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First of all, it behoves us to inquire and to recognize why the
Church has not been able to tolerate the idea that promises cleansing
or indulgence to the devil even after the most severe and protracted
punishment. For so many holy men, imbued with the spirit of the Old
and New Testament, did not grudge to angels of any rank or character
that they should enjoy the blessedness of the heavenly kingdom after
being cleansed by suffering, but rather they perceived that they could
not invalidate nor evacuate the divine sentence which the Lord
predicted that He would pronounce in the judgment, saying, "Depart
from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and
his angels." For here it is evident that the devil and his angels
shall burn in everlasting fire. And there is also that declaration in
the Apocalypse, "The devil their deceiver was cast into the lake of
fire and brimstone, where also are the beast and the false prophet.
And they shall be tormented day and night for ever." In the former
passage "everlasting" is used, in the latter "for ever;" and by
these words Scripture is wont to mean nothing else than endless
duration. And therefore no other reason, no reason more obvious and
just, can be found for holding it as the fixed and immovable belief of
the truest piety, that the devil and his angels shall never return to
the justice and life of the saints, than that Scripture, which
deceives no man, says that God spared them not, and that they were
condemned beforehand by Him, and cast into prisons of darkness in
hell, being reserved to the judgment of the last day, when eternal
fire shall receive them, in which they shall be tormented world without
end. And if this be so, how can it be believed that all men, or even
some, shall be withdrawn from the endurance of punishment after some
time has been spent in it? how can this be believed without enervating
our faith in the eternal punishment of the devils? For if all or some
of those to whom it shall be said, "Depart from me, ye cursed, into
everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels," are not to
be always in that fire, then what reason is there for believing that
the devil and his angels shall always be there? Or is perhaps the
sentence of God, which is to be pronounced on wicked men and angels
alike, to be true in the case of the angels, false in that of men?
Plainly it will be so if the conjectures of men are to weigh more than
the word of God. But because this is absurd, they who desire to be
rid of eternal punishment ought to abstain from arguing against God,
and rather, while yet there is opportunity, obey the divine commands.
Then what a fond fancy is it to suppose that eternal punishment means
long continued punishment, while eternal life means life without end,
since Christ in the very same passage spoke of both in similar terms in
one and the same sentence, "These shall go away into eternal
punishment, but the righteous into life eternal!" If both destinies
are "eternal," then we must either understand both as long-continued
but at last terminating, or both as endless. For they are
correlative, on the one hand, punishment eternal, on the other hand,
life eternal. And to say in one and the same sense, life eternal
shall be endless, punishment eternal shall come to an end, is the
height of absurdity. Wherefore, as the eternal life of the saints
shall be endless, so too the eternal punishment of those who are doomed
to it shall have no end.
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