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Shorter Rules

St Basil the Great, tr. Lowther Clarke, 1925

Rule 267: If One Man Shall Be Beaten with Many, Another with Few Stripes, How Do Some Say…

What seems to be said in an ambiguous and veiled way in certain passages of inspired Scripture is made plain by the obvious meaning of other passages.² Since then the Lord proclaims in one place, “These shall go away into eternal punishment,”³ and in another sends certain men to the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels, and elsewhere names a gehenna of fire and adds: ‘Where their worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched,”⁴ and since He has said long before by the prophet that “their worm will not die and their fire will not be quenched⁵ — since these and many similar things are frequently found, in the inspired Scripture, this comes also from the devil’s plots that many men, forgetting such great and serious words and declarations of the Lord, assign to themselves an end of punishment in order that they may sin more boldly. For if there is ever an end of eternal punishment, eternal life too will surely have an end.⁶ But if we cannot think this of life, with what reason shall we give eternal punishment an end? For both equally have the adjective eternal. For it says: “These shall go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”⁷ Since this is obvious, we must know that ‘shall be beaten with many stripes”’ and ‘shall be beaten with few stripes”’⁸ show not an end but a difference of punishment. For if God is a righteous judge, not only to the good but also to the evil, rendering to each man according to his deed, one man may be worthy of unquenchable fire, which may burn feebly or fiercely; and another may deserve the undying worm, and this again may torture moderately or violently according to the desert of each; a third may be doomed to hell, which surely has different punishments; yet another is doomed to the outer darkness, where one has the weeping only; another the gnashing of teeth owing to the vehemence of troubles. And the outer darkness assuredly hints at the existence of an inner darkness. Further, the phrase in the Proverbs “in the depths of hell”’⁹ shows that there are some in hell but not in the depth of hell, and enduring a lighter punishment. It is possible to show this even now in illnesses of the body. For one man when he has a fever has additional symptoms and other sufferings, another is only feverish and that in a different manner from the first; a third is not feverish but is afflicted by a pain in some limb, and this may be greater or less. But the Lord uttered this phrase “many and few”’ in the ordinary acceptation of the words, as He did many other like things. For we know that this manner of speech is common with reference to those who are afflicted by some one illness; as when we say in wonder with reference to one who is only feverish or suffering from pain in the eye, ‘How much he has suffered,” or ‘“How many troubles he has had.” So, I repeat, to have many or few stripes refers not to the extension or completion of the time, but to the difference of punishment.

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