The Fathers on Hell

Now collected into one document, a PDF, are quotations from Orthodox Patristic writers on Hell.  At the end of the document there are some quotes from more contemporary Orthodox theologians also on Hell.  You can find that document at The Fathers on Hell (PDF).  Many thanks to Fr. Silviu Bunta who gathered most of the quotes from the Fathers.  It is a work in progress and may be updated from time to time.

Many of these quotes deal with how the Fathers conceived of Hell not as a place of eternal torment, but rather as a state of being in the presence of God.  For those who have no love for God, being fully present in His love burns, but it is still being burned by the presence of God.

You can find links to all the PDFs I have made available at  Blogs as PDFs.

8 thoughts on “The Fathers on Hell

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  2. Fr Aidan Kimel

    Thanks for making this available. You might want to take a look at my blog series on St Isaac the Syrian. There are several good quotations from the Second Part of St Isaac’s discourses that have not been readily available. You may want to include some of them in your compilation. The last two articles explicitly address the matter of Gehenna.

  3. “And this also must be noted: that God does not punish someone in the future; rather, each person makes himself receptive to the partaking of God. And the partaking of God is bliss, while the non-partaking of Him is punishment (Hell)…” “…those sinners who desire sin, albeit not having the materials of sin, shall be punished as though devoured by fire and worm, with no solace whatsoever. What is “hell”, if not the deprival of something desired?”
    Saint John of Damascus (676 – 749)
    “Against Manichaeans” PG 94 , 1545 D – 1548 A, and 1573 C

    We reply that Heaven is not a physical
    place where the angels dwell like as
    we, but it is a noetic place surpassing
    sense perception, if indeed this should
    be called a place at all; but more properly,
    it must be called the “place of
    God.” For John the Damascene says in
    his thirteenth Theological Chapter entitled
    “On The Place of God”: “The
    place of God is said to be that which
    [or, he who] has a greater share in His
    energy and grace. For this reason the
    heaven is His throne, for in it are the
    angels who do His will;” and again, “A
    noetic place is where the noetic and
    bodiless natures both function noetically and exist, both are present and
    active.” We say, then, that such a
    place, supercelestial and supermundane,
    noetic and bodiless…we are
    accustomed to call it Heaven. /Saint Mark of Ephesus/

    1. Yeah, but in is not from the original – i think that is in the context of his disputes with the Latins on the Council of Ephesus.

      The quote is from the book (I can send it on pdf) of father Lazar Puhalo “Gehenna”, pages 35-36.

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