Question Six
Which region of the four penal places is more lasting
It is asked which region of the penal places is more lasting.
To this it is answered that of those four regions, the one belonging to the damned in hell, just as it is and will be immeasurably more extensive than the others, is likewise more lasting.
For the upper region, which is Abraham’s bosom, perhaps first began to be inhabited at the death of righteous Abel, and it was depopulated immediately after the death of Christ. After this, the region of Purgatory began to be inhabited. It too was deprived of all its inhabitants by Christ when he descended to the lower world, as seems more probable to certain doctors. After that evacuation of Purgatory, that region again began to have inhabitants, and thereafter it will perhaps have them without interruption until the general resurrection of the dead.
But the whole region of hell, or of the damned alone, together with its unhappy inhabitants, will endure eternally, to be extended on high as regards the manifestation of divine justice through the distinct punishments of each, by a judgment of God hidden from us which will then be discerned by all.
These things are from Henry of Hesse on Genesis.