Christianity Explained

Salvation

Instead of philosophy of the mind and just thinking we are saved, we are also called to live the Christian ascetic life of not only charity and loving others, but the sanctification of our flesh so the holy Spirit may dwell in us which includes fasting, prayer, and the sacraments of the Catholic Church as a means of receiving God's grace. Jesus gave many commandments, our response to him shouldn't be "sorry Jesus you died for me I don't have to do what you say." See  faith & works. 

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Gods ordinary means of salvation is through the Catholic Church and the Churches sacraments, however in extreme cases God can still save someone by extraordinary means depending on their level of ignorance, capability, and culpability. (Such as the thief on the cross, people who have never heard the Gospel, or have heard it in the wrong way)

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CCC 1258: Although the sacraments confer the grace they signify, God is not bound by the sacraments.

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Romans 2:6–7

God will repay each person according to what they have done. To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor, and immortality, He will give eternal life.

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Romans 2:14

14 For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15 They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them

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Though the Catholic Church is God's ordinary means of salvation, the Lords light can reach people in other ways besides the Catholic Church:

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John 1:9

The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world.

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John 3:18

18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.

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John 14:6

I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

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Psalm 16:10-11

11 You make known to me the path of life;
   in your presence there is fullness of joy;
   at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

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Jesus did not come to say no more laws, Jesus came to fulfill (complete) the law of Moses and prophets. Becoming the ultimate sacrificial atonement for our sins, and transforming all the old laws unto him, defining the law we are to be under now. Immediately after this verse Jesus goes on to list certain laws of the past, and their new form under him. The commandments of Jesus can be found in Faith & Works.

Anyone who thinks we are still under old law needs to follow Ridiculous Old Testament Laws.

Mathew 5:17

Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.

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Luke 16:16-17

16 “The Law and the Prophets were until John; since then the good news of the kingdom of God is preached, and everyone forces his way into it. 17 But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one dot of the Law to become void.

Romans 7
4 In the same way, brothers and sisters, you have died to the laws in Moses’ Teachings through Christ’s body. You belong to someone else, the one who was brought back to life.

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Galatians 3:23-25
23 Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. 24 So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. 25 But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian.

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Hebrews 7:11-13

11 Now if perfection had been attainable through the Levitical priesthood (for under it the people received the law), what further need would there have been for another priest to arise after the order of Melchizedek, rather than one named after the order of Aaron? 12 For when there is a change in the priesthood, there is necessarily a change in the law as well. 13 For the one of whom these things are spoken belonged to another tribe, from which no one has ever served at the altar. 

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Hebrews 8:13
13 By calling this covenant “new,” he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear.​​​​

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Old Testament foretelling the new Covenant and laws of Jesus:

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Jeremiah 31:31-33 (605 B.C.E)
31 "Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, declares the Lord. 33 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
 

Ezekiel 36:29 (593–571 B.C.E)

I will deliver you from all your uncleannesses.
Ezekiel 37:26-28
26 I will make a covenant of peace with them; it will be an everlasting covenant.

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Isaiah 42 (740–701 B.C.E) 

​9 Behold, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare.

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Malachi Chapter 3 (500 B.C.E)
The Messenger of the Covenant
1 Now I am sending my messenger. He will prepare the way before me; The messenger of the covenant whom you desire. 2 Who can stand firm when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire, like fullers’ lye. 3 He will sit refining and purifying silver,​​.

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We are saved from hell and granted eternal life by accepting Jesus  paying and cleansing our sin and following his commandments as best we can. Though it is not possible to live the law perfectly in our fallen nature. Jesus is the only one who has lived sinless.

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Isaiah 53:5-7 (740–701 B.C.) 

5 But he was pierced for our transgressions,
   he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
   and by his wounds we are healed.

7 like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,

(Jesus is called a Lamb by the Apostles in the New Testament correlating to the Eucharist and Revelation, the Lamb slain)

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Zechariah 12:10

Him whom they have pierced. 

10 And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that, when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn.

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Daniel 7:14

14 He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.

Daniel 7:25

25 He will speak against the Most High and oppress his holy people and try to change the set times and the laws. The holy people will be delivered into his hands for a time, times and half a time.[a]

Daniel 9:24-27

24 decreed for your people and your holy city to finish transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for wickedness, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the Most Holy Place. 26 the Anointed One will be put to death. 27 He will confirm a covenant with many. He will put an end to sacrifice and offering.

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Titus 2:14 
who gave himself for us to redeem us from all iniquity and to purify for himself a people of his own who are zealous for good deeds.

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John 10:27

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life,

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​Mathew 20:28 ​

I did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give my life as a ransom for many.​

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1 John 1:7

 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.

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Mark 16:15-16 (Ireneus cites)
He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.​​​​

Acts 8:22

Repent, therefore, of this wickedness of yours, and pray to the Lord that, if possible, the intent of your heart may be forgiven

you.

Luke 15:10

 I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.​

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1 Corinthians 6:9-11

11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

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Unholiness, evil, and wickedness may not dwell in God's presence (hell.) Nor ascertain truth because of being attached to sin.

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Daniel 12:2 165 (B.C.E)

2 Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt.

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Mathew 7:23 

I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.

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Luke 16:26

26 And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.’

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 Jude
 14 Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about them: “See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones 15 to judge everyone, and to convict all of them of all the ungodly acts they have committed in their ungodliness, and of all the defiant words ungodly sinners have spoken against him.”[e] 16 These people are grumblers and faultfinders; they follow their own evil desires; they boast about themselves and flatter others for their own advantage. 
17 But, dear friends, remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ foretold. 18 They said to you, “In the last times there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires.” 19 These are the people who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the Spirit.
 

1 Corinthians 6:9-11

9 Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, 10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 

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Psalm 68:2

As smoke is driven away, so you shall drive them away; as wax melts before fire, so the wicked shall perish before God!

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1 John 1:5 
God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.

Psalm 5:4
For you are not a God who delights in wickedness; evil may not dwell with you.​​

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Proverbs 10
30 The wicked will not dwell in the land

Psalm 125
3 For the sceptre of wickedness shall not rest on the land alloted to the righteous.

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Genesis 1:4 - New International Version 
God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness.

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Mark 16:15-16 (Jesus)

He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.

John 3:3-5

Jesus answered him, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God." 5 “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

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Hebrews 10:28-29

28 Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. 29 How much more severely do you think someone deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified them, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace?

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Revelation 21:27 (heaven / new Jerusalem)

27 But nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb's book of life.

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Ascertainment:

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God gives everyone the possibility to receive sufficient grace (Receiving Holy Spirit to transform your mind and heart upon hearing the gospel) the problem is we fight it. 

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St. Thomas Aquinas

“God is ready to give grace to all, but those alone are deprived of it who place an impediment to grace in themselves.” — ST I–II, q.79, a.3

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John 8:47
“Whoever is of God hears the words of God.
The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God.”

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John 10:26–27
“You do not believe because you are not among my sheep.
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.”

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John 18:37
“Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.”

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Romans 8:7
“The mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God;

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1 Corinthians 2:14
14 The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit

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Romans 8:9–11
“Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.”

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1 Corinthians 2:12–15 
“We have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God,
that we might understand the things freely given us by God.”

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Salvation is a free gift of grace by God and not something we earn.

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Romans 3
11There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who does good,not even one. 20 Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin. 

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James 2:10

For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.
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Isaiah 64:66

All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; (This is especially the case if you are doing good deeds only for a reward) 

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2 Corinthians 3:6

6 He has enabled us to be ministers of his new covenant. This is a covenant not of written laws, but of the Spirit. The old written covenant ends in death; but under the new covenant, the Spirit gives life.

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Romans 11:5-6

5 So too, at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace. 6 And if by grace, then it cannot be based on works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace.​

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Ephesians 2:8-9

8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God. 9 not by works, so that no one can boast.

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Galatians 5:1-4

Christ Has Set Us Free

5 For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. 2 Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. 3 I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. 4 You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified[a] by the law; you have fallen away from grace.

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However this does not mean you can freely sin, or that what we do doesn't matter. Its just stating that works of the law like tithing, paying alms, or any good deeds do not purchase salvation. Following the commandments are natural fruits as a product of our faith and respect for God and light. 

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Hebrews 10:26-27 says, For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries.

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Matthew 7

21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ 23 Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’

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Galatians 5:13

Life by spirit

13 You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh[a]; rather, serve one another humbly in love.

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Romans 6:1-4

Dying and Rising with Christ

1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! 

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2 Thessalonians 2:8  

8 And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming.

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     Resurrection and Heaven on Earth

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Revelation 20:4
Also I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or its image. They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection! Over such the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ. Then I saw a great white throne, and the One seated on it. And I saw the dead—the great and the small—standing before the throne. The books were opened, and another book was opened—the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to what was written in the books, according to their deeds. The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Sheol gave up the dead in them. Then they were each judged, each one of them, according to their deeds. Then death and Sheol were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death—the lake of fire. And if anyone was not found written in the Book of Life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

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1 corinthians 15
42 So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; 47 The first man was of the dust of the earth; the second man is of heaven. 49 And just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall we bear the image of the heavenly man.

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Revelation 21 

New Jerusalem sent down from heaven to earth where God will dwell with his people.

2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” 5 He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” 6 He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life. 7 Those who are victorious will inherit all this, and I will be their God and they will be my children. 8 But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.”​

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2 Peter 3:13

13 But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.

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                      Eternal Hell

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The “worm” is a metaphor for man’s conscience. Those in hell, separated from God, exist with a nagging, guilty conscience that  gnaws away at its victim that never ceases. 

CCC 1035
“The chief punishment of hell is eternal separation from God, in whom alone man can possess the life and happiness for which he was created. The rest of the sentence of hell, the 'pain of sense' (poena sensus) is the spiritual and, in some cases, also the physical suffering, of loss and privation (poena damni).””

Thomas Aquinas

“The pain of loss is greater than the pain of sense.”
 

St. Alphonsus Liguori
“The greatest punishment of hell is not the fire, but the loss of God.”
 

Isaiah 66:24
Their worm shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh."
 

Mark 9:48 
Translations from Aramaic
Lamsa Bible
Where their worm does not die, and their fire does not quench.
Aramaic Bible in Plain English
“Where their worm does not die and their fire is not quenched.”

Revelation 14
11 And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night, these worshipers of the beast and its image, and whoever receives the mark of its name.”
 

Matthew 25:41
“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
 

Revelation 20:10
10 And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night for ever and ever.

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          Church Fathers on Eternal Hell

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St. Bernard says "the worm that never dies is the memory of the past, which never ceases to gnaw the conscience of the impenitent."

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From Hippolytus of Rome (212AD)
Hippolytus was one of the most prolific writers of the early Church, and he was often at theological odds with the early Popes and church leaders of his time. He appears to have been a student of Irenaeus, and wrote MANY volumes of history, apologetics and Biblical teaching:

Standing before [Christ’s] judgment, all of them, men, angels, and demons, crying out in one voice, shall say: ‘Just is your judgment!’ And the righteousness of that cry will be apparent in the recompense made to each. To those who have done well, everlasting enjoyment shall be given; while to the lovers of evil shall be given eternal punishment. The unquenchable and unending fire awaits these latter, and a certain fiery worm which does not die and which does not waste the body but continually bursts forth from the body with unceasing pain. No sleep will give them rest; no night will soothe them; no death will deliver them from punishment; no appeal of interceding friends will profit them (“Against the Greeks” 3)

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Justin Martyr
“No more is it possible for the evildoer, the avaricious, and the treacherous to hide from God than it is for the virtuous. Every man will receive the eternal punishment or reward which his actions deserve. Indeed, if all men recognized this, no one would choose evil even for a short time, knowing that he would incur the eternal sentence of fire”

(First Apology 12 [A.D. 151]).
“We have been taught that only they may aim at immortality who have lived a holy and virtuous life near to God. We believe that they who live wickedly and do not repent will be punished in everlasting fire” (ibid., 21).

“[Jesus] shall come from the heavens in glory with his angelic host, when he shall raise the bodies of all the men who ever lived. Then he will clothe the worthy in immortality; but the wicked, clothed in eternal sensibility, he will commit to the eternal fire, along with the evil demons” (ibid., 52).

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Theophilus of Antioch such men as these will be detained in everlasting fire” (To Autolycus 1:14 [A.D. 181]).

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Tertullian
The worshipers of God shall always be with God, clothed in the proper substance of eternity. But the godless and those who have not turned wholly to God will be punished in fire equally unending” (ibid., 44:12–13).

Minucius Felix
“I am not ignorant of the fact that many, in the consciousness of what they deserve, would rather hope than actually believe that there is nothing for them after death. They would prefer to be annihilated rather than be restored for punishment. . . . Nor is there either measure nor end to these torments” (Octavius 34:12–5:3 [A.D. 226]).

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Cyprian of Carthage
“An ever-burning Gehenna and the punishment of being devoured by living flames will consume the condemned; nor will there be any way in which the tormented can ever have respite or be at an end. Souls along with their bodies will be preserved for suffering in unlimited agonies. . . . The grief at punishment will then be without the fruit of repentance; weeping will be useless, and prayer ineffectual. Too late will they believe in eternal punishment, who would not believe in eternal life” (To Demetrian 24 [A.D. 252]).

Lactantius
“[T]he sacred writings inform us in what manner the wicked are to undergo punishment. For because they have committed sins in their bodies, they will again be clothed with flesh, that they may make atonement in their bodies; and yet it will not be that flesh with which God clothed man, like this our earthly body, but indestructible, and abiding forever, that it may be able to hold out against tortures and everlasting fire. . . . The same divine fire, therefore, with one and the same force and power, will both burn the wicked and will form them again, and will replace as much as it shall consume of their bodies, and will supply itself with eternal nourishment” (Divine Institutes 7:21 [A.D. 307]).

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Cyril of Jerusalem
“We shall be raised therefore, all with our bodies eternal, but not all with bodies alike: for if a man is righteous, he will receive a heavenly body, that he may be able worthily to hold converse with angels; but if a man is a sinner, he shall receive an eternal body, fitted to endure the penalties of sins, that he may burn eternally in fire, nor ever be consumed. And righteously will God assign this portion to either company; for we do nothing without the body. We blaspheme with the mouth, and with the mouth we pray. With the body we commit fornication, and with the body we keep chastity. With the hand we rob, and by the hand we bestow alms; and the rest in like manner. Since then the body has been our minister in all things, it shall also share with us in the future the fruits of the past” (Catechetical Lectures 18:19 [A.D. 350]).

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From Clement of Alexandria (195AD)
Titus Flavius Clemens was the first significant and recorded Christian from the church of Alexandria, Egypt. His parents were Greek and he was raised with a solid, formal Greek education. While he had a tendency to blend Greek and Christian philosophies, his view on the issue of Hell was derived from the scriptures:

All souls are immortal, even those of the wicked. Yet, it would be better for them if they were not deathless. For they are punished with the endless vengeance of quenchless fire. Since they do not die, it is impossible for them to have an end put to their misery. (from a post-Nicene manuscript fragment)