Annotatio CLXX

”The sinners have drawn out the sword.” — Psalm 36:14

Origen, in the third homily on Psalm 36, seems to think that all — both good and evil — are, after this life, to enter the fire of gehenna:¹ from which the good and holy shall escape unharmed, and without any injury; but the evil, [in order] that they may fulfil the purgation of their crimes, shall remain immersed in it. His words are these: “If, placed in this life, we make sin to perish in us — so that in no way at all, neither by thought, nor by work, nor by word, the sword of sin be brought forth from us — we shall not need the punishment of eternal fire; we shall not be condemned to the exterior darkness, nor shall we be subject to those punishments which threaten sinners. But if in this life we contemn the words of divine Scripture admonishing us, and are unwilling to be cured or amended by its corrections, it is certain that a fire remains for us which is prepared for sinners; and we shall come to that fire, in which the work of each one — of what sort it is — the fire shall prove. And, as I judge, it is necessary that we all come to that fire: even if [one] be some Paul, or Peter, yet he comes to that fire. But such [persons] hear [this]: ‘Even if thou pass through, the flame shall not burn thee.’ But if anyone be some sinner like me, he will indeed come to that fire, as [did] Peter and Paul; but he will not pass through, as Peter and Paul passed through. And in what manner the Hebrews came to the Red Sea, the Egyptians also came; but the Hebrews indeed passed through the Red Sea, whereas the Egyptians were drowned in it. In this manner also we — if we are Egyptians, and follow Pharaoh the devil, obeying his precepts — shall be drowned in that river or lake of fire, when sins shall be found in us. But if we are Hebrews, and are redeemed by the blood of the immaculate Lamb — if we carry not with us the leaven of wickedness — we do indeed enter the river of fire; but, as to the Hebrews the water was a wall on the right hand and on the left, so also the fire shall be a wall to us, if we do that which is said of them: ‘Because they believed God and Moses his servant’² — that is, his law and commandments — and if we so follow the pillar of fire and the pillar of cloud.” He explains this opinion more clearly at the end of book 8 of the commentaries on the epistle to the Romans, where he has these things word for word: “All indeed who are blessed — whether they be of Israel or of the gentiles — the Evangelical word of the present time purifies, that they may be such as those were to whom the Lord said, ‘Behold, now you are clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.’ But whoever shall have spurned the purifications of the word of God and of the Evangelical doctrine reserves himself for the sad and penal purifications, that the fire of gehenna may purge [him] in torments — [him] whom neither the apostolic doctrine nor the Evangelical discourse purged; according to that which is written: ‘And I will purify thee by fire unto purification.’³ But this very purgation, which is applied through the punishment of fire — for how great times, or for how many ages, it exacts torment from sinners — he alone can know to whom the Father delivered all judgment; who so loves his creature, that for it he emptied himself of the form of God, and took the form of a servant, humbling himself unto death, willing that all men be saved and come to the acknowledgment of the truth. But nevertheless it behoves [us] to remember that the Apostle wished to have the present passage as, so to say, a mystery — namely, that the faithful and perfect, each within themselves, cover such senses, as it were a mystery of God, with silence, and bring [them] not everywhere forth to the imperfect and less capable.” And again, repeating the same in homily 13 on Jeremiah, he thus speaks: “If thou hast sinned, and art polluted with the filth of sins, the Lord will wash the filth of the sons and daughters of Sion; but if it be a mortal sin, we cannot be cleansed by nitre and soap, but by the spirit of judgment, [and] by the spirit of burning, and by punishment. Perhaps Jesus also baptizes with the Holy Spirit and with fire⁴ — not because he baptizes the same [person] in the Holy Spirit and in fire, but that the holy [person] is baptized with the Holy Spirit, while he who, after faith and the teaching of God, is again turned to crimes, is purged by the torment of burning. Blessed [is he] who received the laver, and needs not the laver of the Holy Spirit and of fire; but miserable, and worthy of all weeping, [is he] who, after the laver of the Holy Spirit, must be baptized with fire. Blessed [is he] who has part in the first resurrection: if anyone has kept the laver of the Holy Spirit, that one has part in the first [portion] of the resurrection; but if anyone is [only] saved in the second resurrection, that one is a sinner, who needs the baptism of fire, [and] who is purged by burning, so that whatsoever he had of wood, hay, and stubble, the fire may consume.”⁵

Augustine, in book 21 On the City of God, chapters 26 and 27, confutes this dogma; do thou see whether Origen[‘s] [do thou see whether] Origen’s words can be interpreted of the fire of the final conflagration, which on the day of judgment shall purge certain elect not yet purged, and shall sweep up [enfold] all the reprobate. See the following Annotation.