The Pains of Hell
St. Jerome says, “Every time I remember the day of doom, I quake; for when I eat or drink, or whatever I do, it seems to me the trumpet sounds in my ear, Rise up, you that have been dead, and come to the judgment.” … There we shall all be, as St. Paul says, before the seat of our Lord Jesus Christ; where he shall make a general congregation, where no man may be absent, for certainly there no excuses will avail; and not only our faults shall be judged, but also all our works shall be known … There we shall have a judge that may not be deceived or corrupted … On the day of doom, no one may hope to escape. As St. Anselm says, “Very great anguish shall the sinful people have at that time; the stern and angry judge shall sit above, and under him the horrible pit of hell will be open to destroy them whose sins have been openly shown before God and before every creature; and on the left side more devils than can be imagined, to harass and draw sinful souls to the pains of hell; and within the hearts of people shall be the biting of conscience, and without shall be the world all burning up.
Job called Hell “the land of misery and darkness, where is the shadow of death, where there is no order or law but grisly fear that will last forever.”
Land of darkness: For he that is in hell has no light of any kind. … He shall lack the sight of God: for surely the sight of God is life eternal. The darkness of death is the sin that the wretched man has done, which prevents him from seeing the face of God, just as a dark cloud between us and the sun. Land of misery: because there are three defaults against three things that people in this world have in this present life, honours, pleasures, riches. Instead of honours in hell they have shame and confusion …they shall all be trodden by devils… Instead of riches they shall have misery of poverty, and this poverty shall be in four things: in default of treasure, … of meat and drink. For God says through Moses, they shall be wasted by hunger, and the birds of hell shall devour them with sharp teeth, and the gall of the dragon shall be their drink, and the venom of the dragon their food. And further, their misery shall be in default of clothing, for they shall be naked in body, as of clothing, save of fire in which they burn, and other filths; and they shall be naked of soul, without any virtues, which are the clothing of the soul. … God says of them through the Prophet Isaiah, “Under them shall be strewn moths, and their covertures shall be of worms of hell”. And further, their misery shall be in default of friends, for he is not poor who has good friends; but here is no friend, for neither God nor no creature shall be friend unto them, and every of them shall hate other with deadly hate.
And forasmuch as they shall not suppose that they may die for pain, and by their death flee from pain, that may they understand in the word of Job, that says, there is the shadow of death. Certainly a shadow has the likeness of the thing of which it is a shadow; but the shadow is not the same as the thing; so it is with the pains of hell; it is like death, for the horrible anguish; and why? for it pains them ever as though men should die anon; but certainly they shall not die. For, as St. Gregory says, to wretched caitiffs shall be given death without death, and end without end, and default without failing; … And says St. John the Evangelist, they shall follow death, and they shall not find him, and they shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.
And Job says that in hell is no order or law. God has created all things in right order, and nothing without order, but all things have been ordained and numbered. Yet they that have been damned find nothing in order, nor hold no order. For the earth shall bear them no fruit (as the Prophet David says, God shall destroy the fruit of the earth for them), water shall give them no moisture, nor the air any refreshment, nor the fire any light.