Review of "The Fire That Consumes" by Edward W. Fudge (Part 3)

This is the third article in a three-part series reviewing the late Edward W. Fudge's important and influential book on hell, The Fire That Consumes: A Biblical and Historical Study of the Doctrine of Final Punishment (3rd ed.; Eugene: Cascade, 2011; 593 pages). This book, over its three editions dating back to 1982, has helped to make the doctrine of annihilationism—that the final punishment of the ungodly is the absolute termination of their existence—an acceptable and growing (if still minority) view within Evangelical Christianity. Thus the traditional Christian view of hell as a place of unending suffering, which used to be an area of theological common ground between Evangelicals and Catholics, is no longer reliably such.

In Part 1 of this series, I interacted with Fudge's first ten chapters, which cover some introductory issues, the Old Testament, and Second Temple Jewish literature (Apocrypha, Dead Sea Scrolls, Pseudepigrapha). I found myself in substantial agreement with Fudge's characterisation of Old Testament teaching on the fate of the wicked when interpreted at a strictly grammatical-historical level, but argued that Christians cannot limit their reading of the Old Testament to the grammatical-historical level, because the New Testament writers did not. I further took issue with Fudge's interpretation with a couple of late passages from the Hebrew Bible (Isaiah 66:24 and Daniel 12:2). I noted that Fudge and I are in agreement that Judith 16:17 presupposes a traditionalist view of final punishment, but that Fudge regards this text as apocrypha whereas the Catholic Church has always (at least since the late first century, on the evidence of 1 Clement) regarded it as Sacred Scripture. Finally, while I agreed with Fudge's claim that Second Temple Jewish literature is diverse in its perspectives on final punishment, I differed with his interpretation of some of that literature, devoting particular attention to three apocalyptic works: 4 Ezra, Jubilees, and 1 Enoch.

In Part 2, I interacted with Fudge's exegesis of New Testament passages about final punishment (his chapters 11-23). In contrast to Fudge, who finds the New Testament evidence to be uniformly in support of annihilationism, I followed historian Alan E. Bernstein in distinguishing between two distinct traditions within the New Testament, the "positive tradition" and the "symmetrical tradition."1 The positive tradition, whose most prominent representatives are the Gospel and Letters of John and the Letters of Paul, emphasises what the ungodly will not receive (eternal life; the kingdom of God) and prefers to describe their fate in vague or abstract terms (e.g., wrath, distress, death, destruction) rather than vivid imagery. This part of the New Testament witness is consistent with an annihilationist view, and arguably most plausibly interpreted in terms of annihilation, and to that extent my reading of this material aligns with Fudge's. However, the positive tradition does not actually contradict the traditionalist view. The possibility remains open that these writers held a traditionalist view of hell but preferred not to express it, perhaps for pastoral reasons. At least one passage in the Pauline corpus (2 Thessalonians 1:8-9) appears to lend support to this reading. On the other hand, the symmetrical tradition, whose most prominent representatives are the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) and Revelation, describe the fate of the ungodly in vivid detail as equal and opposite to the fate of the godly, thus painting a symmetrical picture. Differing sharply with Fudge's assessment of this material, I argue that it depicts the suffering of the ungodly as interminable.

In this final installment, I interact with Fudge's treatment of patristic literature, later Church history, and his theological findings and concluding reflections (chapters 24-36). I devote most of my attention to chapter 24 ("Apostolic Fathers and Their Successors") for two reasons. The first reason is that these earliest post-apostolic writings are the only ones that both Protestants and Catholics are likely to regard as in any way normative. Protestants have no qualms about rejecting the teachings of such luminaries of Church history as Augustine of Hippo, John Chrysostom, Ambrose of Milan, Anselm of Canterbury, and Thomas Aquinas (all held to be saints and Doctors of the Church in Roman Catholicism),2 as Fudge does in chapters 27-29. Conversely, Catholics do not regard the teachings of the Reformers (e.g., Luther and Calvin) or later Protestants as normative. However, most Protestants and Catholics are likely to share Fudge's conviction that, while not infallible, the Apostolic Fathers are important due to their proximity to the apostles: "these are men who were taught by the apostles, or by those whom the apostles had taught" (p. 375). The second reason why this review concentrates mainly on the writings of the earliest post-apostolic period is simply that I happen to be more familiar with them than with writings of the third century and beyond.

Chapter 24: The Apostolic Fathers and Their Successors
  The Didache  
  1 Clement  
  2 Clement  
  Ignatius of Antioch  
  Polycarp's Letter to the Philippians  
  Martyrdom of Polycarp  
  Epistle of Barnabas  
  Epistle to Diognetus  
  Justin Martyr  
Later Christian History
Fudge's Concluding Chapters
My Concluding Remarks

Chapter 24: The Apostolic Fathers and Their Successors

In this chapter, Fudge undertakes to describe the views of final punishment of the Apostolic Fathers and Justin Martyr. These writings roughly span the period from the end of the first century to the middle of the second century C.E. (though the collection of these particular writings into a corpus called "Apostolic Fathers" occurred many centuries later). Before interacting with Fudge's analysis of individual writers, I wish to point out three major shortcomings of this chapter that detract significantly from the value of the historical aspect of his "Biblical and Historical Study of the Doctrine of Final Punishment."

The first shortcoming is that Fudge omits from his book a number of Christian texts from this period that contain relevant material, such as the Ascension of Isaiah (late first/early second century),3 the Apocalypse of Peter, the Shepherd of Hermas4 (which is among the Apostolic Fathers!) and the Epistula Apostolorum. The Apocalypse of Peter is an especially glaring omission, since it discusses final punishment in far more detail than any other Christian text of the period, and since it was influential enough to be reckoned by the earliest extant New Testament canon list (the Muratorian Fragment, c. 200 C.E.) as on the fringes of the canon.5 The second shortcoming is that Fudge appears to rely entirely on dated Greek texts and translations of the Apostolic Fathers and Justin Martyr, and has not interacted with any scholarly commentaries or articles in arriving at his exegesis.6 The third shortcoming is a general lack of attention to detail. Several important early Christian texts are passed over in a couple of sentences that do not even mention the relevant passages about eschatological punishment.

That said, let us attend to Fudge's comments on individual writings and offer our own assessment of the ideas about final punishment presupposed therein.

 The Didache

Fudge deals with this important church manual or handbook, often dated to the first century, in just five lines, citing only two passages (Did. 1.1 and 16.5), which refer to "death" and "perish[ing]." Fudge avers, "There is no mention of unending conscious torment. There is no pretense that 'perish' means continued existence, though in a state of ruin. The author seems to use 'perish' with its ordinary meaning of die" (p. 378). As with some New Testament passages, Fudge asserts without argument that the Didache uses the verb apollumi ("perish") in the sense of "die," and in turn uses the word "death" of "ordinary" physical death that entails annihilation. Simply assuming that a text has an annihilationist perspective is not very compelling exegesis. What is more problematic is that Fudge has overlooked some contrary evidence. In its description of the Way of Life, the Didache states:

'Give to everyone who asks you, and do not demand it back,' for the Father wants something from his own gifts to be given to everyone. Blessed is the one who gives according to the command, for such a person is innocent. Woe to the one who receives: if, on the one hand, someone who is in need receives, this person is innocent, but the one who does not have need will have to explain why and for what purpose he received, and upon being imprisoned will be interrogated about what he has done, and will not be released from there until he has repaid every last cent. (Did. 1.5)7

In a text that obviously shares some tradition-history8 with Matthew 5:25-26 and 18:34-35 (discussed in Part 2 of this review), despite being applied to a different moral situation, the Didache clearly conceives of eschatological punishment in terms of enduring imprisonment that ends—if it ends at all—not with annihilation but with release. If this statement is combined with a subsequent statement that warns against testing prophets who speak in spirit, since "every sin will be forgiven, but this sin will not be forgiven" (Did. 11.7), it appears that the Didache conceives of eschatological punishment in terms of imprisonment that for some ends in forgiveness and release, and for others does not end. The Didache's references to "death" and "perishing" must be interpreted through this lens. The ending of the Didache is missing from the extant text, and may have included a description of the final judgment with symmetrical fates for the righteous and wicked.9

 1 Clement

Fudge discusses both 1 Clement and 2 Clement under the heading of "Clement of Rome," although most scholars today regard these as works written decades apart by different authors. The two documents do share some close similarities; for instance, they both quote the same passage from an otherwise unknown scriptural source.10 1 Clement is a long, anonymous letter from the church of Rome to the church of Corinth, usually dated to the late 90s C.E. Fudge treats this important text in just two sentences and quotes just one passage (1 Clem. 9.1) that warns that jealousy "leads to death." Again, Fudge appears to assume without argument that "death" in any early Christian text denotes annihilation.

Many of this letter's statements about punishment of the ungodly consist of references to divine judgments from the biblical past taken from the Septuagint. The writer makes it clear that these past judgments are proof of future divine judgment, but does not describe the future judgment in much detail beyond that it entails "punishment and torment."11 There are, however, several passages that appear to depict the destiny of the ungodly as more than death, although they are too vague to be conclusive. In 1 Clement 41.3-4, the writer emphasises how violation of ministerial duties under the Levitical cult result in the death penalty. He then implies that the punishment for such disobedience under the Christian dispensation is something greater: "as we have been considered worthy of greater knowledge, so much the more are we exposed to danger."12 In 1 Clement 46.7-8, the writer quotes a saying of Jesus that parallels Matt. 26:24 and Luke 17:2 (which were discussed in Part 2), comparing the fate of the ungodly favourably with never having been born and with a gruesome execution. It is also worth noting that the author of 1 Clement believed in a beatific intermediate state for Christian martyrs (as I have discussed previously here and here) and was thus apparently a body/soul dualist.

On the whole, 1 Clement should probably be assigned (like Paul, whose letters the writer holds in high regard) to the positive tradition. The writer sometimes describes the fate of the ungodly negatively in terms of exclusion from eternal life (e.g., 1 Clem. 57.2), and otherwise uses mainly general terms like "death" and "perish" rather than describing eschatological punishment in vivid detail. The letter does not explicitly refer to unending conscious torment, and is on the whole consistent with annihilation, notwithstanding a reference to "punishment and torment." However, the statements in 1 Clem. 41.3-4 and 46.7-8 imply that a fate worse than death is in store for the ungodly, which makes it possible that the writer conceived of final punishment in traditionalist terms.

 2 Clement

2 Clement is an anonymous homily composed in the mid-second century. Fudge devotes two paragraphs to this text and cites six passages from within it (2 Clem. 2.7; 4.5; 5.4; 6.7; 7.6; 17.6-7). However, for most of these passages he merely offers a translation, with no detailed comment on their meaning. On 17.6-7, he comments that "Traditionalists" interpret the homily's teachings in terms of "unending conscious torment" whereas "Conditionalists understand the author of 2 Clement to affirm horrible pains from a[n annihilating] fire that cannot be extinguished" (p. 378). It strikes me as odd that Fudge assumes that traditionalists will interpret an early Christian text as traditionalist while conditionalists will interpret it as conditionalist. Is it unrealistic to hope that traditionalists and conditionalists might hold their own theological biases in check and offer balanced and impartial exegesis rather than automatically interpreting texts as supporting their own theological position?

2 Clement 1.4 expresses indebtedness to Christ in that "while we were perishing (Greek: apollumi), he saved us." This pre-salvation state is described further: "our entire life was nothing other than death...we were beset by darkening gloom...a great error and destruction was in us" (2 Clem. 1.6-7). Fascinatingly, the writer also states, "For he called us while we did not exist (ouk ontas), and he wished us to come into being from nonbeing (ek mē ontos)" (2 Clem. 1.8).13 All of this language, especially that of v. 8, sounds like annihilation talk (death, destruction, non-existence) but is clearly not literally such, since it refers to a state from which people subsequently were rescued. It would thus be inadvisable to assume (as Fudge seems to) that the language of "perishing" and "destruction" in 2 Clement 2.5-7 refers to annihilation.14

2 Clement's language about final punishment is reminiscent of that of the Synoptic Gospels and falls squarely within the symmetrical tradition. In 2 Clement 4.5, a quotation of an otherwise unknown saying of the Lord expresses the negative eschatalogical verdict in terms of being "thrown away" (Greek: apoballō)15 and commanded, "Depart from me" (upagete ap' emou; cf. Matt. 7:23; 25:41; Luke 13:27). This is the language of spatial exclusion, not annihilation. 2 Clement 5.4 mentions Gehenna in a saying that parallels that of Matt. 10:28 and Luke 12:4-5 (discussed in Part 2), and 2 Clement's form of the saying implies both transcendent postmortem punishment and anthropological dualism.16 In an unmistakably symmetrical description of eschatological fates, 2 Clement 6.7 contrasts the "place of rest" for the obedient with the "eternal punishment" (aiōniou kolaseōs) of the disobedient.17 In 2 Clement 7, the homilist uses "the games" as a metaphor for the Christian walk, and in 7.4-6 he uses the metaphor to make an a fortiori argument about eschatological punishment:

4 We must realize that if someone is caught cheating while competing in an earthly contest, he is flogged and thrown out of the stadium. 5 What do you suppose? What will happen to the one who cheats in the eternal competition? 6 As for those who do not keep the seal of their baptism, he says: 'Their worm will not die nor their fire be extinguished; and they will be a spectacle for all to see.'18

This text describes the earthly cheater's punishment in terms of corporal punishment and being "thrown out," a verb we have already seen the writer use of eschatological punishment. Then, the writer quotes Isaiah 66:24 LXX, implicitly applying it to Gehenna (as does Mark 9:43-48). We saw in Part 1 of this review that Isaiah 66 already conceives of an unending fire of punishment, albeit one that incessantly burns cadavers rather than conscious persons. 2 Clement 7.6 does not make it clear whether the victims of this unending fire are conceived of as conscious, but 2 Clement 17.5-7 quotes Isa. 66:24 again and describes the righteous on the day of judgment as observing "those who have deviated from the right path and denied Jesus through their words or deeds...punished with terrible torments in a fire that cannot be extinguished".19 Unquestionably, then, the writer of 2 Clement understands the unending Gehenna fire of Isaiah 66 as a tormenting fire. This is also confirmed by the verses following 2 Clement 7.6.

In 2 Clement 8.1-4, the homilist contrasts the present, "while we are still on earth...still in the world," when repentance is still possible, with the hereafter: "For after we leave the world we will no longer be able to make confession or repent in that place (eti)" (2 Clem. 8.3).20 The writer thus clearly conceives of Gehenna as an otherworldly, postmortem "place" of punishment in which repentance is no longer possible—a statement that presupposes that people still consciously exist in that place.21 Other passages refer to eschatological punishment in terms of "torment" (basanos) and a "double penalty" (2 Clem. 10.4-5), being "miserable" (2 Clem. 11.1), a "blazing oven" (2 Clem. 16.3), "death" (2 Clem. 16.4), and punishment "with chains" (2 Clem. 20.4).

On the whole, 2 Clement describes fiery eschatological punishment with a vividness comparable to that of the Synoptic Gospels. It is unmistakably a postmortem punishment of conscious persons in a transcendent place, and the writer describes it as "eternal" and its fire as "unquenchable" without giving any indication that the punishment will end in annihilation.

 Ignatius of Antioch

Concerning the seven epistles of Ignatius of Antioch, usually dated to the early second century, Fudge states that "four [epistles] contain references to our subject" (p. 378). He proceeds to quote five passages from these four letters (Eph. 11.1; 16.2; Smyrn. 6.1; Magn. 5.1; Trall. 2.1) with little comment. He sees Ignatius' judgment language as drawn mainly from Scripture, and thus (given his exegesis of Scripture) consistent with annihilation. He offers one positive argument: in Trallians 2.1, Ignatius writes that Jesus Christ "died for us that you may escape dying by believing in his death."22 Since Ignatius gives no indication that the "dying" that the faithful may escape is metaphysically different from the "death" through which Jesus delivered them, Fudge implies that both refer merely to physical death.

Ignatius' letters show considerable dependence on some of Paul's letters, and reflect an indebtedness to the positive tradition, speaking of "the wrath to come" (Eph. 11.1) and contrasting "to live at all times in Jesus Christ" with "to die" (Eph. 20.2).23 He also describes the fate of the ungodly simply as "death" in Magn. 5.1 and (as noted above) Trall. 2.1, as "perish[ing]" (Smyrn. 7.1), and as "[not] inherit[ing] the kingdom of God" (Phld. 3.3; cf. Eph. 16.1). However, there are four passages from Ignatius' letters—three noted by Fudge, one not—suggesting that Ignatius' view of eschatological punishment entailed something more than physical death.

In Eph. 16.2, Ignatius makes an a fortiori argument: if those who corrupt their own households "die," "how much more the one who corrupts the faith of God through an evil teaching, the faith for which Jesus Christ was crucified?"24 He adds a more specific description of the punishment: "Such a person is filthy and will depart into the unquenchable fire; so too the one who listens to him." While Fudge states that Ignatius "does not further explain" this language, the verb of motion chōreō suggests that "the unquenchable fire" refers to a place (Gehenna) and not merely a method of execution. Moreover, ceteris paribus, we should interpret "the unquenchable fire" in a way consistent with the use of this expression in the Synoptic Gospels, 2 Clement, and their biblical source, Isaiah 66:24. As has been argued previously in this review, in those texts, "unquenchable" refers to a fire that does not go out, not merely to a fire that cannot be extinguished until it has consumed its fuel (as Fudge maintains).

The second text is Magn. 5.1, where Ignatius contrasts the opposite destinies of "death and life" (probably alluding to Deut. 30:15-19), and adds, "and each person is about to depart to his own place".25 The same relatively rare verb chōreō that is used in Eph. 16.2 occurs here, suggesting that the "place" to which the unbelievers are about to depart is "the unquenchable fire" mentioned in Eph. 16.2. The reference to "his own place" also recalls what Acts 1:25 says about Judas (discussed in Part 2), implicitly aligning Ignatius' eschatology with that of Luke-Acts. The third passage is Smyrn. 6.1 which, as Fudge notes, states that "Judgment is prepared even for the heavenly beings, for the glory of the angels, and for the rulers both visible and invisible, if they do not believe in the blood of Christ."26 Presumably the "judgment" that is "prepared" for disobedient angels, in Ignatius' view, is not physical death, but imprisonment of the kind described in detail in 1 Enoch and alluded to in New Testament passages like Matt. 25:41, Rev. 20:10, 2 Pet. 2:4, and Jude 6.

Ignatius' most distinctive statement about eschatological punishment is one that Fudge does not mention. In Smyrn. 2.1-3.3, Ignatius is affirming that Jesus "truly suffered" and "truly raised himself," in opposition to "some unbelievers" (apparently the Docetists), who say "that he suffered only in appearance."27 Ignatius then explains how their punishment will fit their crime: "their fate will be determined by what they think: they will become disembodied and demonic."28 Needless to say, punishment that entails being disembodied and demon-like can only be a postmortem punishment and not merely physical death.

 Polycarp's Letter to the Philippians

Fudge discusses Polycarp's Letter to the Philippians and the account of his death, the Martyrdom of Polycarp, under the same heading of "Polycarp," but it makes sense to separate them, since clearly only the first can have been written by Polycarp. The Letter to the Philippians, as Fudge acknowledges, shows dependence on the Letters of John, and (like those letters) has little to say about the fate of the ungodly. Polycarp makes repeated reference to judgment. For instance, "our Lord Jesus Christ...is coming as a judge of the living and the dead; and God will hold those who disobey him accountable for his blood" (Phil. 2.1). Alluding to 1 Cor. 6:9, he warns that those guilty of certain vices will not "inherit the kingdom of God" (Phil. 5.3). He declares heretical those who say "that there is neither resurrection nor judgment" (Phil. 7.1). Thus, Polycarp clearly believes in a final judgment, and that those who live wickedly will be excluded from the kingdom of God, but he says nothing about the eschatological punishment that will come upon the ungodly. Polycarp's letter falls within the positive tradition.

 Martyrdom of Polycarp

According to Ehrman, this theologised account of Polycarp's martyrdom is dated by "probably the majority of scholars" to c. 155-156 C.E.29 Fudge cites two passages within the Martyrdom (2.3; 11.2), both having to do with an eschatological fiery punishment. He regards these passages as ambiguous as to whether the writer(s)—apparently member(s) of Polycarp's congregation from Smyrna—conceived of the eschatological fire as unending or merely irresistible (so long as it lasts). Let us consider these two passages, which are the only two that shed light on the writer's view of final punishment.30 Martyrdom of Polycarp 2.3 describes the courage of certain martyrs thus:

And clinging to the gracious gift of Christ, they despised the torments of the world, in one hour purchasing for themselves eternal life. And the fire of their inhuman torturers was cold to them, because they kept their eyes on the goal of escaping the fire that is eternal and never extinguished (to pur...to aiōnion kai mēdepote sbennumeon).31

Fudge translates the key phrase, "the eternal and never-to-be-quenched [fire]," and regards it as uncertain what these two adjectival expressions mean. We conceded to Fudge in Part 1 a certain ambiguity in the adjective aiōnios, which could mean "eternal" in a temporal sense (endless) or in a qualitative sense (transcendent; pertaining to the age to come). However, the second expression here is unambiguously temporal, since it has a temporal adverb (mēdepote, "never") affixed. "Never-to-be-quenched" can only plausibly mean just that, and not irresistible until it consumes its fuel, whereupon it is quenched. The second relevant passage reads thus:

Again the proconsul said to him, 'If you despise the wild beasts, I will have you consumed by fire, if you do not repent.' Polycarp replied, 'You threaten with a fire that burns for an hour and after a short while is extinguished; for you do not know about the fire of the coming judgment and eternal [punishment], reserved for the ungodly. (M. Polyc. 11.2)32

Fudge observes that the text explicitly contrasts "man's fire with God's fire" (p. 380), but seems not to have noticed that the point of contrast is that man's fire is temporary, being "extinguished" after it has "consumed" its victim. The Martyrdom's description of man's fire corresponds precisely to how Fudge understands God's eschatological fire. It is thus obvious that Martyrdom of Polycarp conceives of the eschatological fire not as temporary and not merely as consuming but as punishing endlessly; otherwise the contrast breaks down. It is also worth noting that Martyrdom of Polycarp shows literary dependence on 4 Maccabees, a Jewish martyr-acts likely written in the late first century C.E. To give just two examples, in both 4 Maccabees and Martyrdom of Polycarp, the martyrs regard the fire of their earthly torture as "cold" (4 Macc. 11.26; M. Polyc. 2.3). Moreover, like 4 Maccabees (9.5-9; 13.14-15), Martyrdom of Polycarp (11.2) contrasts the temporary torture by the persecutors, which leads to eternal life for the martyrs, with the eschatological punishment that awaits the persecutors themselves. Given these similarities, it seems likely, ceteris paribus, that Martyrdom of Polycarp shares the view of 4 Maccabees that the eschatological punishment consists of "endless torment" (4 Macc. 10.11). All told, Martyrdom of Polycarp unquestionably belongs to the symmetrical tradition.

 Epistle of Barnabas

Fudge quotes four passages (4.12; 20.1; 21.1; 21.3) from this anonymous early-second-century letter (which was not written by the Barnabas of Acts and does not claim to have been). Fudge avers that, "Taken at face value, [the writer's] words suggest the final extinction of sinners after some righteous recompense that involves 'suffering'" (p. 381). Certainly, Barnabas must be assigned to the positive tradition. The writer warns about the risk of the evil one "hurling us away from our life" (Barn. 2.10) and "forc[ing] us out of the Lord's kingdom" (Barn. 4.13).33 In Barnabas 4.12, the writer states that "Each will receive according to what he has done" and refers to "the reward for...wickedness" without describing what it is.34 Barnabas 5.4 and 21.1 use the verb "perish" (apollumi) to describe the fate of the ungodly, while 10.5 and 14.5 respectively describe the impious as "condemned already to death" and "already paid out to death." It is noteworthy that, according to Barnabas 21.3, "the evil one" is also destined to "perish." Since the evil one (Satan) is an angelic being (cf. Barn. 18.1), it is unlikely (though not impossible) that the writer conceives of "perishing" as annihilation. Similarly, the transitive use of apollumi for various vices that "destroy people's souls" appears to bear a meaning like "ruin"; certainly the vices themselves do not literally annihilate souls.

The one text that goes beyond the typical language of the positive tradition—and may imply a punishment more than physical death—is Barnabas 20.1, which describes "the path of the Black One" (or, the path of blackness) as "the path of eternal death [which comes] with punishment (hodos...thanatou aiōniou meta timōrias)"35 The phrase "eternal death" on its own already suggests something of a higher order than mere physical death. The occurrence of the words "with punishment" after the words "eternal death" suggests a postmortem punishment; an ordinary capital punishment would more likely be described as something like "punishment unto death" or "the punishment of death." Thus, while this expression is somewhat oblique and Barnabas on the whole belongs to the positive tradition, like 2 Thess. 1:8-9 within the Pauline corpus, Barnabas 20.1 suggests that the writer envisioned an eschatological punishment more transcendent than mere physical death.

 Epistle to Diognetus

The Epistle to Diognetus is generally dated later than the rest of the Apostolic Fathers writings (late second century). Fudge discusses this text briefly, citing only one passage (Diog. 10.7-8) and concluding that this passage indicates annihilation, either as "a destroying fire that burns until all is consumed" or a fire that "keeps burning forever after its victims are consumed" (p. 381). Before looking at this passage, which provides the letter's most detailed description of eschatological punishment, let us consider a couple of other relevant passages. Diognetus 6.8 states straightforwardly that "The soul, which is immortal, dwells in a mortal tent."36 Thus, this writer is obviously not a conditionalist. Diognetus 8.2 denounces "the vain and ridiculous teachings of those specious philosophers, some of whom asserted that God was fire," adding the ironic parenthetical remark, "(where they themselves are about to go, this is what they call God!)"37 Diognetus 9.2 describes the "ultimate reward" of an unrighteous way of life as "punishment and death" (kolasis kai thanatos).38 This brings us to Diognetus 10.7-8:

7 Then even while you happen to be on earth, you will see that God is conducting the affairs of heaven. Then you will begin to speak the mysteries of God. Then you will both love and admire those who are punished for not wanting to deny God. Then you will condemn the deceit and error of the world, when you come to know the true life of heaven, when you despise that which merely seems to be death here and come to fear that which is truly death, which is preserved for those who are condemned to the eternal fire, which will punish those who are given over to it until the end [of time]. 8 And then, when you know that other fire, you will admire and bless those who endure the fleeting fire of the present for the sake of righteousness.39

The writer here contrasts two "deaths" and two "fires." The one death "merely seems to be death" (seemingly because it sets Christians free to the life of heaven),40 while the other is "truly death." The "true death" entails being "condemned to the eternal fire," which contrasts with "the fleeting/temporary fire" (to pur to proskairon). This temporal adjective demonstrates that aiōnios is likewise meant temporally here, i.e. "the eternal/endless fire." Since (as we have seen) this writer affirms that the soul is immortal, it is unlikely that the fire burns endlessly (for what purpose?) after its victim has been annihilated. Rather, "until the end" coincides with aiōnios and means (as per Ehrman's gloss) "until the end of time." The fiery punishment continues eternally. The Epistle to Diognetus unmistakably belongs to the symmetrical tradition.

 Justin Martyr

Justin Martyr was a mid-second century Christian apologist and martyr whose ideas survive in his Dialogue with Trypho and his two Apologies. As I have discussed previously, Justin depicts his ideas as "ours" and not "mine," giving every impression that he is a doctrinal traditionalist and not an innovator, notwithstanding his vocation as a philosopher. This, together with the sheer volume of his writings (which have a greater total word count than all of the Apostolic Fathers together), makes Justin a very important witness to early Christian doctrine.

We perceive Fudge's legal mind at work in his discussion of Justin. Fudge essentially depicts exegetical debate over Justin's ideas as a hopeless stalemate, thereby casting reasonable doubt on attempts to use Justin's writings to support the traditionalism:

Round and round they have gone over Justin...In the end, most non-biblical references are of little help except for refuting the dogmatic extremes too commonly found on both sides. We need someone to explain the explainers. Better to read them quickly, and turn our attention back to Scripture. (p. 385)

Fudge sets certain passages that seem to feature a "Traditionalist Justin" against certain others that seem to feature a "Conditionalist Justin," and leaves it at that. Fudge's advocacy of reading extra-biblical texts "quickly" and his reference to his study of Justin's works as a "perusal" (p. 383) do not instill confidence in the diligence of his efforts to understand the doctrine of final punishment found in Justin's writings. As already noted, Fudge cites only 19th-century translations of Justin, and does not appear to have interacted with the Greek texts. Furthermore, Fudge cites just fourteen individual passages from Justin (eight from 1 Apology, four from 2 Apology, and two from Dialogue with Trypho), whereas by my count there are 54 passages that have a bearing on our subject (18 from 1 Apology, six from 2 Apology, and 30 from the Dialogue). One must agree with Fudge that there is evidence for both a "traditionalist Justin" and a "conditionalist Justin" that is difficult to harmonise. However, the evidence is not balanced: numerous passages in both of Justin's Apologies and his Dialogue witness unambiguously to traditionalism, while only one highly philosophical passage from the Dialogue suggests annihilation of the wicked.

Let us first examine the evidence for a traditionalist view. Justin's dominant image for final punishment is that of fire. He refers frequently to "eternal fire" (pur aiōnios) and "eternal punishment" (kolasis aiōnios), and less frequently to "Gehenna," terms taken directly from the Synoptic tradition, and cites several sayings of Jesus about final punishment.41 This evidence will be disputed since the Synoptic Gospels' evidence is disputed. However, it is clear that Justin envisions the "outer darkness" and the "eternal fire" as interchangeable terms for the same punishment, and not two sequential punishments (as Fudge appears to think).42 It is also clear that Justin understands Gehenna as a "place" (topos), equivalent to the "regions of punishment [Greek: hai kolastēria]" (1 Apol. 12.1-2; 19.8).

There is much more evidence of what kind of punishment Justin envisioned the eternal fire to be. Justin's main proof text for his doctrine of final punishment from the Jewish Scriptures is Isaiah 66:24 LXX, which he quotes or paraphrases four times (Dial. 44.3, 130.2; 140.3; 1 Apol. 52.8). Notably, Justin once says that the worm will not "die" (Greek: teleutaō), following the extant LXX text, but twice (Dial. 140.3; 1 Apol. 52.8) he paraphrases the text, saying that the worm will not "cease" (Greek: pauō), thereby heightening the verse's temporal emphasis. Justin provides more direct evidence of his interpretation of Isaiah 66:24: in Dialogue 130.2, he states, "Isaiah tells us that 'the limbs of sinners shall be consumed by the worm and unquenchable fire,' but with it all remaining immortal [Greek: athanata menonta] so as to be 'a spectacle to all flesh.'"43 In 1 Apology 52.7-9, Justin cites Isaiah 66:24 to prove "in what kind of consciousness and punishment [Greek: aisthēsei kai kolasei] the unjust are going to be," adding after the quotation, "And then they shall repent when they shall gain nothing."44 Unquestionably, Justin (like Judith already in pre-Christian Judaism) interprets Isaiah 66:24 in terms of unceasing conscious punishment. Another scriptural text Justin uses for his idea of hell is Deuteronomy 32:22, which he paraphrases (rather differently than the LXX) as stating that "Everlasting fire [Greek: aeizōon pur, literally "ever-living fire"] will come down and will consume unto the depth beneath" (1 Apol. 60.9).45

Several other statements from Justin make it clear that he envisions final punishment as both conscious and unceasing. In Dialogue 45.4, Justin states that "some will be sent to the judgment and sentence of fire to be punished unceasingly [Greek: apaustōs kolazesthai],"46 which is explicitly contrasted with the freedom "suffering, corruption, sorrow, and death" that will be the lot of the righteous.47 In 1 Apology 52.3, he describes those sent to the eternal fire as being "in eternal sensation [Greek: en aisthēsei aiōnia]."48 In 1 Apology 8.4, Justin says that the unrighteous "will be punished with eternal punishment [Greek: aiōnian kolasin kolasthēsomenōn]," explicitly contrasting the Christian position with that of Plato, who said that Rhadamanthus and Minos would punish people only for a period of a thousand years. This shows unmistakably that he understood the word aiōnios temporally when it modifies "punishment" or "fire." In 1 Apology 18.1-3, Justin argues that "if death led to unconsciousness," this would be "a godsend to the unjust"; instead, "consciousness endures for all those who have existed, and eternal punishment lies in store...even after death souls remain in consciousness."49 In 1 Apology 28.1, Justin declares that the devil "will be sent into the fire with his army and with the human beings who follow him to be punished for an unending age [Greek: kolasthēsomenous ton aperanton aiōna]."50 In 1 Apology 45.6, Justin contrasts "punishment through eternal fire" with mere killing (cf. 1 Apol. 19.7-8). In 2 Apology 7.3-4, Justin states that the demons will be "imprisoned [Greek verb: egkleiō] in eternal fire," adding that humans who serve them will share the same punishment.51 The evidence for Justin having been a traditionalist is overwhelming.

Let us now turn to the evidence that Fudge brings forward in support of "Conditionalist Justin." In 1 Apology 44.4-7, Justin comments on the phrase "a sword will devour you" from Isaiah 1:20. According to Fudge, this passage is evidence that "Justin explicitly says that the wicked will finally pass away" (p. 384). However, Justin explains that Isaiah is not referring to a literal sword, i.e. one "that cuts and dispatches instantly"; otherwise the prophet would not have used the word "devour." For Justin, this passage is not about being "slain by the sword"; rather, "the sword of God is the fire, of which those who choose to do evil things become food." Justin says immediately after these comments that "whatever both the [Greek] philosophers and poets said concerning the immortality of the soul or punishments after death...they were enabled to understand...because they took their starting-points from the prophets" (1 Apol. 44.9).52 This implies that Justin understands the devouring sword of Isaiah 1:20 in terms of a postmortem punishment of the soul, i.e. eternal fire.

Fudge says that conditionalists "proudly point to" 2 Apology 6(7).1-253 as proof that the wicked will "finally pass away forever." In this passage, Justin contrasts Christian eschatology with Stoic philosophy. The Stoics taught the notion of ekpyrōsis, a periodic conflagration through which the entire universe was destroyed by fire and started over again.54 Justin counters that God "refrains from" or "delays causing"55 "the dissolution and destruction of the whole universe, which would entail an end [Greek: mēketi hōsi, literally "they would no longer exist"] to wicked angels and demons and human beings".56 A conditionalist interpretation of this statement requires that God is eventually going to reduce wicked angels, demons, and humans to non-existence. However, if we read on, Justin argues "that the conflagration will occur, but not as the Stoics said" (2 Apol. 6.3, emphasis added). The way Justin envisions the conflagration is that "the race of angels and the human race...will reap the just retribution in eternal fire for whatever wrong they do" (2 Apol. 6.5), which retribution (as we have seen) involves being "imprisoned in eternal fire" (2 Apol. 7.3). Thus, the argument of 2 Apology 6-7 is consistent with the traditionalist position espoused throughout Justin's writings.57

Finally, let us consider the one passage that does teach conditionalism and appears to espouse annihilation of the wicked: the detailed philosophical discussion on the soul in Dialogue 5-6. Fudge construes Justin's position thus: "Justin believed the soul was mortal, that it would suffer only as long as God willed, and that finally it would pass out of existence" (p. 384). In the early chapters of the Dialogue Justin contrasts the Christian view of the soul with those of Greek philosophies. In Dialogue 1.5, Justin denounces the Stoic idea that the next life will be a recurrence of the present life and the Platonic idea that "the soul is immortal and incorporeal," both of which, in Justin's view, contradict the notion of divine punishment.58 In Dialogue 4-6 Justin recounts a discussion he had with an old man that was instrumental in his conversion to Christianity; the old man's opinions can therefore be assumed to reasonably represent Christian views (as Justin understands them). In Dialogue 4.6-7, the old man attacks the Platonic doctrine of the soul, and specifically the notion that souls transmigrate into other bodies (e.g., animal bodies) after death. Again, the objection is that this undermines the idea of divine punishment, since imprisonment in a beast's body would leave the soul unaware of the punishment: "they suffer no punishment at all, unless they are conscious that it is a punishment" (Dial. 4.7).59 This shows that, for Justin, consciousness is fundamental to the idea of punishment. In Dialogue 5.1-2, the old man states (contra the Platonists) that the soul cannot be called immortal, "for, if it were, we would certainly have to call it unbegotten." Justin agrees with the old man that "Souls...are not immortal."60 However, they are objecting to the Platonic notion that souls are intrinsically immortal;61 the old man instead appears to espouse a "theory of mortal souls which actually do not die."62 The old man's key qualification is as follows:

'On the other hand,' he continued, 'I do not claim that any soul ever perishes [Greek: alla mēn oude apothnēskein phēmi pasas tas psuchas egō], for this would certainly be a benefit to sinners. What happens to them? The souls of the devout dwell in a better place, whereas the souls of the unjust and the evil abide in a worse place, and there they await the judgment day. Those, therefore, who are deemed worthy to see God will never perish, but the others will be subjected to punishment as long as God allows them to exist and as long as he wants them to be punished.'

The Greek of the first statement is ambiguous; apothnēskein...pasas tas psuchas could mean "any souls die" (like Slusser's rendering) or "all souls die" (so van Winden, and the translation quoted by Fudge).63 Van Winden, like Fudge, infers that some souls do die, namely those of the wicked. Whereas "the good souls...do not die any more, the wicked are punished as long as God wants them to be punished, and then die."64 The problem with this interpretation is that Justin's old man objects to the idea of souls dying precisely because this would be a boon to the wicked. This makes it unlikely that the old man expected the souls of the wicked to be finally annihilated. In Dialogue 5.4-5, the old man adds that the soul, like the world itself,

can be destroyed, since it is a created thing, but...will not be destroyed or be destined for destruction since such is the will of God...For, whatever exists or shall exist after God has a nature subject to corruption, and therefore capable of complete annihilation, for only God is unbegotten and incorruptible.65

Thus, the point of the old man's statement that the wicked "will be subjected to punishment as long as God allows them to exist" is that God could annihilate the souls of the wicked, not necessarily that he will do so. The passage continues, "This is also the reason why souls die and are punished" (Dial. 5.5). Since, if the old man/Justin expects souls ever to die, this would only be after the judgment day, "souls die" (present indicative) cannot be taken as a concrete statement here; it is a philosophical statement of an abstract truth: "souls die," i.e., are mortal. As the old man adds in Dialogue 6.1-2,

the soul partakes of life because God wishes it to live. It will no longer partake of life whenever God doesn't wish it to live... whenever the soul must cease to live, the spirit of life is taken from it and it is no more, but it likewise returns to the place of its origin.66

As van Winden explains, this passage, after arguing that the soul comes to an end, then explains "how the soul comes to an end."67 Again, these are abstract statements about the soul. The soul is not intrinsically immortal; it partakes of life as long as God wills this, and when he no longer wills this, it ceases to exist. The question is, when and indeed whether God ever wills for the souls of the wicked to cease to exist. Abundant evidence from the rest of the Dialogue and the Apologies suggests that Justin's answer is "No"; God wills unending punishment for the wicked. Again, even in the immediate context, the old man states that soul death would be a boon to the wicked.

When interpreting Dialogue 5.3-6.2 it is important to remember that the main topic at hand in this passage is not Christian eschatology (hence the absence of any mention of resurrection or eternal fire) but philosophical anthropology: the nature of the soul. The main point is that souls are not (contra Platonism) intrinsically indestructible, but exist only because, and as long as, God wills this. This leaves us with two possibilities: either Justin's ideas here contradict his eschatology as stated elsewhere, or his unstated corollary here is that the souls of the wicked, though essentially mortal, will not actually die because God wills them to be punished perpetually. (In fact, according to 1 Apology 8.4 it is not only the soul but also the body that is punished eternally.) Scholars such as van Winden and Bobichon prefer the incoherence solution,68 but I think that where a coherent synthesis is possible—as it is in this case—this synthesis is a better solution than positing that Justin's theology was self-contradictory. What is beyond doubt is that, outside of Dialogue 4.6-6.2, Justin consistently takes a traditionalist view of final punishment.

Later Christian History

Due to the length of my interaction with Fudge's chapter 24, I will just briefly describe his subsequent chapters on church history. The Apologists of the late second and early third centuries (Tatian, Athenagoras, Tertullian, but not Irenaeus) are the first Christians whom Fudge unambiguously acknowledges to have believed in unending conscious punishment (in chapter 25, "The Apologists: A Fire That Torments"). Consequently, at this point Fudge shifts from describing early Christian authors' views on final punishment to rebutting them, which is in my view not a very sound historical method.

In chapter 26 ("Apokatastasis: A Fire That Purifies"), Fudge discusses the views of Clement of Alexandria and Origen and uses the opportunity to discuss and rebut the doctrine of universal salvation. (He does not, however, interact at length with the Catholic doctrine of purgatory.) Fudge makes one glaring error in his description of Clement of Alexandria's views: he attributes to Clement a passage from the Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions (p. 400), which depict themselves as written by Clement of Rome (not Clement of Alexandria), but which are believed by modern scholars to be a fourth-century work that drew on an earlier novel composed c. 220 C.E. by a Syrian Jewish Christian.69 The Recognitions have nothing to do with Clement of Alexandria!

In chapter 27, Fudge offers a detailed discussion of the views of Arnobius (the first Christian writer to defend a doctrine of annihilationism in detail), and briefer comments on the views of other writers from the fourth and fifth centuries, such as Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory of Nazianzus, John Chrysostom, and Ambrose of Milan. At the end of chapter 27 and through chapter 28, Fudge interacts in detail with the views of Augustine of Hippo, whom he views as instrumental in solidifying eternal torment as orthodox Christian doctrine (p. 432).

In chapter 29 ("Middle Ages to Reformation"), Fudge discusses the views of medieval theologians Anselm of Canterbury and Thomas Aquinas, and then those of the Reformers, Martin Luther and John Calvin (as well as William Tyndale and the Anabaptists). In chapter 30, he gives special attention to John Calvin's efforts to combat the Anabaptist idea of soul sleep.

In chapter 31 ("An Old Tradition Questioned"), Fudge notes that the traditionalist view of unending conscious torment had become "the fixed orthodoxy of the Roman Catholic Church" from Augustine's time, and had a secure place in Protestant doctrine as well due to "the backing of Calvin and Luther, but especially that of the creed writers Bullinger and Melanchton" (p. 479). He then documents how various nonconformist individuals and movements of the 17th to 19th centuries challenged the traditional view of hell. In chapter 32 ("Roots of the Current Recovery"), Fudge discusses the resurgence of conditionalism in 20th-century Evangelical circles. Despite the rise of fundamentalism, which made traditionalism a non-negotiable and stifled debate on the subject, three British scholars helped the conditionalist cause to gain momentum: Harold Ernest Guillebaud, Basil F. C. Atkinson, and John W. Wenham. At this point in the narrative, Fudge begins to weave in his own story. Fudge wrote what he describes as a "largely noncontroversial" 1976 article in Christianity Today entitled, "Putting Hell in Its Place," and was subsequently commissioned by an Australian theologian to carry out a research project that led to the publication of The Fire That Consumes in 1982. In chapter 33 ("The Evangelical Recovery Continues"), Fudge discusses the momentum that annihilationism has gained in recent years, naming numerous prominent biblical scholars and theologians who have "publicly rejected traditionalism's doctrine of unending conscious torment" (p. 505). He states that annihilationism "now appears poised to enjoy exponential growth for many years to come." In this chapter he also documents some of the recent Evangelical efforts to defend the traditionalist view and refute annihilationism.

In chapter 34 ("A Kinder and Gentler Traditionalism"), Fudge argues that many traditionalists today have shied away from preaching on hell. He contrasts those who follow in Jonathan Edwards' footsteps with fire-and-brimstone preaching with those who "cower in embarrassment at his name" (p. 523). However, Fudge thinks the fire-and-brimstone approach is more justifiable: "If the wicked are to be made immortal for the purpose of enduring everlasting torture in agony," he says, writers who make this very plain "do sinners an inestimable favor" (p. 530). His main point in this chapter is that "Traditionalism's problem is not that it is unsympathetic but that it is unscriptural." In other words, the doctrine cannot be rescued by toning it down; it must be abandoned because it is false. I personally believe that the shying away from hellfire preaching in contemporary pulpits reflects postmodern society's high valuation of tolerance at the expense of divine judgment, and not pastors' misgivings with traditionalism specifically. I am skeptical that annihilationist pastors today preach their idea of hellfire with much more enthusiasm than do traditionalist pastors.

Fudge's Concluding Chapters

In chapter 35 ("Refreshing the Memory"), Fudge recapitulates his main arguments and interacts once more with "some of the sidetracks, arguments, and objections that have appeared along the way" (p. 532). After briefly highlighting various biblical images of punishment and attendant theological issues, Fudge avers that

One issue alone divides traditionalists and conditionalists: Does Scripture teach that God will make the wicked immortal, to suffer unending conscious torment in hell? Or does the Bible teach that the wicked will finally and truly die, perish, and become extinct forever, through a destructive process that encompasses whatever degree and duration of conscious torment God might sovereignly and justly impose in each individual case? (p. 538)

Fudge thinks that the evidence is "clear and uncomplicated" and points decisively to the second view. In chapter 36 ("Afterword"), Fudge briefly discusses the matter of burden of proof, as well as the distinction between issues and people. He warns against the temptation "to think of one's own view as a badge of faithfulness to God, and to demonize any who differ" (p. 542), i.e. "the sectarian impulse." Fudge expresses his view that the doctrine of hell is a serious matter but is not an essential doctrine of Christianity nor a definitive component of an Evangelical identity.

My Concluding Remarks

In this three-part series I have interacted at length with Edward Fudge's influential book, The Fire That Consumes: A Biblical and Historical Study of the Doctrine of Final Punishment. Although meticulous in its argumentation, Fudge's work in my opinion does not present a compelling case for annihilationism. It does not adequately address the weight of evidence for a traditional view of hell represented by those New Testament documents that belong to what I have called (following Alan E. Bernstein) the "symmetrical tradition"—especially the Synoptic Gospels and Revelation. As we saw in the first part of the review, the "unending conscious torment" view did not originate in patristic Christianity, nor in the New Testament, but in Second Temple Judaism, including in works such as 1 Enoch and Judith (the latter part of Sacred Scripture in the Catholic tradition) whose ideas unquestionably influenced early Christian apocalyptic eschatology. The Second Temple Jewish and early Christian "symmetrical tradition" was in turn influenced by certain key texts from the Hebrew Bible such as Isaiah 66:24 and Daniel 12:2.

Since the scope of Fudge's book was "Biblical and Historical," the scope of my review has likewise focused more on exegesis of biblical and ancient extra-biblical texts than on systematic theology. In closing I just want to make a couple of theological comments. The first is that the biblical language about the punishments of hell, like the language about God, about eternal life and about other transcendent realities, is analogical rather than literal. N.T. Wright has appropriately described biblical eschatology in terms of sign-posts pointing into a fog. We cannot claim that any one biblical image of hell—whether as a fiery furnace, a dark prison, a place of exile, torture, destruction, (second) death—is definitive while others are metaphorical. All of these images gesture toward an awful reality. Many traditionalist theologians today describe the punishments of hell more in terms of psychological suffering than physical suffering, perhaps with some justification. Imagery that sounds like annihilation—destruction, perishing, death—is part of the picture: hell represents the total and final ruination of a human person and the loss of all that can be called life. In this very important respect, traditionalists and annihilationists are on the same page. However, in view of the whole range of images and descriptions revealed by God, the Catholic Church has since antiquity taught, and continues to teach, that the destruction of hell does not entail an end of all existence. That view, as we have seen in this third part of the review, was presupposed in some of the earliest Christian literature outside the New Testament.

One of the main theological problems with the doctrine of hell is one of theodicy: how can a righteous and loving God consign people to unending conscious torment? A "biblical and historical" review is not the place to offer a detailed answer to this legitimate philosophical question. However, a couple of brief comments are in order. First, we humans may not have as complete a grasp either of the magnitude of sin or of the exact nature of eternal punishment as we think we have, which means we are not well positioned to question God's judgment in this matter (think of Paul's potter-clay metaphor). Second, a pertinent issue that I touched on briefly in the first part of this review is that of the philosophy of time. We may be wrong if we assume that eternity as an unending epoch of time as we currently experience it, so notions of "unending" or "eternal" punishment built on this assumption may well be unfounded. Third, it does not automatically follow that for God to annihilate the wicked would be either more good or more merciful than for God to consign them to unending conscious torment. Fudge himself appears to argue (pp. 212-13) that annihilation is no less severe a punishment than unending conscious punishment.

Fourth, some would argue that a finite human being cannot do enough sins (or a great enough sin) in a finite lifetime to deserve punishment of infinite duration. Medieval theologians such as Anselm of Canterbury countered that punishment is infinite because the sinner has sinned against an infinite God, and no finite duration of punishment will qualify as satisfaction for this debt. We can also add that the premise of the argument is flawed: a finite human being can in a finite lifetime commit sins of infinite proportions. Consider the sin of scandal: leading others into sin. This sin is described in Scripture as particularly egregious. Of all the evil kings of the northern kingdom of Israel, none is condemned as frequently in 1-2 Kings as Jeroboam son of Nebat, who is named repeatedly as the one "who caused Israel to sin" (1 Kings 22:53 etc.), the archetypal bad king. Jesus speaks about the sin of scandal in Luke 17:1-2, warning that a gruesome execution compares favourably with the punishment for this sin. If I lead someone else into sin, and thereby cause them to miss out on eternal life, the consequences of my sin are unending. As long as the eternal reward of the blessed endures, that person is excluded from it because of my sin. Now, everyone commits sins that amount to scandal, inasmuch as every sin that is known to others sets a bad example for those others. In that sense, we are all guilty of contributing to the guilt of others and therefore the loss of eternal life for others. Since our sins have consequences that are never repaired but endure forever, it follows that we merit punishment that is not relieved but endures forever. Only God in his mercy can deliver us from this fate worse than death.

Footnotes

• 1 Alan E. Bernstein, The Formation of Hell: Death and Retribution in the Ancient and Early Christian Worlds (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993).
• 2 This, of course, does not mean that their doctrinal teachings are infallible, so in fact Catholics may disagree with particular teachings of Doctors of the Church, but will generally approach them with a greater degree of reverence than Protestants. If Fudge is correct in characterising Gregory of Nazianzus as skeptical about eternal torment (he devotes only a couple of sentences to this Cappadocian Father, on p. 428), then this is one Doctor of the Church whose ideas on final punishment did not align with what became official Church doctrine.
• 3 Chapters 6-11 of the Ascension of Isaiah, which are believed to have been composed before chapters 1-5, have little to say about eschatological punishment. However, in Ascension of Isaiah 10.8, the Father commands Christ to "descend through all the heavens" (for the incarnation), and specifies, "You shall descend through the firmament and through that world as far as the angel who (is) in Sheol, but you shall not go as far as Perdition" (trans Michael A. Knibb, in OTP 1:173). Norelli comments that this statement, which is found only in the Ethiopic text, seems to refer to an area of hell (viewed as a subterranean region) other than Sheol, and seemingly the place of imprisonment—whether temporary or definitive—of those dead who have no hope of salvation. He adds that for the author of this passage, Perdition already contains the damned (since Christ is specifically ordered not to descend there) (Enrico Norelli, Ascensio Isaiae: Commentarius [Turnhout: Brepols, 1995], 508-509). In chapters 1-5, the author describes the second coming of the Beloved, and states that the Lord "will drag Beliar, and his hosts also, into Gehenna" (Ascen. Isa. 4.14). He adds that "There will be a resurrection and a judgment in their midst in those days, and the Beloved will cause fire to rise from him, and it will consume all the impious, and they will become as if they had not been created" (Ascen. Isa. 4.18). Since chapters 1-5 give no evidence that anything other than annihilation is envisioned for the wicked, this is best understood as a description of annihilating fire. Norelli regards this passage as teaching annihilation of wicked humans but not necessarily of Beliar (Satan) (Commentarius, 274-75).
• 4 Hermas speaks of the eschatological fate of the wicked primarily in terms of death (Vis. 1.3.7; Mand. 12.1.2; 12.2.2-3; Sim. 5.7.2; 8.6.4-6; 9.18.2; 9.20.4; 9.26.2; 9.32.4-5), though other texts use metaphors of exclusion and banishment (Vis. 3.9.5-6; Sim. 1.5; 9.14.2; 9.15.3), or of captivity and imprisonment ("death and captivity," Vis. 1.1.8; "lest by denying [the Lord] you get thrown in prison," Sim. 9.28.7), suggesting that "death" may not entail annihilation. The apocalypse's only reference to "torments" refers to temporary, purgatorial torments that can lead to repentance and salvation, but can also lead to death (Vis. 3.7.5-6; Sim. 6.3-5). Echoing a dominical saying, Hermas warns the disobedient that "it would have been better for them not to have been born" (Vis. 4.2.6). Similitudes 4.4, in an agricultural parable, foretells that the sinners, likened to withered and fruitless trees, will "be burned as firewood" in the world to come. Similitudes 6.2.1-4 states that those who live in luxury will be destroyed, "some to death and some to corruption." Hermas asks for clarification on what "to death" and "to corruption" mean, and the angelus interpres explains that "corruption has some hope of renewal, but death has only eternal destruction (apōleian aiōnion)." It is not entirely clear whether this "death" or "eternal destruction" entails annihilation or torment. Hermas never describes death in terms of annihilation, and he seems to use the term "death" to describe the (potentially temporary) torments and punishments that come upon the deceived (Sim. 6.5.3-4). Moreover, it is clear that Hermas does not equate physical death with non-existence, since Similitudes 9.16.5-6 states that the apostles, after falling asleep, "preached also to those who had previously fallen asleep". All things considered, Hermas belongs to the positive tradition rather than the symmetrical tradition, since his dominant language for the eschatological fate is that of death and destruction, but his witness is consistent with traditionalism, and his language of punishment and torment is actually mainly concerned with a temporary purgatorial state.
• 5 For text and translation of Apocalypse of Peter, see Dennis D. Buchholz, Your Eyes Will Be Opened: A Study of the Greek (Ethiopic) Apocalypse of Peter (Atlanta: Scholars, 1988). All translations herein are from Buchholz. The Apocalypse of Peter's prologue describes the apocalypse's content as "about those dead who die from their sins because they did not observe the laws of God who made them." Peter is shown "how the righteous and sinners will be separated...and how the evildoers will be rooted out forever and ever" (Apoc. Pet. 3.2-3). The apocalypse continues with description of "the river of fire which does not go out, a fire which flames as it burns" (Apoc. Pet. 5.8), a "devouring fire" (Apoc. Pet. 6.4). The fate of "the evildoers and the sinners and the hypocrites" is that they "will stand among the abysses of the darkness which does not go out and their punishment (is) the fire. And the angels will bring their sins and prepare for them a place where they will be punished forever, each one according to his guilt" (Apoc. Pet. 6.5-6). The work proceeds to give a tour of hell that describes particular torments assigned to particular types of sinners (idolaters, adulterers, etc.) It is apparent that the punishment is conscious and unending: "And they are punished without rest while their pain is felt by them. And their worm multiplies like through a cloud of darkness" (Apoc. Pet. 7.9); "they are set on it that they might be punished (with) a punishment of pain which does not end" (Apoc. Pet. 9.6); "Other men and women from a height throw themselves headlong. And again, they return and run and demons force them... And they force them to the end of existence and they throw (themselves) over. And this like this they do continually. They are punished forever." (Apoc. Pet. 10.2-3); "With one voice [and] all of those who are in punishment will say, 'Have mercy on us, for now we have learned the judgment of God which he told us beforehand and we did not believe.' And the angel Tatirokos will come and rebuke them with punishment increasingly and he said to them, 'Now you repent when there is no time for repentance and life did not remain.'" (Apoc. Pet. 13.4-5).
• 6 Fudge states (p. 387 n. 9) that his quotations from the Apostolic Fathers are his translations of Bihlmeyer's Greek text (published in 1924). The only other texts and translations that he mentions are the Ante-Nicene Christian Library (edited by Roberts and Donaldson, 1867-85), J.B. Lightfoot's edition (1869-77), and Goodspeed's (1950). Available to Fudge at the time of his first edition of The Fire That Consumes, but not consulted, were Robert M. Grant's translation and commentary (1964-68) and the relevant volumes from the highly respected Sources Chretiennes series (published continuously from the 1940s onward). New critical texts, translations, and commentaries that appeared after the first but before the third edition of The Fire That Consumes, and also not consulted, include the Hermeneia series (1980s to present), Holmes's critical text and translation (1992; 2nd edition 2007), Ehrman's critical text and translation (2003), and the German Kommentar zu den Apostolischen Vätern series (1991-2007). In discussing Justin Martyr, Fudge cites only the 19th-century edition of Roberts and Donaldson, and not the more recent critical texts and/or translations of, for instance, Falls (1948; revised by Halton and Slusser, 2003), Marcovich (1997) or Bobichon (2003) (for the Dialogue with Trypho) or Marcovich (2005) or Minns and Parvis (2009) (for the Apologies).
• 7 Trans. Michael W. Holmes, The Apostolic Fathers: Greek Texts and English Translations (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1999), 252-53.
• 8 Although some scholars regard the Didache as dependent on Matthew and others regard Matthew as dependent on the Didache, the scholarly consensus is that there is no literary dependence between the two but rather use of shared traditions (implying a similar religio-historical context). See Aaron Milavec, "A Rejoinder," Journal of Early Christian Studies 13 (2005): 519-23.
• 9 Evidence for the content of the Didache's lost ending consists of a fourth-century text called Apostolic Constitutions that includes a loose paraphrase of the Didache, and a late Georgian version of the Didache. Robert E. Aldridge renders the Apostolic Constitutions ending—which he thinks "may be accepted as the Didache's proximate true ending"—thus: "8 Then the world will see the Lord coming upon the clouds of heaven with the angels of His power, in the throne of His kingdom, 9 to condemn the devil, the deceiver of the world, and to render to every one according to his deeds. 10 Then shall the wicked go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous shall enter eternal life, 11 to inherit those things which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man, such things as God hath prepared for them that love Him. 12 And they shall rejoice in the kingdom of God, which is in Christ Jesus" ("The Lost Ending of the Didache," Vigiliae Christianae 53 [1999]: 12-13). Kurt Niederwimmer renders the ending of the Georgian version of the Didache thus: "(coming with the clouds) with power and great glory, in order to repay every human being according to his [or her] works in his holy righteousness, before the whole human race and before the angels. Amen" (The Didache: A Commentary [Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998], 226-27). Only the Apostolic Constitutions ending has the reference to "everlasting punishment." Given that the Apostolic Constitutions' ending is more verbose than both the surviving portion of the Didache's apocalyptic ending (Did. 16.1-8) and the Georgian version's ending, and that the Apostolic Constitutions' reference to "everlasting punishment" can be explained as an interpolation drawn from Matthew 25:46, on the whole it seems unlikely that the Didache's lost ending referred to everlasting punishment.
• 10 Possibly the Book of Eldad and Modad. See Dale C. Allison, Jr., "Eldad and Modad," Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 21 (2011): 99-131.
• 11 For example, the writer gives a series of biblical examples of the negative consequences of jealousy in 1 Clement 4. The examples include "Jealousy brought Dathan and Abiram down alive into Hades" (1 Clem. 4.12), but this is merely a paraphrase of Numbers 16:33 LXX and thus provides little information about the author's understanding of Hades. In 1 Clement 14.5 and 22.6 the writer quotes from two psalms (36:35-37 LXX and 33:12-18 LXX) that refer to the end of the wicked. The one psalm states that the ungodly "was no more," and the other that "the face of the Lord is against those who do evil, to destroy any remembrance of them from the earth." Undoubtedly these psalms referred in their original grammatical-historical context to physical death and the end of one's family line, but it is not clear what kind of eschatological meaning the author of 1 Clement might have assigned to these statements. In 1 Clement 11.1, the writer alludes to Lot's rescue from Sodom and the judgment of the region "by fire and sulfur." His theological inference: "The Master thus made it clear that he does not abandon those who hope in him, but hands over to punishment and torment (eis kolasin kai aikismon tithēsin) those who turn away" (trans. Bart D. Ehrman, The Apostolic Fathers [2 vols.; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003], 53-55; Holmes renders the last clause, "but destines to punishment and torment those who turn aside" [Apostolic Fathers, 41]). The writer thus implies that "punishment and torment" are in store for the ungodly, and he adds that Lot's wife is a "sign" of such judgment. For other allusions to divine judgments from the biblical past, see 1 Clem. 17.5; 51.3-5; and a lengthy quotation from Prov. 1:23-33 in 1 Clem. 57.3-7, which is said to describe "the dangers foretold by Wisdom, which threaten the disobedient" (1 Clem. 58.1; trans. Ehrman, Apostolic Fathers, 1:139).
• 12 Trans. Holmes, Apostolic Fathers, 75.
• 13 Trans. Ehrman, Apostolic Fathers, 1:167.
• 14 This passage reads, "5 This means that he was to save those who were perishing. 6 For it is a great and astonishing feat to fix in place something that is toppling over, not something that is standing. 7 Thus also Christ wished to save what was perishing. And he did save many; for he came and called us while we were on the brink of destruction" (Ehrman, Apostolic Fathers, 1:169).
• 15 See discussion of "throwing out" language in the Gospels in Part 2.
• 16 2 Clement's form of the saying is distinct from both Matthew's and Luke's and is the most detailed of the three: "Jesus said to Peter, 'After they are dead, the sheep should fear the wolves no longer. So too you: do not fear those who kill you and then can do nothing more to you; but fear the one who, after you die, has the power to cast your body and soul into the hell [lit. Gehenna] of fire'" (trans. Ehrman, Apostolic Fathers, 1:171-73). Like Matthew, 2 Clement is explicit that it is both body and soul that are punished in Gehenna; like Luke, 2 Clement is explicit that this punishment takes place after death and that Gehenna is a place into which one's body and soul can be "thrown." Thus, 2 Clement clearly does not conceive of the punishment of Gehenna as a definitive but merely physical execution; he conceives of it as a transcendent postmortem punishment. Moreover, 2 Clement conceives of the soul as something that can be spatially "thrown," and thus not as a mere abstraction like "life-force."
• 17 The same phrase occurs in Matt. 25:46, where it is equivalent to "eternal fire, prepared for the devil and his angels" (25:41)—unquestionably a transcendent punishment. Fudge takes "eternal punishment" to denote annihilation with unending consequences. However, as discussed in note 12 of Part 2 of this review, the same phrase is used in 4 Maccabees interchangeably with "eternal torment."
• 18 Trans. Ehrman, Apostolic Fathers, 1:175-77.
• 19 Trans. Ehrman, Apostolic Fathers, 1:195.
• 20 Trans. Ehrman, Apostolic Fathers, 1:177.
• 21 This passage also uses a pottery metaphor in which once the potter "has already put [the vessel] in the kiln (eis tēn kaminon), he can no longer fix it" (2 Clem. 8.3). The Greek word kaminos is the same word used in Matt. 13:42, 50 to describe Gehenna as a "furnace."
• 22 Trans. Ehrman, Apostolic Fathers, 1:257-59.
• 23 Trans. Ehrman, Apostolic Fathers, 1:241. Holmes has "to live forever in Jesus Christ" (Apostolic Fathers, 151).
• 24 Trans. Ehrman, Apostolic Fathers, 1:235-37.
• 25 Trans. Ehrman, Apostolic Fathers, 1:245.
• 26 Trans. Ehrmans, Apostolic Fathers, 1:301.
• 27 Trans. Ehrman, Apostolic Fathers, 1:297.
• 28 Trans. Holmes, Apostolic Fathers, 186. Ehrman translates differently: "and it will happen to them just as they think, since they are without bodies, like the daimons" (Apostolic Fathers, 1:297). Ehrman's translation has Ignatius explaining a future prediction ("it will happen to them") with reference to a present reality ("since they are without bodies"), which makes little sense. With Holmes, it seems preferable to take the final clause (ousin asōmatois kai daimonikois) as subordinate to the prior ones (kai kathōs phronousin, kai sumbēsetai autois). My translation would be: "And just as they think, so it will happen to them, [namely] being bodiless and demon-like."
• 29 Apostolic Fathers, 1:362.
• 30 The text also predicts that those members of Polycarp's household who betrayed him to the Roman authorities would "suffer the punishment of Judas himself" (M. Polyc. 6.2), but does not give any further details about the nature of this punishment.
• 31 Trans. Ehrman, Apostolic Fathers, 1:369.
• 32 Trans. Ehrman, Apostolic Fathers, 1:383. I have replaced Ehrman's translation of kolasis, "torment," with "punishment," which is the more common translation of this word. Holmes translates "eternal punishment" here (Apostolic Fathers, 236).
• 33 Trans. Ehrman, Apostolic Fathers, 2:17, 25.
• 34 Trans. Ehrman, Apostolic Fathers, 2:25.
• 35 Trans. Ehrman, Apostolic Fathers, 2:81. I have added the square brackets to indicate that these words are not in the Greek.
• 36 Trans. Ehrman, Apostolic Fathers, 2:143.
• 37 Trans. Ehrman, Apostolic Fathers, 2:147.
• 38 Trans. Ehrman, Apostolic Fathers, 2:151.
• 39 Trans. Ehrman, Apostolic Fathers, 2:153-55. Square brackets have been added around the words "of time" since these are not in the Greek.
• 40 See Diog. 5.12: "They (Christians) are put to death and made alive."
• 41 Justin refers to "eternal fire" (apart from quotations of dominical sayings) in 1 Apol. 12.2, 17.4, 21.6, 45.6, 52.3; 2 Apol. 1.2, 2.2, 6.5, 7.3-4, and 9.1. He refers to "eternal punishment" in Dial. 117.3, 1 Apol. 12.1, and 18.2, and to "Gehenna" in 1 Apol. 19.7-8. Other references to eschatological punishment by fire are found in Dial. 35.8, 45.4, 47.4, 116.2, 117.3, 120.5; 1 Apol. 28.1 and 54.2. Direct quotations of sayings of Jesus or John the Baptist are found in Dial. 49.3 (cf. Matt. 3:11-12), Dial. 76.4-5 (cf. Matt. 7:22-23; 8:11-12; 25:30, 41; Luke 13:28), 120.5-6 (cf. Matt. 8:11-12; Luke 13:28), 122.1 (cf. Matt. 23:15), 140.3-4 (cf. Matt. 8:11-12; Luke 13:28), 1 Apol. 15.2 (cf. Matt. 5:29; 18:9), 16.2 (cf. Matt. 5:22), 16.12-13 (cf. Matt. 3:10; 7:19; 8:12; 13:42, 50), 17.4 (cf. Luke 12:48), 19.7 (cf. Matt. 10:28; Luke 12:4-5). Some of these quotations do not exactly correspond to the Gospel sayings they parallel.
• 42 See Dialogue 76.4-5, where Justin paraphrases the saying of Matt. 25:41 as "Depart into outer darkness, which the Father has prepared for Satan and his angels" (Matthew has "Depart...into eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels"). See also Dialogue 120.5-6, where a saying of Jesus about the "outer darkness" is quoted as proof that Christ will condemn some to "unquenchable fire."
• 43 Trans. Slusser 196; text in Bobichon 1:534.
• 44 Text and translation Minns and Parvis 210-13.
• 45 Text and translation Minns and Parvis 234-37.
• 46 My translation. The adverb apaustōs is a form of the verb pauō that Justin uses in his paraphrase of Isa. 66:24 (as was noted above).
• 47 Similarly, in Dialogue 117.3, Justin contrasts those who will be made "incorruptible, immortal, and free from pain" with those whom Christ will dispatch "into the eternal punishment of fire." Of course, annihilation also entails freedom from pain, so it is odd that the language of "freedom from pain" should be used so prominently of the righteous (see also Dial. 46.7; 69.7) if he thought this was the lot of the unrighteous as well.
• 48 Text in Minns and Parvis 210-13.
• 49 Text and translation Minns and Parvis 122-23.
• 50 The adjective aperantos means literally "endless" or "without completion" (cf. BDAG 101). Text and translation Minns and Parvis 158-59.
• 51 Text and translation Minns and Parvis 298-99.
• 52 All translations from 1 Apology 44 are from Minns and Parvis 194-95.
• 53 The 19th-century edition used by Fudge has the relevant passage as chapter 7; recent critical texts such as Minns and Parvis have it as chapter 6.
• 54 See Anthony Preus, Historical Dictionary of Ancient Greek Philosophy (2nd edn; Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015), 140.
• 55 Minns and Parvis, 291, render the verbal expression epimenō...mē poiēsai as "refrains from bringing about," while the translation used by Fudge renders it "delays causing." Kyle Pope renders the phrase "waits and does not cause" (The Second Apology of Justin Martyr: with Text and Translation [Shawnee Mission: Ancient Road Publications, 2001)], 25).
• 56 Trans. Minns and Parvis 291.
• 57 Minns and Parvis state, "Although he does not believe the soul to be inherently immortal (D 5.3; 6.1-2), Justin does not mean that wicked angels, demons, and human beings will cease to exist, but that they will be punished everlastingly (2A 7.3; 1A 28.1; 52.3; D 117.3)" (Justin: Philosopher and Martyr, 291 n. 1).
• 58 The Platonists, says Justin, "conclude that they will not be punished even if they are guilty of sin; for, if the soul is incorporeal, it cannot suffer; if it is immortal, it needs nothing further from God" (trans. Slusser 4). On the identity of the philosophies Justin is denouncing here, see J. C. M. van Winden, An Early Christian Philosopher: Justin Martyr's Dialogue with Trypho, Chapters One to Nine: Introduction, Text and Commentary (Leiden: Brill, 1971), 39.
• 59 This is the old man's statement, and Justin explicitly agrees with it: "'No, indeed,' I conceded" (trans. Slusser 11).
• 60 Trans. Slusser 11-12.
• 61 "Since the soul had a beginning, it is necessary that it is essentially perishable, i.e., can be non-existing. This does not mean that it has an end. In fact, this is the opinion of the old man (Dial. 5, 3)" (van Winden, Early Christian Philosopher, 88).
• 62 van Winden, Early Christian Philosopher, 92.
• 63 van Winden: "'But, on the other hand, nor do I contend that all souls die, for that would indeed be some good luck for the bad...'" (Early Christian Philosopher, 90).
• 64 van Winden, Early Christian Philosopher, 90.
• 65 Trans. Slusser 12.
• 66 Trans. Slusser 13.
• 67 van Winden, Early Christian Philosopher, 101. He adds: "The death of the soul, treated by the old man in the second part of the passage, is described as a process exactly parallel with bodily death. When this comes to man, the soul leaves the body and he exists no more. In the same manner, when death comes to the soul, the life-giving spirit leaves the soul and the soul is no more. In other words, just as man is compounded of corporeal matter and soul, so the soul is a compound of soul matter and life-giving spirit. And just as at corporeal death the bodily matter (=the body) reverts to the earth from which it was taken, so, the soul matter (=the soul) goes back whence it was taken" (van Winden, Early Christian Philosopher, 101).
• 68 van Winden comments that what the old man defends in Dialogue 5.3-6.2 "clearly conflicts with what Justin teaches on the matter elsewhere...the theory of the death of the wicked soul contradicts Justin's statements elsewhere" (Early Christian Philosopher, 106). van Winden's solution to the contradiction is simply to acknowledge it: "In the time of first confrontations of Christianity with philosophy the Christian problem of the here-after could as yet not be worked out, also because the Scriptures are not always clear either. Hence it had to happen that the first centuries of Christian philosophizing at times embodied inconsistencies" (Early Christian Philosopher, 108). Bobichon concurs that "Les affirmations que contiennent le Dialogue et l'Apologie à propos de la survie des âmes et de la durée du châtiment ne paraissent pas toujours cohérentes" (2:592-93).
• 69 See F. Stanley Jones, "Jewish Christianity of the Pseudo-Clementines," in A Companion to Second-Century Christian 'Heretics', ed. Antti Marjanen and Petri Luomanen (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 315-34.
• 70

Review of "The Fire That Consumes" by Edward W. Fudge (Part 2)

This is Part 2 of a three-part review of The Fire That Consumes: A Biblical and Historical Study of the Doctrine of Final Punishment by the late Edward W. Fudge (3rd ed.; Eugene: Cascade, 2011; 593 pages.) In Part 1 I looked at Fudge's introduction and epistemology, his treatment of the Old Testament, and his treatment of Second Temple Jewish literature (chapters 1 to 10). In this second part, I review the Fudge's chapters that discuss the New Testament (chapters 11 to 23). The third part of this review will attend to his treatment of other early Christian literature, and his theological findings (chapters 24 to 36).

The Positive Tradition and the Symmetrical Tradition
Chapters 11 to 15: Jesus
  Gehenna: Jewish Background  
  Gehenna in Mark  
  Gehenna in Matthew  
  Gehenna in Luke  
  Other Terms for the Same Place of Punishment  
  Imprisonment and Torture  
  Non-Existence and Execution vs. Eschatological Punishment  
  The Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus  
  The Gospel (and Letters) of John  
Chapters 16 and 17: Golgotha: Judgment Revealed
Chapters 18 to 20: Paul's Letters
Chapter 21: Hebrews, James, and Acts
Chapter 22: 1-2 Peter and Jude
Chapter 23: Revelation
  Fiery Torment without Relief  
  The Lake of Fire  
  The Second Death: No Mere Repeat of the First  
  The Final Picture of the New Jerusalem: Evil not Absent but Outside  
Conclusion on New Testament

The Positive Tradition and the Symmetrical Tradition

Before turning to the New Testament (or rather Fudge's treatment thereof), I would like to draw attention to an insightful distinction made by Bernstein in his book The Formation of Hell (an important historical study of belief in hell that unfortunately does not feature in Fudge's bibliography).1 Bernstein distinguishes between two strands of tradition on the fate of the ungodly within the New Testament, which he calls the positive tradition and the symmetrical tradition. The positive tradition, exemplified by the letters of Paul and the Gospel of John,

recognizes the need of assent from fortunate human beings who have been given the opportunity of redemption, and it states with varying degrees of clarity the possibility that not all will respond positively. Failure to respond earns the wrath of God expressed as a denial of eternal life, exclusion from the kingdom. Although they deny the reward of the blessed to those who are excluded, these positive texts do not actually describe the consequence of exclusion or the nature of any further existence.2

Thus, New Testament writers in the positive tradition regard the unsaved as headed toward an "indeterminate wrath or evil fate," which is not specified but in Bernstein's view is best interpreted as annihilation.3 "The symmetrical tradition," writes Bernstein, "leaves no such ambiguity."4 Exemplified by the Synoptic Gospels and the Book of Revelation, the symmetrical tradition does not shy away from describing the fate of the ungodly but explicitly proposes separate, contrasting destinies for the good and the bad: "both fates are described in full."5 Once we recognise that these two traditions coexist in the New Testament we can let Paul be Paul and Matthew be Matthew, interpreting each writer's language on its own terms and only then attempting a theological synthesis.

Chapters 11 to 15: Jesus

 Gehenna: Jewish Background

Fudge devotes five chapters to the teachings of Jesus concerning hell, and rightly so, since Jesus has a great deal to say in the Gospels about the fate of the ungodly.6 Fudge divides up the material thematically, with "fire" as the organising principle: chapter 11 covers "Fire (Gehenna)," chapter 12 "Fire (Gehenna Not Named)," chapter 13 "Fire (Parable of the Sheep and the Goats)," chapter 14 "Fire (Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus)," and chapter 15 "Non-Fire Images." It might have been wiser to consider the individual Gospels separately, since the distinct eschatological emphases of the different Evangelists are blurred by considering them all together.7 Be that as it may, Fudge begins by discussing the background to the term Gehenna. There is, in fact, no pre-Christian use of the term "Gehenna" apart from the Septuagint, where it refers merely to the literal Valley of Hinnom. The concept of Gehenna as the place of eschatological punishment appears to have developed out of Jeremiah's prophecy that the Valley of Ben-Hinnom would become a place of slaughter due to the abominable idolatry practiced there (Jer. 7:31-32; 19:2-6) together with the imagery associated with the outside of Jerusalem in Isa. 66:24 (discussed in Part 1 of this review). Fudge is sympathetic to the idea that the Valley of Hinnom served as a continually burning garbage dump during antiquity, though he acknowledges that "some have asked for more evidence" (p. 182). In fact, the earliest "evidence" for this idea seems to be a comment by a medieval rabbi (c. 1200 C.E.)8 Fudge notes the occurrence of the term in Jewish texts such as 4 Ezra 7.36 and 2 Baruch 59.10-11 (which, however, post-date Jesus' ministry) and the occurrence of the concept (though not the term) in the "accursed valley" outside the transcendent Jerusalem in 1 Enoch 27.2-3 (cf. 90.25-27).9 A well-developed concept of Gehenna is found in rabbinic literature, but cannot be assumed to go back to Jesus' day. Fudge correctly acknowledges (p. 183) that the rabbis were divided on whether the fires and torments of Gehenna would last forever or eventually end.10 We saw in Part 1 of our review that the Hebrew Bible (in Isa. 66:24) already speaks of a punitive fire that will never go out, and that Second Temple Jewish literature—particularly portions of 1 Enoch—speak of transcendent fires that torture angels and men unceasingly. The exegetical question we must ask (but that Fudge does not adequately consider) is whether the Synoptic Gospels' fire of Gehenna is an ordinary physical fire (albeit a very hot and destructive one) or a transcendent, unceasing fire.

 Gehenna in Mark

Probably the earliest New Testament reference to Gehenna is found in Mark 9:42-48, where the Markan Jesus warns about going "into Gehenna, into the unquenchable fire" (eis ten geennan, eis to pur to asbeston). He adds, quoting from Isa. 66:24 LXX, that Gehenna is "where 'their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched'" (hopou ho skōlēx autōn ou teleuta kai to pur ou sbennutai). Now, Fudge thinks that "unquenchable" here (and elsewhere in the Gospels) means that the fire "keeps burning until nothing put in it finally remains" (p. 191). However, Mark has clearly drawn the term "unquenchable" (asbestos) from Isa. 66:24 LXX, where (as discussed in Part 1 of this review) the fire clearly burns indefinitely, "month after month and Sabbath after Sabbath" (v. 23). Moreover, we have seen that already in the second century B.C.E. (Judith 16:17), some readers of Isa. 66:24 were interpreting its fire and worms in terms of unending torment ("they will weep and suffer forever") and not merely unending burning of inanimate corpses. It is not clear which of these two views Mark takes, but Mark 9:42 favourably compares a gruesome form of execution (being cast into the sea with a millstone around one's neck) with Gehenna, suggesting that Gehenna is a fate worse than death.

 Gehenna in Matthew

Most of Matthew's seven uses of Gehenna are too cursory to provide clues about the nature and duration of the punishment.11 However, he too understands it as a place of fire, and "eternal fire" at that (to pur to aiōnion, Matt. 18:8-9). As he had already proposed in Chapter 4 (discussed previously), Fudge takes the word aiōnios ("eternal") here not as infinite in duration but as infinite in consequences and as pertaining to the age to come rather than the present age. However, we have already seen that both Isaiah 66:24 and Second Temple texts that depend on it (e.g., Judith 16:17; 1 Enoch 10.13-14; 23.1-24.1; 103.7-8; 108.3-6, 14-15), including Mark, envision an unending fire. Ceteris paribus, this makes it likely that aiōnios for Matthew likewise denotes the unending duration of the fire (in addition to its transcendent, age-to-come nature).12 Moreover, in a phrase that Fudge passes over far too quickly (pp. 190, 208), Matthew adds that the "eternal fire" was "prepared for the devil and his angels" (Matt. 25:41). This detail, which certainly does not come from the Old Testament, strikingly parallels a number of statements in the Enochic corpus that link the eschatological punishment of sinful humans to that of sinful angels. For example, in 1 Enoch 54.1-6, Enoch is shown "a deep valley burning with fire" into which "the kings and the mighty" are thrown. He also sees there "iron chains of immeasurable weight," which "are being prepared for the hosts of Azazel" (who is also called "[the] Satan" in this passage).13 In 1 Enoch 62-63, a judgment scene involving the "Son of Man" sitting "on the throne of his glory" (a striking parallel, given that this phrase occurs only in the Parables of Enoch and in Matthew) ends with the kings and the mighty stuck in "the flame of the torment of Sheol" forever without respite. That Matthew's eternal fire is also prepared for suprahuman beings and that this notion is unmistakably dependent on the Enochic tradition (with its notion of unending torment for angels and humans) provides a compelling argument for interpreting Matthew's Gehenna as a place of unending torment.

Fudge's main argument that the Gospels' Gehenna is a place of annihilation comes from Matt. 10:28, which contrasts "those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul" with "the one [i.e., God] who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna." Fudge emphatically asserts that "destroy" here refers to annihilation, and there are a number of commentators who agree with him. However, lexical sources and the usage of the verb apollumi and its noun form apoleia confirm that this word connotes total destruction or ruination that may, but does not necessarily, entail the cessation of all existence (cf. Matt. 9:17).14 1 Enoch 10.13-14 speaks of those who are "destroyed" being bound together with the fallen angels in the fiery abyss; clearly such destruction does not entail the end of all existence. The word destroy/destruction also seems not to imply annihilation in 4 Ezra.15 Fudge's exegesis of Matt. 10:28 relies entirely on an assumption about the meaning of apollumi here.16 Fudge believes that Jesus here "equates 'kill' and 'destroy,' making them interchangeable" (p. 188). However, given that this saying is an antithetical parallelism, it seems more likely that "destroy" is intended to contrast with "kill." Moreover, the emphasis in Fudge's exegesis is purely time-oriented: the death that humans inflict is limited by the resurrection, whereas God's killing encompasses "both now and hereafter" (p. 187). Yet Matthew's specific emphasis here is not on the when but on the what and the where. Humans can kill body but not soul; God can destroy body and soul in Gehenna. These last two words are superfluous in Fudge's interpretation, but essential to Matthew's point. Moreover, Matthew elsewhere describes the "furnace of fire" (undoubtedly Gehenna) as a place "where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth" (Matt. 13:42, 50).17 Matthew thus clearly characterises Gehenna as a place of torment and not merely of killing. Unfortunately, in Fudge's discussion of Matt. 13:42 (pp. 204-205) he seems not to notice that Matthew explicitly locates the "wailing and grinding of teeth" in the furnace of fire.

 Gehenna in Luke

Fudge devotes less attention to the Lucan version of this saying (Luke's sole mention of Gehenna), but Luke clearly depicts Gehenna as a postmortem punishment, a place one can be "thrown into" after having been killed (Luke 12:4-5). Imagery involving being "thrown," for Luke, can refer to being discarded or cast into fire (Luke 3:9; 14:35), but more denotes imprisonment (Luke 12:58; 23:19, 25). In Luke 13:28, Jesus does not name Gehenna but describes the place of punishment simply as "there" or "that place" (ekei), a term also used as a stand-alone designation for the place of eschatological punishment in 1 Enoch 22.11.18 That this place is Gehenna is evident from the idiom "wailing and grinding of teeth," which Matthew locates in the furnace of fire (Gehenna). Notably, the evildoers who are in "that place" have been "thrown out" of the kingdom of God and can see Abraham and the prophets in the kingdom of God—they are unmistakably conscious. If Luke envisioned the new world as a macrocosm of Jerusalem (as was common in apocalyptic Judaism and early Christianity), then it appears that the kingdom of God is the new Jerusalem. The evildoers have been killed, thrown out of the transcendent city and thrown into Gehenna outside, where they remain conscious. This is clear from Matt. 24:51, which says that the master "will dismember (dichotomeō) [the disobedient servant] and assign him a place with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and grinding of teeth" (my translation).

 Other Terms for the Same Place of Punishment

Fudge's treatment of non-fire punishment imagery from Jesus' teachings in a separate chapter is unfortunate, since it seems to have caused him to erroneously conclude that such imagery depicts something other than Gehenna, whereas in fact these other texts depict the same place of punishment in different language. Matthew's use of the phrase "wailing and grinding of teeth" (and Luke's, in Luke 13:28) consistently locates this activity too in the place of eschatological punishment—in other words, in Gehenna—using the adverb ekei ("there"; "in that place"): "the outer darkness" (Matt. 8:12; 22:13; 25:30), "the furnace of fire" (13:42, 50), "with the hypocrites" (24:51). Crucially, Fudge seems to misconstrue the "weeping and gnashing of teeth" as a prelude to the punishment of Gehenna whereas, in the text, this phrase describes the punishment of Gehenna.19 Although never explicitly located in "Gehenna," it is located in "the furnace of fire," which is obviously synonymous with Gehenna/the eternal fire.20 Nothing in Matthew or Luke suggests that the "throwing out" of evildoers (e.g., into outer darkness) is a separate event that precedes their being "thrown into" Gehenna.21 The outer darkness is Gehenna.22 Fudge also seems to take language of exclusion from God's presence as automatically implying annihilation, since "God is the ground of our being and the only source of our existence" (p. 245), but the Gospels repeatedly describe this exclusion as equivalent to going to a place where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth—clearly not a description of non-existence.

 Imprisonment and Torture

Fudge notes various other Synoptic Gospel judgment metaphors that he regards as implying annihilation but which are consistent with either annihilation or traditionalism.23  However, I want to comment on a couple of other pictures that seem to explicitly favour traditionalism. One is that of imprisonment with torture. Matthew 5:25-26 and Luke 12:57-59 contain a saying about settling with one's opponent before the matter comes before the courts. While the final saying, "I say to you, you will not be released until you have paid the last penny" could relate merely to a this-worldly court situation, the solemn introductory formula "I say to you" suggests an eschatological application:24 failure to settle accounts with God before the final judgment could lead to imprisonment until one's debts have been paid in full (forever?) The eschatological connotation is even clearer in the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant (Matt. 18:23-35), which ends thus: "Then in anger his master handed him over to the torturers until he should pay back the whole debt. So will my heavenly Father do to you, unless each of you forgives his brother from his heart" (NABRE). Like the earlier saying, this one refers to indefinite confinement in a debtors' prison, and in this case the ten-thousand-talent debt is effectively infinite.25 Moreover, the servant is not only thrown in prison but handed over to "the torturers" (tois basanistais). As Reiser points out, the basanos word-group is used in early Jewish literature for "the sufferings of the damned in hell."26 In the Gospels this word occurs in eschatological contexts in the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus (discussed below) and in the Matthean Gadarene demoniacs story, in which the demon(iac)s express fear of their own eschatological punishment: "They cried out, 'What have you to do with us, Son of God? Have you come here to torture us before the appointed time?'" The clear implication is that there is an "appointed time" (kairos; cf. Matt. 13:30) when God will torment the demons, and Matt. 25:41 aligns punishment of evil humans with that of evil transcendent beings.

 Non-Existence and Execution vs. Eschatological Punishment

Another significant judgment image is the saying concerning Jesus' betrayer, "It would be better for that man if he had never been born" (Mark 14:21||Matt. 26:24). It appears that Jesus favourably compares non-existence with the eschatological punishment, which is odd if the eschatological punishment is non-existence. Fudge states that "Jesus does not say that this is a fate worse than death, but a fate worse than non-birth" (p. 251). However, another saying of Jesus explicitly compares a horrible execution favourably with the eschatological punishment of those who cause little ones to offend.27 Fudge adds that 1 Enoch 38.2 uses the same better-never-born idiom, in the context of annihilation (as he interprets this text). However, in Part 1 of this review we saw that the Book of Parables—although not necessarily entirely consistent in its eschatology—clearly envisions unending torment for the wicked.28 This Gospel saying once again ties in the eschatological teachings of Jesus on judgment with those of 1 Enoch and the Book of Parables in particular. Moreover, 4 Ezra also contains statements similar to this, and they are explicitly interpreted in terms of postmortem judgment.29 Thus it appears that Jesus' betrayer would have been better off never born because of the punishment that awaits him after death (see below on Acts 1:25).

 The Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus

The final text from the Synoptic Gospels to be considered is the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31). Fudge is dismissive of the relevance of this passage to his study: this parable "likely was not intended to teach anything on that subject [i.e., hell's torments] at all" (p. 226); he devotes a chapter to it only "because of its long public association with the topic of final punishment." There is indeed debate over whether this parable is intended to teach anything about the afterlife. As I have discussed in more detail elsewhere, some scholars maintain that the afterlife imagery in this story is only incidental to the primary message, which is a moral one. Others go further and claim that the parable intentionally subverts existing Jewish ideas about the afterlife!30 However, a detailed recent monograph by Outi Lehtipuu has, I think, shown conclusively that the parable's afterlife imagery is "believable according to the parameters of [its] cultural world."31 Furthermore, Lehtipuu argues rightly that while the main point of the parable is ethical, "The reversal of fate of the rich man and the poor man in the afterlife is a vital part of the message of repentance and thus central to the story."32 Thus, the story of the selfish rich man suffering fiery torments in an afterlife must be taken seriously as part of Luke's (and Jesus') eschatology. Fudge expresses doubt "that Jesus, merely by relating this revised rabbinical parable, thereby endorses any parabolic details concerning the state of the departed" (p. 231), but this fails to take into account Luke's editorial hand, which weaves the parable seamlessly into the Gospel narrative, its imagery aligned with other Lucan texts on eschatological punishment (e.g., Luke 12:5; 12:59; 13:28).

Fudge seems to think it very significant that the parable describes the place of punishment as Hades rather than Gehenna ("this parable never comes within viewing distance of gehenna," p. 231). In fact, "Hades" may simply function as a translation of "Sheol" here.33 In the Enochic corpus, the place of eschatological punishment is sometimes a valley (presumably Gehenna) but elsewhere is Sheol (1 Enoch 63.10; 103.7).34 Similarly, in 4 Ezra 7.36-38, "the furnace of Gehenna" is also called "the pit of torment," an expression that "indicates the transformation of Sheol to the place of punishment of the wicked."35 The choice of Sheol/Hades rather than Gehenna as the place of punishment may reflect that the afterlife imagery is that of the intermediate state rather than the post-resurrection final judgment. Certainly Lazarus, although in the "bosom of Abraham," remains "dead" (Luke 16:31) from the vantage point of the story. Yet situating the rich man's torments in the intermediate state does not render the parable irrelevant to final punishment.36 The setting of the afterlife imagery in the intermediate state was necessary to make the story's chronology work (i.e. to make feasible a visit from the dead to the rich man's living brothers). Moreover, Luke seems to concentrate on immediate postmortem retribution for the wicked (cf. Luke 12:5, 20) whereas Matthew emphasises retribution at the final judgment.37

The best reason to take the parable's depiction of postmortem punishment seriously is that it aligns closely with other passages in Luke. Most strikingly, in Luke 16:23-26 the rich man can see Abraham despite being physically separated from him, just as the evildoers in Luke 13:28 can see Abraham in the kingdom of God despite being "thrown out" into the place of punishment. Lazarus "in the bosom of Abraham" implies reclining at table with Abraham (cp. John 13:23), just as people in Luke 13:28-29 come to the kingdom of God, where Abraham is, and "recline at table." The association of a subterranean place of punishment with "torment" is paralleled in Luke 8:28-31.38 The disbursement of rewards and punishments after death is paralleled in Luke 23:43 and 12:5 respectively (cf. Acts 7:59),39 while the severity and irreversibility of the punishment is paralleled in Luke 12:59 ("I tell you, you will not be released until you have paid the last penny.") The afterlife picture of this parable coheres with the afterlife picture of the rest of the Gospel and therefore cannot be dismissed as incidental or irrelevant. The rich man's fate is, in the teaching of the Lucan Jesus, the fate of all the selfish rich who ignore the plight of the poor.

 The Gospel (and Letters) of John

Fudge also treats the Gospel of John in these chapters (and the Letters of John later). As I have already mentioned, I follow Bernstein in assigning the Fourth Gospel to the "positive tradition." John describes the fate of the unredeemed negatively or vaguely: non-entry into the kingdom of God (John 3:3-5), perishing (3:16), abiding "wrath" (3:36), something "worse" than illness (4:14), "condemnation" (5:24, 29), dying in one's sins (8:24), "no inheritance" (13:8), burning in fire (15:5-6), "destruction" (17:12), and "death" (1 John 5:16-17). This ambiguous data is consistent with annihilation and perhaps most plausibly explained in terms of annihilation. However, it is also possible that for pastoral reasons the Fourth Evangelist downplays the idea of hell (notice how, in 1 John 4:18, the same writer sets his love commandment in antithesis with "fear," which "has to do with punishment.") In any case, since there is tension but no contradiction between the symmetrical picture in the Synoptic Gospels and the positive picture in John's Gospel, the theologian's task is not to force them to be saying the same thing but to arrive at a coherent synthesis of the two pictures.

Chapters 16 and 17: Golgotha: Judgment Revealed

In these two chapters, Fudge offers a formidable argument for annihilationism that is more theological than exegetical. Fudge notes that theologians of various traditions "agree...that the Passion of Jesus Christ uniquely revealed God's judgment against sin—the same judgment that those who knowingly and persistently reject Christ now will face at the end of the world" (p. 262). His argument, then, is that if Jesus suffered the ultimate penalty for sin in our place, then that punishment must correspond to what Jesus actually suffered, which was physical death and not unending torment. A detailed response to this argument is not possible here, since the argument is tied up in the theology of the atonement—itself a complicated matter. I have argued elsewhere that Paul's model of atonement is not one of penal substitution but of participation. Jesus' sinless death condemned sin, opening the way for all who participate in his death through faith and baptism to participate also in his resurrection life. In order for Jesus to condemn sin, it was necessary for him to physically die but not to exhaust divine punishment against sin. Indeed, while Fudge maintains that "The Bible exhausts the vocabulary of dying in speaking of what happened to Jesus" (p. 262), this is clearly not the case. The Bible says that Jesus laid down his life, died, and was killed, but not that he perished, was destroyed, underwent the "second death," was thrown into Gehenna, etc.40 Moreover, while Fudge mentions in passing the ancient doctrine of the Descensus ad Inferos ("Descent into Hades"), this doctrine is not about Christ suffering the torments of hell but about Christ opening the way to heaven for the just who had gone before him, and announcing victory to the powers of darkness. In short, while the Cross of Christ may create a serious theological problem for a traditionalist view of hell among proponents of a strict penal substitutionary model of the atonement, more ancient models of the atonement do not demand that Christ have experienced the fullness of eschatological punishment.

Chapters 18 to 20: Paul's Letters

In chapters 18 to 20, Fudge discusses the epistles of Paul: 1 and 2 Thessalonians (chapter 18), Galatians and 1 and 2 Corinthians (chapter 19), and Romans, Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians (chapter 20). As was mentioned earlier, I concur with Bernstein in assigning Paul to the "positive tradition" that does not describe the fate of the lost in detail but emphasises that they do not receive the rewards of the saved and otherwise speaks of their fate in general terms. In what Fudge agrees (p. 308) is Paul's most detailed statement on the fate of the ungodly (Rom. 2:8-12), he offers no descriptive imagery but merely four abstract nouns ("wrath and anger...trouble and distress") and one verb ("perish," apollumi). Paul elsewhere speaks of the unrighteous not inheriting the kingdom of God (Gal. 5:21; 1 Cor. 6:9) but reaping corruption and death (Gal. 6:8; Rom. 8:13). As with the Gospel of John, the Pauline witness is consistent with annihilation, and annihilation is arguably the most plausible interpretation of Paul's view, but Paul does not contradict the symmetrical tradition. This leaves open the possibility that he opted, perhaps for pastoral reasons, not to delve into the details of eschatological punishment in his letters. Again, the systematic theologian is required, not to choose between the symmetrical and positive traditions, but to build a synthesis from the two.

One Pauline text that may suggest an eschatological punishment beyond annihilation is 2 Thess. 1:8-9, which speaks of the coming of the Lord Jesus "in blazing fire, inflicting punishment on those who do not acknowledge God..." (NABRE). It adds, "These will pay the penalty of eternal destruction (dikēn...olethron aiōnion) from the Lord's presence and from the glory of his power (apo prosōpou tou kuriou kai apo tēs doxēs tēs ischuos autou)" (my translation). The latter part of the statement is drawn almost verbatim from Isa. 2:10 LXX, which tells idolaters, "And now enter into the rocks, and hide in the earth from the Lord's fearsome presence and from the glory of his power" (cf. 2:19-21). The Greek of Paul's phrase is identical to that of Isa. 2:10 LXX apart from the absence of the word phobou (fear). In the Isaianic context, the idolaters are hiding from God's presence on their own initiative. Perhaps due to Isa. 2:10 LXX being expressed as an imperative, Paul understands this as their punishment, a pronouncement of sentence. Fudge states that the Greek of 2 Thess. 1:9 is ambiguous and "can be interpreted as causal (the everlasting destruction issues from the presence of the Lord) or as separative (the 'destruction' consists of exclusion from the presence of the Lord" (p. 289), and that both views are consistent with annihilation. These two views are not mutually exclusive, but the context in Isaiah 2 is unambiguous: there is spatial movement of the idolaters away from the Lord's presence and entry "into the rocks...in the earth...into the caves and into the clefts of the rocks and into the holes of the earth". It is plausible that Paul has interpreted this topographical language as referring to a place of eschatological punishment.41 In any case, the spatial movement implies that the evildoers are going somewhere, not simply ceasing to exist. Fudge states that "The text plainly speaks of eternal destruction" (p. 291, resorting to a strategy already seen in Matt. 10:28 of assuming without argument that certain biblical terms denote annihilation). However, olethros has a semantic range that includes both "destruction" and "ruin" and does not intrinsically imply annihilation.42 Fudge notes that "The phrase 'eternal destruction' appears also in 4 Macc. 10:15" but claims that this passage "offers no insight into Paul's meaning here" (p. 287). In fact, in 4 Maccabees the term "eternal destruction" (aiōnios olethros) is used interchangeably with "eternal torment" (aiōnios basanos, 4 Macc. 9.9; 13.15), which proves conclusively that the term is consistent with the notion of unending torment and does not necessarily entail annihilation. 2 Thess. 1:9-10 does not enable conclusive inferences about Paul's understanding of final punishment, but this intriguing text suggests that there may be more to his eschatological outlook than what we have described as the positive tradition.43

Chapter 21: Hebrews, James, and Acts

Fudge discusses Hebrews, James, and Acts within a single chapter. Hebrews should probably be assigned to the positive tradition (though Bernstein's book does not discuss it), in view of ambiguous language such as "how shall we escape?" (Heb. 2:3), "they shall not enter into my rest" (4:4), and "eternal judgment" that takes place after death (6:2; 9:27). Heb. 10:27-31 refers to "a fearful prospect of judgment and a flaming fire that is going to consume the adversaries," and intimates that this punishment is "much worse" than death. The punishment is described as perishing (apōleia, 10:39). While references to consuming fire (10:27; 12:29) appear to favour an annihilating function of the fire, we should note that the roughly contemporaneous 4 Ezra speaks of the wicked being "consumed" in a context that clearly anticipates ongoing torment (4 Ezra 7.86).44 Fudge avers that "James is one of the strongest New Testament witnesses against the traditional view of conscious unending torment" (though he does not really say why this is). He adds, "It is no surprise that traditionalists prefer to say as little as possible about the Epistle of James" (p. 328), but Fudge himself spends only a couple of pages on the letter, and does not even discuss Jas 3:6, the only New Testament text outside the Synoptic Gospels where Gehenna is mentioned. However, we can heartily endorse Fudge's comments on Jas 4:12, where he emphasises that we are not in a position to make pronouncements about the eternal fate of our peers. Fudge interacts here with a traditionalist, John Gerstner, who makes statements implying that he knows that most Christians are on their way to hell and even knew that a particular individual whose death he witnessed had gone to hell. Gerstner's statements have nothing to do with a traditionalist understanding of hell but seem only to reflect a misguided belief that he has divine insight into the eternal destiny of other people.

Fudge discusses only one passage from Acts: Peter's warning in 3:23 (paraphrasing from Deut. 18) that "Everyone who does not listen to that prophet [i.e. Jesus] will be cut off from his people." The expression "cut off from the people" is a phrase that the LXX uses to translate a common idiom in the Hebrew Bible (e.g., Gen. 17:14; Ex. 30:33; Lev. 17:9; 23:29; etc.). And, as biblical scholar Richard C. Steiner has argued (as discussed in my comments on chapter 5 in the first part of this review), this idiom in the Hebrew Bible may denote a negative postmortem fate in contrast to being gathered to one's people (an opposite biblical idiom). Thus Fudge's claim that this verse supports annihilationism may be premature. Fudge claims that Acts "specifically references final punishment only once" (p. 330), but this is not strictly accurate. The account of Paul's speech before Felix in Acts 24 alludes to final punishment in that Paul speaks of "a resurrection of the righteous and the unrighteous" and later of "the coming judgment," causing Felix to become frightened. However, a more direct reference to final punishment is in Acts 1:24-25, where the disciples prayed, "You, Lord, who know the hearts of all, show which one of these two you have chosen to take the place in this apostolic ministry from which Judas turned away to go to his own place" (NABRE). There is a wordplay on the word topos ("place") here: in its first occurrence, "place" refers to the apostolic office vacated by Judas, but in its second occurrence, it is a spatial "place" to which Judas has gone. In the view of numerous scholars, "his own place" is a euphemism for the postmortem place of punishment.45

Chapter 22: 1-2 Peter and Jude

In 1 Peter, as Fudge notes, "little is said about the end of the wicked" (p. 334). 1 Peter 4:17-18 poses the question of what their end will be, but does not answer it. Another text that Fudge might have discussed is 1 Pet. 3:19, which speaks of Christ having gone "to preach to the spirits in prison." Although this is a famously difficult text, the most prevalent view among scholars since Dalton's influential study has been that these "spirits in prison" are the fallen angels of Gen. 6:1-4 and the Enochic tradition; the "prison" is thus their place of confinement pending the final judgment.46 In any case, there is no doubt that 2 Peter speaks of fallen angels confined in a transcendent prison ("gloomy chains in Tartarus") to await the final judgment (2 Pet. 2:4). Fudge thinks this allusion "adds nothing to our understanding of the final doom of human sinners" (p. 337). However, combining the story of God condemning the fallen angels with the story of the Flood and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, 2 Peter infers that "the Lord knows how...to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment" (2 Pet. 2:9 NABRE). It is unlikely that "the unrighteous" refers only to the fallen angels; this generic term undoubtedly includes the "godless" humans of Noah's day and of Sodom and Gomorrah. The implication is therefore that not only the fallen angels but also unrighteous humans of the past are currently being "kept (or, guarded) under punishment for the day of judgment."47 The writer of 2 Peter evidently assumes the existence of a prison-like intermediate state for ungodly humans, like that observed in 1 Enoch (on which this writer also depends for his details of the angels' punishment). This observation vitiates Fudge's claim (p. 336) that 2 Peter cites the Flood and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah as instances of annihilation. Fudge draws attention to other terms from 2 Peter for the end of the wicked, such as "destruction" (2:12) and "the gloom of darkness" (2:17). Fudge thinks this language "suggests and harmonizes with the idea of final, total extinction" (p. 337), but the statement, "for them the gloom (zophos) of darkness has been reserved" is clearly intended to recall the punishment of the fallen angels described in 2:4, which uses the same rare word zophos. Since the angels' punishment was not annihilation but confinement in a gloomy place, it follows that this is what 2 Peter envisions for unjust humans as well.

This brings us to Jude, which has a close literary relationship with 2 Peter and uses much of the same imagery. Paralleling 2 Pet. 2:4, Jude describes the apostate angels as being "kept in eternal chains, in gloom, for the judgment of the great day" (Jude 6). Paralleling 2 Pet. 2:17, Jude states that for the apostate humans "the gloom of darkness has been reserved forever" (Jude 13). He also explicitly quotes from 1 Enoch 1 about the final judgment (Jude 14-15), showing the dependence of his eschatological outlook on the Enochic tradition. Jude 7 makes an intriguing statement about Sodom and Gomorrah that Fudge renders, following the RSV, "[they] serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire" (p. 341). He criticises the NIV for translating, "serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire," noting that the words "of those who" are not in the Greek text. However, the word "by" in the RSV translation is also interpolated. A woodenly literal translation would be, "are exhibited [as] an example of eternal fire undergoing penalty." One syntactic question is whether the genitive phrase puros aiōniou ("of eternal fire") modifies deigma ("example") or dikē ("penalty"). The first option seems more likely to me.48 In either case, though, what happened to Sodom and Gomorrah is held out as an example, a specimen, of eternal fire. How could Jude have conceived of the fire that rained down on Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 19:24) as eternal? Fudge thinks the word "eternal" indicates that it is "a fire from God which destroys sinners totally and forever" (p. 342). However, while we cannot be sure for Jude, other New Testament writers clearly did not think that the people of Sodom had already been destroyed totally and forever.49 A more likely explanation is provided by Fudge's own discussion: he notes that scholars have pointed out how some Jewish writings of the period (e.g., Wisdom of Solomon 10:7) express a belief that the region once occupied by Sodom and Gomorrah was still smoldering up to the present day. If Jude accepted this tradition (with the help of texts like Isa. 34:10), he likely regarded the fire of Sodom and Gomorrah as literally "eternal," unending. Support for this explanation can be seen in Jude 6, where the punishment of the apostate angels is described as "eternal chains." The idea is not that the angels were chained briefly with unending consequences, but that the angels have been kept in chains unceasingly. It is likely, then, that in Jude's view there was already an unending fire in the world, which served as an example of the unending fire still to be revealed at the final judgment.

Chapter 23: Revelation

 Fiery Torment without Relief

The last part of the New Testament discussed by Fudge is the Apocalypse of John. Like the Synoptic Gospels, this book is assigned by Bernstein to the symmetrical tradition,50 and Fudge concedes that it contains "the strongest biblical statements that seemingly favor unending conscious torment" (p. 367). However, he nonetheless argues that Revelation teaches "that not only wicked humans, but also wicked angels and (most probably) even the devil himself, will finally be wiped out and be no more" (p. 367). Although there is much judgment language in this highly symbolic book, let us go directly to the most debated texts. In Rev. 14:9-11, an angel says in a loud voice,

Anyone who worships the beast or its image, or accepts its mark on forehead or hand, 10 will also drink the wine of God’s fury, poured full strength into the cup of his wrath, and will be tormented in burning sulfur before the holy angels and before the Lamb. 11 The smoke of the fire that torments them will rise forever and ever, and there will be no relief day or night for those who worship the beast or its image or accept the mark of its name. (NABRE)

The language of fiery "torment" (basanismos) without relief closely parallels the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, as well as certain Jewish apocalyptic texts such as 1 Enoch and 4 Ezra. That the torment "in burning sulfur" happens "before the holy angels and before the Lamb" makes the image concrete. The language of v. 11 draws on Isa. 34:9-10,51 but the writer of Revelation goes further than his source: not only does the smoke rise forever, unquenched day and night, but this is the smoke of a fire that tortures people, and they have no relief day or night. There is no doubt that a plain reading of the text points to unending conscious torment, or that the nearest literary parallels support this interpretation. Fudge holds that "the destructive process encompassed such conscious suffering as God saw fit to require" (p. 357), but denies that the torment goes on forever. To reach this interpretation, Fudge posits a sharp distinction between the smoke, which ascends forever, and the torment, which continues "day and night" but only for an unspecified, finite period. However, "day and night" and "forever and ever" are complementary expressions for the same process, the one indicating that it is uninterrupted (cf. Rev. 7:15; 12:10) and the other that it is unending. A similar statement in Rev. 20:10 combines them ("There they will be tormented day and night forever and ever") and so there is no warrant for separating them here.52 

 The Lake of Fire

Other key texts about final punishment in Revelation speak of "the lake of fire" (hē limnē tou puros), an expression derived from the "river of fire" of Dan. 7:10-11 that surges forth from the throne of the Ancient of Days and into which the body of the beast is thrown. Fudge notes that "Conditionalists and traditionalists agree that the lake of fire stands for the same ultimate destiny called Gehenna in the Gospels" (p. 361). Once again, Revelation goes beyond its source: in Dan. 7:11 the beast is killed and then its body is thrown into the river of fire, but in Rev. 19:20 the beast and the false prophet are "thrown alive into the lake of fire burning with sulfur." They are not thrown in alive in order to be killed but, as Rev. 20:10 makes clear, to be tormented perpetually: "The Devil who had led them astray was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet were. There they will be tormented day and night forever and ever" (NABRE). Fudge maintains that this is "clearly symbolic language," since the beast and false prophet are not literal persons but represent human institutions (tyrannical political authorities and idolatrous religious authorities). However, Rev. 20:10 clearly depicts the same event as Rev. 14:9-11, where the burning sulfur imagery is concretised by the presence of the holy angels and the Lamb, and those tormented are clearly human worshipers of the beast. We can thus infer that Rev. 20:10 uses the beast and the false prophet as synecdoche, including their human adherents. Rev. 20:10 thus aligns with Matt. 25:41 in having wicked humans consigned to the same fiery fate as the devil. As a last-ditch exegetical effort, Fudge suggests, "It is possible that even the picture of unending torment can symbolize everlasting extinction" (p. 362).

 The Second Death: No Mere Repeat of the First

Rev. 20:11-15 describes the general resurrection and final judgment. After "Death and Hades gave up their dead," they were "thrown into the lake of fire." Fudge states that "it is uncontroverted that Death and Hades are abstractions and not persons, and that the lake of fire here represents annihilation" (p. 363). However, the throwing of "Death and Hades" into the lake of fire does not represent the annihilation of punishment, but the obsolescence of these lesser fates and their subsumption into the ultimate fate, the lake of fire. Rev. 20:14 states that the lake of fire "is the second death." Fudge states that "second death" is the "clearer meaning" of "lake of fire" (p. 364), but he seems to think that the second death is ontologically identical to the first death (i.e. the Death that was cast into the lake of fire), differing only in chronology. This cannot be so; "Death" cannot have been destroyed if an identical, second "Death" remains. Here is the paradox: the picture of the new Jerusalem features "no more death" (Rev. 21:4) and yet still includes "the second death" (21:8). Evidently, "second death" does not simply mean "death again";53 it denotes a punishment of a different order than the ordinary death that will be no more.54 Revelation unmistakably associates the lake of fire/second death with "torment" that lasts "day and night forever and ever." It is a punishment for human beings (Rev. 14:9-11; 20:15; 21:8) and for the devil (20:10).

 The Final Picture of the New Jerusalem: Evil not Absent but Outside

Perhaps the most striking statement about final punishment in Revelation is Rev. 22:14-15.55 In this final picture of the eschatological city and its gates, evildoers still exist, outside the city. As Bernstein explains,

[E]vil remains to the very end of the tour of the new Jerusalem. The symmetrical tradition conceives of bliss in contrast to suffering, the city and its garden in contrast to the surrounding plane, the new heaven in contrast to the lake of fire. Evil is not annihilated but contained, and those in its thrall will suffer forever.56

Fudge never discusses this text, and seems to have overlooked it when arguing that the statement "the sea was no more" in Rev. 21:1 indicates "the end of all that stands opposed to life" (p. 366). Revelation envisions the wicked as excluded from the eschatological city and rendered impotent, but not annihilated.

Conclusion on the New Testament

I find myself largely in agreement with Fudge's exegesis of the Pauline and Johannine portions of the New Testament (not counting Revelation as Johannine), and would concur with Bernstein in seeing in these books a "positive tradition" that expresses the fate of the ungodly primarily as a loss of eternal life rather than a specific alternative eternal destiny. However, I find myself in sharp disagreement with Fudge's exegesis of the Synoptic Gospels and Revelation, as well as 2 Peter and Jude. Although some of my differences with Fudge may be down to our respective theological biases, Bernstein's historically oriented study (without an obvious theological axe to grind) has recognised the existence of a "symmetrical tradition" within the New Testament that regards the destiny of the ungodly as equal in duration and intensity but opposite in quality to the destiny of the godly. A theology of hell must incorporate and synthesise both traditions. This necessarily entails affirming the symmetrical tradition's more detailed and vivid pictures of eschatological punishment. On the other hand, since the gospel message is one of love and grace and not of fear and threats, the Church has often found it prudent to emulate the sensitivity of the positive tradition by downplaying the doctrine of hell. For example, the classical Christian creeds that are used liturgically in the Catholic Church and many other Christian communities—the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed and the Apostles' Creed—belong to the positive tradition. When the faithful recite them, they express their belief in the resurrection of the dead and in eternal life, but make no explicit reference to the fate of the lost, stating only that Jesus will "judge the living and the dead."

In the third and final part of this review, I will look at Fudge's treatment of early Christian literature outside the New Testament, and offer some theological reflections.

Footnotes

• 1 Alan E. Bernstein, The Formation of Hell: Death and Retribution in the Ancient and Early Christian Worlds (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993).
• 2 Bernstein, The Formation of Hell, 227.
• 3 Bernstein, The Formation of Hell, 262. Bernstein explicitly affirms that Paul and John believed in the annihilation of the wicked (The Formation of Hell, 208, 247).
• 4 Bernstein, The Formation of Hell, 262.
• 5 Bernstein, The Formation of Hell, 227.
• 6 Marius Reiser writes that there emerges from the authentic sayings of the historical Jesus "an astonishingly clear and consistent picture of Jesus’ preaching of judgment" using "a variety of images and designations" (Jesus and Judgment: The Eschatological Proclamation in Its Jewish Context [Minneapolis: Fortress, 1997], 304-307).
• 7 See above on the Fourth Gospel belonging to the positive tradition and the Synoptic Gospels to the symmetrical tradition. Furthermore, Chaim Milikowsky's influential study argues that Matthew envisions the punishment of Gehenna as being dispensed at the last judgment, whereas Luke envisions it as dispensed immediately after death ("Which Gehenna? Retribution and Eschatology in the Synoptic Gospels and in Early Jewish Texts," New Testament Studies 34 [1988]: 238-49).
• 8 See Lloyd R. Bailey, "Gehenna: The Topography of Hell," Biblical Archaeologist (September 1986): 188. Conditionalist scholar Kim G. Papaioannou is also dismissive of this legend concerning the Valley of Hinnom ("The Development of Gehenna between the Old and New Testaments," in Rethinking Hell: Readings in Evangelical Conditionalism [ed. Christopher M. Date, Gregory G. Stump, and Joshua W. Anderson; Cambridge: Lutterworth, 2014], 254). Fudge makes the odd statement, "Even if it should someday be shown that the Valley of Hinnom was not used as a garbage dump in the first century..." (p. 188). This reverses the burden of proof; the problem is that no one has ever produced evidence that the Valley of Hinnom was used as a garbage dump in the first century.
• 9 These Enochic texts were discussed in Part 1 of this review. Papaioannou is skeptical of whether the valleys of 1 Enoch 27.2 or 1 Enoch 90.25-27 are the Valley of Hinnom ("The Development of Gehenna," 252-53), but the scholarly consensus seems to be that they are.
• 10 For example, "The fire of Gehenna was created on the second day and will never be extinguished, as it says, [quotes Isa. 66:24]" (t. Ber. 6.7, trans. Tzvee Zahavy, "Mishnah-Tosefta Berakhot," in The Law of Agriculture in the Mishnah and the Tosefta: Translation, Commentary, Theology [3 vols.; ed. Jacob Neusner; Leiden: Brill, 2005], 1:541). Seder Olam Rabbah 3 states that most sinners are annihilated after spending twelve months in Gehenna, but that for certain heretics, "Gehinnom is locked before them and they are judged there forever...Not only this, but the netherworld will cease to be but they will not cease to be...From His dwelling place He will wear out their form, and their form will wear out the netherworld" (trans. Rabbi Mike Feuer). A similar view is found in the Babylonian Talmud (b. Rosh Hashanah 17a); both of these texts cite Isa. 66:24 in support. The Targum to Isa. 66:24 states, "and the wicked will be judged in Gehinnam until the righteous say of them, we have seen enough" (trans. Bruce D. Chilton, The Glory of Israel: The Theology and Provenience of the Isaiah Targum [Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1982], 83).
• 11 See Matt. 5:22, 29, 30; 10:28; 18:9; 23:15; 23:33.
• 12 This is also suggested by the parallelism between "eternal life" and "eternal punishment" in Matt. 25:46. Notice that in 4 Maccabees (a Jewish text probably from the first century C.E. that Fudge agrees presupposes unending torment), the word kolasis ("punishment") entails basanos ("torture") (4 Macc. 8.9), and the term "eternal torment" (aionios basanos, 4 Macc. 9.9, 13.15) is synonymous with "endless torment" (akatalutos basanos, 4 Macc. 10.11) and "eternal fire," i.e. "tortures that for all ages will not release you" (4 Macc. 12.12).
• 13 Nickelsburg notes that a Noachic interpolation in 1 Enoch 67.4-13 identifies this same valley "as the place of punishment for both the rebellious angels and the kings in the mighty" (1 Enoch 2, 51). See also 1 Enoch 10.13-14; 108.3-6.
• 14 See, e.g., BDAG 115-116; TDNT 1:394-97. Fudge argues that the use of apollumi for "losing" one's life or reward in close proximity to Matt. 10:28 (10:39-42) shows that it entails annihilation in 10:28. However, standard lexical authorities like those just mentioned recognise "lose" as a distinct, literal meaning of apollumi, and this meaning obviously does not apply in Matt. 10:28.
• 15 See note 40 of Part 1 of this review.
• 16 As Fudge states later concerning "destruction" (apoleia) in Matt. 7:13, "The traditionalist must explain why 'destruction' should not mean what the word most naturally brings to mind" (p. 246). The question is, of course, brings to whose mind? And, of course, exegesis does not proceed from English words but from the original Greek.
• 17 Fudge makes much of the meaning of this phrase, which he argues refers to emotional pain rather than physical pain. For purposes of the traditionalist/annihilationist debate, it really does not matter; the important point is that in order to weep and grind one's teeth, one must conciously exist.
• 18 "Verse 11 makes both a local and a temporal distinction. ‘Here’ (ὧδε) one experiences ‘this great torment’ (τὴν μεγάλην βάσανον ταύτην), which will last until the great day of judgment. ‘There’ (ἐκεῖ), after the judgment, in the place where they will be bound, those who are cursed forever will have ‘scourges’ and ‘torments’ (μάστιγεσ, βάσανοι) inflicted on them. The identity of the place of this eternal punishment, designated as ‘there,’ is less than certain" (Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 308).
• 19 Fudge writes, "Weeping indicates sorrow, as the doomed begin to realize that God has thrown them out as worthless and as they begin to recognize the immanence [sic] of their own upcoming permanent demise...Those who are banished into this darkness do weep and gnash their teeth, just as Jesus says, but concerning the duration of that activity, our Lord reveals not even a clue." (p. 241, emphasis added).
• 20 Note that 4 Ezra 7.36, a Jewish apocalypse roughly contemporaneous with Matthew, uses the term, "the furnace of Gehenna." In Apocalypse of Abraham 15.1-7, Gehenna is shown to Abraham as a furnace in language that draws on both Gen. 15:17 and Gen. 19:28.
• 21 The order of events (if they are separate events) in Matt. 24:51 (quoted above) is the opposite of what Fudge's reading requires: the evildoer is dismembered (killed) and then put in the place of weeping and grinding of teeth.
• 22 The imagery of fire and darkness appear together repeatedly in descriptions of the place of punishment in 1 Enoch (e.g., 62.10-11; 103.7-8; 108.3-15; cf. 4 Ezra 7.36, 7.125.
• 23 These include burning  of unfruitful tree, chaff, or weeds, discarding of worthless salt or bad fish, ruin of house, disowning, loss of life or reward, no forgiveness, condemnation, humiliation, confiscation of goods, cutting down of tree or uprooting of plant, exclusion from the kingdom of God, and locking out/banishment.
• 24 See Reiser, Jesus and Judgment, 307-308.
• 25 Reiser remarks, "To the ears of Jesus' hearers, that sum had to sound like something out of a fairy tale; it would immediately carry them into the atmosphere of the level of society in which people played with such fantastic sums. Haman promised to contribute ten thousand talents to the royal treasury following the destruction of all the Jews in the Persian empire and the seizure of their property (Esth. 3:9). Darius tried to purchase peace from Alexander for ten thousand talents. Alexander set aside ten thousand talents for the mausoleum of his beloved Hephaestion. Obviously, the servant can never produce such a sum" (Jesus and Judgment, 273-73).
• 26 Reiser, Jesus and Judgment, 279. The examples he gives are 1 Enoch 10.13; 22.11; 25.6; Wis. 3:1; 2 Macc. 7:17; 4 Macc. 9.9; 12.12; 13.15; 4 Ezra 7.36; 7.67; 9.12-13.
• 27 "it would be better for him to have a great millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea" (Matt. 18:6||Mark 9:42||Luke 17:2).
• 28 1 Enoch 38.1-6 reads, "1 When the congregation of the righteous appears, the sinners will be judged for their sins, and from the face of the earth they will be driven; 2 And when the Righteous One appears in the presence of the righteous, whose chosen works depend on the Lord of Spirits, and light appears to the righteous and chosen who dwell on the earth; Where (will be) the resting place of those who have denied the Lord of Spirits? It would have been better for them, if they had not been born. 3 When his hidden things are revealed to the righteous, the sinners will be judged, and the wicked will be driven from the presence of the righteous and chosen. 4 And thereafter, it will not be the mighty and exalted who possess the land, and they will not be able to look at the face of the holy, for the light of the Lord of Spirits will have appeared on the face of the holy, righteous, and chosen. 5 And then the kings and the mighty will perish, and they will be given into the hand of the righteous and holy, 6 and from then on, no one will seek mercy for them from the Lord of Spirits, for their life will be at an end." (trans. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 2, 95). Although this section of the Book of Parables provides little detail about the punishment of "the sinners" and "the kings and the mighty," the statements that the condemned will be driven away and "will not be able to look at the face of the holy" implies that they still exist. Similarly, the statement that, after the kings and the mighty "perish," "no one will seek mercy for them," implies that they still exist. In chapter 63, the kings and the mighty explicitly seek mercy for themselves from the place of torment and are denied.
• 29 E.g., 4 Ezra 7.65-69: "65 Let the human race lament, but let the beasts of the field be glad; let all who have been born lament, but let the four-footed beasts and the flocks rejoice! 66 For it is much better with them than with us; for they do not look for a judgment, nor do they know of any torment or life promised to them after death. 67 For what does it profit us that we shall be preserved alive but cruelly tormented? 68 For all who have been born are involved in iniquities, and are full of sins and burdened with transgressions. 69 And if we were not to come into judgment after death, perhaps it would have been better for us" (trans. Michael Edward Stone, A Commentary on the Book of Fourth Ezra [Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990], 225-26).
• 30 See especially Kim G. Papaioannou, Places of Punishment in the Synoptic Gospels (Ph.D. dissertation, Durham University, 2004), 155. Fudge gives credence to this reading, stating, "no one can seriously claim that the details [of the parable] should be understood literally: a drop of water would provide no palliative benefit against hadean fire; the redeemed and unredeemed do not converse face to face across a literal chasm" (p. 232). However, that the rich man requests only a drop of water is likely intended to underscore the severity of punishment: even the smallest request for respite is refused. The redeemed and unredeemed are clearly depicted as at least within sight of each other in Luke 13:28. All of this is not to say that the parable provides a literal description of the details of the afterlife. Any description of transcendent realities is necessarily constrained by the limits of our immanence. The point, however, is that the story does reveal something about the afterlife, and we ought to reflect on what it reveals rather than seeking to explain it away.
• 31 The Afterlife Imagery in Luke’s Story of the Rich Man and Lazarus (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 299.
• 32 Lehtipuu, Afterlife Imagery, 6.
• 33 Compare Acts 2:27, where the author (presumably Luke) has followed Psalm 15:10 LXX in translating Psalm 16:10 MT's Sheol with Hades.
• 34 Particularly striking is the parallel between Luke 16:23-24 (the rich man in Hades complains, "I am suffering torment in these flames") and 1 Enoch 63.10 ("Now they will say to themselves, 'Our souls are full of ill-gotten wealth, but it does not prevent us from descending into the flame of the torment of Sheol"). Luke 16:19-31 and 1 Enoch 62-63 also have a shared motif of an unsuccessful request for respite on the part of the sufferer(s).
• 35 Stone, 4 Ezra, 221. This is a place of "fire and torments." The eschatological punishment that awaits "the multitude of those who perish" in 4 Ezra 7.55-59 consists of "thirst and torment," another close parallel to the description of the rich man's fate in Luke 16:24.
• 36 Fudge writes that even if the parable's language "teaches something of punishment after death, it occurs before the final judgment while others are still living on earth...There is no clear exegetical basis in Luke 16 for any conclusions concerning the final end of the wicked" (p. 231).
• 37 So Milikowsky, "Which Gehenna?", 242-44.
• 38 The demoniac begs, "Do not torment me!" and the demons, in what is evidently a synonymous request, beg Jesus "not to order them to depart to the abyss."
• 39 On Luke 23:43 see Thomas Farrar, "Today in paradise?: Ambiguous Adverb Attachment and the Meaning of Luke 23:43," Neotestamentica 51 (2017): 185-207.
• 40 Fudge claims, following Matt. 27:20 KJV, that Jesus "was destroyed," but this verse discusses what the chief priests and elders sought to do to Jesus, not what happened to him or what God did to him.
• 41 In 1 Enoch 22.1-4, the place of punishment is described as "hollow places" within a "great mountain of hard rock" (1 Enoch 22.1-4). Elsewhere in 1 Enoch, places of punishment are similarly topographical, consisting of jagged stones (1 Enoch 10.4-6), a pit, valley, or abyss in the middle of the earth (1 Enoch 27; 90.25-27), etc. Since we know that Paul read Isa. 2:10-21 in terms of eschatological punishment, it is likely that, influenced by his Jewish background, he read the topographical language of the passage as referring to a place of punishment: the evildoers are removed from God's presence and consigned to the rocky, cavernous place of punishment.
• 42 BDAG 702.
• 43 Bernstein writes that "Paul had no desire to describe the condition of those not rewarded with the kingdom." He names 2 Thess. 1:9 and Eph. 2:2-3 as two "marginal texts, where it is only just conceivable that he envisaged something other than annihilation"; he considers 2 Thess. 1:9 "especially anomalous" and "apparently so foreign to his thinking on the matter," but he doubts whether these two letters are attributable to Paul (The Formation of Hell, 224, 261).
• 44 This passage was quoted in note 39 of the first part of this review.
• 45 "when combined with the implied curses from Psalms and the reason for his replacement, Judas' 'place' (topos) more likely refers to a transcendent region related to one's final destiny, a sense topos connotes on a number of occasions (e.g., BDAG, 1011). In this case the term most likely refers to a place of punishment after death (cf. Luke 16:28; T. Ab. A13; B10; Tg. [Eccl.] 6.6; Hermas Sim. 9.4.7; Ign. Magn. 5.1). The Lukan audience would probably conclude that Judas died an apostate, and apostates will not be with Christ. Their place is with the wicked" (B. J. Oropeza, "Judas' Death and Final Destiny in the Gospels and Earliest Christian Writings," Neotestamentica 44 [2010]: 352-53). See, similarly, Arie W. Zwiep, Judas and the Choice of Matthias: A Study on Context and Concern of Acts 1:15-26 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004), 166-68.
• 46 William J. Dalton, "The Interpretation of 1 Peter 3,19 and 4,6: Light from 2 Peter," Biblica 60 (1979): 547-555; similarly, D. Edmond Hiebert, "The Suffering and Triumphant Christ: An Exposition of 1 Peter 3:18-22," Bibliotheca Sacra 139 (1982): 146-58.
• 47 The Greek verb tereo can mean "keep" in a general sense but also has the technical meaning "to retain in custody, keep watch over, guard" (BDAG 1002; cf. Matt. 27:36, 54; Acts 16:23; etc.), which seems appropriate in this context. The expression kolazomenous terein thus means something like "keep in custody being punished," and implies imprisonment.
• 48 2 Pet. 2:6 states that Sodom and Gomorrah are "an example of what is coming" (hupodeigma mellonton), so the word "example" is modified by a genitive construction. This suggests that the author of 2 Peter saw the word "example" in Jude 7 as also modified by a genitive construction (puros aioniou).
• 49 2 Peter 2:9, as we have seen, assumes that the unrighteous of the past are currently being held under punishment for the day of judgment, while some sayings of Jesus in Matthew and Luke assume that Sodom will be present on the day of judgment (Matt. 10:15; 11:24; Luke 10:12).
• 50 The Formation of Hell, 260.
• 51 "9 Edom’s streams shall be changed into pitch, its soil into sulfur, and its land shall become burning pitch; 10 Night and day it shall not be quenched, its smoke shall rise forever." (NABRE)
• 52 Equally implausible is Fudge's sharp separation of the "burning pitch/sulfur" from the "smoke" in Isa. 34:9-10: he claims that the fire "burned in the daytime and in the nighttime" but eventually "went out; and then its smoke ascended as a memorial to God's thorough destruction" (p. 358). Smoke, of course, does not only begin to ascend after a fire goes out; it serves as evidence of a fire. The text gives no indication that Edom's fire goes out but explicitly calls it "unquenched" day and night. The two clauses in Isa. 34:10 are a synonymous parallelism, not two contrasting statements.
• 53 Note similarly the two senses of the word "death" in 4 Ezra, as discussed by Stone (see quotation in note 40 of the first part of this review).
• 54 Fudge criticises the patristic idea that the second death is like a "deathless death," a concept he says "is nowhere found in Scripture." Yet Rev. 9:1-6 speaks of smoke that comes out of "the passage to the abyss...like smoke from a huge furnace," resulting in locusts that torment the ungodly. Verse 6 states the consequence: "During that time these people will seek death but will not find it, and they will long to die but death will escape them." Bernstein regards this passage—which Fudge does not discuss—as a description of the second death."Here then is a new description of death, a death so miserable that those not resurrected from it long to die. Yet this is the second death; so it is not in Sheol. It is the fate of those who suffer the second death" (The Formation of Hell, 255).
• 55 "Blessed are they who wash their robes so as to have the right to the tree of life and enter the city through its gates. Outside are the dogs, the sorcerers, the unchaste, the murderers, the idol-worshipers, and all who love and practice deceit" (NABRE).
• 56 The Formation of Hell, 260.