Hell begins with the passions we carry in our souls


Evagrius says that the sinner who prays to God to die soon is like a sick man who asks the carpenter to break his bed, thinking that the bed is causing his illness. In the same way, the sinner thinks that the body increases the weight of his disgust, not knowing that the soul, together with this body, is struggling with the passions, but also comforts itself, eating, drinking, sleeping, and talking with its friends. And after it leaves the body, it remains alone with the passions and is always labored by them, reproaching itself for them, burning with their torment, and being so much punished by them that it cannot even remember God. For he would have great consolation, as the prophet David says: “I remembered God and was glad” (Ps. 76:3). But even this joy is deprived of him due to the great torment of labor.

To understand more clearly what I am saying, imagine if one of you were locked up in a dark house and for three days did not eat, drink, sleep, speak, sing, pray, or remember God, how much hardship would the passions bring to such a one while he was still in this world. How much more when the soul leaves the body and falls under the dominion of laborers, and only the wretched soul remains with them, what will he then suffer from them?

Abba Dorotheus

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