Hell Through The Ages

Justin Martyr, c. 160

Hell [Gehenna] is a place where those who have lived wickedly are to be
punished.

Some are sent to be punished unceasingly into judgment and condemna-

tion of fire.

Irenaeus, c. 180
Eternal fire is prepared for sinners. The Lord has plainly declared this and
the rest of the Scriptures demonstrate it.

Clement of Alexandria, c. 195

All souls are immortal, even those of the wicked. Yet, it would be better for
them if they were not deathless. For they are punished with the endless
vengeance of quenchless fire. Since they do not die, it is impossible for
them to have an end put to their misery.

From the Encyclopedia of Early Christianity (by Everett Ferguson, Garland,

1999)
The overwhelming majority of Christian writers held that the wicked were to
be eternally punished, but at about the same time that Tertullian was rejoic-
ing in the eternal doom of the wicked, Clement expressed reservations
about an everlasting chastisement. In the Miscellanies, he argued that God
does not punish, he corrects;

Origen agreed with Clement that God did not chasten vindictively, but re-
medially. More important, however, was the fact that everlasting punish-
ment meant that someone was capable of thwarting the will of God forever,
since it was the divine will that all be saved and come to the knowledge of
the truth (1 Tim. 2:4; Princ. 3.6.5). As long as hell remained, all were not
redeemed and God's will was frustrated. For Origen, there was no soul so
wicked that it could not be cleansed eventually from its evil (Cels. 6.25-26).

In Origen's view, hell would eventually be emptied of the wicked because

th punishment of fire would eventually burn off the dross of the soul and
enable it to turn once again to God. Indeed, even Satan himself would one
day turn once again to God as an obedient servant (Princ. 3.6.5-6; cf.
Jerome, Epist. Pachom. 7).
St. Augustine (5th Century)
From City of God,
Chapter 2.—Whether It is Possible for Bodies to Last for
Ever in Burning Fire.

What, then, can I adduce to convince those who refuse to

believe that human bodies, animated and living, can not only
survive death, but also last in the torments of everlasting
fires? They will not allow us to refer this simply to the power
of the Almighty, but demand that we persuade them by some
example. If, then, we reply to them, that there are animals
which certainly are corruptible, because they are mortal, and
which yet live in the midst of flames; and likewise, that in
springs of water so hot that no one can put his hand in it with
impunity a species of worm is found, which not only lives
there, but cannot live elsewhere.

St. Isaac of Syria (8th Century)

... those who find themselves in Hell will be chastised by the
scourge of love. How cruel and bitter this torment of love will
be! For those who understand that they have sinned against
love, undergo greater suffering than those produced by the
most fearful tortures. The sorrow which takes hold of the
heart, which has sinned against love, is more piercing than
any other pain. It is not right to say that the sinners in Hell
are deprived of the love of God ... But love acts in two ways,
as suffering of the reproved, and as joy in the blessed!

Pope Benedict XII (1336)

Souls of the damned “suffer the pain of hell"

Council of Florence (1439)

decreed that damned souls would be "punished with different
punishments."
Catechism of the Catholic Church
1033 We cannot be united with God unless we freely choose
to love him. But we cannot love God if we sin gravely against
him, against our neighbor or against ourselves: "He who does
not love remains in death. Anyone who hates his brother is a
murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life
abiding in him." Our Lord warns us that we shall be separated
from him if we fail to meet the serious needs of the poor and
the little ones who are his brethren. To die in mortal sin with-
out repenting and accepting God's merciful love means re-
maining separated from him for ever by our own free choice.
This state of definitive self- exclusion from communion with
God and the blessed is called "hell."

1034 Jesus often speaks of "Gehenna" of "the unquenchable

fire" reserved for those who to the end of their lives refuse to
believe and be converted, where both soul and body can be
lost. Jesus solemnly proclaims that he "will send his angels,
and they will gather . . . all evil doers, and throw them into the
furnace of fire," and that he will pronounce the condemnation:
"Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire!"

1035 The teaching of the Church affirms the existence of hell

and its eternity. Immediately after death the souls of those
who die in a state of mortal sin descend into hell, where they
suffer the punishments of hell, "eternal fire." The chief punish-
ment of hell is eternal separation from God, in whom alone
man can possess the life and happiness for which he was
created and for which he longs.

Dante (14th Century)

Abandon all hope, ye who enter here. The Divine Comedy

Martin Luther (1517)

Theses 94 . Christians should be exhorted to be diligent in fol-
lowing Christ, their Head, through penalties, death and hell.
John Calvin (1599)
Many persons . . . have entered into ingenious debates
about the eternal fire by which the wicked will be tor-
mented after judgment. But we may conclude from many
passages of Scripture that it is a metaphorical expres-
sion. . . . Let us lay aside the speculations, by which fool-
ish men weary themselves to no purpose, and satisfy
ourselves with believing that these forms of speech de-
note, in a manner suited to our feeble capacity, a dread-
ful torment, which no man can now comprehend and no
language can express.

Jonathan Edwards (1741)

Consider this, you that are here present, that yet remain
in an unregenerate state. That God will execute the
fierceness of his anger, implies, that he will inflict wrath
without any pity. When God beholds the ineffable ex-
tremity of your case, and sees your torment to be so
vastly disproportioned to your strength, and sees how
your poor soul is crushed, and sinks down, as it were,
into an infinite gloom; he will have no compassion upon
you, he will not forbear the executions of his wrath, or in
the least lighten his hand; there shall be no moderation
or mercy, nor will God then at all stay his rough wind; he
will have no regard to your welfare, nor be at all careful
lest you should suffer too much in any other sense, than
only that you shall not suffer beyond what strict justice
requires. Nothing shall be withheld, because it is so hard
for you to bear.
Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God

C.S. Lewis (20th Century)

The doors of hell are locked on the inside.