Christian Apocrypha and Early Christian Literature

(Ron) #1

winter, nor summer, nor autumn, neither marriage,nor death, nor selling, nor buying, nor set of
sun, nor rising. For God shall make one long day.
And unto them, the godly, shall the almighty and immortal God grant another boon, when they
shall ask it of him. He shall grant them to save men out of the fierce fire and the eternal gnashing
of teeth: and this will he do, for he will gather them again out of the everlasting flame and
remove them else whither, sending them for the sake of his people unto another life eternal and
immortal, in the Elysian plain where are the long waves of the Acherusian lake exhaustless and
deep bosomed;
Some artless iambic lines of uncertain date are appended here, which show what was thought of
the doctrine:
' Plainly false: for the fire will never cease to torment the damned. I indeed could pray that it
might be so, who am branded with the deepest scars of transgressions which stand in need of
utmost mercy. But let Origen be ashamed of his lying words, who saith that there is a term set to
the torments.'

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