Fire is proper, not mere metaphor for wrath vs Puccius; Augustine on conflagration; Magius; starry heaven disputed

But fire is thought to be taken by metaphor for divine wrath and judgment by Franciscus Puccius of Filidino, as Nicolaus Serarius the Mainz Jesuit notes (book 1 against Puccius, chapter 2, and book 2, chapter 2): yet that it is taken properly is argued by this, that it is said that as it formerly perished by water, so on that day it will perish by fire. Hence Augustine (City of God book 20, chapter 16): Then, he says, the figure of this world will pass away by the conflagration of worldly fires, just as it was done by the inundation of worldly waters in the flood.

But what that fire will be and whence it will come, Hieronymus Magius disputes in On the Burning of the World book 3: yet we love Augustine's modesty, who in the place praised judges that no one, so far as he himself knows, has known these things. But here it is controverted whether the starry heaven also is to be purged by fire. The most ancient fathers affirm it. Augustine denies it, and with him the juniors. We hold the ancients' sentence, resting on the sayings of Scripture by which we have already proved that this world will perish, to be preferable to the other.