§ 1.
There is then one and the same Father, who for those who thirst after communion with Him, and persevere in His Obedience,1 hath prepared the good things which are with Himself: but for the Prince of Apostasy, the Devil, and for those who shared in his revolt, hath prepared the everlasting fire,2 into which the Lord said those should be sent, who are severed off towards the left hand.3 And this is that which was spoken by the Prophet, I am God, even the Avenger, forming peace and creating evil things: with those who repent and turn to Him forming peace and friendship, and contracting union; but for those who repent not, and fly from His light, He hath prepared everlasting fire and outer darkness: which sort of things are evil to all who fall into them.
§ 2.
But if the Father who gives rest were one, and the God who hath prepared the fire another, they would have had sons equally different: the one sending [man] into His Father’s Kingdom, the other into eternal fire. Inasmuch however as one and the same Lord hath declared to us the separation of all mankind in the Judgment,4 as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats; and will say to the one sort,5 Come, ye blessed of My Father, receive the Kingdom which is prepared for you; and to the other,6 Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, which My Father hath prepared for the Devil and his Angels: most plainly there is indicated one and the same, making peace and creating evil,7 preparing for each sort that which will suit it; as also one only Judge, to send away each into the suitable place. As in the Parable of the Tares and of the Wheat the Lord declared, saying, As the tares are gathered and burnt in the fire,8 so shall it be in the end of the world. The Son of Man will send His Angels, and they shall gather out of His Kingdom all offences, and them which work iniquity, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire, there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the righteous shine as the Sun in the Kingdom of their Father. The same Father then who hath prepared a Kingdom for the righteous, into which His Son hath taken such as are worthy; He hath also prepared a furnace of fire, whereinto those who are worthy will be cast, by the Messengers of the Son of man, the Angels, according to the commandment of God.
§ 3.
For the Lord for His part sowed good seed in His own field.9 (Now the field is the world). But while men slept, the enemy came, and sowed tares among the wheat, and departed. Because from that time forward this Angel is an Apostate and an Enemy, wherein he grudged against God’s work, and tried to set it at enmity with God. Wherefore also God’s way with him who secretly sowed the crop of tares, i.e., brought in the transgression, was to separate him from partaking of Himself: but him who in thoughtlessness, however wrongly, admitted the disobedience, even the man, He pitied. And He converted against the said [Serpent] the enmity whereby he had made us enemies: in that He repelled from Himself our enmity against Him, and retorted it, and aimed it back at the serpent:10 as the Scripture reports the words of God to the serpent: And I will put enmity between thee and the Woman, and between thy seed and the woman’s Seed. He shall bruise thy head, and thou shall bruise His heel. And this enmity the Lord hath gathered together in one against Himself, by being made Man of a woman, and by trampling on his head: as we shewed in the preceding book.