HELL #4 - THE CHURCH FATHERS ON HELL

To the question "where is the place of torments?" St John Chrysostom responds: "Why are you concerned  about the place? What is important is the fact that it is and not where it is." "I think that it is somewhere outside of this world...hell is outside of this created universe." "Do not, therefore, ask where it is, but how to avoid it". (John Chrysostom, On Romans, Homily 31,4-5 pg. 60,673-674)

"Let us not disbelieve that there is a hell, that we may not fall in it. For he who disbelieves in hell becomes more slothful and indolent toward virtue: he who is slothful and indolent toward virtue will develop a spirit of unrepentance and will surely end up in hell. As for us, let us believe in the existence of hell without reservation, and let us hold frequent conversation about it and thus we will not fall into sin readily and quickly. For the memory of hell acts as a bitter medicine and restrains and cures every evil."(John Chrysostom, On The Future Judgment, PG 63,744

"It is just(the judgment of God) because while accepting the call of God, I was not obedient; while being taught, I was not paying attention; while they were reassuring me, I was jeering them; while I studied the divine word and knew it without disbelief, nevertheless, I spent the years of my life in negligence, laziness, and carelessness, in distractions and sinful confusion and guilty thrills. My months and days were filled by the labors, efforts and struggles for the temporal, the corruptible and the earthly."(Cyril Of Alexandria, On The Exodos Of The Soul,PG 77,1073A)

"If you have faith in the Lord you will fear punishment, and this fear will lead you to control the passions."(Maximos The Confessor, Four Hundred Texts On Love, Philokalia Vol 2, pg.53)

"Put evil to death so that you will not rise up dead (at the future judgment) and thus pass from a minor to a major death."(Thalassios The Libyan, On Love, Self Control and Life, Philokalia Vol. 2, pg 328)

"If someone asks, "how can the soul endure such a great multitude of punishments and be punished for an endless duration of ages?". Let him keep this in mind: When the soul received a body that is incorruptible and inconsumable, there is nothing that will obstruct the extension of hell into the infinite. The body will remain together with the soul eternally to be tormented, and there will be no other end at all".(John Chrysostom, To The Fallen Theodore I 9,10 PG 47,289,290)

St Cyril of Alexandria in his shocking homily, "The Exodus of the Soul and the Second Parousia" confesses as follows, "I am afraid of the gehenna because it endures forever...I am afraid of the hell that has no end...I am afraid of the unbreakable bonds...For the temporal pleasure of sin I am forever tormented. There in hell there is eternal pain, endless grief, ceaseless weeping and gnashing of teeth and sleepless sighing: there in hell there is always woe! woe! woe! There in hell they shout for help and there is no one to help."(Cyril Of Alexandria, On The Exodus Of The Soul PG 77,1072BC; 1073A; 1076D)

"Eternal means that which is forever, that which never has an end, never...The miserable sinners are condemned to remain eternaly in the fire being tormented...And above all remember, my sinner brother, the violence and ferociousness that the fire of gehenna will exercise over you, and which St Paul, wishing to describe it, said: A fearful prospect of judgment, and a fury of fire which will consume the adversaries(Heb. 10:27). Interpreting this verse, the saintly Theophylactos says: As a wild beast, when disturbed by someone, becomes angry and violent, so also that fire, becoming in a sense jealous and wrathful, is destined to be consuming eternally the enemies of God, that is, the sinners."(Nikodimos Of The Holy Mountain, New Ladder, Constantinople 1844, pp. 188;191)

"Christ the Lord of all calls out and says, As long as you have the light, run to the light that the darkness may not overtake you. Run by way of repentance, run in the way of the commandments of Christ. But, if we do not choose to obey Christ our Lord and do not attempt, as long as we are found in this present life, to receive from Him the kingdom of God within us, when we go there we will hear Christ justly saying these things to us: Why are you asking now for what you did not want when I was giving it to you? Was I not often pleading with you to struggle for a while that I may give you the kingdom of heaven, and you did not want it, but rejected it preferring rather the earthly, the corruptible; now what is it you want? With what deeds or what words do you expect to be able to find the Kingdom from now on? For now is not the time for work, but for retribution."(Symeon The New Theologian, Complete Extant Works, Part I, Homily 25,2 p. 136)

"Do you see how the devil succeeded in making us enemies of ourselves? Let us come to our senses, let us look carefully. Let us keep vigil, let us reach for the eternal life, and let us hold on to it tightly. Let us put away from us the abundant sleep of sin. There is a judgment; there is hell. The Lord is coming in the clouds. A river of fire is flowing before Him, the ceaseless worm, the unquenchable fire, the outer darkness, the gnashing of teeth. Even if you are troubled a myriad of times over these things, I will not cease speaking them. There is eternal hell and it is inconsolable; there is no one to help us."(John Chrysostom, On 1 Thessalonians, Homily 9,5 PG 62,454)