Eternal punishment and destiny
of the reprobate
Ibunt hi in supplicium aeternum.
And these shall go into everlasting
punishment. (Matthew 25:46)
There is one terrible truth in Christianity which in
our times, even more than in previous centuries, arouses
irrepressible horror in the heart of man. That truth is
the eternity of the pains of Hell. No sooner is this
dogma stated than minds become agitated, hearts shake and
pound, passions harden and rage against this doctrine and
the unwelcome voices which proclaim it. Ought we, then,
to be silent, leaving shrouded in oblivion an essential
truth about man's most important concern: his final des-
tiny beyond the short years of his exile on earth? Yet,
if Hell is a reality, whatever silence we might maintain
over this fundamental question would not shake its cer-
tainty. All the attenuations and palliatives of human
language cannot shorten its duration. It would be the
height of folly to convince ourselves that if we turn our
minds away from this fatal possibility and try hard not to
believe in it we shall manage some day to avoid its rigour.
In this series of conferences, wherein we propose to
deal with the things relating to the future of man and his
immortal destiny, we could not leave out the punishments
of the life to come without failing in our duty and acting
like a false, negligent doctor who, for the sake of spar-
ing his patient the suffering of an operation, calmly left
him to die. On this subject, Christ Himself did not think
it fit to speak with circumspection and reserve. He
continually emphasizes the punishments reserved for sin-
ners, and, on many occasions, speaks about exterior dark-
ness, the fire which is not extinguished, and the prison
without an exit, where there will be gnashing of teeth and
unending tears.
When human justice wishes to strike down an evil man,
a scaffold is erected in the public square and the people
"are summoned to be present at the terrible spectacle. In
some lands, the broken body of the miscreant is left for
days on end hanging by the road or upon the gibbet
where he breathed his last in order that such an example
may frighten wrongdoers who might be led astray by wicked
passions. ~ Jesus Christ acts in the same way as human
justice: He shows the malefactor the sword which hangs
over his head, so that, being stricken with fear, he may
not contravene His law, and may do good instead of evil.
St. Ignatius of Loyola used to say that he knew of no
sermons more useful and beneficial than those on Hell.
Reflections on the beauties of virtue and the delights and
attractions of divine love have little influence upon
coarse, sensual men. Amidst the noisy pleasures of their
lives, the seductive bad examples set before them, the
traps and pitfalls set beneath their feet, the threat of
Hell is the only curb powerful enough to keep them on the
path of duty. For the same reason St. Teresa would often
bid her austere nuns down to Hell in spirit and
thought during their life, so as to avoid, she said, going
there in reality after their death.
In the study which we are about to undertake on this
serious question of the fate reserved for those who die at
enmity with God, we shall avoid all disputed opinions,
proceeding by rigorous reasoning and with the aid of sound
theology, taking as our sole basis Scripture and the true
knowledge of tradition and of the Fathers. In the first
place, does Hell exist, and is it certain that the punish-
ments endured there are eternal? Secondly, of what nature
is the punishment of Hell, and where does it take place?
Thirdly, can the mercy of God be reconciled with the idea
of a justice which no reparation can ever appease?
No man can undertake the study of these supreme
considerations without hearing the echo of these words of
Scripture resounding in his innermost soul: "Be watchful,
serve the Lord thy God and keep his commandments; for in
this is the whole of man." He who reflects upon these
awesome truths is certain to improve; he will at once feel
his spirit transformed, and his nature enhanced in strength
of virtue and love of good.
That the punishments of Hell are eternal is a truth
formally taught by Holy Scripture; it is part of the
Christian creed; numerous councils have defined it as an
article of faith. [231] St. Matthew, in chapter 18, and
St. John, in chapter 14 of the Apocalypse, speaking about
the pains of the demons and reprobate, say that they will
be of endless duration. [232] St. Mark, chapter 9, and
Isaias, chapter 66, say that their fire will not be ex-
tinguished, and their worm will not die. Quoting these
words St. Augustine remarks that the nature of this worm
and the materiality or immateriality of the fire is open
to discussion; but what is true beyond all dispute from
the words of the prophet is that the rigours of this fire
will never be moderated, and that the tortures of this
worm will never diminish.
When Jesus Christ speaks about the supreme sentence
which He will pronounce one day, He retains and confirms
the same parity between justification and condemnation;
neither in the rewards of the just nor in the punishment
of the wicked does He make any distinction of degree or
time: "And these shall go into everlasting punishment, but
the just into life everlasting ."Thus, if eternal
life can have no limit of time, eternal death, too, will
be without limit or end.
From these various testimonies, we know that mercy is
excluded from Hell, and that there can be no place there
for redemption.
Moreover, there are only three ways whereby the reprobate
and the demons could be released from justice and obtain
freedom or mitigation of their pains: by -a true and sin-
cere repentance; or by the power of the prayers of the
saints and the works of satisfaction offered up by the
living; or else by the destruction of their existence - in
other words, as it is absolutely impossible for God to take
them to Himself, He would, by making them cease to exist,
thereby bring their torments to an end. Now, the repro-
bate cannot do penance. God has never granted pardon to
Satan because Satan has never repented . Sometimes, says
St. Thomas, a person repents and hates sin in one or two
ways: absolutely or accidentally. He who hates sin abso -
lutely , hates it on account of its intrinsic ugliness, and
because it is an offence against God; he who hates it
acc identally , hates it, not out of love of God, but out of
love of himself: in other words, he does not really detest
sin, but only the pain, the evils which it has brought
him. The will of the damned is still inclined to evil,
and their horror and detestation of their punishment is
neither repentance nor atonement. Undoubtedly they
are consumed by desires and dreams; but the object of
these dreams is their own happiness, which they would
arrange independently of God.
Such is the dream of the demons and the damned, a
dream eternally futile which consumes them in unceasing
despair and rage. So, the damned cannot repent. Can they
share in the prayers and merits of the living? If this
were so, Lucifer and his angels would be able, in the more
or less distant future, to return to favour; consequently
they would become holy creatures, worthy of reverence and
love, by the same right as the. cherubim and the arch-
angels, whom they would one day embrace in an eternal
"communion. It would follow, too, that the Church would be
obliged to pray for the demons. The demons are, in truth,
our worst enemies, but the precept of charity requires us
to pray for all our enemies without exception. The Church
prays for the persecutors in this world because, during
the present life, they can produce worthy fruits of repent-
ance; but even on the day of Judgement, when she will be
filled with love and holiness, she will not pray for those
sentenced by the just Judge to everlasting torments. If
the reprobate can expect to be saved one day, not only
must the Church pray for them but, in addition, we do not
see why she would forbid the faithful to venerate them and
why she would not gather up the remains of the Neros,
Robespierres and Marats, to honour them on the altar, by
the same right as the ashes of the Aloysius Gonzagas,
Vincent de Pauls and Francis de Sales.
In short, it is evident that the sufferings of the
reprobate will have no end and that their existence wxll
never be destroyed. Holy Scripture depicts their pitiful
state by calling it "secunda mors", a "second death . St.
Gregory says: "It will be a death that will never be
consummated, an end always followed by a new beginning, a
dissolution that will never bring decay. St. August-
ine expresses with no less vigour and clarity the sad
condition of that death which, while letting the soul sub-
sist eternally, will make it endure its pangs and horrors
in all their intensity: "It cannot be said that there
will be the life of the soul in Hell, since the soul will
not share in any way in the supernatural life of God; it
cannot be said that there will be the life of the body,
since the body will there be a prey to all kinds of pains.
Hence, this second death will be more cruel than the first
because death can never bring it to an end.
To these theological proofs, let us add the proofs
from reason.
If there were not an eternal Hell, Christianity would
disappear and the moral order would be abolished.
This truth about the eternity of punishment is linked
essentially to the great truths of religion - to the Fall
of man, the Incarnation and Redemption - which logically
imply its certainty. If there were no Hell, why would
Jesus Christ have descended from Heaven, why His abasement
in the crib, His ignominies, sufferings and sacrifice on
the Cross? This excess of love on the part of a God Who
became man in order to die would have been an act devoid
of any wisdom, and out of proportion with its declared
aim, if it had been simply a matter of delivering us from
a temporal, transient punishment, such as is Purgatory.
Man, then, had fallen irremediably upon evil days, and was
condemned to infinite disgrace, since only a divine remedy
could raise him up again.
Otherwise we should have to say that Christ redeemed
us only from a finite punishment, from which we might have
freed ourselves by our own amends; and, in that case,
would not the treasures of His blood be superfluous?
There would no longer be any redemption in the strict and
absolute sense of the word: Jesus Christ would not be our
Saviour; the debt of boundless gratitude and love which He
demands of men would be an inordinate and unwarranted
claim. With the God made man cast down from the throne of
our hearts and our worship, Christianity would become a
hoax, and all consistent minds would necessarily be led to
reject revelation and to reject God Himself.
If there is no eternal Hell, there is no moral order.
The foundation of the moral order is the absolute and
essential difference between good and evil. Good and evil
are different in essence, because their conclusions are
different and they result in opposite outcomes; but, if we
abolish the eternal sanction of punishment, vice and
virtue reach the same conclusion. Each, by different
means, attains its last end, which is repose and happiness
in the bliss of God. The same fate falls to the share of
those who have been instruments of evil and to those who,
right up to the end, have been incorruptible vessels of
good.
You may say: "Agreed, but it will be a thousand or a
hundred thousand years sooner for the just; a thousand or
a hundred thousand years later for the wicked." What does
that matter? A period of atonement, however long you
suppose it to be, does not constitute an essential differ-
ence between the destiny of the one and that of the other.
During our fleeting, transient life, when moments, once
passed, never recur, a period of a thousand or a hundred
thousand years is of some consequence; but, as soon as man
has entered into eternal life, a thousand or a hundred
thousand years no longer have any significance: they are
less than a grain of sand in the desert, or a drop of
water in the ocean. Imagine a future composed of punish-
ments, as long as you wish, double the years, pile cent-
uries upon centuries - so long as the end is the same for
all, the past counts for nothing. Once a punishment is
over, the extent of its duration, compared with eternity,
will seem such a tiny quantity, so infinitesimal, that it
will be as if it did not exist.
It would in fact be true to say - since there is no
perceptible difference between one eternity and another -
that sin would have brought no harm upon the sinner. For
example, let us suppose that, as punishment for my sins,
God hurls me into the flames for centuries. I have this
consolation: I know that I have for myself a measure of
comparison, mathematically equal to that of the just man.
I have eternity; so there is an eternity of joy and glory
for one who has served God and loved Him until death, and
an eternity of joy and glory for the wicked man who
thrilled with pleasure as he did evil, and constantly
spurned the divine laws and commandments. Now, if these
two final ends are the same, if, by way of evil even, as by
way of good, we unfailingly attain life - the life of
eternity - the conclusion is inescapable that virtue _ahd
crime are two means towards an equaL security; that it is
optional for man to follow one or the other as he pleases;
and that the most sordid lives and the most pure lives
are of equal merit and dignity, since both lead to the
same perfection and happiness.
Once such a scheme is granted, morality, public order
and all semblance of honesty must disappear from the
earth. Justice is stripped of its sanction, conscience is
a prejudice, virtue, and sacrifice are a stupid exertion.
Remove the fear of eternal punishment from mankind and the
world will be filled with crime; the most execrable mis-
deeds will become a duty whenever they can be committed
without risk of prison or the sword. Hell will simply
happen sooner: instead of being postponed until the future
life, it will be inaugurated in the midst of humanity, in
the present life. As a contemporary writer has said:
"There can be no middle way for society - it is either God
or the gun." If there is no sanction beyond death, might
prevails over right, the hangman becomes the pivot and
corner-stone of the social order , and justice will be
proclaimed in the name of death instead of being pro-
claimed in the name of God. "Besides," remarks another
moralist, "by virtue of what right will the courts repress
crime, when it has the approbation of divine impunity, and
when eternal justice undertakes not to bestir itself to
impose its legitimate punishment?"
The conscience of the nations has rebelled against
this monstrous consequence. Amidst the explosion of error
and the collapse of true belief, the doctrine of a future
state of rewards and punishments has remained unshaken.
It is found amongst the pagans. Virgil gave expression to
their belief in these famous lines:
"The vile miscreants whose souls are incurable," says
Plato (Phaedo, "are tormented by punishments
which convulse but do not cure them. Souls who have
committed grave crimes are hurled into the abyss which is
called Hell. Such is the judgement of the gods who dwell
in Heaven: the good are reunited to the good, the wicked
to the wicked. "
How astonishing this assent among all men - poets,
philosophers, peoples, kings, civilized and barbarian - to
a truth which troubles our minds, and which men would have
so much interest in denying! Here we might shelter behind
the authority and weight of this fundamental axiom: Quod
semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus" - "that which has
been believed always, everywhere and by everyone - is,
necessarily, the truth. Every dogma has been changed
except this one.* All the important points of Catholic
theology have given rise to dispute, except Hell which has
escaped that common law. It has come down to us, without
encountering one man who disputed its justice or, at
least, cast doubt upon its awesome certainty. ine
Protestants, who denied so many things, did not deny this.
Destroyers of whatever most offended the human spirit, or
penance, virginity and the value of good works, they did
*not strip Hell of its terrifying attributes. Their hands,
which had not respected the door of the tabernacle wherein
the flesh of the Man-God reposes in bounty and sacrifice
drew back from the threshold of this place of suffer-
ing. .."
Contemporary rationalism alone has dared to go as far
as to deny it, and, strange to say, has done so by taking
refuge in the very bosom of divine perfection. It has
impugned the justice, greatness and wisdom of God and,
even while denying the Redemption, appeals to that very
excess of love which Jesus Christ poured out as He expired
on the Cross.
"God," it is said, "is too perfect, too sublime, too
noble a being to want to crush a frail creature eternally
beneath the panoply of His power, one who has been led
into evil, by an outburst of anger, or by weakness. That
would be an act of vengeance and retaliation, unworthy of
His glory and perfections." We reply that, if crime went
unpunished, greatness would cease to be the prerogative of
God, and would belong in its fullness to sinful man. It
would rest with him, by a single act of his will, to make
rebellion triumph against the divine government. So God
must have been labouring under an illusion the day when,
for His glory, leaving His state of repose, He enacted the
fundamental law that the creature must tend towards Him in
each of its aspirations, serve and love Him by constant
acts of praise, allegiance and worship? God would then no
longer be our essential and final end.
Let us suppose, as some have dared to maintain, that
Hell is merely a place of vexation and sorrow where the
captive soul undergoes only a mitigated, limited suffer-
ing. Let us imagine, on this supposition, Satan and his
accomplices surpassing themselves in rebellion and pride,
and saying to the God who rejected them: "We are in good
shape, and we possess a tolerable enough existence for us
to agree to do without you forever. It is true that we
are far from possessing perfect bliss, but we have a
quality of life and repose which is our own work, and we
are content with it: if we are not radiant like your
angels, at least we are not your subjects, we do not serve
you or obey you."
Such would be the sentiments of every creature shut
out from God's bosom if he succeeded in rejecting his
heritage without experiencing pain, intense and unending,
like the happiness which he freely and obstinately spurn-
ed. Were God, in order to alleviate the misery of the
devils and the damned, to allow them but a shadow of good,
a slender hope, or a drop of water to refresh them, they
would cling to that shadow, that semblance, with all the
strength of "their exhausted, gasping will, they would
strive with their whole soul after that crumb of solace,
seeking to beguile themselves with it, and to delude
themselves as to the extent and depth of their misfortune;
and one would have to be ignorant of man's nature to
imagine that he would not resign himself to this mitigated
Hell, rather than bend the knee and submit.
Finally, let us quote Suarez ' s argument,
which complements and further clarifies St. Thomas's.
"Hell," he says, "is a prison which will also serve as an
abode for the rebellious angels and for the demons; this
abode cannot be other than the most unpleasant, obscure
and ignominious of all created places; it is fitting that
it should be at opposite ends and at the greatest distance
from the one destined for the elect. Now, the elect will
reign eternally in the highest part of Heaven, which is
the empyrean heaven, and so the lowest part of the earth,
is the place where the damned will suffer their eternal
torments . "
Let us observe, however, that it is not a truth of:
faith that Hell is situated in the centre of the earth.
The Church has not defined anything on this point; it is
simply the most probable opinion, based upon the almost
unanimous testimony of the Doctors and Fathers..
And whatever may be the case, the important thing,
as St. John Chrysostom says, is not to know where Hell is,
but to ensure that we shall not, one day, be cast into it:
Such, then, seems to be the place of Hell. The
fire which tortures the devils and the damned is a.
material fire: a material fire which makes its action felt
on spirits and on separated souls. It remains for us to
consider how the implacable severity of divine justice can
be reconciled with its infinite mercy.
St. John Chrysostom: Homily on the Epistle to the Romans ,
The objection is raised that the centre of the earth
cannot hold the multitude of the damned. However, as Suarez
observes, after * the resurrection, Hell will be enlarged by the
whole space of Purgatory and of the limbo of children who died
unbaptized, which will be empty. Children who die unbaptized
will never see God; but several Doctors express the opinion
that they will live on the surface of the earth, where they
will enjoy a merely natural happiness. As for the earth, its
volume can be increased and the abyss expanded as much as
necessary, in accordance with the words of Isaias: Dilatavit
infernus animam suam - Therefore hath hell enlarged her soul.
(Isaias 5:14)
A witty man once said of the wicked: They are always
getting in the way, in this world and in the next. In one
sense it may be said that sinful men "get in God's way" to
an even greater extent than the worst malefactors "get in
the way" of human society.
It is of faith that God desires the salvation of all
men and that, so far as it lies with Him, He excludes no
one from the fruits of the Redemption. He did not will-
ingly create Hell; on the contrary, He exhausts all the
means of His wisdom and all the secrets of His tenderness
to forewarn us against such a misfortune, as He says by
the mouth of Isaias:
If God were able to suffer, no anguish would be
comparable to the sorrow which His heart would feel when
He is compelled to condemn a soul. The holy Cure d'Ars
once said: "If it were possible for God to suffer, as He
damned a soul He would be gripped with the same horror and
the same tremor as a mother who was herself compelled to
let the blade of the guillotine fall upon the neck of her
child."
Behold Jesus Christ at the Last Supper: He gazes upon
Judas with an expression which shows sadness and the
bitterest grief. He is violently troubled, and in the
last extremity of consternation. He understands, better
than we can ever conceive, how horrible is the state of a
man adrift, irremediably lost, left without any means of
retracing his steps and taking his destiny back into his
own hands. He tries, by every imaginable means, to. avert
the loss of this wretched man; He casts Himself at his
feet and Kisses them; He admits him, despite his unworth-
iness, to the feast of His sacred flesh; and, when the
darkness, which more and more engulfs the obdurate soul of
Judas, has blocked every avenue by which divine grace
might have forced its way in, Christ weeps. He seems to
forget that this traitor has chosen Him as the victim of
his dastardly greed. He sees only the horror of his fate,
and says in anquish: "It were better for him if that man
had never been born. "
you that accuse the Creator of harshness, and
reproach Him for not going to the extreme limits of His
omnipotence in order to prevent His creature from perish-
ing eternally, tell Him your way, teach Him your secret.
What do you want God to do?
Would you ask Him to abolish Hell? To abolish Hell
would be to abolish Heaven. Do you believe that the
martyrs, anchorites, virgins and saints, at this moment
delighting in the joys of bliss, would have kept apart
from seductive pleasures, trampled upon worldly snares,
sought out solitary places, come through persecutions and
braved the hangman and the sword, if they had not had in
mind the Master's word: "Fear ye not them that kill the
body and are not able to kill the soul; but rather than
fear him that can destroy both soul and body in
Hell."
Divine love awoke in them only when, by courageous
mortification, they were detached from sin and sensual
habits. The starting-point of their justification was
fear: The thunder which
aroused them from their slumber and lethargy was the
terrifying word: Eternity. It was then that they looked
upon their luxurious houses and the gilded panelling of
their palaces, and said: This is where every day we amass
treasures of wrath, where all seductions come together for
our perdition. Hatred of God, flames, an endless curse
for a day's pleasure - this is what awaits us... The next
day these men would go barefoot, dressed in sackcloth,
seeking the road which leads to the wilderness and the
desert. Without these merciful fears, the City of God
would never have filled up; we should all have strayed
from the right path; no one would have done good, non est
qui faciat bonum, non est usque ad unum.
God cannot abolish Hell without abolishing Heaven.
Shall He then wait, pardon and keep on pardoning? That is
just what He does. In this life He never abandons even
the person who spurns Him. He pursues him right into the
sanctuary of his conscience, through an inner voice which
does not cease for a single instant to make itself heard.
In the face of the temptation which incites us to evil
this voice rings out and calls to us: Beware! If we turn
a deaf ear, He does not hasten to cut the thread of our
life, as would be His right. He does not watch out for
the moment when we go astray in order to make this the
final moment of death for us. He comes back to us. He
makes us feel the sting of remorse, and, not disheartened
by our refusals, waits for years. He lets the years of
maturity succeed the wildness of youth, and the icy hand
of old age replace the illusions that beguile even man-
hood: and all His efforts are in vain. A man's last hour
finally rings; most often it is preceded by illness, the
premonitory sign of his .approaching end. This man is
still obdurate. One minute before his last sigh, God
still offers to take him to Himself and save him from the
fires of the abyss. His voice has no more strength, and
his condition is desperate. It would be enough that, in
the intimacy of his heart, he should utter these simple
words: "I love you, and I repent." These words would be
his saving grace... - and the sinner stubbornly refuses to
say them. We ask: what can God do? Shall He, to sanctify
the hardness of heart of this creature, overturn the whole
plan and all the counsels of His wisdom, annihilate the
darkness by a foolish act of omnipotence, because a be-
sotted man has blinded himself so as to have no part in
the divine light? Ah, God has the right to wash His hands
and say: "0 man, thy perdition is thy work, and not mine.
Perditio tua ex te, Israel."
Yet why should grace and redemption be excluded from
Hell? When a man's eyes have been opened; as he sees the
last of his illusions crumble, and, terror-stricken, he
realizes the full extent of his wretchedness, why would
God not let a final ray of His mercy fall upon him? Why
would He not hold out a hand to this unfortunate man, who
would grasp it with a love and gratitude proportionate to
the immensity of his deliverance? We do not hesitate to
reply that God cannot - He cannot, at least, without
losing His infinite dignity. He would be obliged to bow
down, of His own accord, before a rebellious, obdurate
creature who, far from appealing to Him*, hates and curses
Him. Death has placed the sinner in a position which
leaves him no choice. He knows it with a certainty which
overwhelms his free will. He remains hardened in hatred
and pride, magnified by his tears and despair. To arouse
a salutary, meritorious sorrow in him, he would require a
grace. That grace he does not seek, does not want. True,
he abhors his punishment, but he has a supreme hatred of
God, as well as of the gifts and lights emanating from the
Heart of God.
And yet, is God just, and does He not go beyond all
proportion, when He punishes a passing fault, committed in
a single moment, with an eternity of pains? Here, reason
is powerless, for God is the greatest of mysteries. Sin
is a mystery as unfathomable as the majesty of Him whom it
offends; and the punishment due to its evil is another
immeasurable mystery which the human mind will never
succeed in solving.
All we can say is that, if we consider the person of
God, the insult offered to Him by sin is an infinite
insult. Now as man, on account of the limitations of his
nature, cannot sustain a punishment infinite in severity
and intensity , it is only just that he should suffer a
punishment infinite in duration . Human justice is the
image and configuration of divine justice. The right to
punish and sentence a guilty man to death is conferred
upon earthly tribunals for the service and good of men.
They pass sentence for crimes, not because of their intrin-
sic deformity and because they offend God, but because
they are harmful and prejudicial to the common good and
the right ordering of human society. Yet they have the
right to inflict a perpetual punishment upon a murderer
whose crime was committed in a single moment, to remove
him for ever from human society because he has violated
the moral and human order. All the more reason why God
has the right to inflict a perpetual punishment upon one
who has violated the universal and divine order, and to
banish him for ever from the society of Heaven.
It is in no way repugnant, observes St. Augustine,
that God should restrict His mercy to the years of the
present life, so that, when these have passed, there will
be no place for pardon. - Do not the princes of the earth
act in the same way, when they refuse to reprieve men
locked up in prison even though they show repentance and
sincere detestation of the crimes which they have commit-
ted?
Among the various schemes devised in order to recon-
cile God's mercy with justice, the most rational, the most
acceptable, and the one which, at first sight, appears to
provide a satisfactory solution to the formidable problem
of human destiny, is the scheme conceived by Pythagoras
and the Oriental sects, according to which, instead of
casting a man into endless ignominy, God will introduce
him to a second period of trials where, as in the pre-
ceding ones, there will be a mixture of light and darkr
ness, the path of freedom will be open- to him, and in it
there will be temptations, divisions "and conflict between
God, dimly perceived, and creatures who parade their
seductions. .. --
Let us at once admit that, of all the doctrines
opposed to Christianity, the doctrine of metempsychosis or
transmigration of souls is unquestionably to be preferred.
At a superficial glance it appears to leave belief in an
immortal life intact, and seems not to impugn the divine
attributes nor to deprive human law of its sanction. But,
if we look at this doctrine in detail, we see clearly that
it places us back amidst all the preceding difficulties,
and raises others still more insoluble. As an illustrious
Christian philosopher observes: "If this second life to
which you introduce man is not purer than the first - if
his soul dies there a second time through sin - to which
period will God confine Himself? Shall the soul have an
imprescriptible right to retrace the course of its migrat-
ions, without God ever being able to restrain and punish
it other than by giving it the right to continue to offend
Him? Instead of that frightening prospect in which the
judgement is seen as life's awesome barrier, the sinner
would go to the grave, feeling as secure as a man passing
under a portico, and would say to himself, with all the
derision of his impunity: The universe is large, the
centuries are long; let us first complete our passage
through worlds and times. Let us go from Jupiter to
Venus, from the first heaven to the second, from the
second to the third; and if, after spaces and periods
beyond number, it should happen that there are no more
suns left for us, we shall present ourselves before God
and say to Him: Here we are, our time has come; make us
new heavens and new stars; for, if you are weary of wait-
ing for us, we are not weary of cursing you and of manag-
ing without you. "[260]
Finally, we may say, love is all-powerful, with its
own secrets and excesses, of which our hearts can have no
inkling and, whatever may be said, cannot consent to con-
demn forever a creature made by its own hands, redeemed by
its own blood. Ah! We might indeed set love against
justice if it were justice that punished. But justice was
propitiated nineteen centuries ago, on Calvary; at the
foot of the Cross it forgave men the debts which they had
incurred for their crimes, casting away the sword of
rigour, never to wield it again.
Let us, listen to St. Paul: "Who shall accuse against
the elect of God? God is he that justifieth. Who is he
that shall condemn? Christ Jesus that died; yea that is
risen also again, who is at the right hand of God, who
also maketh intercession for us. "
It is because malediction comes from love that there
can be no redemption therefrom.
If it were justice that punished, love might inter-
vene once more on the mount and say: Mercy, Father, spare
man and, in exchange for the death that is due to him, re-
ceive the homage of my flesh and blood!
However, when it is the very one who is to us more
than a brother, more than the most affectionate friend,
who hardens that heart riven with love and changes it into
an inexhaustible furnace of hatred, how can the ingrati-
tude of the man who has wrought this transformation (all
the more terrible as it is unnatural) dare to expect hope
and refuge?
you who, at one time or other on this earth, have
loved with a love that is sincere, ardent and boundless:
you know the demands and the laws of love. Love offers
itself for a long time, insistently and abundantly; it
suffers, dedicates itself unreservedly, humbles itself and
becomes small. But one thing which renders it implacable,
and which it never forgives, is obduracy in contempt,
contempt maintained until the end.
Go, then, ye cursed, the Saviour will say on the day
of His- judgement: Ite maledicti. I did everything for
you; I gave My life, My blood, My divinity and My person
for you. And in return for My infinite generosity, I
asked only for these simple words: I obey and I love You.
You have constantly spurned Me and have responded to My
approaches solely with these words: Go, I prefer my gross
concerns and my brutish pleasures to You.
Be your own judges, the Saviour will add. What sen-
tence would you pronounce against the most dearly beloved
creature who displayed the same indifference and same
obstinacy towards you?
It is not I who condemn you, it is you who have
damned yourselves. You have chosen, of your own free
will, the city where egotism, hatred and revolt have
established their dominion. I return to Heaven where My
angels are, and thither I bring back this Heart, the
object of your insults and scorn. Be the children of your
own choice, stay with yourselves, with the worm that does
not die and the fire that is never extinguished.
Let us tremble, but let us also be penetrated with a
lively and unshakable confidence! Damnation is a work of
love. It is the incarnate mercy which will determine our
fate and convey the eternal sentence. It is easy to avert
it while the present life lasts. Love in this world never
requires a perfect parity between the fault and the pen-
alty. It is content with little - a sigh, a sign of
goodwill. Jesus Christ opens His Heart to us, the price
of His blood and His conquest. He destines eternity for
us; not an eternity of tears and suffering, but an eter-
nity of bliss which we shall possess with Him, in the
bosom of His Father, in union with the Holy Ghost and in
the very centre of His glory. Amen.
https://archive.org/stream/TheEndOfThisPresentWorldAndTheMysteriesOfTheLifeToCome/EndOfThisPresentWorldAndMysteriesOfTheLifeToCome-FatherCharlesArminjon_djvu.txt
