Eternal Punishment or Universal Salvation?

[romano]

The doctrine of hell as eternal punishment is, as we all know, a terrible stumbling-block for non-Christians. How, they ask, can Christianity, which boasts of an “Eternal God in whom mercy is endless and the treasury of compassion inexhaustible,” attribute to that same God a vengefulness so profound that it consigns sinners to an eternity of punishment?

So repulsive to common sense is this doctrine that, in order to soften its horror, it became necessary for the Church to formulate a second doctrine, that of Purgatory (CCC # 1030-1032). The Catechism tells us that “the Church formulated her doctrine of faith on Purgatory especially at the Councils of Florence and Trent . . . . by reference to certain texts of Scripture.” These texts are 1 Cor 3:15 and 1 Pet 1:7. Frankly, if I may be forgiven for saying so, these verses do not seem to me to be weighty enough to bear the burden of a totally new doctrine…

Givn this, I think it might prove profitable to consider two verses which appear at the very beginning of the New Testament, Matt 3:11-12 (Rheims tr.), where we read:

". . . he shall baptize you in the Holy Ghost and fire. . . . but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.

The question that occurs to me is this: Are we here dealing with two different kinds of fire – a fire of love and a fire of vengefulness – or with just one fire, the fire of Christ’s love, a fire that the good will experience as bliss and the wicked as torment? Is it in fact blasphemy to suggest that Christ could be anything but LOVE?

The wicked, certainly, will be tormented, but by real fire, and forever? Or by Christ’s purifying fire of love until Gehenna ends?

In other words, is it Hell (Gehenna) that is really Purgatory, and a state that will seem endless to those undergoing it, but one that a loving and merciful God, who wishes to bring us all back to Himself, would never and could never allow to last forever?

 

[slinky1882]

The fires mentioned are viewed as seperate. The one is of purification, and the fires of Hell are punishment. Second, we shouldn’t think of the fires like the fires of the material world. While possible, we don’t know. The pain of seperation from God could be the fire talked about. A seperation from God (either eternally or purification wise) would sear the soul. God is Perfect Love, and Perfect Love requires Mercy AND Justice. Why individuals picture the two traits as opposed, I do not know.

The Doctrine of Purgatory wasn’t necessitated to soften the horror of Hell. Purgatory was expounded upon because of its existence. Hell and Heaven will last for eternity. To get rid of Hell or teach Universal Salvation tears at the heart of many other Doctrines namely mortal sin, natural and moral law and the Crucifixion. If there is Universal Salvation, why I should I live a moral life when at timesit may be easier to indulge and sin than exercise displine or humility??? One cannot just eliminate Hell without a profound effect on the Faith. Thanks and God Bless.

 

[romano]

slinky1882:

One cannot just eliminate Hell without a profound effect on the Faith. Thanks and God Bless.

Thank you. Yours are interesting points, but they don’t really answer the initial objection. One isn’t eliminating Hell; one is re-defining it. And could any sin be so enormous as to justify endless torment? Someone once said that the totality of sin is as a handful of dust thrown into the ocean of God’s mercy. God’s ‘justice’ may be something very different to ours. In fact, it would be very strange if it weren’t.

 

[trailblazer]

Christ preached about Hell as a real place for souls who reject God. Satan and his angels were sent their not as a place of healing and purification, but to rid them from all eternity from Heaven. Fire probably signifies the mysery for those who choose Hell. Much is a “Divine Mystry,” beyond our full comprehension. Further, Purgatory was not invented to soften the teachings on Hell. It came about from Biblical theology, tradition, and the sense that there are many people whose lives neither enable them to go directly to Heaven, but nor do their lives justify Hell.

 

[Zooey]

I think that it is important to point out that the torment of hell is the torment of being separated from God eternally. The “endless torment” of which you speak is the realization that you were wrong to defy the King of the universe. It is a choice.
C S Lewis may have said it best when he wrote that "the doors of hell are locked from the inside".
God bless.

 

[RyanL]

romano:

And could any sin be so enormous as to justify endless torment? Someone once said that the totality of sin is as a handful of dust thrown into the ocean of God’s mercy. God’s ‘justice’ may be something very different to ours. In fact, it would be very strange if it weren’t.

The answer to the first part is yes.

As to the second part, Dante said in the Inferno, “High justice would in no way be debased if ardent love should cancel instantly any debt these penitants must pay.” I believe your comment is an echo of this, no? Hell can indeed be a problem in coming to the faith, but once you see some other truths it begins to make more sense. Also realize that God’s judgement is perfect, and just because we may not fully understand why He judges the way He does, that does not mean it is wrong. That said, keep searching for the truth on this!

You are flawed in your explaination of how the doctrine of Purgatory came to be. We do not derive our beliefs from the bible alone, so “basing Purgatory on a few verses” is not really an issue. We base Purgatory on its existance as revealed to us by God himself, and scripture is used to attest to this truth. Scripture is not the basis for the belief, but rather the support for it. Does that help?

In eternity, there is no Purgatory. Purgatory will only last as long as sinful humans who die with sin but will be rejoined with God last. Once sinners stop dying and are all at their final destination (Heaven or Hell), Purgatory will cease to exist. It’s kinda’ like the Limbo of the fathers - they could not go to Heaven before Christ (if they could have, Christ would have been of no effect), but they certainly were not damned. Rather, they went to Limbo (Abraham’s bosom), where they waited for the gates of Heaven to be opened by Christ’s death and resurection. Heaven and Hell are real. Purgatory is real. They are all discrete and separate places. Once God has judged damnation, His judgement cannot be reversed. Like it or not, that’s just the way it is.

How many people are in Hell? I have no idea. It is my sincere hope that Hell is nearly empty - it cannot be fully empty, as that would require Jesus, the Bible, and the Church to be wrong on this matter. I cannot accept this. Hell must have at least one human occupant. The Bible says that many are in Hell, but that is a relative term - even one is too many sheep for the Good Shepard to lose. All we can do is pray that God lead all souls to Heaven, especially those who are in most need of His mercy.

Rest assured, the only people who are in Hell are the people who have* chosen *to “not choose” God. In so doing, they have separated themselves from the One who loves them, and He who created the ability to choose and the free will to do so, honors their choice.

Does that help?

RyanL

 

[Sgt_Sweaters]

romano:

". . . he shall baptize you in the Holy Ghost and fire. . . . but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.

1 Corinthians 3:10-15

10According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. 11For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw-- 13each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. 14If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. 15If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.

We must all be tested by fire. If we’ve based our lives on the eternal things of God, then we’ll withstand the fire and be purified. If based on the lower things, on the corrupt things, then they’ll be none of that is even able to enter heaven.

 

[Steven_Merten]

I went through the scriptures and pulled quotes on Jesus every time He spoke of damnation, eternal punishment and those He will not forgive. WARNING! Jesus Does Not Forgive All I had a person e-mail me. She asked me how could I have done such an evil thing in making Jesus look so evil.

I do not buy into the modernist “five second rule” theory on hell. Jesus says to those who do not care for the poor, “'Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. Jesus says about some sinners, “you will not enter the kingdom of heaven”. Jesus says of other sinners, “will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come”. Jesus says of some, It would be better for that man if he had never been born.”. Well even after an eternity in purgatory you got to go to heaven then it was a good thing that you were born.

Jesus swears to the Apostles that He will hold a person bound to his sin in heaven of anyone they hold bound to their sins on earth. A person cannot go to heaven if Jesus holds them bound to their sin in heaven. “Recieve the Holy Spirit. If you forgive men’s sins, they are forgiven them; if you hold them bound, they are held bound.” Can Jesus ever in eternity go back on His sworn oath to the Apostles, even after a thousand years of purgatory, and loost the man’s sin?

Jesus talks about those who will not be forgiven and damnation quite often. Maybe as much as He talks about those who will go to heaven. Yet rarely do you hear a priest warn people of eternal damnation in their homilies. They are decieving people away from Jesus true teachings. They are making themselves look more loving than Jesus by not warning of damnation as Jesus did. If Jesus warned people of eternal damnation then this should be considered the loving thing for us to do also? With the Pope John Paul II’s new teachings on universal salvation, is he not making himself appear more loving than Jesus who constantly warned of eternal damnation?

Please visit WARNING! Jesus Does Not Forgive All

NAB MAT 25:41Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, a stranger and you gave me no welcome, naked and you gave me no clothing, ill and in prison, and you did not care for me.’ Then they will answer and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison, and not minister to your needs?’ He will answer them, ‘Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.’ And these will go off to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life." (ISA 58)NAB REV 2:22

“I mean to cast her down on a bed of pain; her companions in sin I will plunge into intense suffering unless they repent of their sins with her, and her children I will put to death. Thus shall all the churches come to know that I am the searcher of hearts and minds, and that I will give each of you what your conduct deserves.”

**NAB JOH 20:21 **

“Peace be with you,” he said again. “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” Then he breathed on them and said: "Recieve the Holy Spirit. If you forgive men’s sins, they are forgiven them; if you hold them bound, they are held bound."
NAB MAT 26:24

The Son of Man indeed goes, as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed. It would be better for that man if he had never been born."

 

[slinky1882]

romano:

Thank you. Yours are interesting points, but they don’t really answer the initial objection. One isn’t eliminating Hell; one is re-defining it. And could any sin be so enormous as to justify endless torment? Someone once said that the totality of sin is as a handful of dust thrown into the ocean of God’s mercy. God’s ‘justice’ may be something very different to ours. In fact, it would be very strange if it weren’t.

Granted, one is not eliminating Hell, but to redefine Hell would have as drastic an effect. And from the Gospels own words, the sin of blasphemy can merit eternal torment that was choosen not forced on the soul. God’s Justice certainly can be different from our own, yet sin has spiritual and temporal effects. To redfine Hell for Universal Salvation would effectively end the idea of Hell as we know it. My partial reply to the objection is that one cannot just redefine Hell wihtout taking into account the effect on many other areas of Tradition. Thanks and God Bless.

 

[romano]

Thank you for your replies. However, the issue is not nearly so cut and dried as some of you suppose. There is a very different and perfectly valid way of looking at this issue, one that is not so heavily legalistic and that seems to me to be far more respectful of God. One finds it very fully expounded in the work of the great St. Isaac of Syria. Julian of Norwich is a Western exponent of this more positive attitude. Note, for example, her famous lines:

"But Jesus, who in this Vision informed me of all that is needful to me, answered by this word and said: It behoved that there should be sin; but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well."

Amazon reviewer Jmark2001 comments at:

amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0140446737/qid=1117130028/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/103-7263732-1539835

**"She talks about God being all love and not judging or blaming anyone but leaving them to their mistakes until they turn back to Him and are received warmly without any lectures, judging, sermons, or finger pointing. She talks about God being a “Mother” and possessing all of the tenderness of a mother. She talks about how God will bring all things to perfection one day, in her famous saying that “all shall be well, all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well”. **

Some of you would have God a lawyer. Isaac and Julian would have him a lover.

 

[Steven_Merten]

romano:

Some of you would have God a lawyer. Isaac and Julian would have him a lover.

Do you agree that many times in scripture Jesus warns us of eternal damnation and those who will not be forgiven? Does this make Jesus a “lover” for warning us of damnation or a lawyer?
WARNING! Jesus Does Not Forgive All

 

[trailblazer]

Note: Bl. Juliana of Norwich had tremendous spiritual depth. However, even though she lived 600 years age, she has never been beatified. Could this, in part, be because some of her writings conflicted with sacred tradition?

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

romano:

The doctrine of hell as eternal punishment is, as we all know, a terrible stumbling-block for non-Christians. How, they ask, can Christianity, which boasts of an “Eternal God in whom mercy is endless and the treasury of compassion inexhaustible,” attribute to that same God a vengefulness so profound that it consigns sinners to an eternity of punishment?

So repulsive to common sense is this doctrine that, in order to soften its horror, it became necessary for the Church to formulate a second doctrine, that of Purgatory (CCC # 1030-1032). The Catechism tells us that “the Church formulated her doctrine of faith on Purgatory especially at the Councils of Florence and Trent . . . . by reference to certain texts of Scripture.” These texts are 1 Cor 3:15 and 1 Pet 1:7. Frankly, if I may be forgiven for saying so, these verses do not seem to me to be weighty enough to bear the burden of a totally new doctrine…

Givn this, I think it might prove profitable to consider two verses which appear at the very beginning of the New Testament, Matt 3:11-12 (Rheims tr.), where we read:

". . . he shall baptize you in the Holy Ghost and fire. . . . but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.

The question that occurs to me is this: Are we here dealing with two different kinds of fire – a fire of love and a fire of vengefulness – or with just one fire, the fire of Christ’s love, a fire that the good will experience as bliss and the wicked as torment? Is it in fact blasphemy to suggest that Christ could be anything but LOVE?

The wicked, certainly, will be tormented, but by real fire, and forever? Or by Christ’s purifying fire of love until Gehenna ends?

In other words, is it Hell (Gehenna) that is really Purgatory, and a state that will seem endless to those undergoing it, but one that a loving and merciful God, who wishes to bring us all back to Himself, would never and could never allow to last forever?

The more I think about Hell, the harder it is to see anything to complain about.​

I’m glad there is a Hell. And I’m glad “the Saints rejoice at the sufferings of the damned” in the sense explained by St. Thomas: that idea is a profoundly Christian sentiment.

One deserves Hell; it can’t be entered by mistake. Hell is a good thing - and far less severe than one deserves. Damnation is something one brings on oneself. Hell is the reward for sin - and a quite insufficient one IMHO. A thousand Hells would not suffice to punish something which has killed God Incarnate. That is what sin does, and that is why there is a Hell. If we insist on “identifying ourselves” with our sins, how can we avoid being destroyed with them ?

To see how worthy of Hell sin is, we have to see what God Our Father thinks of it; and what it has done.

satan fakes being angel of light - why ? Because if he appeared under his own colours, we would see how foul he is. It was God Who made him an angel - his sin made him what he now is; so the devil himself proves the hideousness of sin. He was not ashamed to tempt Christ Whose Love created him from nothing - but he is ashamed of sin.

There is no end of proofs of the true character of sin. ##

 

[romano]

Gottle of Geer:

I’m glad there is a Hell. And I’m glad “the Saints rejoice at the sufferings of the damned”

Well, it’s nice to know that there are important branches of Christianity that are not infected with your legalistic pessimism and sadism. Frankly, I prefer the thoughts of Julian of Norwich and Saint Isaac of Nineveh on this matter.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

romano:

Thank you for your replies. However, the issue is not nearly so cut and dried as some of you suppose. There is a very different and perfectly valid way of looking at this issue, one that is not so heavily legalistic and that seems to me to be far more respectful of God. One finds it very fully expounded in the work of the great St. Isaac of Syria. Julian of Norwich is a Western exponent of this more positive attitude. Note, for example, her famous lines:

"But Jesus, who in this Vision informed me of all that is needful to me, answered by this word and said: It behoved that there should be sin; but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well."

Amazon reviewer Jmark2001 comments at:

amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0140446737/qid=1117130028/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/103-7263732-1539835

**"She talks about God being all love and not judging or blaming anyone but leaving them to their mistakes until they turn back to Him and are received warmly without any lectures, judging, sermons, or finger pointing. **

And if their “god” is Self ? What then ?​

**

She talks about God being a “Mother” and possessing all of the tenderness of a mother.

**

True; and less than the reality. If we worship self, and reject Christ, it is unfair to ask God to force us to love, freely, the God we hate.​

**

She talks about how God will bring all things to perfection one day, in her famous saying that “all shall be well, all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well”.**

Some of you would have God a lawyer. Isaac and Julian would have him a lover.

God is infinite Love - that is why damnation is possible.​

If we freely, deliberately, insist on (so to put it) “identifying ourselves with” our sins, then Hell is where we will end. No one is forced into Heaven - if we want to die instead of live, we are free to. And even God cannot force us to choose life, if we insist on not choosing life. We cannot simultaneously choose two choices which cancel one another out - nor be free and not free in choosing. By choosing to make sons & daughters, and not robots, God gave us freedom to love Him, or, to hate Him. It is not logical to want to be free, and then, to complain of the possible results. IOW, the possibility of rejecting God, and of doing so with effects that won’t be undone, is inherent in the fact of moral freedom.

God can make use even of our sins for His Glory and our good - to punish us for them is just. Sons who are punished for their sins, are punished because they are sons: because God loves them. His firstborn Son suffered undeservedly - so they, whom their Father freely adopted, can’t expect not to. The punishment we accept does us good because we confess that it is deserved, and because we take His side against our sins; because we love what God loves: which is the same thing as hating what God hates; that is, sin.

To be punished, no matter how justly or mildly, for what one refuses to see as deserving of punishment, is a different matter entirely. So the damned cannot be purified by their sufferings. The difference is not in the punishments or their severity, but in the attitudes of those receiving them. One can see this even in children. The justice which punishes is the same for the damned and for those being purged - the attitudes, are worlds apart. It is not the degree of guilt, but the presence or absence of repentance, that distinguishes the purged from the damned.

The damned are not repentant - they are hardened in sin, fossilised. They did not wish to be converted from their sins - and they died at enmity with God; what is there left to convert ? Sin dehumanises. And that dehumanisation has effects - sin is destructive: as one might guess, because it is enmity to the God Whose Love is all-creative. To be at enmity with God, is to be at enmity with all that God Is. And as we are made in His likeness, this means being at enmity with ourselves. As sin is a distorted form of self-love, this contradiction means the disintegration of the self. Hell is where we are fully free to be disintegrated - without the Love which alone can join the detritus of our personalities & put us back together again. Hell, is the sinner’s Heaven; it is the enjoyment of sin without ceasing. Except that sin is not enjoyable. Is that God’s fault ?

The Saints are re-integrated - they are whole. ##

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

romano:

Well, it’s nice to know that there are important branches of Christianity that are not infected with your legalistic pessimism and sadism. Frankly, I prefer the thoughts of Julian of Norwich and Saint Isaac of Nineveh on this matter.

I did say “in the sense explained by St.Thomas” - I even italicised the words.​

It is not sadistic to be glad that the most horrible obscenity of all is punished - if the damned reject God, and stubbornly, freely, deliberately, choose everlasting death, is that God’s fault ?

Is it sadistic to rejoice that what is hateful to God and murderous to God should be punished ?

God is indeed Love - that is one proof of the abominable, hellish, character of sin. Because nothing proves the hatefulness of sin, like the loveableness and holiness and excellence of God Whose eyes are too pure to look upon it, and Who unceasingly forbids it in the Bible. Why would He bother to do this, if sin were a mere trifle, and not deserving of the heaviest punishment ?

If sin needed a Divine Redeemer from it - it must be hideous. ##

 

[Scott_Waddell]

## I did say “in the sense explained by St.Thomas” - I even italicised the words.

It is not sadistic to be glad that the most horrible obscenity of all is punished - if the damned reject God, and stubbornly, freely, deliberately, choose everlasting death, is that God’s fault ?

Is it sadistic to rejoice that what is hateful to God and murderous to God should be punished ?

God is indeed Love - that is one proof of the abominable, hellish, character of sin. Because nothing proves the hatefulness of sin, like the loveableness and holiness and excellence of God Whose eyes are too pure to look upon it, and Who unceasingly forbids it in the Bible. Why would He bother to do this, if sin were a mere trifle, and not deserving of the heaviest punishment ?

If sin needed a Divine Redeemer from it - it must be hideous. ##

Amen. I’ll grant that a God that is all justice and no mercy is monsterous. But a God that is all mercy and no justice is simply childish wishful thinking.

Scott

 

[trailblazer]

RAMANO: At times many of of have and will struggle with teachings of Christ via the Church. It is tempting to say, I know better and everyone else is wrong. Yet, such is what Satan would urge. At such times, wouldn’t it be best to admit to Divine Mystery and accept that when it comes to teachings on faith or morality, the Church is our safeguard and stronghold to keep us from the grasp of Satan.
If I understand correctly, you are rejecting the teachings of Jesus Christ and the Church in favor of a few INDIVIDUAL thoughts from 2 people, one who lived 600 years ago and has never been beatified. In other words, if the teaching does not suit you, its wrong and you are right? This sounds like power and ego talking rather than humility and obedience. You should examine yourself carefully. I will say a prayer for you.

Love & peace in Christ,
Bob

 

[romano]

**This sounds like power and ego talking rather than humility and obedience. **

No, not really. The thing is, you see, I read. And one thing I’ve read is St Isaac, one of the most outstanding representatives of Eastern Christianity. Having read him (no simple task) I can now appreciate why St Thomas Aquinas, after a lifetime spent struggling to express ideas similar to those of some on this thread, dismissed his own entire lifework as “chaff” and refused to write another word.

St Thomas Aquinas spent his whole life struggling to make Christianity, an Eastern religion, fit into the procrustean bed of Western (Aristotelian) thought. And his is the style of thought you folks seem to have inherited, one that goes with an unsophisticated and even blasphemous idea of God.

I can’t type up St Isaac’s works for you, but here’s a relevant passage about him by A. M. Allchin from his Introduction to ‘Daily Readings with St Isaac of Syria’ ISBN 0872431738:

" In his own century Isaac seems at times to have been criticized for teaching openly things that many people thought were better kept secret. His teaching that in God mercy has wholly conquered justice could be a case in point. . . . Undoubtedly the hope and prayer that in the end ‘all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well’ has been more firmly planted at the heart of Eastern Christianity than it has been in the West. With us it is only recently that the optimism of grace which we find in Julian of Norwich has begun to outbalance the pessimism of judgement which for centuries has weighed so heavily on the Western Christian mind."

Those with open minds should read the editions of St Isaac by Wensinck, Miller, and Brock, since to dismiss someone without first having read them is hardly wise. Others may continue to slumber on their procrustean beds. It doesn’t really matter since all, eventually, shall be well.

 

[romano]

Hi All:

Here is a prayer that, when praying the rosary, is optionally tacked on by many after each Glory Be:

O my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of hell, lead all souls to heaven, especially those most in need of thy mercy.

Now then, to pray that Jesus “lead all souls to heaven” surely implies that, in some mysterious way that we cannot understand, Jesus has the ability to do just that. In fact, to deny him this ability becomes blasphemy since it is to insult the majesty of God “with whom all things are possible.”.

Why pray that Jesus lead all souls to heaven if there is no way he could do this? Your “justice” is a human justice and is not that of God. God’s justice is very different, as is made clear in the parable of the laborers in the vineyard in Matthew 20:1-15. You should read it. Here is a comment on it from Fr Hilarion Alfeyev’s ‘The Spiritual World of Isaac the Syrian’, p. 296. ISBN 08790775X:

"A place in the kingdom of heaven is given to a person, not on the basis of his worthiness or unworthiness, but on the basis of God’s mercy and love for humankind. The kingdom of heaven is not a reward, and gehenna [which will have an end] is not a requital: both are gifts of a merciful God ‘who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth’" [1 Tim 2:4]

And you would actually assert that God cannot save all men?

The parable of the laborers in the vineyard tells us that, from God’s point-of-view, work, whether large or small, is work and that all workers deserve equal recompense no matter how much work they may or may not have done. Similarly, sin is sin, and all deserve equal recompense.

This must mean that, since we are all sinners, we are all destined for hell. Or it must mean that God, in whom mercy is endless and the treasury of compassion inexhaustible, willl lead all souls to heaven, though it will take longer for the wicked to get there since they will have to undergo the dreadful detour of gehenna.