The Role Of Hell In The Early Christian Church

In the early Christian church there existed a debate over the duration of hell. One sect argued that hell was endless and that the unrepentant sinners who were punished there experienced everlasting, agonizing torment. This idea is often referred to as the doctrine of endless hell. There existed another sect, however, that argued that although hell was agonizing, it did not last forever. Instead, they argued that hell involved “purging” the damned of their sin and that rather being purely punitive, this purgation would ultimately reconcile the purged back to God. This idea is often referred to as the doctrine of purgatorialism.

Saint Augustine of Hippo, arguably one of the biggest advocates of endless hell in the early church, described
this debate as being an “amicable controversy”, calling the purgatorialists “tender-hearted”. Although endless hell is accepted almost universally throughout the Christian church today, Augustine wrote that in his time there were “indeed very many” who believed otherwise, most notably Saint Gregory of Nyssa. Saint Gregory wrote extensively on the doctrine of purgatorialism, specifically in his book On the Soul and Resurrection where he says, “His [God’s] end is one, and one only; it is this: when the complete whole of our race shall have been perfected from the first man to the last — some having at once in this life been cleansed from evil, others having afterwards in the necessary periods been healed by the Fire . . . [then, God will] offer to every one of us participation in the blessings which are in Him”.

PART I: REFUTING ENDLESS HELL

Proponents of endless hell most often maintain that the doctrine of endless hell is Biblically sound by arguing that (1) the usage of the Hebrew word olam in the Old Testament and the usage of the Koine Greek words aion/aionios/aionion in the New Testament mean “eternal”, (2) Jesus’ reference to the “‘the worms that (...) do not die, and the fire [that] is not quenched.’” in Mark 9:42-48 is to be taken literally, and (3) that Jesus’ description of the “chasm” in Luke 16:26 is a description of the eschaton. Proponents of the doctrine of purgatorialism most often counter the above arguments with the following three: (1) the usage of the Hebrew word olam in the Old Testament and the usage of the Koine Greek words aion/aionios/aionion in the New Testament do not mean “eternal” and are incorrectly translated as such due to the ambiguity of the words’ meaning, (2) Jesus’ reference to the “‘the worms that (...) do not die, and the fire [that] is not quenched.’” in Mark 9:42-48 is not to be taken literally as it is part of the corpse metaphor for what will happen to those who rebel against God, and that (3) the parable in Luke 16:19-31 is not about the eschaton, but about the Greek Hades (or Hebrew Sheol) and that the parable is about the New Covenant and fits into the overarching Luke 15 narrative. The following three paragraphs will further elaborate on the interpretations of the Bible’s position on the eschaton by dissecting the arguments posed by the proponents of the doctrine of endless hell and providing the rebuttals posed by the proponents of the doctrine of purgatorialism.

The Bible uses two words when describing the duration of hell: the Hebrew word olam in the Old Testament and the Koine Greek word aion/aionios/aionion in the New Testament. These words are most often translated as “eternal” or “everlasting”. It is no wonder then that the majority of denominations in modern Christianity hold the belief that hell is endless. Advocates of endless hell cite the following verses as Biblical evidence for the doctrine of endless hell: Daniel 12:1-12, Matthew 18:8, Matthew 25:46, 2 Thessalonians 1:9, Jude 1:7, Jude 1:12-13, Revelations 19:3, and Revelations 20:10. Each of these verses use either the Hebrew word olam or the Koine Greek words aion/aionios/aionion. Advocates of endless hell argue that this is blatant Biblical support for the doctrine of endless hell. Purgatorialists on the other hand argue that the meanings of the Hebrew word olam and the Koine Greek words aion/aionios/aionion are ambiguous and that they instead mean something along the lines of “age-pertaining”. Purgatorialists hen translated from Hebrew, the word olam in Isaiah 63:11 is translated not as “eternal” but rather as “of old”. When translated from the Greek Septuagint, the word aionion is also translated not as “eternal” but rather as “of old”. This is true for verses Genesis 6:4 and Isaiah 42:14 as well. Purgatorialists argue that because the doctrine of endless hell has been supported almost unanimously throughout the Christian church for the past 1,500 years, translators have no reason to translate olam and aion/aionios/aionion as “age-pertaining”. Consider the following three translations of Matthew 25:46:

(New International Version) “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
(Young’s Literal Translation) “‘And these shall go away to punishment age-during, but the righteous to life age-during.'”
(Weymouth New Testament) “And these shall go away into the Punishment of the Ages, but the righteous into the Life of the Ages.”

This, one could argue, is enough evidence to support the purgatorialists’ claim that the words olam and aion/aionios/aionion are not optimally translated as “eternal” but as “age-pertaining” or “of the ages”. Without the translations of olam and aion/aionios/aionion as “eternal”, the Biblical case for the doctrine of endless hell begins to look significantly less grounded.

In their book, Erasing Hell, Dr. Francis Chan and Dr. Preston Sprinkle comment on the matter saying the following:

“What about the word aionios? Bible scholars have debated the meaning of this term for what seems like an eternity, so we’re not going to settle the issue here. It’s important to note that however we translate aionios, the passage still refers to punishment for the wicked . . . The debate about hell’s duration is much more complex than I first assumed. While I lean heavily on the side that says it is everlasting, I am not ready to claim that with complete certainty. I encourage you to continue researching, but don’t get so caught up in this debate that you miss the point of what Jesus was trying to communicate. . . . I believe His intention was to stir a fear in us that would cause us to take hell seriously and avoid it at all costs.”

In Mark 9:42-48, Jesus quotes Isaiah 66:24, saying that “if your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out.
It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell, where ‘the worms that eat them [the damned] do not die, and the fire is not quenched.’” Because this passage describes hell as a place where the wicked are eaten by immortal worms and burned by unquenchable flames, proponents of endless hell often cite it as Biblical support for their doctrine. Purgatorialists, on the other hand, argue that these verses should not be taken literally and that they fit into the overarching “corpse metaphor” that is used throughout Isaiah 66 to describe what will happen to those who rebel against God. They argue that the corpse metaphor is similar to the “destruction of the ungodly” mentioned in 2 Peter 3:7, a phrase that both purgatorialists and supporters of endless hell recognize as
hyperbole.

The third and final passage most commonly cited as Biblical evidence for the doctrine of endless hell is Jesus’ description of the “chasm” in Luke 16:26.
Advocates of endless hell view the parable of the rich man and Lazarus as a description of the eschaton, a “sneak peek” of what heaven and hell will be like in the hereafter. Purgatorialists, on the other hand, argue that the parable of the rich man and Lazarus is a story of the Hebrew Sheol, which is not in anyway related to heaven or hell, and that the purpose of the parable is not to provide Christians with a “sneak peek” of the eschaton, but is instead part of the overarching Luke 15 narrative concerning the New
Covenant.

Purgatorialists (and a large portion of the Christian church as a whole) believe that there are two “underworlds” written about in Scripture. The first is the Greek Gehenna, a place of excruciating torment reserved for the unrighteous. This is what the Bible is referring to (for the most part) whenever it uses the English word “hell” or other monikers such as “the lake of fire”, “the outer darkness”, or “the second death”. The second “underworld” written about in the Bible is the Greek Hades (Hebrew Sheol), a place which all (both the saved and unsaved) will enter into after they die. It is often referred to in Scripture as “the pit”, “the grave”, or “the first death”, and although all human beings will end up going to Sheol after death, one may still hope to gain entrance to a refuge for the righteous known as “Abraham’s Bosom”. Purgatorialists argue that when the word “Hades” is used in Luke 16:23, it is not a reference to the “underworld” that supporters of endless hell believe to be endless, but it is instead a reference to Sheol, the grave to which all go after physical death. Purgatorialists argue that due to this semantic distinction, the parable has virtually nothing to do with the debate over hell’s duration.