Theorem III. The eternity of punishments is established by those testimonies in which their end is expressly and explicitly denied.

18. Demonstration. John the Baptist declares what the future duration of the punishments which await the wicked will be when he testifies that God will burn the chaff with an inextinguishable fire, πυρὶ ἀσβέστῳ.¹ The same phrase is repeated in Luke,² when the κήρυγμα [proclamation] of John is related. Christ himself, moreover, teaches that it is far better for men to lose any temporal things whatever than ἀπελθεῖν εἰς τὴν γέενναν, εἰς τὸ πῦρ τὸ ἄσβεστον· ὅπου ὁ σκώληξ αὐτῶν οὐ τελευτᾷ, καὶ τὸ πῦρ οὐ σβέννυται, “to go into Gehenna, into that inextinguishable fire, where their worm does not die and the fire is not extinguished.”³

Now several things are worthy of notice here.

I. If a duration which will never cease were to be described, what words, I ask, could be employed which were either clearer or more efficacious?

II. There is no one who does not perceive the force of propositions which deny absolutely. They reject limits, extend to infinity, and can be contained within no boundary. But both John and Christ employ propositions which deny absolutely: the former when he calls the penal fire ἄσβεστον, unextinguished and inextinguishable; the latter when he repeats the same and, moreover, adds, τὸ πῦρ οὐ σβέννυται, “the fire is not extinguished.”

III. The words of Christ are taken from the oracle of Isaiah.⁴ But what Christ says, καὶ τὸ πῦρ οὐ σβέννυται, in the present tense, stands in Isaiah in the future tense, וְאִשָּׁם לֹא תִכְבֶּה; and by this form of tense eternity is expressed even more vividly.

IV. As Isaiah does, so also Christ joins and associates with the fire which will not be extinguished the worm which will not die. But what is expressed by the name of the worm? That which in Mark is ὁ σκώληξ is תּוֹלַעַת in Isaiah. But Bochart⁵ and Braun⁶ have demonstrated by certain arguments that by the word תּוֹלַעַת there is properly designated the little red or scarlet worm. Again, by comparison with another passage of Isaiah,⁷ it is evident that תּוֹלַעַת or תּוֹלָע is a type and image of sin remaining within. Wherefore Christ, who offered himself as a sacrifice to God for sins, just as he is called sin, so is he called תּוֹלָע, “a worm,” in the Psalms.⁸

Thus by a metaphorical manner of speech, but one whose sense is determinate, Christ joins together both the fire which will never be extinguished and the sin by which the wicked will always both be stained and tormented. Namely, he joins together the effect and the cause, as if he were to say: the punishment ought to endure as long as the fault remains which contains the cause of the punishment inflicted. But the sins of the wicked who have departed this life never cease, are never abolished, and always stain them. Therefore neither will the punishment ever cease, but it will endure eternally.

Scholion I

19. “As though,” reply the Socinians, “texts of the Scriptures were lacking in which those things which certainly will cease are said to have no end. Behold, in the prophecies of Isaiah⁹ and Nahum,¹⁰ their treasures are said to have no end; and in Job,¹¹ ‘there is no end of thy iniquities.’ The same is repeated of labor,¹² of books,¹³ and in the First Epistle to Timothy¹⁴ genealogies having no end are commemorated.”

But what is this except to make a false show and to compare as similar and twin things which are utterly disjoined?

For, I. do these texts present the emphasis which we noted above?¹⁵ Do the same adjuncts accompany both these and the preceding texts?

Moreover, II. who does not immediately perceive that these two things differ from one another by the whole heaven: that something is said, with respect to us, to lack an end because we do not reach its end by counting; and that something is presented by God himself as though it will never cease?

Finally, III. the expressions employed in the present case, by which treasures, sins, books, and labors are said to have no end, are most correct, since they both continue actually and have not yet reached an end. But what does the divine sanction, by which the punishments destined for the wicked are declared never to cease and to endure continually, have in common with these?

Scholion II

20. Petersen, in his Colloquy on the Restoration of All Things,¹⁶ renews the difficulty from those very words which we alleged from Mark.¹⁷ For, he says, the particle ὅπου, “where,” is therefore employed by the Savior because neither the worm of the damned will die nor the fire be extinguished for as long as they remain in Gehenna. But who would gather from this that they will remain in Gehenna forever? Indeed, he continues, the words which follow a little afterward¹⁸ demonstrate that some end has been appointed beforehand for Gehenna; for it is Christ who adds: “For everyone shall be salted with fire, and every victim shall be salted with salt.”

But both the reason sought from the particle ὅπου is futile, and no strength accrues to it from the confirmation.

Thus the fire is called ἄσβεστος [inextinguishable] absolutely, and it is pronounced absolutely of the worm that it will never die. The particle ὅπου, moreover, has regard to the place in which neither the fire is extinguished nor the worm dies. It follows, therefore, that the place of Gehenna is everlasting, because everlasting is the fire which must burn in Gehenna, and everlasting is the worm which torments and consumes those detained in Gehenna. What of the fact that in Isaiah no particle of this kind occurs, but it is said absolutely that their worm will not die?

Now a few words concerning the confirmation. That the salt in verse forty-eight is regarded as a type of fraternal charity which men owe mutually to one another is shown by Christ’s own exposition contained in verse forty-nine. What, therefore, does this have to do with the matter? Can an example perhaps be produced by which it is even most slightly intimated that the reprobate condemned to the torments of hell are considered as sacrifices offered to God and antitypes of the victims of the Old Testament? We have therefore dissipated the difficulties objected, and the argument which we established remains ratified and fixed.