Literary Discussions

I had the strangest dream last week, in which I was discussing New
Testament theology. The crux and fulcrum of my discourse in the
dream, which I repeated again and again was: "To be afflicted is to
be loved and to be loved is to be forgiven."

As I slowly began to awaken (and realize that I had been dreaming), I
repeated these words to myself frequently so that I might remember
them long enough to write them down.

Several days prior to this dream, I had been listening to a taped
reading of 2 Corinthians, 11:30, "If I must boast, I will boast in
the things which concern my infirmity", and 12:9, "My grace is
sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness."

I wish I could now proceed to say something more astonishing
regarding this theory of love and forgiveness, but I must confess
that I am left confused and purplexed by the experience.

Love and Forgiveness themselves are great mysteries and sacraments.
It is essential that we first come to love and forgive ourselves. If
we cannot love ourselves, we cannot expect anyone else to love us,
and even if they DO love us, we will not believe it, for we will not
believe that another loves what we ourselves do not love.

But what of the affliction? How can one say that to be afflicted is
to be loved? Most babies enter the world crying. I have not yet
heard of a baby born laughing and smiling.

"For whom the LORD loves He chastens, And scourges every son whom He
receives" (Hebrews 12:6)

We see this dilemma of affliction and love in Job.

We read the following concerning Richard Rolle, one of the four
great English mystics of the fourteenth century:

One off the most subjective of the mystics, he is intensely
interested in his own spiritual adventures; and a strong personal
element may be detected even in his most didactic works. As with all
who deliberately give themselves to the spiritual life, his first
period of growth was predominantly ascetic. With his fellow mystics
he underwent the trials and disciplines of the "purgative way": and
for this, complete separation from the world was essential. "The
process truly if I will show, solitary life behooves me preach." The
essence of this purification, as he describes it in the "Mending of
Life," lies not so much in the endurance of bodily austerities--as
in "Contrition of thought, and pulling out of desires that belong not
to loving or worship of God":--self-simplification in fact. The
object of such a process is always the same: the purging of the will,
and unification of the whole life about the higher centres of
humility and love; the cutting out, as St. Catherine of Siena has it,
of "the rooting of self-love with the knife of self-hatred." In the
old old language of Christian mysticism, Rolle speaks of the action
of Divine Love as a refiner's fire, "fiery making our souls, and
purging them from all degrees of sin, making them light and burning."
We gather from various references in the Incendium that the trials of
this purgation included in his own case not only interior contrition
for past sin and bodily penance. It also involved the contempt, if
not the actual persecution of other men, and the inimical attitude
with "with wordys of bakbyttingis" of old friends, who viewed his
eccentric conduct with a natural and prudent disgust: a form of
suffering, intensely painful to his sensitive nature, which he
recognizes as specially valuable in its power of killing self-esteem,
and encouraging the mystical type of character, governed by true
mortification and total dependence on God. "This have I known, that
the more men have tried with words of backbiting against me, so
muckle the more in ghostly profit I have grown.". . . ."After the
tempest, God sheds in brightness of holy desires."

The element of self-hatred in the asceticism described above is in
conflict with self-love. But perhaps this is where forgiveness
becomes essential.

Now, when we ask ourselves what Rolle really meant by this image of
heat or fire, we stand at the beginning of a long quest. This is one
of those phrases, half metaphors, yet metaphors so apt that we might
also call them descriptions of experience, which are natural to
mystical literature. Immemorially old, yet eternally fresh, they
appear again and again; nor need we always attribute such
reappearances to conscious borrowing. The fire of love is a term
which goes back at least to the fourth century of our era; it is used
by St. Macarius of Egypt to describe the action of the Divine Energy
upon the soul which it is leading to perfection. Its literary origins
are of course scriptural--the fusion of the Johannine "God is love"
with the fire imagery of the Hebrew prophets. "Behold! the Lord will
come with fire!" "His word was in my heart as a burning fire." "He is
like a refiner's fire."

These topics touch quite naturally upon the Eastern Orthodox theology
of "The River of Fire."

(excerpts from the address given by Alexander Kalomiros)

This paganistic conception of God's justice which demands infinite
sacrifices in order to be appeased clearly makes God our real enemy
and the cause of all our misfortunes. Moreover, it is a justice which
is not at all just since it punishes and demands satisfaction from
persons which were not at all responsible for the sin of their
forefathers. In other words, what Westerners call justice ought
rather to be called resentment and vengeance of the worst kind. Even
Christ's love and sacrifice loses its significance and logic in this
schizoid notion of a God who kills God in order to satisfy the so-
called justice of God.

Does this conception of justice have anything to do with the justice
that God revealed to us? Does the phrase "justice of God" have this
meaning in the Old and New Testaments?

Perhaps the beginning of the mistaken interpretation of the word
justice in the Holy Scriptures was its translation by the Greek word
dikaiosune. Not that it is a mistaken translation, but because this
word, being a word of the pagan, humanistic, Greek civilisation, was
charged with human notions which could easily lead to
misunderstandings.

First of all, the word dikaiosune brings to mind an equal
distribution. This is why it is represented by a balance. The good
are rewarded and the bad are punished by human society in a fair way.
This is human justice, the one which takes place in court.

Is this the meaning of God's justice, however?

The word dikaiosune, "justice", is a translation of the Hebraic word
tsedaka. This word means "the divine energy which accomplishes man's
salvation". It is parallel and almost synonymous to the other Hebraic
word, hesed which means "mercy", "compassion", "love", and to the
word, emeth which means "fedelity", "truth". This, as you see, gives
a completely other dimension to what we usually conceive as justice.
This is how the Church under- stood God's justice. This is what the
Fathers of the Church taught of it. "How can you call God just",
writes Saint Isaac the Syrian, "when you read the passage on the wage
given to the workers? 'Friend, I do thee no wrong; I will give unto
this last even as unto thee who worked for me from the first hour. Is
thine eye evil, because I am good? '" "How can a man call God just",
continues Saint Isaac, "when he comes across the passage on the
prodigal son, who wasted his wealth in riotous living, and yet only
for the contrition which he showed, the father ran and fell upon his
neck, and gave him authority over all his wealth? None other but His
very Son said these things concerning Him lest we doubt it, and thus
He bare witness concerning Him. Where, then, is God's justice, for
whilst we were sinners, Christ died for us!"

So we see that God is not just, with the human meaning of this word,
but we see that His justice means His goodness and love, which are
given in an unjust manner, that is, God always gives without taking
anything in return, and He gives to persons like us who are not
worthy of receiving. That is why Saint Isaac teaches us: "Do not call
God just, for His justice is not manifest in the things concerning
you. And if David calls Him just and upright, His Son revealed to us
that He is good and kind. "He is good", He says, "to the evil and
impious".

God is good, loving, and kind toward those who disregard, disobey,
and ignore Him. He never returns evil for evil, He never takes
vengeance. His punishments are loving means of correction, as long as
anything can be corrected and healed in this life.' They never extend
to eternity. He created everything good. The wild beasts recognize as
their master the Christian who through humility has gained the
likeness of God. They draw near to him, not with fear, but with joy,
in grateful and loving submission; they wag their heads and lick his
hands and serve him with gratitude. The irrational beasts know that
their Master and God is not evil and wicked and vengeful, but rather
full of love. He protected and saved us when we fell. The eternally
evil has nothing to do with God. It comes rather from the will of His
free, logical creatures, and this will He respects.

Creation, on the contrary, has no self-existence. It is totally
dependent on the will of God. It exists only so long as God wants it
to exist. It is not eternal. It had no existence. It was null, it was
completely nothing. It was created out of nothingness. By itself it
has no force of existence; it is kept in existence by God's Energy.
If this loving Energy of God ever stops, creation and all created
beings, intellectual or non-intellectual, rational or irrational will
vanish into non-existence. We know that God's love for His creation
is eternal. We know from Him that He will never let us fall into non-
existence, from which He brought us into being. This is our hope and
God is true in His promises. We, created beings, angels, and men,
will live in eternity, not because we have in us the power of
eternity, but because this is the will of God Who loves us. By
ourselves we are nothing. We have not the least energy of life and of
existence in our nature; that which we have comes entirely from God;
nothing is ours. We are dirt of the earth, and when we forgot it, God
in His mercy permitted that we return to what we are, in order that
we remain humble and have exact knowledge of our nothingness. "God",
says Saint John Damascene elsewhere, "can do all that He wills, even
though He does not will all things that He can do -- for He can
destroy creation, but He does not will to do so.

Saint John of the Ladder says somewhere in his work that "before our
fall the demons say to us that God is a friend of man; but after our
fall, they say that He is inexorable".

In his discourse entitled That God is not the Cause of Evil, Saint
Basil the Great writes the following: "But one may say, if God is not
responsible for evil things, why is it said in the book of Esaias, 'I
am He that prepared light and Who formed darkness, Who makes peace
and Who creates evils' (45:7)". And again, "There came down evils
from the Lord upon the gates of Jerusalem" (Mich. 1:12). And, "Shall
there be evil in the city which the Lord hath not wrought?" (Amos
3:6). And in the great Ode of Moses, "Behold, I am and there is no
god beside Me. I will slay, and I will make to live; I will smite,
and I will heal" (Deut. 32:39). But none of these citations, to him
who understands the deeper meaning of the Holy Scriptures, casts any
blame on God, as if He were the cause of evils and their creator, for
He Who said, "I am the One Who makes light and darkness", shows
Himself as the Creator of the universe, not that He is the creator of
any evil.... "He creates evils", that means, "He fashions them again
and brings them to a betterment, so that they leave their evilness,
to take on the nature of good".

As Saint Isaac the Syrian writes, "Very often many things are said by
the Holy Scriptures and in it many names are used not in a literal
sense... those who have a mind understand this" (Homily 83, p. 317).

As Saint Isaac the Syrian says: "He who applies pedagogical
punishments in order to give health, is punishing with love, but he
who is looking for vengeance, is devoid of love. God punishes with
love, not defending Himself -- far be it -- but He wants to heal His
image, and He does not keep His wrath for long. This way of love is
the way of uprightness, and it does not change with passion to a
defense. A man who is just and wise is like God because he never
chastises a man in revenge for wickedness, but only in order to
correct him or that others be afraid" (Homily 73).

So we see that God punishes as long as there is hope for correction.
After the Common Resurrection there is no question of any punishment
from God. Hell is not a punishment from God but a self condemnation.
As Saint Basil the Great says, "The evils in hell do not have God as
their cause, but ourselves".

One could insist, however, that the Sacred Scriptures and the Fathers
always speak of God as the Great Judge who will reward those who were
obedient to Him and will punish those who were disobedient, in the
day of the Great Judgment (II Tim. 4:6-8). How are we to understand
this judgement if we are to understand the divine words not in a
human but in a divine manner'? What is God's judgement?

God is Truth and Light. God's judgement is nothing else than our
coming into contact with truth and light. In the day of the Great
Judgement all men will appear naked before this penetrating light of
truth. The "books" will be opened. What are these "books"? They are
our hearts. Our hearts will be opened by the penetrating light of
God, and what is in these hearts will be revealed. If in those hearts
there is love for God, those hearts will rejoice seeing God's light.
If, on the contrary, there is hatred for God in those hearts, these
men will suffer by receiving on their opened hearts this penetrating
light of truth which they detested all their life.

So that which will differentiate between one man and another will not
be a decision of God, a reward or a punishment from Him, but that
which was in each one's heart; what was there during all our life
will be revealed in the Day of Judgement. If there is a reward and a
punishment in this revelation -- and there really is -- it does not
come from God but from the love or hate which reigns in our heart.
Love has bliss in it, hatred has despair, bitterness, grief,
affliction, wickedness, agitation, confusion, darkness, and all the
other interior conditions which compose hell (I Cor. 4:6).

The Light of Truth, God's Energy, God's grace which will fall on men
unhindered by corrupt conditions in the Day of Judgement, will be the
same to all men. There will be no distinction whatever. All the
difference lies in those who receive, not in Him Who gives. The sun
shines on healthy and diseased eyes alike, without any distinction.
Healthy eyes enjoy light and because of it see clearly the beauty
which surrounds them. Diseased eyes feel pain, they hurt, suffer, and
want to hide from this same light whieh brings such great happiness
to those who have healthy eyes.

But alas, there is no longer any possibility of escaping God's light.
During this life there was. In the New Creation of the Resurrection,
God will be everywhere and in everything. His light and love will
embrace all. There will be no place hidden from God, as was the case
during our corrupt life in the kingdom of the prince of this world.
The devil's kingdom will be despoiled by the Common Resurrection and
God will take possession again of His creation. Love will enrobe
everything with its sacred Fire which will flow like a river from the
throne of God and will irrigate paradise. But this same river of
Love -- for those who have hate in their hearts -- will suffocate and
burn.

"For our God is a consuming fire", (Heb. 12:29). The very fire which
purifies gold, also consumes wood. Precious metals shine in it like
the sun, rubbish burns with black smoke. All are in the same fire of
Love. Some shine and others become black and dark. In the same
furnace steel shines like the sun, whereas clay turns dark and is
hardened like stone. The difference is in man, not in God.

The difference is conditioned by the free choice of man, which God
respects absolutely. God's judgment is the revelation of the reality
which is in man.

Thus Saint Macarius writes, "And as the kingdom of darkness, and sin,
are hidden in the soul until the Day of Resurrection, when the bodies
also of sinners shall be covered with the darkness that is now hidden
in the soul, so also the Kingdom of Light, and the Heavenly Image,
Jesus Christ, now mystically enlighten the soul, and reign in the
soul of the saints, but are hidden from the eyes of men... until the
Day of Resurrection; but then the body also shall be covered and
glorified with the Light of the Lord, which is now in the man's soul
[from this earthly life], that the body also may reign with the soul
which from now receives the Kingdom of Christ and rests and is
enlightened with eternal light" (Homily 2).

Saint Symeon the New Theologian says that it is not what man does
which counts in eternal life but what he is, whether he is like Jesus
Christ our Lord, or whether he is different and unlike Him. He
says, "In the future life the Christian is not examined if he has
renounced the whole world for Christ's love, or if he has distributed
his riches to the poor or if he fasted or kept vigil or prayed, or if
he wept and lamented for his sins, or if he has done any other good
in this life, but he is examined attentively if he has any similitude
with Christ, as a son does with his father

Saint Peter the Damascene writes: "We all receive God's blessings
equally. But some of us, receiving God's fire, that is, His word,
become soft like beeswax, while the others like clay become hard as
stone. And if we do not want Him, He does not force any of us, but
like the sun He sends His rays and illuminates the whole world, and
he who wants to see Him, sees Him, whereas the one who does not want
to see Him, is not forced by Him. And no one is responsible for this
privation of light except the one who does not want to have it. God
created the sun and the eye. Man is free to receive the sun's light
or not. The same is true here. God sends the light of knowledge like
rays to all, but He also gave us faith like an eye. The one who wants
to receive knowledge through faith, keeps it by his works, and so God
gives him more willingness, knowledge, and power" (Philokalia, vol.
3, p. 8).

I think that by now we have reached the point of understanding
correctly what eternal hell and eternal paradise really are, and who
is in reality responsible for the difference.

In the icon of the Last Judgment we see Our Lord Jesus Christ seated
on a throne. On His right we see His friends, the blessed men and
women who lived by His love. On His left we see His enemies, all
those who passed their life hating Him, even if they appeared to be
pious and reverent. And there, in the midst of the two, springing
from Christ's throne, we see a river of fire coming toward us. What
is this river of fire? Is it an instrument of torture? Is it an
energy of vengeance coming out from God in order to vanquish His
enemies?

No, nothing of the sort. This river of fire is the river which "came
out from Eden to water the paradise" of old (Gen. 2:10). It is the
river of the grace of God which irrigated God's saints from the
beginning. In a word, it is the out-pouring of God's love for His
creatures. Love is fire. Anyone who loves knows this. God is Love, so
God is Fire. And fire consumes all those who are not fire themselves,
and renders bright and shining all those who are fire themselves
(Heb. 12:29).

God many times appeared as fire: To Abraham, to Moses in the burning
bush, to the people of Israel showing them the way in the desert as a
column of fire by night and as a shining cloud by day when He covered
the tabernacle with His glory (Exod. 40:28, 32), and when He rained
fire on the summit of Mount Sinai. God was revealed as fire on the
mountain of Transfiguration, and He said that He came "to put fire
upon the earth" (Luke 12:49), that is to say, love, because as Saint
John of the Ladder says, "Love is the source of fire" (Step 30, 18).

The Greek writer, Fotis Kontoglou said somewhere that "Faith is fire,
and gives warmth to the heart. The Holy Spirit came down upon the
heads of the apostles in the form of tongues of fire. The two
disciples, when the Lord was revealed to them, said 'Did not our
heart burn within us, while He talked with us in the way?' Christ
compares faith to a 'burning candle.' Saint John the Forerunner said
in his sermons that Christ will baptise men 'in the Holy Spirit and
fire.' And truly, the Lord said, 'I am come to send fire on the earth
and what will I if it be already kindled? Well, the most tangible
characteristic of faith is warmth; this is why they speak about 'warm
faith,' or 'faith provoking warmth.' And even as the distinctive mark
of faith is warmth, the sure mark of unbelief is coldness.

"Do you want to know how to understand if a man has faith or
unbelief? If you feel warmth coming out of him -- from his eyes, from
his words, from his manners -- be certain that he has faith in his
heart. If again you feel cold coming out of his whole being, that
means that he has not faith, whatever he may say. He may kneel down,
he may bend his head humbly, he may utter all sorts of moral
teachings with a humble voice, but all these will breathe forth a
chilling breath which falls upon you to numb you with cold"

Saint Isaac the Syrian says that "Paradise is the love of God, in
which the bliss of all the beatitudes is contained", and that "the
tree of life is the love of God" (Homily 72).

"Do not deceive yourself", says Saint Symeon the New Theologian, "God
is fire and when He came into the world, and became man, He sent fire
on the earth, as He Himself says; this fire turns about searching to
find material -- that is a disposition and an intention that is good -
- to fall into and to kindle; and for those in whom this fire will
ignite, it becomes a great flame, which reaches Heaven.... this flame
at first purifies us from the pollution of passions and then it
becomes in us food and drink and light and joy, and renders us light
ourselves because we participate in His light" (Discourse 78).

God is a loving fire, and He is a loving fire for all: good or bad.
There is, however, a great difference in the way people receive this
loving fire of God. Saint Basil says that "the sword of fire was
placed at the gate of paradise to guard the approach to the tree of
life; it was terrible and burning toward infidels, but kindly
accessible toward the faithful, bringing to them the light of day "
The same loving fire brings the day to those who respond to love with
love, and burns those who respond to love with hatred.

Paradise and hell are one and the same River of God, a loving fire
which embraces and covers all with the same beneficial will, without
any difference or discrimination. The same vivifying water is life
eternal for the faithful and death eternal for the infidels; for the
first it is their element of life, for the second it is the
instrument of their eternal suffocation; paradise for the one is hell
for the other. Do not consider this strange. The son who loves his
father will feel happy in his father's arms, but if he does not love
him, his father's loving embrace will be a torment to him. This also
is why when we love the man who hates us, it is likened to pouring
lighted coals and hot embers on his head.

"I say", writes Saint Isaac the Syrian, "that those who are suffering
in hell, are suffering in being scourged by love.... It is totally
false to think that the sinners in hell are deprived of God's love.
Love is a child of the knowledge of truth, and is unquestionably
given commonly to all. But love's power acts in two ways: it torments
sinners, while at the same time it delights those who have lived in
accord with it" (Homily 84).

Now if anyone is perplexed and does not understand how it is possible
for God's love to render anyone pitifully wretched and miserable and
even burning as it were in flames, let him consider the elder brother
of the prodigal son. Was he not in his father's estate? Did not
everything in it belong to him? Did he not have his father's love?
Did his father not come himself to entreat and beseech him to come
and take part in the joyous banquet? What rendered him miserable and
burned him with inner bitterness and hate? Who refused him anything?
Why was he not joyous at his brother's return? Why did he not have
love either toward his father or toward his brother? Was it not
because of his wicked, inner disposition? Did he not remain in hell
because of that? And what was this hell? Was it any separate place?
Were there any instruments of torture? Did he not continue to live in
his father's house? What separated him from all the joyous people in
the house if not his own hate and his own bitterness? Did his father,
or even his brother, stop loving him? Was it not precisely this very
love which hardened his heart more and more? Was it not the joy that
made him sad? Was not hatred burning in his heart, hatred for his
father and his brother, hatred for the love of his father toward his
brother and for the love of his brother toward his father? This is
hell: the negation of love; the return of hate for love; bitterness
at seeing innocent joy; to be surrounded by love and to have hate in
one's heart. This is the eternal condition of all the damned. They
are all dearly loved. They are all invited to the joyous banquet.
They are all living in God's Kingdom, in the New Earth and the New
Heavens. No one expels them. Even if they wanted to go away they
could not flee from God's New Creation, nor hide from God's tenderly
loving omnipresence. Their only alternative would be, perhaps, to go
away from their brothers and search for a bitter isolation from them,
but they could never depart from God and His love. And what is more
terrible is that in this eternal life, in this New Creation, God is
everything to His creatures. As Saint Gregory of Nyssa says, "In the
present life the things we have relations with are numerous, for
instance: time, air, locality, food and drink, clothing, sunlight,
lamplight, and other necessities of life, none of which, many though
they be, are God; that blessed state which we hope for is in need of
none of these things, but the Divine Being will become all, and in
the stead of all to us, distributing Himself proportionately to every
need of that existence. It is plain, too, from the Holy Scriptures
that God becomes to those who deserve it, locality and home and
clothing and food and drink and light and riches and kingdom, and
everything that can be thought of and named that goes to make our
life happy" (On the Soul and the Resurrection).

In the new eternal life, God will be everything to His creatures, not
only to the good but also to the wicked, not only to those who love
Him, but likewise to those who hate Him. But how will those who hate
Him endure to have everything from the hands of Him Whom they detest?
Oh, what an eternal torment is this, what an eternal fire, what a
gnashing of teeth!

"Depart from Me, ye cursed, into the everlasting inner fire of
hatred", saith the Lord, because I was thirsty for your love and you
did not give it to Me, I was hungry for your blessedness and you did
not offer it to Me, I was imprisoned in My human nature and you did
not come to visit Me in My church; you are free to go where your
wicked desire wishes, away from Me, in the torturing hatred of your
hearts which is foreign to My loving heart which knows no hatred for
anyone. Depart freely from love to the everlasting torture of hate,
unknown and foreign to Me and to those who are with Me, but prepared
by freedom for the devil, from the days I created My free, rational
creatures. But wherever you go in the darkness of your hating hearts,
My love will follow you like a river of fire, because no matter what
your heart has chosen, you are and you will eternally continue to be,
My children.

(end of excerpts)
======================

(with a picture of a river of fire)

"As I looked, "thrones were set in place, and the Ancient of Days
took his seat. His clothing was as white as snow; the hair of his
head was white like wool. His throne was flaming with fire, and its
wheels were all ablaze. 10aA river of fire was flowing, coming out
from before him (Dan. 7:9, 10a, NIV).

======================

nahar di nur (Aramaic) = nahar shel esh (Hebrew
River of fire; A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him
(Daniel 7:10)

======================
http://www.carolynarends.com/music/lyrics/rol.html

(with audio of song)

River of Love

by T-Bone Burnett
There's a river of love that runs through all time
There's a river of grief that floods through our lives
It starts when a heart is broken into
By the thief of belief in anything that's true
But there's a river of love that runs through all time
There's a river of love that runs through all time
There's a river of tears that flows through our eyes
We fight through the night for freedom as it fades
Into a jail where we fail everytime we make a break
But there's a river of love that runs through all time
I had to run before I knew how to crawl
The first step was hard
But I have had trouble with them all
But now the night grows darker
And the day grows dim
'Cause I know I never will see you again
And I almost made you happy
There's a river of love that runs through all time
There's a river of fire that burns with no light
The flame is the pain of dreams gone up in smoke
From the lies we deny and breathe until we choke
There's a river of love that runs through all time

======================

The river of which many know its name, without knowing its origin or
what it really stood for. A river that separates the world of the
living from the world of the dead. Styx it is said winds around Hades
(hell or the underworld are other names) nine times. Its name comes
from the Greek word stugein which means hate, Styx, the river of
hate. This river was so respected by the gods of Greek mythology that
they would take life binding oaths just by mentioning its name, as
referenced in the story of Bacchus-Ariadne, where Jove "confirms it
with the irrevocable oath, attesting the river Styx."

There are five rivers that separate Hades from the world of the
living, they are:

Acheron - the river of woe;
Cocytus - the river of lamentation;
Phlegethon - the river of fire;
Lethe - the river of forgetfulness;
Styx - the river of hate.

It is thought that Charon, the old ferry man who ferries the dead
onto the underworld, crosses the river Styx where the dragon tailed
dog Cerberus guards, allowing all souls to enter but none to leave.
This is a misconception, Charon crosses the river Acheron where also
Cerebus stands his eternal guard. Also while on this subject, Charon
only takes the souls across that are buried properly with a coin
(called an obol) that was placed in their mouths upon burial. If a
god gave his oath upon the river Styx and failed to keep his word,
Zeus forced that god to drink from the river itself. The water is
said to be so foul that the god would lose his/her voice for nine
years. The river is not the subject of any story itself but is
mentioned in several. These little pieces give a wonderful view of
not only the river but the ancient Greeks view of the underworld.
From its Adamantine gates to its separate levels of Tartarus and
Erebus onto the Elysian fields.