A.D. 381 heretics, pagans, and the dawn of the monotheistic state ( PDFDrive )

makes the astonishing assertion that it should be welcomed because Jews and
pagans would now be thrown into hell more quickly while Christians would
likewise be speeded to heaven. This can be seen as a seminal moment when, in
contrast to earlier Greek tradition, disease was no longer regarded as something
to be approached through observation and analysis in the hope of a cure, but
rather something to be placed in the wider context of divine reward or
punishment for one’s beliefs. 14 On Mortality also makes clear that hell is now
seen to be a place where non-Christians will go as a matter of course.
In the fourth century, the age of mass conversion and major controversy, the
belief emerges that even Christians can be sent to hell. In the bitter debates over
the Trinity, each side regularly condemned the other to everlasting punishment -
as Palladius did for Ambrose in the passage already quoted (p. 110). But the
most ominous shift in emphasis took place during the long life of Augustine
(354-430). At the start of his theological development, when he still believed in
free will and reason, Augustine argued that it was only through a conscious
rejection of God that anyone could be condemned to hell. But later, when his
concept of original sin gripped his ever more pessimistic imagination, he taught
that no one could escape the wrath of God unless God chose to save them; if
God’s grace was not forthcoming, they would surely burn eternally. In the last
chapters of his City of God (completed before his death in 430), Augustine
seems to revel in the punitive and unforgiving nature of his Creator: ‘The whole
of mankind is a “condemned lump”; for he who committed the first sin [Adam]
was punished, and along with him all the stock which had its roots in him. The
result is that there is no escape for anyone from this justly deserved punishment,
except by merciful and undeserved [sic] grace; and mankind is divided between
those in whom the power of merciful grace is demonstrated, and those in whom
is shown the might of just retribution.’ He goes on to suggest that ‘there are
many more condemned by [divine] vengeance than are released by mercy’. In
other words, the majority of humankind is destined to burn in hell. 15 Augustine
could provide little evidence in favour of this bleak vision, but it was accepted
by the Church almost without debate and became embedded in orthodox
Catholic belief for centuries to come.
The condemnation of Origen was thus a profound loss to Christianity. Not
only did Augustine’s extreme theology make nonsense of the concept of a loving
and forgiving God, but the threat of hell was now used to manipulate obedience.
In the tortuous theological discussions of the fourth and fifth centuries, when the