20. Demonstration. Chrysostom excellently observes1 that in the Gospels Gehenna is threatened more often than heaven is promised. But although mention of Gehenna is so frequent, and the description of the punishments which await the reprobate so various and manifold, nevertheless it is never indicated, either expressly and explicitly or implicitly and somewhat obscurely, that those things which are predicated of fire, flames, and everlasting burnings are to be understood metaphorically. What, therefore, shall we determine? That a matter of the greatest gravity and so greatly inculcated was always expressed metaphorically, never properly, and yet no indication of metaphorical speech was exhibited? But this is abhorrent to every appearance of truth.
There is added the fact that human usage and human custom do not permit us always to speak metaphorically. Common discourse must be proper; metaphorical discourse must be rarer and such that it can be detected easily.
Moreover, you will scarcely find any head of doctrine in the Scriptures which, if it is sometimes handed down metaphorically, is not expressed more frequently, or at least sometimes, in proper terms. How, therefore, could it have come about that the punishments of the reprobate were never, even once, explained in proper terms?
Finally, let all the things which are read in the Scriptures concerning the punishments of hell be joined together and considered almost in one view of the mind: “Coals shall fall upon them; thou shalt cast them down into fire; in miseries they shall not stand”;2 “A fire is kindled in my fury; it shall burn upon you”;3 “The vengeance of the flesh of the impious is fire and the worm”;4 “Thou shalt make them as a furnace of fire in the time of thy countenance; the Lord in his wrath shall trouble them, and fire shall devour them”;5 “They shall go into the Gehenna of fire”;6 “into the furnace of fire”;7 “into the lake of fire burning with sulfur”;8 “into the lake of fire and sulfur”;9 “into eternal fire.”10 … What, I ask, do these things demonstrate? Metaphorical fire, or real? I would dare to say that real fire cannot be expressed in human idiom if it is not expressed by forms of speech so evident and manifest as these.