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How did St. Augustine distinguish purgatorial fire from everlasting punishment?

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Anastasis (Christ ascending from hell), apse fresco, c. 1320; in the Church of the Holy Saviour at the Monastery of the Chora (now the Kariye Museum), Istanbul. — purgatory *Anastasis* (Christ ascending from hell), apse fresco, c. 1320; in the Church of the Holy Saviour at the Monastery of the Chora (now the Kariye Museum), Istanbul.

St. Augustine distinguished between these two types of fire based on their purpose and the spiritual state of those who experience them. He identified the purgatorial fire as a cleansing agent that burns away the stains of sin for those who are destined for salvation.1

In contrast, he characterized the everlasting fire as a consuming punishment reserved specifically for those who die unrepentant and unreconciled to the church. By making this distinction, Augustine rejected the idea that all humanity would be saved through a universal cleansing fire, emphasizing instead that an individual's ultimate fate of salvation or damnation is determined at the moment of death.1