Whether the fire of hell will be corporeal?

❌ Objection 1 : It would seem that the fire of hell whereby the bodies of the damned will be tormented will not be corporeal. For Damascene says (De Fide Orth. iv): The devil, and "demons, and his men" [*Cf. 2 Thess. 2:3: "And the man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition."], namely Antichrist, "together with the ungodly and sinners will be cast into everlasting fire, not material fire, such as that which we have, but such as God knoweth." Now everything corporeal is material. Therefore the fire of hell will not be corporeal.

❌ Objection 2 : Further, the souls of the damned when severed from their bodies are cast into hell fire. But Augustine says (Gen. ad lit. xii, 32): "In my opinion the place to which the soul is committed after death is spiritual and not corporeal." Therefore, etc.

❌ Objection 3 : Further, corporeal fire in the mode of its action does not follow the mode of guilt in the person who is burned at the stake, rather does it follow the mode of humid and dry: for in the same corporeal fire we see both good and wicked suffer. But the fire of hell, in its mode of torture or action, follows the mode of guilt in the person punished; wherefore Gregory says (Dial. iv, 63): "There is indeed but one hell fire, but it does not torture all sinners equally. For each one will suffer as much pain according as his guilt deserves." Therefore this fire will not be corporeal.