Now they who would refer both the fire and the worm to the spirit, and not to the body, affirm that the wicked, who are separated from the kindgdom of God, shall be burned, as it were, by the anguish of a spirit repenting too late and fruitlessly;and they contend that fire is therefore not inappropriately used to express this burning torment, as when the apostle exclaims "Who is offended, and I burn not?"(2) The worm, too, they think, is to be similarly understood.For it is written they say, "As the moth consumes the garment, and the worm the wood, so does grief consume the heart of a man."(3) But they who make no doubt that in that future punishment both body and soul shall suffer, affirm that the body shall be burned with fire, while the soul shall be, as it were, gnawed by a worm of anguish.Though this view is more reasonable,--for it is absurd to suppose that either body or soul will escape pain in the future punishment,--yet, for my own part, I find it easier to understand both as referring to the body than to suppose that neither does; and I think that Scripture is silent regarding the spiritual pain of the damned, because, though not expressed, it is necessarily understood that in a body thus tormented the soul also is tortured with a fruitless repentance.For we read in the ancient Scriptures, "The vengeance of the flesh of the ungodly is fire and worms."(4) It might have been more briefly said, "The vengeance of the ungodly."Why, then, was it said, "The flesh of the ungodly," unless because both the fire and the worm are to be the punishment of the flesh? Or if the object of the writer in saying, "The vengeance of the flesh," was to indicate that this shall be the punishment of those who live after the flesh (for this leads to the second death, as the apostle intimated when he said, "For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die"(5), let each one make his own choice, either assigning the fire to the body and the worm to the soul,--the one figuratively, the other really,--or assigning both really to the body.For I have already sufficiently made out that animals can live in the fire, in burning without being consumed, in without dying, by a miracle of the most omnipotent Creator, to whom no one can deny that this is possible, if he be not ignorant by whom has been made all that is wonderful in all nature.
For it is God Himself who has wrought all these miracles, great and small, in this world which I have mentioned, and incomparably more which I have omitted, and who has enclosed these marvels in this world, itself the greatest miracle of all.Let each man, then, choose which he will, whether he thinks that the worm is real and pertains to the body, or that spiritual things are meant by bodily representations, and that it belongs to the soul.But which of these is true will be more readily discovered by the facts themselves, when there shall be in the saints such knowledge as shall not require that their own experience teach them the nature of these punishments, but as shall, by its own fullness and perfection, suffice to instruct them in this matter.For "now we know in part, until that which is perfect is come;"(6)only, this we believe about those future bodies, that they shall be such as shall certainly be pained by the fire.
CHAP.10.--WHETHER THE FIRE OF HELL, IF IT BE MATERIAL FIRE, CAN BURNTHE WICKED
SPIRITS, THAT IS TO SAY, DEVILS, WHO ARE IMMATERIAL.
Here arises the question: If the fire is not to be immaterial, analogous to the pain of the soul, but material, burning by contact, so that bodies may be tormented in it, how can evil spirits be punished in it? For it is undoubtedly the same fire which is to serve for the punishment of men and of devils, according to the words of Christ: "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels;"(7) unless, perhaps, as learned men have thought, the devils have a kind of body made of that dense and humid air which we feel strikes us when the wind is blowing.And if this kind of substance could not be affected by fire, it could not burn when heated in the baths.For in order to burn, it is first burned, and affects other things as itself is affected.But if any one maintains that the devils have no bodies, this is not a matter either to be laboriously investigated, or to be debated with keenness.For why may we not assert that even immaterial spirits may, in some extraordinary way, yet really be pained by the punishment of material fire, if the spirits of men, which also are certainly immaterial, are both now contained in material members of the body, and in the world to come shall be indissolubly united to their own bodies? Therefore, though the devils have no bodies, yet their spirits, that is, the devils themselves, shall be brought into thorough contact with the material fires, to be tormented by them; not that the fires themselves with which they are brought into contact shall be animated by their connection with these spirits, and become animals composed of body and spirit, but, as I said, this junction will be effected in a wonderful and ineffable way, so that they shall receive pain from the fires, but give no life to them.And, in truth, this other mode of union, by which bodies and spirits are bound together and become animals, is thoroughly marvellous, and beyond the comprehension of man, though this it is which is man.