HELIX, in architecture, a spiral form, as when a flight of steps winds round a cylindrical space or center post. The name is also given to the little volutes under the flowers of the Corinthian capital.
HELL (lieb. Sheol, Gr. Hades, Sax. Hell, Ger. Hale), originally a cavern or deep and dark abyss, and sometimes applied (as Gen. xxxvii. 35; Job xiv. 13) to the grave, is commonly used to signify the place, or the condition after death, of the souls of those who, having failed during life to fulfill the essential obligations imposed by the natural or the positive divine law, are consigned to a state of punishment or purgation. With the same unanimity which has existed as to a state of reward after death (see HEAVEN) almost all the various religions, whether ancient or modern, number among their most prominent doctrines the belief of a state of punishment after death—the nature of which is variously modified according to the peculiar tenets of each religion—for unex piated guilt. Among early Christian writers, the word hell is variously employed, sometimes to signify a place of temporary purgation, in which sense it comprehends the Roman Catholic purgatory (q. v.); sometimes the place (Maus patrum) in which the souls of the just of the old law awaited the coming of Christ, who was to complete their felicity; sometimes the place in which unbaptized children are believed to be detained, on account of the stain of unremitted original sin; and lastly, the prison of those who die stained with the personal guilt of grievous sin. Many controversies, which would be entirely out of place here, have arisen about the details of this doctrine, as to the place, the nature, and the duration of the punishment of hell. It will be enough to say that, although according to the literal sense of more than one passage of Scrip ture, and the popular notions of the various Christian communities, the place of hell would seem to be assigned to the interior abysses of the earth, or to the depths of the intermundane spaces, yet even the formularies of the Roman Catholic church, with all their rigorous precision of detail, and still more those of other communions, have abstained from any formal declaration as to the locality of the punishment of the damned. As to the nature of the punishment to which they are subjected, whether it is confined to the " pain of loss "—that is, to the remorseful consciousness of having forfeited the presence of God, and the happiness of heaven—or whether and to what degree it further includes the " pain of sense," there is some difference between the eastern and the western churches, and it is sometimes alleged that the eastern church altogether rejects the idea of punishment of sense. This, however, is a mistake; both
churches agree that the punishment of hell includes the " pain of sense," the contro versy between them having regarded not the existence of the pain of sense, but certain questions as to its nature, and especially whether it consists of material fire, a point which, in the decree for the union of the Greek and Latin churches at the council of Florence, was left undecided. The controversy on the subject of the eternity of the punishment of hell dates from an early period, Origen and his school having taught that the punishment of hell was but purgatorial in its object; that its purifying effect having once been attained, the punishment would cease for all, even for the devils themselves; and that its duration in each case is proportioned to the guilt of the indi vidual. This doctrine of the final restoration of all to the enjoyment of happiness, was the well-known Origenistic theory of the apoeatastasis, to which so many of the early writers refer. It was rejected, however, by the common judgment of antiquity, and was formally condemned by the second council of Constantinople—a condemnation founded on the literal sense of many passages of the Scripture (see Matt. xviii. 8; xxv. 41 and 46; Mark ix. 43; Luke iii. 7; 2 Thess. i. 9; Apoc. xx. 10, etc.); and in the con troversies between the eastern and western churches, on the subject of the punishments of hell, the belief of their eternity, in the most strict sense of the word, was always recognized as a common doctrine of both. In the New Testament, the name Gehenna is frequently used to designate the place of punishment of the damned (see Matt. v. 22, 29, 30; x. 28; xviii. 9; xxii. 13; Mark ix. 43; Luke xii. 5; James iii. 6). The latter word, indeed, unlike the Hebrew sheol and the Greek halo, is never found in any other signification than that of the place of punishment of the sinner after death.