difference between saying “he’s in hell” and “he’s in hadēs.” The Greek term hadēs means “the place of the unseen.” It designates the invisible world of the dead, as does the Hebrew word sheol. All people who die go to hadēs because all pass from the visible world to the invisible. Originally the Greeks thought that being in hadēs was a shadowy, ghostlike existence that happened to all who died, good and evil alike. Gradually, they and the Romans came to think of it as a place of reward and punishment.