If the early formation of the church was to survive, it knew it needed an
attention grabber – a fear factor – and what better place than tunic wetting,
terror inducing Tartarus was there available? Tartarus soon became firmly
established as the go to place for those deemed to be sinners, and the
threat the church needed in order to keep its followers in check. In the
hotbed of Greco-Roman influence and religious ambiguity, it must have been
difficult to keep their flock from wandering from the beaten track, and
straight into the arms of paganism. The answer was to plunder the enemy of
its greatest weapon, and claim it for their own.
This new found leverage paid dividends. As the Roman armies expanded,
spreading their influence throughout their ever growing empire, they took
with them, too, their new found religion, and with it, the threat of Tartarus,
in Hades.
The Germanic and Nordic people of the north, without prior knowledge of
such fables, proved more difficult to convert, however. They had their own
gods, their own belief systems but, as with all battles fought over religion,
bloodshed, death and insurmountable fear will soften even the hardest of
hearts.
The Empire Grows, Gods Fall.
The Northern tribes had their own definition of the underworld. Helheim was,
to them, a nether world of the dead, presided over by Hel (female deity)
but, once again, not the flaming pit of eternal damnation that we hear about
today. Given its convenient similarities to Sheol, however – being a domain
beneath the Earth – through murder and tyranny, the Romans found it
relatively straightforward to transform the ninth world of the Tree of
Yggdrasil into the home of Satan and his hell-spawn and, in the process,
succeed in continuing the spread of Christianity. After all, the church had
achieved such a feat once already, back in the Roman republic; a second
time would surely be a breeze. They were, as you can tell, already becoming
the kings of misdirection, corruption and erroneous teachings. Relentless,
because, as with all warlords, power is the hunger that drives.
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