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period at which judgment is consummated, and by the contrast of the state of the wicked with that of the blessed (Matt. xxv. 46). Yet, since the New Testament teaching is practical rather than theoretical, other intimations have been found there, concerning its nature, aim, duration, and outcome (see ANxIHILATIONism, and UNIVERSALISM).

Historical Christian belief concerning the nature of future punishment has been determined in part by the doctrine of the resurrection of the same bodies that died (see RESURRECTION), of hell as a place

and its fire as real (E. D. Grin, Sera: Historical mons not before Published, etc., " Hell

Christian Composed of Material Fire," pp. 46Belief. 53, New York, 1844). In particular,

Christian mystics have been fond of dwelling on the physical condition of the lost, with every refinement of imaginative ingenuity, inventing tortures which reflected the most terrible and revolting forms of human suffering (Dante, Inferno; H. Suso, Der ewigen Weywheit Buchlein, chap. ix., Dillingen, 1567; Jonathan Edwards, Works, vii., pp. 387-388, New York, 1829). Punishment has also been conceived of as separation from God, as remorse, as penitence which could not issue in repentance, the sense of one's own vileness, and the like. The aim of punishment has been regarded as vindictive or vindicatory, as disciplinary and deterrent. Its duration has been most commonly taught as endless, based on such considerations as the continuance of penalty commensurate with that bf blessedness, the limitation of redemption to the present life, the total absence of even common grace in the world of the lost, and the inability of the sinful soul to change itself. From early times here and there voices have been raised in advocacy of a limit to this condition, either through annihilation or restoration, or a gradual mitigation of the severity of retributive suffering. Yet even when theoretic considerations have inclined toward milder views, the demands of the religious appeal have often enforced the more rigid interpretation. Christian belief has preponderated on the whole in one direction, but it has never been crystallized into a dogmatic formula.

Present day discussions of future punishment direct attention to four principal points--its nature, purpose, degree, and duration. It is no longer conceived in terms of material fire, but as spiritual experience, regarded by some as a positive infliction

by God, by others as natural and in

3. Tenden- accord with immanent and universal cies of moral order, again as a gradual wasting Recent Dis- away of the organic powers of the being

very personality ceases to exist. Its purpose is either vindicatory or deterrent or disciplinary. As to duration, it is held to be either irreversible, whether immediately at death or at the latest after the judgment, or else as continuing for a temporary period only, determined by the force of resistance to God or by the degree of sin, thereafter to issue in a final restoration to harmony with God or in an extinction of the being. By reason of the limitation of human experience to the present world, however, man is unable to picture the form of

the punishment; but since the moral order is universal, character and condition are known as inseparable, in the moral consciousness are found the principle and law of retribution-the principle that of accountability, the law that of cause and effect. Moral obligation and penalty originate and are realized in the same relations. Punishment is essentially ethical-how ethical one can understand by comparing Jesus' teaching with that of his own or of a later period. Jesus did indeed speak of outer darkness, fire, the undying worm; but he more commonly represented punishment as taking place in ethical relations, e.g., that of payment in kind. Penalty is often conceived as suffering. This interpretation may be traced in part to experience of civil punishment, in part to the stinging pain of a quickened and reproaching conscience, and in part to a literal use of the New Testament. But there is moral stupor as well as anguish; men are " past feeling," " branded as with a hot iron." It is a common belief that the circumstances of the other life will be radically different from the present, and that therefore insensibility will give place to awakened and remorseful suffering. But on the one hand it is conjectural whether, from the moral order of the world as known through revelation and experience, there is sufficient reason to believe that at the instant of death the torpid conscience, the unresponsive will, the insensible heart will be quickened to preternatural and unending activity; and on the other hand, so long as the moral nature, memory, and vicissitude are real in a moral and spiritual universe, the sinner may waken to fierce and uncontrollable remorse.

There are two leading views as to the purpose of punishment--retribution and prevention. As retributive, the evildoer receives back the consequences of his deeds; punishment demonstrates the nullity of his moral rebellion. This may be

Concerning the endlessness of future punishment, the mind can form no adequate notion (cf. Edwards, Works, vi. 451). Arguments for its endlessness are drawn from many directions. (1)