Hell

What, no hell with worms and fire?  No place completely devoid of God?  What gives here with the early Church Fathers?  Some pretty important ones such as St. Ambrose of Milan, who baptized Augustine, says it is unthinkable that God, who is "All in All," would abandon anyone.  God, in Christ, gives everyone the fullness of love, and this means everyone.  This love, however, can be experienced as a torment by those who reject it.  They see their sin as a response to the fire of Love.  Remorse becomes quite clear.  The heart is afflicted by having sinned against Love.

The fire of judgment, the fire of God's love, will consume only that part of us which is evil.  It is like the good seed and the weeds growing together until the harvest.  If the body is ill, the surgeon might have to cause some pain to get rid of the bad parts.  Each of us are saved and condemned.  Some stuff has gotta' go!  But Christ went into hell after death.  We may suffer from remorse, but not despair.  Nothing can defeat the Lord's compassion.

So why this heavy emphasis on the judgment and subsequent eternal fires of hell, with the worms to boot?  Welcome to Medieval Christianity and the power wars.  It is the trump card that the pope can use with powerful barons, princes and lords of vast estates and wealth.  If you mess with the pope's power or authority too much, he will excommunicate you.  No prince wants to die outside the church.  Hell becomes leverage in the medieval world.  Plus, the prince, while he is alive, might give lands to the church and ask that prayers be said, masses too, for the soul of the prince after he dies.  Eventually this land becomes the papal states, and is a big source of income for the papacy.  Well, gone are the papal states, and if you go back to the early Church Fathers you can be a bit more optimistic about judgment.  There is still that terrible remorse.  Think of being unfaithful to a really good friend.  It is a gazillion times worse than that.  So, there is pain, but no worms.