SECTION 2

NATURE OF THE PUNISHMENT
Though the Church has defined nothing with regard to the nature of the punishment which the wicked are compelled to suffer in Hell, theolo- gians usually describe it as partly privative and partly positive.
Its most dreadful element is undoubtedly the loss of the beatific vision. To this (poena damni) are added certain positive torments (poena sen- sus).
The twofold punishment of the wicked, ac- cording to St. Thomas, corresponds to the two- fold nature of sin, which is both a turning away from God (aversio a Deo) and an inordinate turning towards the creature (conversio ad ere- aturam). "Punishment," he says, "is propor- tionate to sin. Now sin comprises two things. First, there is the turning away from the immu- table good, which is infinite, and therefore, in this respect, sin is infinite. Secondly, there is the inordinate turning to mutable good. In this re- spect sin is finite, both because the mutable good itself is finite, and because the movement of
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turning towards it is finite, since the acts of a creature cannot be infinite. Accordingly, in so far as sin consists in turning away from God, its corresponding punishment is the pain of loss, which also is infinite, because it is the loss of the infinite good, i. e. God. But in so far as sin turns inordinately [to the mutable good], its corre- sponding punishment is the pain of sense, which also is finite." 1
i. The Pain of Loss (Poena Damni). — Damnation consists essentially in a realization on the part of the creature of the fact that through its own fault it has lost the greatest of all goods and missed the very purpose of its existence, and thereby its natural destiny. This knowledge causes a feeling of unhappiness akin to despera- tion, which is the exact counterpart of the beati- tude of Heaven. The poena damni is expressed in the words, "Depart from me, ye cursed!" whereas the poena sensus is indicated in the phrase, "into eternal fire." 2 There are other Scriptural texts that confirm this doctrine. Luke
l Summa Thiol., 1a aae, qu. $7, turn etiam quia ipsa conversio est
art. 4: "Poena proportionate pec* Unit a; non enim possunt esse actus
cato. In peccato autem duo sunt: creoturoe inAnitu Ex parts igitur
quorum unum est aversio ab tn- aversionis respondet ptceato poena
commutabili bono, quod est infinitum, damni, quae etiam est infinita; est
unde ex hoe parte peccatum est in* enim amissio infiniti boni, scilicet
Anitum; aliud quod est in peccata Dei, Ex parte autem inordinatae
est inordinata conversio ad com- conversions respondet ei poena sen-
mutabile bonum; et ex hoc parte sus, quae etiam est Anita"
peccatum est Anitum, turn quia ip- 2 V, infra, No. 2. sum bonum commutabile est Anitum,
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XIV, 24 : "But I say unto you that none of those men that were invited, shall taste of my supper/' 3 In the parable of the Master of the house, Luke XIII, 27 sq., the Lord says: "I know you not, whence you are : depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you shall see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out." 4
The Fathers unanimously confirm the teaching of Scripture. St. John Chrysostom describes the pain of loss, in contradistinction to the pain of sense, as follows: "The fire of Hell is insup- portable — who does not know it? — and its tor- ments are awful. But if you were to heap a thousand hell-fires one on top of the other, it would be as nothing compared to the punishment [that consists in] being excluded from the bea- tific glory of Heaven, hated by Christ, and com- pelled to hear Him say, 'I know thee not/ " 5
It is difficult, nay impossible, to write a psychology of the damned. This much, however, is certain : the repro- bates in Hell are beyond redemption and sanctifying grace in their souls is replaced by a fierce hatred of Al- mighty God.
8 Luke XIV, 24: " Dieo autem omnet operarii iniquitatis. Ibi erit vobis, quod nemo virorum illorum, ttetus et stridor dentium: quum vi- qui vocati sunt, gust obit eoenam deritis Abraham et Isaac et Iacob meant." et omnes prophetas in regno Dei,
4 Luke XIII, 27 tq.: " Nescio vos autem expelli foras." vos, undt sitis: discediU a me * Horn, in Motth., 23, n. 8.
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Schell 6 has protested against the " rigorism " which as- serts that the will of the wicked after death is suddenly set against God and that their previous half-hearted love of, or indifference towards Him, becomes transformed into " satanic malice." The germs of moral good which a soul takes with it into the next world, he argues, cannot be lost, since God destroys no good thing. This doubt- ful principle led Schell to conclusions closely akin to those of Hirscher. 1 His teaching was violently as- sailed by Father J. Stufler, S. J. 8 Professor F. X. Kiefl defended Schell and interpreted his words more mildly. It is undeniable, however, because of the essential dis- tinction existing between the status viae and the status termini, that when the damned enter Hell, where grace ceases and conversion becomes impossible, they are smitten with great confusion of spirit and a corresponding sentiment of impenitence. Being permanently deprived of grace makes them enemies of God. It is not nec- essary to conceive this state as a sort of confirmed " Satanism." No doubt there are degrees of malice and impenitence in Hell. But all the damned hate God more or less because He is no longer their friend. Herein lies the dreadfulness of eternal punishment. The natural will, being a gift of God, remains good ; but it no longer wills that which is good. It wills the bad, or if it wills the good, wills it with a wrong intention. St. Thomas ex- plains the reason as follows: "The damned are abso- lutely turned away from the final end of the rightly di- rected will. The will cannot be good except it be ordered to that end, so that, even if [the damned] willed some- thing good, they would not will it in the right way, i. e. so
6 Dogmatik, Vol. II, Part II, pp. » Dit Htiligkeit Gottes und dtr 745 sqq. ewigt Tod, Innsbruck 1904.
7 V. supra, p. 15.
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that their will might be called good." 9 Though such an exercise of the will is sinful, it entails no demerit, because the damned are in the status termini. 10 Hence the damned by the sins which they commit in Hell do not merit an increase of the poena damni or of the torments which constitute the poena sensus. This is the com- mon teaching of Catholic theologians, based on the wis- dom and justice of God. 11
2. The Pain or Punishment of Sense (Poena Sensus). — "Pain of sense" in Catholic theology means a pain which is caused by a sen- sible medium, regardless of whether it is felt by the senses or not. 12 The external medium through which the positive punishments of Hell are inflicted is called by Sacred Scripture fire (ignis, Must this term be taken literally
or may it be interpreted in a metaphorical sense?
" The worm that dieth not " 18 is undoubtedly a figure of speech, signifying the pangs of conscience, and hence there is no intrinsic reason why the word " fire " might not signify mental anguish, as Origen, Ambrose Catha- rinus, 1 * Mohler, 15 and others have maintained. The
• Comment, in Sent., IV, dist 50, qu. 2, art. x: " Bt hoc ideo, quia sunt perfecte aver si a fine ultimo rec- toe voluntatis. Nec aliqua voluntas potest esse bona nisi Per ordinem ad Unern prae dictum, unde etiam si ali- quid bonum velint, non tamen bene bonum volunt Mud. ut ex hoc volun- tas eorum bona did possit."
10 V. Ch. I, Thesis III, p. 13.
llCfr. Chr. Petch, S.J., Theo-
logische Zeitfragen, ate Folge; pp. 83 sqq., Freiburg 1901; J. Lehner, Der IVillenssustand des Sunders nach dem Tode, Vienna 1906.
12 Cfr. Suarez, De Angelis, VIII, 12.
13 Mark IX, 43.
14 Opuscula, ed. Lug dun., 1542, pp. 145 sqq.
16 Neue Untersuchungen, 5th cd., p. 318, Ratisbon 1890.
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Church has never issued a dogmatic definition on the subject. Hence we are not dealing with an article of faith nor even with a sententia fidei proximo. However, as the literal interpretation is favored by the great majority of Fathers and ScholaJtics, it may be regarded as " sen- tentia certa"
There must be some external medium or agent — (whether solid, fluid or gaseous, or in some state transcending the laws of nature) — by which the wicked are tormented, and the nature of which is absolutely unknown to us. In taking this position we oppose the naive realism of those who regard Hell as literally a gigantic "furnace" or an active volcano.
a) In trying to ascertain the nature of the infernal fire, the first thing that strikes us is that, though it is physical and real, it cannot be material.
a) Neither in its nature nor in its properties, neither in its beneficent nor in its malign effects, is the fire of Hell identical with, or even similar to, the material fire of nature.
Sacred Scripture speaks of Hell as a " furnace of fire," a " pool of fire and brimstone," an " external darkness in which there is howling and gnashing of teeth," an " eternal fire " prepared for the devil and his angels from the beginning. 16 Now the devil and his angels (the demons), being pure spirits, cannot be affected by material substances such as fire and brimstone, heat and darkness, because they possess neither senses nor Sen-
it V. supra, Sect i.
58 THE LAST THINGS OF MAN
sitive faculties. The same is true of the souls of the wicked during their disembodied state, i. e. before the Resurrection of the flesh.
This fact was clearly perceived by the Fathers. Lac- tantius says : " The nature of that everlasting fire is dif- ferent from this fire of ours, which we use for the nec- essary purposes of life, and which ceases to burn unless it be sustained by the fuel of some material. But that divine fire always lives by itself, and burns without nour- ishment ; nor has it any smoke mixed with it, but it is pure and liquid and fluid, after the manner of water." 17 St. Ephraem 18 and St. Basil 19 declare that the fire of Hell causes darkness and incessantly torments its victims, without however destroying them. St. Ambrose writes : " Therefore it is neither a gnashing of the bodily teeth, nor a perpetual bodily fire, nor a bodily worm." 20 St. Augustine says that the fire of Hell, while it bears some resemblance to our material fire, is not identical with it. 21 St. John of Damascus teaches : " The devil and his angels and his man, i. e. Antichrist, as well as all other impious and wicked men, will be thrust into eternal fire, [which is] not a material fire like ours, but of a quality known to God." 22
P) A few Catholic theologians (Henry of Ghent, Toletus, Tanner, Lessius, and Fr. Schmid 28 ) conceive the
17 De Div. Inst., VII, si.
18 Serm. Exeget., Opera Syriace et Latin*, Vol. II, p. 354.
19 In Psai,, a8, 7, n. 6.
20 In Lucam, VII, n. 304: "Ergo neque est corporalium stri- dor aliquis dentium neque ignis alir quis perpetuus Aammarum cor* poralium neque vermis est corpora- lis."
si De Genesi ad Liter am, XII, 3a,
61: " Non esse cor por alio, sed si- milia corporalibus, quibus animae corporibus exutae oMciontur."
22 o#X tfXllCO>» oZoi» TO TOO* P.
d\\' olov b\v eUklrj 6 6e6f. {De Fide Orthodoxo, IV, 27). — Some of the Fathers explain the term "eter- nal fire " metaphorically; cfr. Peach, Proelect. Dogmata Vol. IX, and ad., pp. 122 aq.
28 Quaestiones S electa*, pp. 143 •qq., Paderborn 1891.
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action of the infernal fire upon the demons and the souls of the wicked as that of a material upon an immaterial substance. 24 Opposed to this theory is the fact that pure spirits as well as disembodied souls are utterly devoid of sense perception. But could not God make them feel sensual pain by a miracle? That depends on the answer to another question, vis.: Is there an intrinsic contradiction involved in the assertion that pure spirits can be affected by a material substance? Neither phi- losophy nor Revelation gives a definite answer to this question. The existing uncertainty has led other theo- logians to devise a more plausible theory. They regard the effect of the fire of Hell as purely spiritual, holding that the constant presence of fire, which is a material element, occupies the intellect of the damned in a dis- agreeable manner and fills the will with sadness and aversion, 25 or the fact of their being locally and in- separably bound up with this lowly element 26 hinders the free activity of the spirit and thus causes internal anguish (per modum detentionis) . The souls of the lost before the Resurrection, says St. Thomas, "shall suffer from corporeal fire by a sort of constriction (alligatio). For spirits can be tied to bodies, either as their form, as the soul is tied to the human body to give it life ; or without being the body's form, as magicians by diabolic power tie spirits to images. 27 Much more by divine power may spirits under damnation be tied to corporeal fire; and it is an affliction to them to know that they are tied to the meanest creatures for punishment." 28 This opinion is
24 Cfr. Lessius, De Div. Perf., ullo cor port medio f"
XIII, 30: " Si ignis naturaliter per 26 Cfr. St Thomas, Summa Thiol.,
suum calorem potest afHigere spkitum Supplement., qu. 70, art 3*
hominis mediant* cor pore, cur idem 26 Cfr. a Pet II, 4; Jude 6.
ignis ut instrumentum Dei non po- 27 See Rickaby's note on this pas-
terit afHigere eundem spirUum sine sage in God and His Creatures, p.
4x3, London 1905.
6o THE LAST THINGS OF MAN
shared by the majority of Thomists. Suarez goes so far as to say 29 that the effect of hell-fire is purely spiritual, disfiguring the demons and the disembodied souls of the lost in a manner analogous to that in which sanctifying grace beautifies the angels and saints. This theory, though it correctly emphasizes the mysterious na- ture of the fire, reduces it to the level of an intangible metaphor.
One thing has been made certain by the subtle debates of the Schoolmen, namely, that the fire of Hell cannot be identical with material fire, but must be something at the same time physical and supra-physical, a punishment in- vented by an avenging God, of which we know nothing except that it exists and torments the damned.
b) What we have so far said applies princi- pally to the demons, who are pure spirits ; but it is applicable also to the souls of the wicked be- fore the Resurrection.
These souls, it is true, do not lose their sensitive facul- ties when they leave the body. But they become incapable of sense perception for lack of adequate organs (brain and nervous system). "Incorporeal subsistent spirits," says St. Thomas, " have no organs of sense nor the use of sensory powers." 80 It is different after the Resur- rection, when the souls are reunited with their bodies. " Whatever may be said of the fire which torments the disembodied souls," adds the Angelic Doctor, "the fire that torments the bodies of the damned after the Res-
28 Summa Contra Gent., IV, 90; sensuum non habent ntqut pottntiis cfr. D* Veritate, qu. 26, art x. sensitivis utuntur." (Summa contra
29 D* Angelis, VIII, 14. Gent,, IV, 90). so " Substantia* incorporeal organ*
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urrection must be regarded as corporeal, because a pain is not adapted to the body unless it is a bodily pain." 81 Nevertheless, the theory we have set forth is not free from difficulties. It implies two strange corollaries, vis.: (i) that the pains of sense which the souls of the lost suffer in Hell differ before and after the Resur- rection; and (2) that the souls of wicked men through- out eternity suffer more intensely than the demons, for whom the everlasting fire was originally prepared. For if that fire be qualitatively the same for the demons and the souls of wicked men, it must cause the same kind of pain to both. True, the body, too, is affected; but this bodily pain need not be conceived as a real burning; it may be something entirely sui generis. We can obtain no certain knowledge in the matter, though the possibility of a real burning is undeniable. However, if we consider that the assumption of a material fire, or a fire analogous to the material, does not sufficiently account for either the quantitative inequality of the torments inflicted or their qualitative adaptability to the different kinds of sins to be punished, we shall be confirmed in the conviction that the fire of Hell in no wise resembles the material fire of nature. 82
Sl " Quidquid dicatur d$ igne, qui anitnas separata* cruciat, de igne tamen, quo cruciabuntur corpora damnatorum post resurrectionem, oportet die ere, quod sit corporeus, quia corpori non potest convenient er adaptari poena, nisi sit corporeal' (Summa TheoU, Supplement., qu. 79. art 5).
•2Fr. Joseph Rickaby, S. J., says in a recent brochure {Everlasting Punishment, pp. 7~"» London 19 16) : "The fire of hell is real fire: that is to say, the word fire is the most proper and exact word which
human speech affords to tell us what that terrible thing is. 'Ever- lasting fire* is not a figurative ex- pression; it occurs in a judicial sen- tence. Judges in passing sentence do not use figurative language; not in any figurative or metaphorical sense shall you be ' hung by the neck till you are dead.' At the same time we have no exact and certain knowledge of the precise nature of the fire of hell. Is it exactly like the fire of earth? But what exactly is the fire of earth? What is com- bustion? Not till the end of the
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But if this be true, why does Sacred Scripture call the mysterious medium of eternal punishment " fire " ? Why not "water," or "snow," or "ether"? The answer is
eighteenth century was man able to reply, ' combustion it rapid combina- tion with oxygen/ Our ancestors did not scientifically know what fire was. They thought it was a ' sub- stance/ an 'element/ the lightest and in natural position the highest of the four elements, fire, air, water, and earth, out of which all bodies were composed. So then the fire of hell, if it really was fire, they thought must be a substance too. So it well may be, but we must speak cautiously. Modern science presents us with heat, fire, light, and electricity, and tells us that they are all so many, not substances or elements, but modes of motion affect- ing substance, whatever substance may be. They are most abundant things in nature: the fixed stars are all on fire; electricity is sus- pected of being a primary constituent of matter. We know much more about these things than our an- cestors did: still we are in great perplexity over them, indeed our perplexities grow with our knowl- edge. Such is our ignorance of the fire of this world, matter though it be of our daily experience. Of a fire such as that in which angels and disembodied souls burn, happily we have no experience. And beyond teaching us that there is such a fire, real fire, Christian revelation does not go. It would be therefore ex- tremely rash, beyond the existence (an sit) of such a fire, to pretend to lay down with certainty its nature, qualities, composition, and mode of action (quid sit). The Church does not do so. Her theologians echo St Augustine' 8 words: 'As to which fire, of what sort, and in what part
of the world or universe it is to be, I am of opinion that no man knows, unless haply some one to whom the Spirit of God has shown it/ (Qui ignis cujusmodi et in qua mundi vel rerum parte futurus sit hominem scire arbitror n eminent, nisi forte cui Spiritus divinus revelavit. — De Ct- vitate Dei, xx. 16). There is, how- ever, a general consent of the faith- ful to regard it as a ' material ' fire, and though this be not absolutely of faith, still it cannot be denied with- out incurring the theological note of ' rashness/ In accordance with this general consent I have described it as 'a material environment' A further speculation: is this material environment itself on fire, or is it such that the soul chafing and strug- gling against that constraint — 'the great net of slavery/ fiiya SovXelas y&yyafxov, to borrow a phrase of .ASschylus — and, as St Teresa says, * continually tearing herself in pieces' — thereby sets herself on fire? The question is beyond our knowledge to answer. We are ac- customed to pictures of flames, with souls in bodily shapes writhing in them, and in such sensible repres- entations we must fain acquiesce as being the best way to bring home to imagination the reality of hell- fire. God knows His own justice, which in hell at any rate works so as by fire.
Over and above this material en- vironment I have been myself led to argue the probability of the spiritual substance of the soul, or evil angel, itself coming truly to burn under two opposing constraints, the natural constraint, or effort, of the spirit, seeking to go out to God,
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easy to guess. The most intense pain known to man is caused by fire. We can no more form an adequate conception of the nature of eternal punishment and its medium than of the beatitude of Heaven, 88 and hence the sacred writer could hardly have chosen a more ap- propriate phrase than "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire," 84 even in a context where meta- phorical expressions are otherwise avoided. If Christ had called the infernal fire by its true name, we should not have understood His meaning as well as we do now.
in whom alone, as it finds out too late, its essential happiness lies, and to the contrary, the constraining hand of God, driving that spirit back upon itself. (By 'the con- straining hand of God ' I do not mean the ' material environment.' I mean simply God's will to carry out the sentence, * Depart from me.'). Under analogous constraint, any material substance, as all physicists now know, would grow hot and glow intensely. The laws of mat- ter may well have their analogue in the spirit world. If this be so, the mere depart from me must involve everlasting fire. If this be so again, the wicked spirit has made its own hell, having first rejected the God who now rejects it. Also, if this be so, it becomes transparently clear that as Heaven means God, so hell means no God; and no God is just what the obstinate impenitent sin- ner has chosen to have in this life, and consequently in the next This, however, is a speculation. It makes the fire of hell very real and very terrible. For what is terrible in a fire is not the medium in which you are placed, but how you your- self burn.
" There are two perfectly distinct fires of hell, arising from quite dis-
tinct causes. There is first what I have called 'a material environ- ment,' 'some external objective en- vironment/ producing in the soul plunged into it a pain which to us, with our human experiences, is most properly declared by calling it the pain of fire. Of the nature of this material environment I have no idea, no theory, any more than St Au- gustine had. I accept the fact of it simply because I wish to keep my rank in the common herd of Christian believers. Secondly, there is the loss of God; and about that, what I have had to say comes to this, that considering the relation in which the soul stands to its Last End, the mere felt loss of God, apart from all other agency, may, on an analogy drawn from the physi- cal to the spiritual, be enough to set the substance of the soul veritably on fire. The "mighty constraining force,' which I have invoked for this theory, is something quite over and above the 'material environ- ment' It is God's refusal of the soul, driving it away from Him, a refusal called a force only by anal- ogy with things physical."
U 1 Cor. II, 9.
S4Matth. XXV, 41.
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For all these reasons we deem it advisable to confess our ignorance in a matter that plainly exceeds human under- standing, rather than engage in speculations which might easily lead us into error. Let us live so that we need not fear the mysterious fire of Hell. 35
3. Accidental Pains of the Damned. — Be- sides the pain of loss and the pain of sense, which together constitute the essence of Hell, the damned suffer various accidental punishments. There is first and above all the remorse of conscience, which the Bible compares to a worm that will not die. 36 These are all the more terrible as the damned never experience the slight- est alleviation of their suffering and are compelled to live forever with demons and witness their hid- eous outbursts of rage and hatred. The reunion of soul and body after the Resurrection will fur- ther increase the misery of the lost soul»in Hell.
35 Cfr. Knabenbauer, Comment in Christentums, 3rd ed., pp. 607 tqq., Matth., Vol. II, pp. 384 sq., Paris Freiburg 19 12. 1894; Schcebcn, Die Mytterien des 99 Mark IX, 43.
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