the earth, and superimposed on the abysmal depths which lie still lower down. Now although Christ is God, yet, being also man, ‘He died according to the Scriptures (I Cor. 15:3) and ‘according to the same Scriptures was buried.’ With the same law of His being He fully complied, by remaining in Hades in the form and condition of a dead man; nor did He ascend into the heights of heaven before descending into the lower parts of the earth, that He might there make the patriarchs and prophets partakers of Himself. [Nothing is said in the Bible about Jesus altering the condition of the Patriarchs while he was in Hades,] This being the case you must suppose Hades to be a subterranean region and keep at arm’s length those who are too proud to believe that the souls of the faithful deserve a place in the lower regions. These persons who are ‘servants above their Lord, and disciples above their Master,’ would no doubt spurn to receive the comfort of the resurrection, if they must expect it in Abraham’s bosom. But it was for this purpose, say they, that Christ descended into hell, that we might not ourselves have to descend thither. Well, then [they say], what difference is there between heathens and Christians, if the same prison awaits them all when dead? [But I say], How, indeed, shall the soul mount up to heaven, where Christ is already sitting at the Father’s right hand, when as yet the archangel’s trumpet has not been heard by the command of God? When as yet those whom the coming of the Lord is to find on the earth, have not been caught up into the air to meet Him at His coming, in company with the dead in Christ, who shall be the first to arise? [I Thess 4:13ff.] To no one is heaven opened. When the world, indeed, shall pass away, then the kingdom of heaven shall be opened” (Treatise on the Soul, ch. 55).

NOTE

http://www.dictionary.com/browse/torment I don't agree with the so called universal salvation doctrine, this is not a Biblical doctrine and also the eternal torment doctrine is not Biblical, but I agree that the divine fire will consumes the wicked, not will torment them.