St. Isaac of Nineveh: hell is full of love and compassion
Gehenna, Its Duration
If the world to come proves entirely the realm
That we should think that hell
—Adapted from the writings of St. Isaac of Nineveh by Scott Cairns, Love’s Immensity: Mystics on the Endless Life (Brewster, MA: Paraclete Press, 2007), 78.
Even in the matter of afflictions
—the judgment of Gehenna, say—
there bides a hidden mystery, wherebythe Maker has taken as a starting point
our patent willfulness, using even Hellas a way of bringing to perfection
His greater dispensation.If the world to come proves entirely the realm
of mercy, love, and goodness,
how then a final state that claimsrequital for its measure?
That we should think that hell
is not also full
of love and mingled with compassionwould be an insult to our God.
By saying He will deliver usto suffering without purpose, we
most surely sin. We blaspheme also if we saythat He will act with spite or with a vengeful purpose,
as if He had a need to avenge Himself.—Adapted from the writings of St. Isaac of Nineveh by Scott Cairns, Love’s Immensity: Mystics on the Endless Life (Brewster, MA: Paraclete Press, 2007), 78.
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