Saint Basil the Great about hell

Question No. 267

If one “will receive a severe beating” and the other “will receive a light beating” (cf. Lk 12:47.48), how is it that some say that the punishment will be without end?

Answer:

What in the Holy Scripture seems to be uncertain and unclear in one place is explained by what is said in another place. Therefore when the Lord said that these will go away into eternal punishment (cf. Mt 25:46) and then sends others into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels (cf. Mt 25:41) and in yet another place, speaking about the hell of fire, he adds: “where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched” (Mk 9:48); when in the God-inspired Scripture we find a lot of similar statements, it is a demonic deceit that many people forget so frequent and clear words and statements of our Lord and invent a kind of an end of the punishments so that they may have more courage to sin.

For if the punishment should once end, the heavenly life would necessarily have to end too. But if we cannot bear the mere thought of it when speaking about the life in heaven, how then can we speak about the end of the eternal suffering, if as the former so the latter is preceded by the word “eternal” – “and these will go away”, says the Lord, “into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life” (Mt 25:46).

Therefore, if this is a generally known truth, we need to know that even the words “will receive a severe beating” and “will receive a light beating” do not indicate an end but a difference between the torments. For God who is a righteous Judge not only for the good but also for the evil gives to every man the reward of his works – some deserve fire unquenchable, burning either more or less fiercely, others deserve a worm, gnawing at some more, at others less – to each as he deserves. Others deserve the abyss of fire, where the damned generally suffer various torments, and still others deserve the outer darkness, where one weeps and the other gnashes the teeth, according to the intensity of the suffering. The outer darkness, after all, seems to be something inner. Even the expression “in the depths of hell” (Pro 9:18) shows that there are some in hell who are not in the depths but suffer lighter pains.

This can also be observed on the pains of the body. For one suffers from a fever accompanied by certain pains or symptoms of disease, the other has a fever but in a different manner, and someone else has no fever but suffers from pains in one of the limbs – and again the intensity of pain varies with each of them.