SECTION 3

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PAINS OF HELL
The pains of Hell have two distinguishing characteristics: (i) they are eternal and (2) they differ in degree according to guilt.
1. The Pains of Hell are Eternal. — In consequence of the erroneous teaching of Origen, the Church early in her history defined the eternity of Hell as an article of faith. She did this at the Council of Constantinople, in 543. The definition given by this Council was approved by the Fifth Ecumenical Council of 553. 1 The Athanasian Creed, which was compiled about the same time, says: 'They that have done good shall go into everlasting bliss, and they that have done evil, into everlasting fire." 2 This truth was repeated in similar terms by the Fourth Council of the Lateran. 3 The Protestant Reformers did not attack the dogma of eternal punishment, and hence the Tridentine Synod contented itself with declaring: "If any one saith that in every good
1 Cfr. Hcfcle, Cone Hie ngeschichte, nem aeternum." (Denzinger-Bann- Vol. II, § 257. wart, n. 40).
a " Qui bona egerunt, ibunt in vi- 8 V. supra, p. 46. tarn aeternam, qui veto mala, in ig-
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work the just man sins, . . . and consequently deserves eternal punishments, ... let him be anathema." 4
a) The dogma of eternal punishment is clearly contained in Sacred Scripture. The prophet Daniel proclaims: "Many of those that sleep in the dust of the earth, shall awake : some unto life everlasting, and others unto reproach, to see it always." 5 The New Testament speaks repeat- edly of an eternal and inextinguishable fire. 6 St. John says in the Apocalypse: "And the beast and the false prophet shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever." 7
Though saeculum (almv) is sometimes used indefinitely to denote a period of long duration, 8 its meaning in this passage obviously is eternity. The phrase in saecula sae- culorum always has this meaning in the New Testa- ment, whether referring to the glory of God, 9 the king- dom of Christ, 10 or the joys of Heaven. 11 St. Augustine has pointed out that there is no stronger argument for the eternity of Hell than the fact that Sacred Scripture com- pares it in respect of duration to Heaven. 12 This rea-
4Sess. VI, can. 25: "Si quis dixerit, iustum in quolibet opere bono peccare . . . atque ideo poenas aeter- nas mereri, anathema sit."
5 Dan. XII, 2: "Et tnulti de his, qui dormiunt in terrae pulvere, evi- gilabunt: alii in vitam aeternam, et alii in opprobrium ut videant sem- per/'
e V. supra, Sect. 1.
7Apoc. XX, 10: ". . . et bestia et pseudopropheta cruciabuntur die ac-nocte in saecula saeculorum"
8Cfr. Pohle-Preuss, God: His Knowability, Essence, and Attributes, pp. 306 sqq.
» 1 Tim. I, 17; 2 Tim. IV, 18; Gal. I, 5; Apoc. XV, 7.
lOApoc. I, 18; XI, 15.
11 Apoc. XXII, 5.
12 De Civitate Dei, XXI, 23: " Si utrumque aeternum, profecto aut utrumque cum fine diuturnum aut utrumque sine fine perpetuum debet intellegi; par pari enim relata sunt/*
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soning is confirmed by the Biblical teaching that the fate of every man is irrevocably sealed at death. 18 That there is no hope of salvation for the wicked in Hell may be con- cluded from our Saviour's dictum, " It were better for him if that man had never been born." 14
b) The Fathers echo the teaching of Scrip- ture. St. Polycarp tells his executioners : "You threaten me with fire, which burns but for an hour 15 and then is extinguished; for you know not the eternal fire of punishment reserved for the wicked." 16 Minucius Felix says : "There is neither measure nor termination to these tor- ments. There the intelligent fire (™p povovv) burns the limbs and restores them, feeds on them and nourishes them. . . . So that penal fire is not fed by the waste of those who burn, but is nour- ished by the unexhausted eating away of their bodies." 17
Origen held that all free creatures, demons as well as lost souls, will ultimately share in the grace of salvation (apocatastasis) . This heretical teaching to some extent influenced even such enlightened writers as Didymus the
18 V. supra, Sect, i, No. 2, Thes.
3.
l4Matth. XXVI, 24: "...bo- num erat ei, si natus non fuisset homo tile."
**irpb% &pav.
italwvtor KoX&ffcws irvp. (Mar- tyr. Polyc, XI, 2; Funk, Patres Apost., I, 295).
17 Octavius, 35: " Nec tormentis out modus ullus out terminus, lllic sapiens ignis membra urit et reficit,
carpit et nutrit. . . . Ita poenale it- lud incendium non damnis ardenttum pascitur, sed inexesa corporum la- cerations nutritur." Some editors have changed sapiens to rapiens, but there is no need of this, as irvp euMppovovr is an expression of Clem- ens Alexandrinus. (See R. E. Wal- lis, The Writings of Cyprian, Vol. II, p. 509, n. x, Edinburgh 1869). For additional Patristic testimonies see Petavius, De Angelis, III, 8, 4-
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Blind, Evagrius of Pontus, and St. Gregory of Nyssa. It is not true, however, 18 as some writers assert, that St. Gregory of Nazianzus and St. Jerome denied the dogma of eternal punishment. 19
c) The proposition, "Ex inferno nulla redemp- tion can be demonstrated also by theological rea- soning.
If it were possible to rescue a lost soul from Hell, this could only be in one of four ways: by conversion, by an apocatastasis in the sense of Origen, by complete annihilation, or through the intercession of the living.
The first and second of these methods have been ex- cluded by positive arguments, which incidentally also prove the impossibility of the fourth. St. Augustine expressly says that the damned do not receive the slightest alleviation of their sufferings through the intercession of the living. 20 Some Fathers and theologians, particu- larly St. Chrysostom 21 and the poet Prudentius,' 22 held that now and then, on stated days, as in the night before Easter, God grants the damned a certain respite through the prayers of the faithful. Petavius 28 judges this hy- pothesis mildly, whereas St. Thomas rejects it as vain, presumptuous, and without authority. 24 The singing of
18 Cfr. Kleinheidt, Gregorii Nyss. Doctrina de Angelis, pp. 4B sqq., Freiburg i860; Hilt, Des hi. Gregor von Nyssa Lehre vom Menschen, Cologne 1890.
10 Cfr. Peach, Praelect. Dogmat., Vol. IX, and ed„ pp. 309 sqq. — On the eternity of Hell tee Bautz, Dig HolU, and ed., pp. 56 sqq., Mayence 1905.
20 De Civitate Dei, XXI, 24. Else- where, however (e. g. Enchir., no) he seems to take a different view.
21 Horn, in Ep. ad Phil, 2, n. 3.
22 Hymn., V, 125 sqq., in Migne, P. L„ LIX, 827.
28 De Angelis, III, 8.
24 Summa TheoL, Supplement., qu. 71, art. 5: " Est praedicta opinio praesumptuosa, utpote dictis sancto-
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a certain hymn by St. Prudentius at the lighting of the Paschal candle is not equivalent to an ecclesiastical ap- proval of the author's belief. 25
The only other means by which a reprobate could escape eternal punishment is complete annihilation. * The Socinians thus interpret " the second death " of the Apo- calypse. But this interpretation is contrary to the teach- ing of St. John. Cfr. Apoc. XIV, 11 : " The smoke of their torments shall ascend up for ever and ever." 26 Apoc. XX, 14 : " And hell and death were cast into the pool of fire ; this is the second death." 27 St. Paul, too, plainly avers that the damned are punished forever. " The wicked," he says, " will pay the penalty of everlast- ing ruin, from before the face of the Lord and the glory of his might." 28 Tradition is equally positive. St. Cyp- rian declares that the fire of Hell is everlasting and no respite is granted to the damned. 29 St. Gregory, in a char- acteristic passage of his Expositio in Librutn Job, gener- ally known by the title of Moralia, calls Hell " mors sine morte, finis sine fine, defectus sine defectu, quia et mors vivit et finis semper incipit et deficere defectus nescit." 30
d) Philosophy cannot furnish conclusive evi- dence for the eternity of Hell, but it can show that this truth is not repugnant to reason and
rum contraria et vana, nulla aucto- ritate fulto."
25 Cfr. H. Hurter, S.J., Compen- dium Theologiae Dogmat., Vol. Ill, 11. 808.
26 Apoc. XIV. xi : Kal 6 Kawrbs tov paaavurftov airwv els altera.* alwvwv dva^ahet.
27 Apoc. XX, 14: Kal 6 davarot Kal lp\4\&r)car els r^r \tprnr tov mvpSs- ovros 6 Odvaros d devrepos iffrtviCfr* Apoc. XXI, 8.)
28a Thess. I, 9: "Qui poenas dabunt in inter it u aeternas (dlKrjp rlaovffiw 6\edpov alwrtor) a facie Domini et a gloria virtutis eius."
29 Ad Demetr., 24: " Cremabit addictos ardens semper gehenna et vivacibus ftammis vorax poena. Nec erit, unde habere torment a vel re- quiem possint aliquando vel Unern."
so Moralia, IX, 66.
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that the objections raised against it prove nothing.
o) When the wicked soul enters into the status termini, it realizes that it is irrevocably lost. God, who alone could save it, refuses to do so. " He who falls into mortal sin by his own free will," says St. Thomas, " puts himself into a state from which he cannot be rescued except with the help of God, just as one who casts him- self into an abyss from which he could not escape un- aided, might say that it was his will to stay there for- ever, no matter what else he may have thought." 81 The final decision being irrevocable, the will is confirmed in malice and can no longer feel contrition. 82
Moreover, punishment must be coextensive with guilt. The guilt of mortal sin consists in the deprivation of grace, which loss, for those who have entered upon the status termini, is irretrievable, and consequently the reatus poenae, too, must be eternal. " Therefore," says St. Thomas, "whatever sins turn man away from God, so as to destroy charity, considered in themselves, incur a debt of eternal punishment." 88
p) It has been objected that there is no proportion be- tween a sinful act or thought, which lasts but one brief moment, and eternal punishment. The comparison is not correctly drawn. Though the sinful act (peccatutn
81 Summa Theol., Supplement, qu. 99, art. i : " Qui in peccatum mor- tale labitur propria voluntate, se ponit in statu, a quo erui non pot- est nisi divinitus adiutus; sicut si aliquis se in foveam proiiceret, unde exire non posset, nisi adiutus, posset did quod in aeternum ibi manere voluerit, quantumcunque aliter co- git arei."
82 Cfr. Op. cit., qu. 98, art x sqq.
zz Summa Theol., ia 2ae, qu. 87, art. 3: " Et ideo quae cun que pec- cata avertunt a Deo caritatem au- ferentia, quantum est de se, indu- cunt reatum aeternae poenae/' — Other arguments apud Sachs, Die ewige Dauer der Hollenstrafen, Paderborn 2900.
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actuate) be brief and transient, the ensuing sinful habitus or state endures. St. Thomas explains this with his wonted lucidity as follows : " The fact that adultery or murder is committed in a moment, does not call for a momentary punishment; in fact, these crimes are some- times punished by imprisonment or banishment for life, sometimes even by death; . . . this punishment, in its own way, represents the eternity of punishment inflicted by God." 84
The so-called misericordes, whom St. Augustine com- batted, 35 appealed to the mercy of God as an argu- ment against eternal punishment. But God is not only merciful, He is also infinitely just and holy, and His justice and holiness compel Him to hate and punish sin in proportion to its guilt. The divine mercy is not a weakly sentimentality, but benevolent goodness tempered by strict justice. If there were any chance of conversion in the other world, or any hope that Hell might end, even after millions of years, how few would shrink from sin! 8 * The thought of eternal punishment alone deters the average man from crime.
St. Gregory of Nyssa's friendly attitude towards Ori- gen's theory of a universal apocatastasis is explicable on the assumption that he regarded the reform of the evil- doer as the sole object of punishment. This view is in- correct. Punishment is inflicted primarily to satisfy di- vine justice and to vindicate and restore the disturbed moral order (poena vindicativa) . 8T Not even worldly
**Sumtna TheoL, ia aae, qu. 87, totem poenae divinitus inMctae"
art. 3, ad 1: " Non enim quia z*De Civitate Dei, XXI, 18, 1.
adulterium vel homicidium in mo- 86 Cfr. St. Jerome, In Ioa., 3, 6
mento committitur, propter hoc mo- (Migne, P. L., XXV, 1142).
mentane& poent punitur. sed quan- 37 Cfr. Pohle-Preuss, God: His
doque quid em perpetuo carcere vel Knowobility, Essence, end Attributes,
exUio, quandoque etiam morte, ... pp. 460 sqq. 9% tic repraesentat sue modo oeterni*
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justice can get along without vindictive punishments, though Lombroso and Liszt have tried to abolish them by declaring all crimes to be the result of bodily disease or mental disorder. " Even the punishment that is inflicted according to human laws," says St. Thomas, " is not al- ways intended as a medicine for the one who is punished, but sometimes only for others. Thus when a thief is hanged, this is not done for his own amendment, but for the sake of others, that at least they may be deterred from crime through fear of punishment." 88
Another objection raised against the dogma of eternal punishment is based upon the desire for happiness which the Creator has implanted in every human heart. But God is not obliged to gratify this desire in all men. He has conditioned eternal happiness upon a good life. If the innate desire for happiness remains unsatisfied in some, it is their fault, not God's.
It is true that the happiness of rational creatures is the secondary purpose of creation ; but, as we have seen in a previous treatise, 89 this purpose is subordinate to the glory of God (gloria Dei), which is attained by the manifesta- tion of His justice no less than His mercy.
2. The Pains of Hell Differ in Degree According to Guilt. — Though one single mor- tal sin renders the sinner as deserving of Hell as a thousand crimes, justice demands that sins be pun- ished in proportion Ho their grievousness. Ac-
ZBSumma Theol., ia aae, qu. 87, art 3, ad 21 "Poena, quae etiam secundum leges hunxanas inMgitur, non semper est medicinalis ei, qui punitur, sed solum aliis; sicut quum latro suspenditur, non ut ipse emen-
detur, sed propter alios, ut saltern metu poenae peccare desistant."
80 Pohle-Preuss, God the Author of Nature and the Supernatural, pp. 80 tqq.
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cordingly, to the degrees of reward and happiness enjoyed by the Blessed in Heaven there corre- spond analogous degrees of punishment and mis- ery in Hell. This is the express teaching of the Church. 40
a) Our Divine Saviour draws a clear-cut dis- tinction between the judgment pronounced on Tyre and Sidon and the penalty inflicted on the unbelieving inhabitants of Corozain and Beth- saida. The inspired seer of the Apocalypse says of the corrupt city of Babylon : "Render to her even as herself hath rendered, and give her dou- ble according to her works ; ... as much as she hath glorified herself and wantoned in luxury, so much give her of torment and mourning/' 41 Cf r. Wisd. VI, 7 sqq. : . . the mighty shall be mightily tormented, . .\ a greater punishment is ready for the more mighty/' 42
b) The Fathers seem to have held that the poena damni, being a mere privation, is inflicted equally on all, but that the poenae sensus differ in degree. Thus St. Gregory the Great says: "As there are many mansions in the house of the Father, according to the different degrees of vir- tue, so the disparity of guilt subjects the damned
40"Poenis tamen disparibus" in deliciis fuit, tantum date UU tor-
{Cone. Florent., A. D. 1439). mentum et luctum."
41 Apoc. XVIII, 6 sq. : '* Reddite 42 " Potent es autem potent er tor-
Uli stent et ipsa reddidit vobis: et menta patientur, . . . fortioribus,
duplicate ei duplkia secundum opera autem fortior instat cruciatio," eius; . , . quantum gloriilcavit 4$ et
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in different degrees to the fire of Hell." 43 Dante exemplifies this belief in the concentric circles of his Inferno. Of course only a mysterious and essentially supernatural fire can produce such radically different effects.
Readings : — Patuzzi, De Futuro Impiorum Statu, Venice 1749. — Carle, Du Dogme Catholique sur VEnfer, Paris 1842. — J. Bautz, Die Holle, 2nd ed., Mayence 1905. — L. de Segur, L'Enfer, 39th ed., Paris 1905 (German tr., Die Holle, 3rd ed., Mayence 1889.)— Fr. Schmid, Quaestiones Selectae ex Theologia Dog- tnatica, pp. 145 sqq., Paderborn 1891. — Tournelize, Opinions du Jour sur les Peines d'Outre-tombe: Feu Mitaphorique, Univer- solistne, Conditionalisnte, Mitigation, Paris 1899. — Passaglia, De Aeternitate Poenarum deque Igne Inferno, Rome 1854. — J. Sachs, Die ewige Dauer der Hollenstrafen, Paderborn 1900. — C. Gutber- let, "Die Poena Sensus," in the Mayence Katholik, 1901, II, 305 sqq. — F. X. Kiefl, Die Ewigkeit der Holle und ihre spekulative Begrundung, Paderborn 1905. — J. Hontheim, S.J., art. "Hell," in the Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. VII, pp. 207-211. — Card. Billot, De Novissimis, Rome 1902. — Hewitt, " I gnus Aeternus," in the Catholic World, LXVII (1893), pp. 426 sqq.— V. Morton, Thoughts on Hell; A Study in Eschatology, London 1899. — Jos. Rickaby, S.J., Everlasting Punishment, London 1916. — Dublin Review, Jan. 188 1.— Charles R. Roche, S.J., "Eternal Punish- ment," in the Irish Theological Quarterly, Vol. V (1910), No. 17, pp. 64-79.
48 Moral, IV, 47: "Stent in diver so supplicio gehennae ignibus domo Patris mansion es multae sunt subiicit disparitas criminis" pro diver sit ate virtutis, sic datnnatos