Pars 7, Cap. 6
by St. Bonaventure
Source text: Public Domain Mark 1.0. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://bonaventure.wrootpress.com/browse/5/d/7/q/bon-brev-p7-c6
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### Chapter VI. *On the things consequent upon the judgment, of which sort is the punishment of hell.*

Consequently we must speak of the things *consequent* upon the judgment; and these are two, namely the *punishment of hell* and the *glory of heaven*.

Concerning the *punishment of hell*, therefore, this must be held: that the punishment of hell is in a bodily place below, in which all the reprobate will be afflicted eternally, both men and evil spirits. — And they will be afflicted by the same bodily fire, which will burn up and afflict spirits and also bodies — yet it will not consume those bodies, but will always afflict them — some more, some less according to the requirement of their merits. — And to an affliction of this kind by fire there will be joined an affliction according to all the senses; there will be joined the punishment of the worm and the lack of the vision of God, so that in these punishments there will be *variety*, and with variety *bitterness*, and with bitterness *endlessness*, so that unto the torment of the reprobate *the smoke of their torments may ascend for ever and ever*.

Now the reason for the understanding of the aforesaid is this: since the first principle, by that very fact that it is first, is highest, whatever it has it has in the highest degree; therefore it is necessary that it be *most right*. Since therefore in rendering retribution it acts according to rectitude — just as it cannot act against itself nor *deny itself* nor impugn its own justice — so necessarily, its own rectitude requiring it, it is fitting that sin be punished according to the quantity of the fault, and in these most of all who, despising the law of mercy, have dashed themselves through impenitence against the severity of justice. Since therefore it belongs to the severity of justice to consider the fault not only as to its *root*, but also as to the *aggravating circumstances*, it is most fitting that the just judge exact from the wicked the punishments due even to the last farthing, so that thus there may not remain « the disgrace of sin without the comeliness of justice »; and just as *power* is manifest in creating and *wisdom*

in governing and *clemency* in repairing, so may the highest *justice* be made manifest in punishing. Since therefore the divine justice must punish the wicked sinner according to the requirement of his fault; and mortal fault, upon which final impenitence follows, has of itself the character of a *perpetual* disordering, of a *lustful* disordering, of a *manifold* disordering: it is necessary that it be punished by the *eternity, the bitterness* and the *multiformity* of punishments.

First, therefore, the punishment of a *perpetual* disordering must be *perpetual*, because the sin which one commits and of which he never repents endures perpetually in the soul, and separates from the perpetual life, namely from God, and proceeds from a will which would wish to take delight perpetually in sin. And although that passing *delight* is momentary, yet because the *disordering* holds the character of perpetuity, the punishment answering to the *disordering* must have a lack of any end; so that, just as *man* in his own perpetual state set no end to it by withdrawing from sin, so *God* in his own perpetual state may not desist from punishing; and just as he sinned against the infinite, so may he have an infinite punishment; and because he cannot have a punishment infinite in *intensity*, may he have one at least in *duration*; and just as his will after death always cleaves to evil without any acceptance of repentance, so may God always afflict without any change of sentence — the *perpetuity of the disordering* in the wicked damned requiring this.

Again, since the punishment of a *lustful* disordering must be *afflictive*, because delight is punished by the contrary sorrow; and the rational spirit in sinning turns itself to its own good, and to a good *as of now* and partial, to be loved lustfully, and from this despises the divine command and lordship: hence it is that, in order that that wicked delight may be perfectly punished, in which there is at once delight together with contempt, it is necessary that, for the punishment of that contempt and of that delight, the sinner — whether he be man or spirit — be cast headlong into the *lowest place*, and the place furthest removed from the state of glory, that is, into the deepest hell. — It is necessary also that he be there set forth to be afflicted by a *lowest nature*, and thereby that he suffer not from a spiritual substance but from a *bodily and lowest* one, that is, from the dregs of the world's bodies, so that in the dregs he may be fixed fast and be burned up with *fire and brimstone*. And since the spirit, which by nature is set over the body and has to pour influence into the body and to move it, has perverted the dignity of nature through fault and has subjected itself in a certain way to the vileness and nothingness of sin: hence it is that according to the order of justice it must be so ordered that both the sinning spirit and man be bound to a bodily fire, not that it may pour life into it, but that by the divine decree it may receive punishment. For since he is inseparably bound to a thing which he *shudders at* through a fear divinely sent upon him, and which he *feels* through the force of natural sense, it is necessary that he be sharply tormented. — And because that fire does not act save through the disposition of the sin and of the guilt and of the stain proceeding from the wickedness of lust; and this is not equally in all: hence it is that by the same fire some are burned more and others less, just as by the same fire straw is burned in one way and wood is consumed in another. — But since that distinction of sin and that guilt, according to which the action of the fire is measured, is uniform in one and the same person and never grows nor diminishes nor is changed: hence it is that, the divine command ordaining it, that fire so acts that it always burns and does not consume, always afflicts and does not destroy, because it acts not unto the multiplication of its own form, but unto the disturbance of the soul's peace in the body, or of the spirit's own peace in itself. Whence there does not come about a new taking away, but the continuation of a peace already taken away; so that thus in one and the same punishment neither may the bitterness take away the eternity, nor the eternity the bitterness.

Lastly, since the punishment of a *manifold* disordering must be *manifold*; and in every actual mortal sin there is a disordered aversion from the highest light and goodness, and an inordinate conversion to changeable good, and a disordering of the will against the dictate of right reason: hence it is that all who sin actually, and who will be damned, will be punished with a threefold punishment: for the aversion, the *lack of the vision of God*; for the conversion, the *punishment of material burning*; for the war of will and reason, the *punishment of the worm*; so that thus, afflicted by this multiplicity of punishments, they may be tormented *variously* and *bitterly* and *eternally*, and *the smoke of their torments may ascend for ever and ever*. Amen.

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