約伯倫理 第 458 章

Same verse. — Where the shadow of death, and no order. 97. It has vengeance, not light. How just these punishments are. — Just as outward death divides the flesh from the soul, so inward death separates the soul from God. The shadow of death, therefore, is the obscurity of separation, because every damned one, while he is kindled with eternal fire, is darkened away from the inner light. The nature of fire is such that of itself it both affords light and consumes; but that avenging flame of transgressions past has consuming, and has not light. For this is why Truth says to the reprobate: Depart from Me, ye cursed, into the eternal fire, which is prepared for the devil and his angels (Matthew 25:41). Signifying the body of all these again in the person of one, He says:

Bind his hands and feet, and cast him into the outer darkness (Matthew 22:13). If therefore the fire which torments the reprobate could have had light, he who is thrust out would in no way be said to be cast into darkness. Hence also the Psalmist says: Fire fell upon them, and they saw not the sun (Psalm 57:9). For fire falls upon the impious, but the sun is not beheld while the fire falls, because by that whereby the flame of Gehenna devours them, it blinds them from the vision of the true light; so that both without, the pain of burning may torment them, and within, the punishment of blindness may darken them; that they who offended their Author both in body and in heart may be punished at once both in body and in heart;

and that they may feel punishments on both sides who, while they lived here, served their depraved delights on both sides. Whence well is it said through the prophet: They went down into hell with their weapons (Ezekiel 32:27). For the weapons of sinners are the members of the body, by which they carry out the perverse desires they conceive. Whence rightly it is said through Paul: Neither present your members as weapons of iniquity unto sin (Romans 6:13). To go down to hell with weapons, therefore, is to endure the torments of the eternal judgment with those very members with which they fulfilled the desires of pleasure, so that then pain may swallow them up on every side, who now, subjected to their delights, fight on every side against the justice of Him who justly judges.

98. They are ordained, so that by an equitable Judge they are made commensurate with the crimes. — But it is a very marvelous thing that is said: Where no order. For almighty God, who punishes evils well, in no way permits even the torments to be disordered, because those very punishments too which proceed from the balance of justice can by no means be inflicted without order. For how in the punishments will there be no order, while retribution of vengeance follows every damned one according to the measure of his crime? For hence it is written: The mighty shall be mightily tormented, and a stronger torment presses upon the stronger (Wisdom 6:7). Hence in the damnation of Babylon it is said:

As much as she exalted herself and lived in delights, so much give her torment and grief (Revelation 18:7). If therefore the punishment is distinguished according to the measure of the fault, it is plainly established that in the punishments an order is preserved. And unless the deeds of merits determined the sum of the torments, the Judge when He came would in no way declare that He would say to the reapers: Gather first the tares, and bind them in bundles to be burned (Matthew 13:30). For if no order is to be preserved in the punishments, why are the tares to be burned bound in bundles?

But to bind faggots together for the burning is surely to join like with like among those who are to be delivered up to the eternal fire, so that those whom a similar guilt defiles a like punishment may also bind fast, and those who are stained by no unequal iniquity may be tortured by no unequal torment, to the end that damnation may crush together those whom pride together exalted, and that a like affliction may straiten those whom an unlike ambition did not diversely enlarge, and that a like flame of punishment may torture those whom, in the fire of wantonness, a like flame of sin set ablaze. For as in the Father's house there are many mansions according to the diversity of virtue (John xiv, 2), so the disparity of crime subjects the damned to the fires of hell with a diverse punishment.

Now this hell, although it is one for all, does not nevertheless burn all with one and the same quality of heat. For just as we are all touched by one sun, yet do not all glow beneath it in one manner—because the weight of the heat is felt according to the quality of the body—so also for the damned there is one hell that afflicts them, and yet it does not burn them all with one quality, because what here is wrought by the differing constitution of bodies, there is wrought by the differing measure of deserts. How then can it be said that there is no order in the torments, in which assuredly each one is tormented according to the measure of his guilt?

'But they are not set in order in the heart of the damned.'—But the holy man, after he had introduced the shadow of death, subjoins how great is the confusion in the mind of the damned, because those very torments, which come ordered by justice, are without doubt not ordered in the heart of those who endure them. For, as we said a little above, while each damned soul is set aflame outwardly by the flame, within it is devoured by a kindled fire, and, placed in anguish, is confounded both without and within, so that it may be more grievously tortured by its own confusion. Therefore for the rejected there will be no order in the torment, because in their death the very confusion of mind rages more atrociously. Yet the equity of the Judge, by a wondrous power, orders this, so that the punishment may confound the soul as though it were without order.

Or certainly order is said to be absent from the torments, because in whatever things rise up unto punishment, their own proper quality is not preserved. Whence also there is at once subjoined: