Hell

OUR FATHER, HELL AND HEAVEN : M. M. NINAN
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which originally was imprinted on our nature."
"Sin, whose end is extinction, and a change to nothingness from evil to a state of blessedness."
On Ps. lvii: I:
"Sin is like a plant on a house top,
not rooted, not sown, not ploughed in in the restoration to goodness of all things,
it passes away and vanishes.
So not even a trace of the evil which now abounds in us, shall remain, etc."
If sin be not cured here its cure will be effected hereafter.
And God's threats are that "through fear we may be trained to avoid evil;
but by those who are more intelligent it (the judgment) is believed to be a medicine," etc.
"God himself is not really seen in wrath." "
The soul which is united to sin must be set in the fire,
so that that which is unnatural and vile may be removed,
consumed by the aionion fire."
Thus the (aionion) fire was regarded by Gregory as purifying.
"If it (sin in the soul) remains (in the present life)
the healing is accomplished in the life beyond."
(Orat. Catech.)
Dr. Schaff in his history says:
"Gregory adopts the doctrine of the final restoration of all things.
The plan of redemption is in his view absolutely universal, and embraces all spiritual beings.
Good is the only positive reality; evil is the negative, the non-existent, and must finally abolish itself,
because it is not of God.
Unbelievers must indeed pass through a second death, in order to be purged from the filthiness of the
flesh.
But God does not give them up, for they are his property, spiritual natures allied to him.
His love, which draws pure souls easily and without pain to itself, becomes a purifying fire to all
who cleave to the earthly, till the impure element is driven off.
As all comes forth from God, so must all return into him at last."
"Universal salvation (including Satan) was clearly taught by Gregory of Nyssa,
a profound thinker of the school of Origen."
Didymus the Blind
313 - 398 AD
Didymus the Blind was a Christian theologian in the Coptic Church of Alexandria, whose famous Catechetical
School he led for about half a century.
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