Ioan Culianu - Classical Eschatology

In Plato's ontology there is a correspondence between essence, value and direction in space.  What is higher is better, what is lower is coarser: this is one of the fundamental principles of Plato's system.  Accordingly, the reward of the virtuous soul after death would consist in the contemplation of the summit of heavens, and the punishment of the immoral soul would consist in being kept prisoner in the bowels of the earth.

Later on, Plato's tripartite scheme (Hell - earth - Heaven) underwent a change.  First, the underground Hell was transferred to some celestial place.  There, the traditional punishment continued to be inflicted upon the souls of the unrighteous.  The whole infernal landscape of the myths of Plato, with its rivers, lakes and mournful plains could now be found somewhere under the sphere of the moon.  Even the fiery Styx flows, in Plutarch's [later] myths, upward from the earthly Hades to the moon.

In other religious doctrines of Late Antiquity, the whole universe becomes an abode for evil.  The seven planetary spheres, whose influence upon human affairs has become overwhelming thanks to astrology, are viewed as seats of vicious astral Rulers or archons, who, on the one hand, confer their own vices to all the souls entering the world, and, on the other hand, forbid the heavenly passage to the souls that attempt to leave the world.  Fortunately, a saviour descends from heaven to earth, and reveals to his disciples the watchwords they must utter before the archons, in order to get free passage through the heavenly customs...



Culianu, I.  Intro., Pscyhanodia I.  Brill. Leiden, 1983.



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