Latin original · 40 verses · some words can be tapped for a gloss · long chapter, split into parts; this part covers 3:3045–3:3084 (3370 verses in all)
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although the very life of mortals is wholly a penalty, because it is wholly a temptation, as the sacred writings proclaim, where it is written: 'Is not the life of man upon earth a temptation?' For no small penalty is that very foolishness or ignorance, which is deservedly judged so much to be avoided, that children are compelled by penalties full of pain to learn the various crafts and letters; and the very learning to which they are driven by penalties is so penal to them, that sometimes they would rather endure the very penalties by which they are compelled to learn, than learn. But who would not shudder, and choose rather to die, if it were proposed to him either that death must be endured, or infancy again?
Indeed, that infancy begins this light not with laughter but with weeping, in some way prophesies, all unknowing, into what evils it has entered. They say that Zoroaster alone laughed when he was born, and that monstrous laughter foreboded him nothing good. For he is reported to have been the inventor of the magical arts; which indeed could not avail him even for the vain felicity of the present life against his enemies; for he was overcome in war by Ninus, king of the Assyrians, though he himself was king of the Bactrians. Assuredly that which is written:
'A heavy yoke is upon the sons of Adam, from the day of their coming out of their mother's womb until the day of their burial into the mother of all,' must so necessarily be fulfilled, that even little ones, already loosed by the laver of regeneration from the bond of original sin (by which alone they were held), nevertheless, suffering many evils, some at times even suffer the assaults of malign spirits. Yet far be it that such suffering should harm them, if they finish this life at that age even while that very suffering grows heavier and forces the soul out of the body. CHAPTER XV. That the whole work of God's grace, which rescues us from the depth of the old evil, pertains to the newness of the age to come.
Yet truly in the heavy yoke that is laid upon the sons of Adam, from the day of their coming out of their mother's womb until the day of their burial into the mother of all, even this marvelous evil is found: that we may be sober and understand that this life has been made penal for us because of that exceedingly wicked sin which was perpetrated in paradise, and that the whole of what is done with us through the New Testament pertains to nothing but the new inheritance of the new age — so that here, having received the pledge, we may in due time attain that of which this is the pledge; but now we walk in hope, and, advancing from day to day, by the Spirit mortify the deeds of the flesh. For the Lord knows those who are His;
and as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God — but by grace, not by nature. For the only Son of God by nature, for our sake became by mercy the son of man, that we, by nature sons of man, might through Him by grace become sons of God. For He, remaining unchangeable, took up our nature in which to receive us, taking it from us; and holding fast to His own divinity, He became a partaker of our infirmity, so that we, changed for the better, might lay aside what we are — sinners and mortal — by participation in His immortality and righteousness, and might preserve what good He wrought in our nature, fulfilled in the highest good, in the goodness of His nature.
For just as through one man who sinned we came into this so heavy evil, so through one man who is likewise God, justifying us, we shall come to that good so sublime. Nor ought anyone to be confident that he has passed from the one to the other, unless he shall be there where no temptation will be — unless he shall hold that peace which this war seeks through many and varied conflicts, in which the flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. But this war would never have existed at all, if human nature, through free will, had stood fast in the rectitude in which it was made. But now, that nature which would not have happy peace with God, unhappily wars with itself; and although this is a wretched evil, it is nevertheless better than the earlier states of this life.
For it is better to be in conflict with vices than for them to rule without any conflict. It is better, I say, to have war with the hope of eternal peace, than captivity without any thought of deliverance. We desire indeed to be free even of this war, and we are kindled by the fire of divine love to lay hold of that most well-ordered peace, where with the firmest stability the lower are made subject to the higher. But if (which God forbid) there were no hope of so great a good, we ought rather to remain in the trouble of this conflict than, by not resisting the vices, to permit them dominion over us. CHAPTER XVI. Under what laws of grace all the ages of the regenerate are held.
Yet so great is the mercy of God toward the vessels of mercy, which He has prepared for glory, that even the first age of man — that is, infancy, which without any resistance lies subject to the flesh — and the second, which is called childhood, where reason has not yet taken up this struggle and lies almost beneath all vicious pleasures (for although it can now speak and therefore seems to have passed infancy, yet the weakness of mind is not yet capable of a precept): if such a one shall have received the sacraments of the Mediator, even if he finish this life in those years, having been transferred from the power of darkness into the kingdom of Christ, he is not only not prepared for eternal penalties, but does not even suffer any purgatorial torments after death.
For spiritual regeneration alone suffices, that after death there may not harm him what carnal generation contracted together with death. But when one has come to the age which is now capable of a precept and can be made subject to the command of the law, the war against the vices must be undertaken and waged sharply, lest it lead to damnable sins. And if indeed they are not yet strengthened by the habit of victories, they are more easily conquered and yield; but if they have grown accustomed to conquer and command, they are overcome only with toilsome difficulty. Nor does this happen truly and sincerely except through delight in true righteousness; and this is in the faith of Christ.
For if the law be present commanding, and the Spirit be absent assisting, then through the very prohibition, with desire growing and conquering, the guilt of sin's transgression is also added. Sometimes, indeed, the most open vices are conquered by other hidden vices, which are thought to be virtues, in which pride reigns, and a certain ruinous loftiness of self-pleasing. Then, therefore, vices are to be reckoned conquered, when they are conquered by the love of God, which God Himself alone gives, and not otherwise than through the Mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who became a partaker of our mortality, that He might make us partakers of His divinity.
But very few are of such great felicity that, from their very earliest youth, they commit no damnable sins, whether in disgraceful acts, or in crimes, or in the error of any wicked impiety, but by a great largesse of the Spirit suppress whatever could dominate them by carnal delight. Very many, however, having received the precept of the law, when they have first been conquered by the prevailing vices and have become its transgressors, then flee to assisting grace, by which they become victors — by repenting more bitterly and fighting more vehemently — over a mind first made subject to God and so set above the flesh.
Whoever, therefore, desires to escape the everlasting penalties, let him not only be baptized, but also be justified in Christ, and so truly pass over from the devil to Christ. But let him hold the opinion that there will be no purgatorial penalties except before that last and dreadful judgment. Yet it is by no means to be denied that even the eternal fire itself, according to the diversity of merits — albeit of evil men — will be lighter for some and heavier for others, whether its very force and heat be varied according to the punishment worthy of each, or whether it burns equally but is not felt with equal distress. CHAPTER XVII. On those who think that the penalties of no men will remain forever.
Now I see that we must deal, and dispute peaceably, with our merciful ones, who, concerning either all those men whom the most just Judge shall judge worthy of the punishment of hell, or concerning some of them, are unwilling to believe that an everlasting penalty will be; but they reckon that after the bounds of a certain time, longer or shorter according to the magnitude of each one's sin, they are to be delivered thence. In which matter Origen was assuredly more merciful, who believed that even the devil himself and his angels, after graver and more prolonged torments according to their merits, were to be rescued from those torments and joined to the holy angels.
But the Church, not undeservedly, condemned him both for this and for some other things, and especially for the interminable goings and returnings — without cessation from these to those and from those to these, at fixed intervals of ages — of alternating blessednesses and miseries. For he lost even that which seemed merciful, by making for the saints true miseries, in which they should pay penalties, and false blessednesses, in which they would not have the true and secure (that is, certain without fear) joy of an eternal good. But far otherwise does the mercy of these errs by human feeling, who think that the miseries of men condemned in that judgment are temporal, but the felicity of all who, sooner or later, are delivered, is eternal.
If this opinion is good and true because it is merciful, then it will be so much the better and truer the more merciful it is. Let, then, the fountain of this mercy be extended and deepened even to the damned angels, to be delivered at least after many and however prolonged ages. Why does it flow out as far as the whole of human nature, and yet, when it comes to the angelic, soon dries up? They do not dare, however, to extend their pitying further and to reach even to the liberation of the devil himself. But if anyone should dare it, he surely outdoes these men. And yet he is found to err the more deformedly and to be the more perversely against the right words of God, the more clemently he seems to himself to feel. CHAPTER XVIII. On those
who think that, in the last judgment, no man at all will be condemned, on account of the intercession of the saints. There are also those — such as I myself have experienced in our conversations — who, although they seem to venerate the holy Scriptures, are to be reproved in their morals; and in pleading their own cause they attribute to God a much greater mercy toward the human race than these others do. For they say that concerning evil and unfaithful men it has indeed been divinely foretold as true that they are worthy of it; but that when it has come to the judgment, mercy will overcome. For the merciful God, they say, will pardon them at the prayers and intercessions of His saints.
For if they prayed for them when they suffered them as enemies, how much more when they shall see them prostrate, humble, and suppliant! For it is not to be believed, they say, that the saints will then lose their bowels of mercy, when they shall be of the fullest and most perfect holiness — so that those who prayed for their enemies when they themselves were not without sin, should then not pray for their suppliants, when they shall have begun to have no sin at all. Or will God then not hear so many and such great sons of His, when in their so great holiness He shall find no impediment to their prayer?
But as for the testimony of the psalm — both those who allow that unfaithful and impious men are tormented at least for a long time and afterward rescued from all evils, but still more these others, say it is in their favor — where it is read: 'Will God forget to be merciful, or will He in His anger restrain His mercies?' His anger, they say, is that all who are unworthy of everlasting blessedness should, by His own judgment, be punished with everlasting punishment. But if He allowed it to be either long or at all, then assuredly, that this might come to pass, He would restrain His mercies in His anger — which the psalm says He will not do. For it does not say, 'Will He long restrain His mercies in His anger?' but it shows that He will not restrain them at all.
Thus, then, these men would have God's threat of judgment not be false, although He is going to condemn no one — just as we cannot call false that threat of His by which He said He would overthrow the city of Nineveh; and yet, they say, what He foretold without any condition was not done. For He did not say, 'Nineveh shall be overthrown if they do not repent and amend themselves'; but, without adding this, He foretold the future overthrow of that city. This threat they therefore think to be truthful, because God foretold that which they truly deserved to suffer, although He Himself was not going to do it.
For even though He spared the penitents, they say, He certainly was not ignorant that they would do penance, and yet absolutely and definitely He foretold that their overthrow would come to pass. This, then, they say, was in the truth of severity, because they deserved it; but in the reckoning of mercy it was not, which He did not restrain in His anger, so that by it He spared the suppliants the penalty which He had threatened against the obstinate. Thus, then, He spared them at that time, they say, when by sparing He was going to grieve His own holy prophet — how much more then will He more mercifully spare the suppliants, when, that He may spare, all His saints shall pray!
But this, which they themselves surmise in their own hearts, they think the divine Scriptures were silent about, so that many might correct themselves through fear of penalties either prolonged or eternal, and that there might be those who could pray for those who shall not have corrected themselves; nor yet do they suppose that the divine oracles were altogether silent about it. For to what purpose, they say, is it written: 'How great is the multitude of Thy sweetness, O Lord, which Thou hast hidden for those who fear Thee,' unless that we may understand that the so great and secret sweetness of the divine mercy was hidden because of fear? They add also that for this reason the apostle said: 'For God hath concluded all in unbelief, that He may have mercy upon all,' by which he signified that no one will be condemned by Him.
Yet not even these who hold this view extend their opinion to the liberation, or to no condemnation, of the devil and his angels; for they are moved by a human mercy concerning men alone, and they plead above all their own cause, promising — by a general mercy, as it were, of God toward the human race — a false impunity to their own lost morals. And by this they will be surpassed in proclaiming God's mercy by those who promise this same impunity even to the prince of demons and his satellites. CHAPTER XIX. On those who promise impunity for all sins even to heretics, on account of participation in the body of Christ.
Likewise there are others who promise liberation from the eternal punishment not even to all men whatsoever, but only to those washed by Christ's baptism, who become partakers of His body — however they may have lived, in whatever heresy or impiety they may have been — on account of that which Jesus said: 'This is the bread which came down from heaven, that if anyone eat of it, he may not die. I am the living bread, who came down from heaven. If anyone eat of this bread, he shall live forever.' Therefore, they say, these must of necessity be rescued from eternal death, and at some time be brought to eternal life. CHAPTER XX.
On those who promise indulgence, not to all, but only to those who have been reborn among the catholics, even if afterward they rush forth into many crimes and errors. Likewise there are those who promise this not even to all who have the sacrament of Christ's baptism and of His body, but only to catholics, however evilly they may live — because they have eaten the body of Christ not only in the sacrament but in the reality itself, being established in His very body, of which the apostle says: 'One bread, one body, we many are';
so that, even if afterward they should lapse into some heresy or even into the idolatry of the Gentiles, yet, only because in the body of Christ — that is, in the catholic Church — they received the baptism of Christ and ate the body of Christ, they shall not die forever, but shall at some time attain eternal life; and all that impiety, however great it shall have been, shall not avail against them unto eternity, but only unto the length and magnitude of penalties. CHAPTER XXI. On those who determine that those who remain in the catholic faith, even if they have lived most wickedly and on this account have deserved to be burned, are nevertheless to be saved on account of the foundation of faith. But there are some who, on account of that which is written:
'He who shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved,' promise this only to those persevering in the catholic Church, though living evilly in it — to be saved, namely, through fire, by the merit of the foundation, of which the apostle says: 'For other foundation can no one lay than that which is laid, which is Christ Jesus. But if anyone build upon the foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble: each one's work shall be made manifest; for the day shall declare it, since it shall be revealed in fire, and the fire shall prove what sort each one's work is. If anyone's work shall remain which he has built upon, he shall receive a reward. But if anyone's work shall burn, he shall suffer loss;'
'but he himself shall be saved, yet so as through fire.' They say, therefore, that the catholic Christian, of whatever life, has Christ in the foundation, which foundation no heresy, cut off from the unity of His body, has; and therefore, on account of this foundation, even if the catholic Christian be of evil life — as one who has built upon it wood, hay, stubble — they think that he is saved through fire, that is, after the penalties of that fire he is delivered, by which fire the wicked shall be punished in the last judgment. CHAPTER XXII. On those who think that those crimes which are committed among works of almsgiving are not called to the judgment of damnation.
I have also learned that certain people think that only those will burn in the eternity of that punishment who neglect to perform worthy almsgiving for their sins, according to that saying of the apostle James: 'Judgment without mercy to him who has not shown mercy.' He who has shown it, therefore, they say — although he has not changed his morals for the better, but among his very almsgivings has lived wickedly and basely — for him judgment will be with mercy, so that either he is punished with no condemnation, or after some time, whether short or long, he is delivered from that condemnation.
For this reason they suppose that the very Judge of the living and the dead was unwilling to mention that He would say anything else, whether to those on the right, to whom He is going to give eternal life, or to those on the left, whom He is going to condemn to eternal punishment, except almsgivings either done or not done. To this they say pertains also, in the Lord's Prayer, the daily petition: 'Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.' For whoever forgives, by pardoning, the sin of him who has sinned against him, doubtless performs an almsgiving. This very thing the Lord Himself so commended, that He said: 'For if you forgive men their sins, your Father will also forgive you your sins;'
'but if you do not forgive men, neither will your Father, who is in heaven, forgive you.' Therefore to this kind of almsgiving also pertains that which the apostle James said: that judgment is to be without mercy to him who has not shown mercy. Nor did the Lord say, they observe, 'great or small,' but: 'Your Father will forgive you your sins, if you also forgive men.'
And on this basis they suppose that even for those who have lived dissolutely, until they close the final day of this life, all their sins—of whatever kind and however many—are daily forgiven through this prayer, since the prayer itself is daily repeated, provided only that they remember to keep this one thing: that, when those who have wronged them by any sin whatsoever ask their pardon, they forgive from the heart. When, by God's gift, I have answered all these things, this book must be brought to a close. CHAPTER XXIII. Against the opinion of those who say that the punishments neither of the devil nor of wicked men will be everlasting.
First it must be asked and ascertained why the Church could not endure the argument of those men who promise the devil cleansing or pardon even after the greatest and most prolonged punishments. For it was not that so many saints, instructed in the sacred writings both old and new, begrudged to angels of whatever sort and however many the cleansing and the blessedness of the kingdom of heaven after any sufferings of whatever kind and however great; rather, they perceived that the divine sentence cannot be made void or weakened—the sentence which the Lord foretold He would pronounce and declare at the judgment: 'Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire, which is prepared for the devil and his angels' (for thus He showed that the devil and his angels would burn in eternal fire);
and that which is written in the Apocalypse: 'The devil, who seduced them, was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where also the beast and the false prophet are; and they shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.' What there is called 'eternal' is here called 'for ever and ever' (in saecula saeculorum), by which words the divine Scripture is wont to signify nothing else than that which has no end of time. Wherefore no other cause, nor any more just and manifest, can be found why it is held by truest piety as fixed and immovable that the devil and his angels will have no return to righteousness and to the life of the saints, except that Scripture, which deceives no one, says that God did not spare them;
又有《啟示錄》所記的：「那迷惑他們的魔鬼被扔在硫磺的火湖裡，那獸和假先知也在其中；他們必晝夜受痛苦，直到永永遠遠。」那裡稱為「永遠的」，這裡稱為「直到永永遠遠」（in saecula saeculorum）；神聖的聖經用這些話向來只表明那無有時間終結的事。因此，再找不出別的、也找不出更公正、更明白的理由，可使最真實的虔敬持守這一不可動搖的定論：魔鬼和他的使者必不能重返公義與聖徒的生命；除非是因為那不欺哄任何人的聖經說，神並不寬容他們，
and that they have meanwhile been thus condemned beforehand by Him, so that they were delivered up, thrust down into the prisons of the gloomy nether world, to be kept and to be punished at the last judgment, when the eternal fire shall receive them, where they shall be tormented for ever and ever. But if this is so, how shall either all or some men be withdrawn from the eternity of punishment after however long a time, and the faith not be at once enervated by which it is believed that the punishment of the demons will be everlasting? For if those to whom it shall be said, 'Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire, which is prepared for the devil and his angels,' shall not—whether all or some of them—be there for ever, what reason is there why the devil and his angels should be believed to be there for ever? Or perhaps the sentence of God,
which shall be pronounced upon the wicked, both angels and men, will be true with respect to the angels but false with respect to men? Plainly it will be so, if not what God has said, but what men suppose, shall prevail. But since this cannot happen, those who desire to be free from everlasting punishment ought not to argue against God, but rather, while there is time, to obey the divine precept. Furthermore, what sort of thing is it to reckon 'eternal punishment' as a fire of long duration, yet to believe that 'eternal life' is without end, when Christ, in that very same place, in one and the same sentence, embracing both, has said: 'So these shall go into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life'?
If both are eternal, surely either both must be understood as of long duration with an end, or both as perpetual without end. For they are set in correspondence, like to like: on the one side eternal punishment, on the other eternal life. But to say, in this one and the same sense, 'Eternal life will be without end, eternal punishment will have an end,' is most absurd. Hence, since the eternal life of the saints will be without end, the eternal punishment also, for those who shall have it, will beyond doubt have no end. CHAPTER XXIV. Against the notion of those who think that, at God's judgment, all the guilty are to be spared on account of the prayers of the saints.
But this also avails against those who, pleading their own cause, attempt to oppose the words of God as though out of a greater mercy, so that, namely, those words are true on this account—that those whom He said men would suffer such things are worthy to suffer them, not that they will suffer them. For He will pardon them, they say, at the prayers of His saints, who then will be praying for their enemies all the more, the holier they certainly are, and whose prayer is more effective and more worthy of being heard by God, since they have now no sin at all.
Why then, with that same most perfect holiness and with prayers most pure and most merciful, prevailing to obtain all things, will they not also pray for the angels, for whom eternal fire is prepared, that God may mitigate His sentence and turn it for the better, and make them strangers to that fire? Or will there perhaps be anyone who would presume that this too shall come to pass, affirming that even the holy angels, together with the holy men who shall then be equal to the angels of God, will pray for the angels and men who are to be condemned, that they may not suffer through mercy what they deserve in truth to suffer? This no one of sound faith has said, and no one will say.
Otherwise there is no reason why the Church should not even now pray for the devil and his angels, since God her Master commanded her to pray for her enemies. This cause, therefore, by which it comes about that the Church now does not pray for the wicked angels, whom she knows to be her enemies, is the very same cause by which it will come about that at that judgment she will not pray, even for the men who are to be tormented in eternal fire, however perfect her holiness may be. For now she prays for those whom she has as enemies in the human race for this reason: because it is the time of fruitful repentance. For what does she chiefly pray for them, except that God may grant them, as the Apostle says, repentance, and that they may recover themselves out of the snares of the devil, by whom they are held captive according to his will?
Finally, if the Church were so certain about some men that she even knew who those are who, though still set in this life, are nevertheless predestined to go into the eternal fire with the devil, she would no more pray for them than for the devil himself. But because she is certain about no one, she prays for all men, her enemies at least, who are set in this body; and yet she is not heard for all. For she is heard only for those who, though they oppose the Church, are nevertheless so predestined that the Church is heard for them and they are made sons of the Church. But if any shall have an impenitent heart unto death, and shall not be converted from enemies into sons, does the Church then pray for them—that is, for the spirits of such departed ones?