ACC ~ Revelation 14 v11

DEPRIVED OF THE BLESSINGS OF GOD. OECUMENIUS: Perhaps someone might say, “How can you say that the mercy of God is many times greater in the judgment at that time, when the vision tells us that the torments of those who are punished are little short of everlasting?” For why does it say, “And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest day or night?” To such a person one might respond, “O, sir, what is suffered is indeed eternal, but it is not suffering according to merit. If someone is deserving of fire and darkness, why is he condemned to the darkness? Such a one is tormented only in this, that he does not share in the good things of God, and he suffers only this, but he is not also tormented physically.” By the phrase “the smoke of their torment goes up” he refers to the heaving breath of the sinners that they exhale from below in their lamentations over their situation. COMMENTARY ON THE APOCALYPSE 14.9-12.

EVERLASTING BLISS OR EVERLASTING TORMENT. ANDREW OF CAESAREA: We must understand this smoke to be either the sighing of those being tormented, which arises from below along with their lamentation, or the smoke that comes from the fire that torments the fallen. It says that it “goes up forever and ever,” and by this we learn that even as the bliss of the righteous is everlasting, so also is the torment of the sinners. … He says “day and night,” not as though the condition of the future age in which the ungodly will have no rest will be measured by the sun, but he rather accommodates himself to the custom in the present time, which is reckoned in nights and days. Or it might be that the “day” is to be regarded as the life of the saints and the “night” as the torment of the impure, which those who do the works of the devil and blaspheme against Christ in the manner of the apostate beast will attain. For through the doing of these things they make an image [of the beast] and engrave his name upon their hearts as though it were precious. COMMENTARY ON THE APOCALYPSE 14.11.

THE ANTICHRIST INFLICTS SUFFERING. BEDE: They say that a lion will spare a man who is lying on the ground. But this beast is more ferocious than a lion, for the more he is adored, the more he inflicts sufferings. EXPLANATION OF THE APOCALYPSE 14.11.

Rev