14. Demonstration. Properties and attributes are those things which declare the natures of things, and from which it is known certainly what things are like. But those things are said concerning the fire of hell in the New Testament, and those things are ascribed to it, which demonstrate real fire and do not accord with metaphorical fire. Here you would fittingly refer τὴν κάμινον τοῦ πυρός, “the furnace of fire,” where the tares, that is, the reprobate, will be burned;1 here τὴν λίμνην τὴν καιομένην πυρὶ καὶ θείῳ, “the lake burning with fire and sulfur,”2 into which all who do not belong to the heavenly Jerusalem will be cast; here τὸν καπνὸν τοῦ βασανισμοῦ, “the smoke of torments,”3 which ascends unto ages of ages; here φλόγα, ἐν ᾗ ὀδυνῶνται, “the flame in which those who are damned are tormented”;4 here πυρὸς ζῆλον, “the zeal of fire,”5 by which zeal of fire the adversaries will be consumed; here πῦρ τὸ ἄσβεστον, “the unquenchable fire,”6 by which the wicked will be punished; and here πυρὸς φλόγα, διδόντα ἐκδίκησιν τοῖς μὴ εἰδόσι θεόν, “the flame of fire taking vengeance upon those who have not known God.”7
But who does not understand that these things are of such a kind as accord with real fire and all but conflict with metaphorical fire? Who, when speaking of metaphorical fire, would make mention of a furnace, smoke, a lake, a flame, and burning? If these things do not suffice for demonstrating real fire, what things, I ask, will suffice? The word fire is repeated, is redoubled; those things which are proper to real fire and which accompany it are repeated and redoubled. Who, therefore, would continue to doubt whether the fire of which the Scriptures speak, and by which the reprobate are said to be tormented, is real?