“Retribution” in Isaac the Syrian

I also maintain that those who are punished in Gehenna are scourged by the scourge of love. Nay, what is so bitter and vehement as the torment of love? I mean that those who have become conscious that they have sinned against love suffer greater torment from this than from any fear of punishment. For the sorrow caused in the heart by sin against love is more poignant than any torment. It would be improper for a man to think that sinners in Gehenna are deprived of the love of God. Love . . .  is given to all. But the power of love works in two ways: it torments sinners, even as happens here when a friend suffers from a friend; but it becomes a source of joy for those who have observed its duties. Thus, I say that this is the torment of Gehenna: bitter regret. But love inebriates the souls of the sons of heaven by its delectability.

[The Ascetical Homilies of Saint Isaac the Syrian, I/28 (1984)]

Sin is the fruit of free will. There was a time when sin did not exist, and there will be a time when it will not exist. Gehenna is the fruit of sin. At some point in time, it had a beginning, but its end is not known. Death, however, is a dispensation of the wisdom of the creator. I will rule only a short time over nature; then it will be totally abolished. Satan’s¹ name derives from voluntary turning aside from the truth; it is not an indication that he exists as such naturally.

[The Ascetical Homilies of Saint Isaac the Syrian, I/27 (1984)]

To suppose the retribution for evil acts is to be found in him is abominable. By implying that he makes use of such a great and difficult thing out of retribution, we are attributing a weakness to the Divine Nature. We cannot even believe such a thing can be found in those human beings who live a virtuous and upright life and whose thoughts are entirely in accord with the divine will – let alone believe of God that he has done something out of retribution for anticipated evil acts in connection with those whose nature he has brought into being with honour and great love. Knowing them and all their conduct, the flow of his grace did not dry up from them: not even after they started living amid many evil deeds did he withhold his care for them, even for a moment.

[ The Ascetical Homilies of Saint Isaac the Syrian, I/28 (1984)]

If someone says that [God] has put up with them here on earth in order that his patience may be known – with the idea that he would later punish them mercilessly – such a person thinks in an unspeakable blasphemous way about god because of his infantile way of thinking: he is removing form God his kindness, goodness, and compassion: all the things because of which he truly bears with inners and wicked men. Such a person is attributing to God enslavement to passions, imagining that he has not consented to their being chastised here with a view to a much greater misfortune he has prepared for them, in exchange for a short-lived patience. Not only does such a person fail to attribute something praiseworthy to God, but he also calumniates him.

[Isaac of Nineveh, “The Second Part’, Chapters IV-XLI, Sebastian Brock (1995): 39, 2]

[1] This is the Syriac etymology given to the word ‘Satan’ (from sta, ‘to turn aside’).