約伯倫理 第 733 章

Ibid.—A fire that is not kindled shall devour him. 35. The fire of hell is wondrously fed, and tortures both soul and body.—In a very wonderful manner the fire of hell is expressed in few words. For corporeal fire, that it may have power to be fire, needs corporeal fuel. And when it is necessary that it be preserved, without doubt it is nourished by heaped-up wood; nor can it exist unless kindled, nor subsist unless fed anew. But on the contrary the fire of hell, though it is corporeal, and burns corporeally the reprobate cast into it, is neither kindled by human effort nor nourished by wood, but once created endures inextinguishable, and needs no kindling, and lacks no burning heat. Well therefore is it said of this wicked man:

A fire that is not kindled shall devour him, because the justice of the Almighty, foreknowing things to come, from the very origin of the world created the fire of hell, which should but once begin to be in the punishment of the reprobate, yet should never end its burning even without wood. But it is to be known that all the reprobate, because they have sinned at once in soul and in flesh, are there tortured alike in soul and in flesh. Whence it is said through the Psalmist: «Thou shalt make them as an oven of fire in the time of Thy countenance; the Lord shall trouble them in His wrath, and the fire shall devour them» (Ps. 20:10). For an oven burns within, but he who is devoured by fire begins to be consumed from the outer part.

That therefore the sacred words might show the reprobate to burn both outwardly and inwardly, they testify that they are both devoured by fire and set as an oven, so that they may be tortured through fire in body, and burn through sorrow in mind. Whence here too, when it was said of this impious man: A fire that is not kindled shall devour him, forthwith of his spirit it is added: