But eternal punishment seems hard and unjust to human perceptions, because in the weakness of our mortal condition there is wanting that highest and purest wisdom by which it can be perceived how great a wickedness was committed in that first transgression.The more enjoyment man found in God, the greater was his wickedness in abandoning Him; and he who destroyed in himself a good which might have been eternal, became worthy of eternal evil.Hence the whole mass of the human race is condemned; for he who at first gave entrance to sin has been punished with all his posterity who were in him as in a root, so that no one is exempt from this just and due punishment, unless delivered by mercy and undeserved grace; and the an race is so apportioned that in some is displayed the efficacy of merciful grace, in the rest the efficacy of just retribution.For both could not be displayed in all; for if all had remained(2) under the punishment of just condemnation, there would have been seen in no one the mercy of redeeming grace.And, on the other hand, if all had been transferred from darkness to light, the severity of retribution would have been manifested in none.But many more are left under punishment than are delivered from it, in order that it may thus be shown what was due to all.And had it been inflicted on all, no one could justly have found fault with the justice of Him who taketh vengeance; whereas, in the deliverance of so many from that just award, there is cause to render the most cordial thanks to the gratuitous bounty of Him who delivers.
CHAP.13.--AGAINST THE OPINION OF THOSE WHO THINK THAT THE PUNISHMENTSOF THE
WICKED AFTER DEATH ARE PURGATORIAL.
The Platonists, indeed, while they maintain that no sins are unpunished, suppose that all punishment is administered for remedial purposes,(3) be it inflicted by human or divine law, in this life or after death; for a man may be scathless here, or, though punished, may yet not amend.Hence that passage of Virgil, where, when he had said of our earthly bodies and mortal members, that our souls derive--"Hence wild desires and grovelling fears, And human laughter, human tears; Immured in dungeon-seeming night, They look abroad, yet see no light,"goes on to say:
"Nay, when at last the life has fled, And left the body cold and dead, Ee'n then there passes not away The painful heritage of clay; Full many a long-contracted stain Perforce must linger deep in grain.So penal sufferings they endure For ancient crime, to make them pure; Some hang aloft in open view, For winds to pierce them through and through, While others purge their guilt deep-dyed In burning fire or whelming tide."(4)They who are of this opinion would have all punishments after death to be purgatorial; and as the elements of air, fire, and water are superior to earth, one or other of these may be the instrument of expiating and purging away the stain contracted by the contagion of earth.So Virgil hints at the air in the words, "Some hang aloft for winds to pierce;" at the water in "whelming tide;" and at fire in the expression "in burning fire." For our part, we recognize that even in this life some punishments are purgatorial,--not, indeed, to those whose life is none the better, but rather the worse for them, but to those who are constrained by them to amend their life.All other punishments, whether temporal or eternal, inflicted as they are on every one by divine providence, are sent either on account of past sins, or of sins presently allowed in the life, or to exercise and reveal a man's graces.They may be inflicted by the instrumentality of bad men and angels as well as of the good.For even if any one suffers some hurt through another's wickedness or mistake, the man indeed sins whose ignorance or injustice does the harm; but God, who by His just though hidden judgment permits it to be done, sins not.But temporary punishments are suffered by some in this life only, by others after death, by others both now and then; but all of them before that last and strictest judgment.But of those who suffer temporary punishments after death, all are not doomed to those everlasting pains which are to follow that judgment;for to some, as we have already said, what is not remitted in this world is remitted in the next, that is, they are not punished with the eternal punishment.of the world to come.
CHAP.14.--OF THE TEMPORARY PUNISHMENTS OF THIS LIFE TO WHICH THE HUMANCONDITION
IS SUBJECT.