Chapter 18.–Of Those Who Fancy That, on Account of the Saints’ Intercession, Man Shall Be Damned in the Last Judgment.

There are others, again, with whose opinions I have become acquainted
in conversation, who, though they seem to reverence the holy
Scriptures, are yet of reprehensible life, and who accordingly, in
their own interest, attribute to God a still greater compassion towards
men. For they acknowledge that it is truly predicted in the divine
word that the wicked and unbelieving are worthy of punishment, but they
assert that, when the judgment comes, mercy will prevail. For, say
they, God, having compassion on them, will give them up to the prayers
and intercessions of His saints. For if the saints used to pray for
them when they suffered from their cruel hatred, how much more will
they do so when they see them prostrate and humble suppliants? For we
cannot, they say, believe that the saints shall lose their bowels of
compassion when they have attained the most perfect and complete
holiness; so that they who, when still sinners, prayed for their
enemies, should now, when they are freed from sin, withhold from
interceding for their suppliants. Or shall God refuse to listen to so
many of His beloved children, when their holiness has purged their
prayers of all hindrance to His answering them? And the passage of the
psalm which is cited by those who admit that wicked men and infidels
shall be punished for a long time, though in the end delivered from all
sufferings, is claimed also by the persons we are now speaking of as
making much more for them. The verse runs: “Shall God forget to be
gracious? Shall He in anger shut up His tender mercies?” [1530] His
anger, they say, would condemn all that are unworthy of everlasting
happiness to endless punishment. But if He suffer them to be punished
for a long time, or even at all, must He not shut up His tender
mercies, which the Psalmist implies He will not do? For he does not
say, Shall He in anger shut up His tender mercies for a long period?
but he implies that He will not shut them up at all.

And they deny that thus God’s threat of judgment is proved to be false
even though He condemn no man, any more than we can say that His threat
to overthrow Nineveh was false, though the destruction which was
absolutely predicted was not accomplished. For He did not say,
“Nineveh shall be overthrown if they do not repent and amend their
ways,” but without any such condition He foretold that the city should
be overthrown. And this prediction, they maintain, was true because
God predicted the punishment which they deserved, although He was not
to inflict it. For though He spared them on their repentance yet He
was certainly aware that they would repent, and, notwithstanding,
absolutely and definitely predicted that the city should be
overthrown. This was true, they say, in the truth of severity, because
they were worthy of it; but in respect of the compassion which checked
His anger, so that He spared the suppliants from the punishment with
which He had threatened the rebellious, it was not true. If, then, He
spared those whom His own holy prophet was provoked at His sparing, how
much more shall He spare those more wretched suppliants for whom all
His saints shall intercede? And they suppose that this conjecture of
theirs is not hinted at in Scripture, for the sake of stimulating many
to reformation of life through fear of very protracted or eternal
sufferings, and of stimulating others to pray for those who have not
reformed. However, they think that the divine oracles are not
altogether silent on this point; for they ask to what purpose is it
said, “How great is Thy goodness which Thou hast hidden for them that
fear Thee,” [1531] if it be not to teach us that the great and hidden
sweetness of God’s mercy is concealed in order that men may fear? To
the same purpose they think the apostle said, “For God hath concluded
all men in unbelief, that He may have mercy upon all,” [1532]
signifying that no one should be condemned by God. And yet they who
hold this opinion do not extend it to the acquittal or liberation of
the devil and his angels. Their human tenderness is moved only towards
men, and they plead chiefly their own cause, holding out false hopes of
impunity to their own depraved lives by means of this quasi compassion
of God to the whole race. Consequently they who promise this impunity
even to the prince of the devils and his satellites make a still fuller
exhibition of the mercy of God.

[1530] Ps. lxxvii. 9.

[1531] Ps. xxxi. 19.

[1532] Rom. xi. 32.

Chapter 17.–Of Those Who Fancy that No Men Shall Be Punished Eternally.

I must now, I see, enter the lists of amicable controversy with those
tender-hearted Christians who decline to believe that any, or that all
of those whom the infallibly just Judge may pronounce worthy of the
punishment of hell, shall suffer eternally, and who suppose that they
shall be delivered after a fixed term of punishment, longer or shorter
according to the amount of each man’s sin. In respect of this matter,
Origen was even more indulgent; for he believed that even the devil
himself and his angels, after suffering those more severe and prolonged
pains which their sins deserved, should be delivered from their
torments, and associated with the holy angels. But the Church, not
without reason, condemned him for this and other errors, especially for
his theory of the ceaseless alternation of happiness and misery, and
the interminable transitions from the one state to the other at fixed
periods of ages; for in this theory he lost even the credit of being
merciful, by allotting to the saints real miseries for the expiation of
their sins, and false happiness, which brought them no true and secure
joy, that is, no fearless assurance of eternal blessedness. Very
different, however, is the error we speak of, which is dictated by the
tenderness of these Christians who suppose that the sufferings of those
who are condemned in the judgment will be temporary, while the
blessedness of all who are sooner or later set free will be eternal.
Which opinion, if it is good and true because it is merciful, will be
so much the better and truer in proportion as it becomes more
merciful. Let, then, this fountain of mercy be extended, and flow
forth even to the lost angels, and let them also be set free, at least
after as many and long ages as seem fit! Why does this stream of mercy
flow to all the human race, and dry up as soon as it reaches the
angelic? And yet they dare not extend their pity further, and propose
the deliverance of the devil himself. Or if any one is bold enough to
do so, he does indeed put to shame their charity, but is himself
convicted of error that is more unsightly, and a wresting of God’s
truth that is more perverse, in proportion as his clemency of sentiment
seems to be greater. [1529]

[1529] On the heresy of Origen, see Epiphanius (Epistola ad Joannem
Hierosol.); Jerome (Epistola 61, ad Pammachium); and Augustin (De
Haeres, 43). Origen’s opinion was condemned by Anastasius (Jerome,
Apologia adv. Ruffinum and Epistola 78, ad Pammachium), and after
Augustin’s death by Vigilius and Emperor Justinian, in the Fifth
(OEcumenical Council, Nicephorus Callistus, xvii. 27, and the Acts of
the Council, iv. 11).–Coquaeus.