Augustine on the joy of others’ punishment
Augustine (420). The City of God
In his monumental The City of God, Augustine describes relation between the righteous and the wicked in the eternal state. Commenting on Isaiah 66:24, he writes:
But in what way shall the good go out to see the punishment of the wicked? Are they to leave their happy abodes by a bodily movement, and proceed to the places of punishment, so as to witness the torments of the wicked in their bodily presence? Certainly not; but they shall go out by knowledge...For those who shall be in torment shall not know what is going on within the joy of the Lord; but they who shall enter into that joy shall know what is going on outside in the outer darkness. Therefore it is said, “They shall go out,” because they shall know what is done by those who are without. For if the prophets were able to know things that had not yet happened, by means of that indwelling of God in their minds, limited though it was, shall not the immortal saints know things that have already happened, when God shall be all in all?
In this passage, Augustine denies any sight of heaven by the wicked, but he does speak of the saints “going out” and seeing the wicked in hell by means of mental apprehension. Augustine definitely affirms that the saints possess knowledge of hell in heaven and that it is a beatitude of the saved obedient.