Editor’s note: Updated at 6:45 p.m.

Students walking through the Library Quad today were greeted with a man shouting that they were going to hell.

Frank Zaccoro, who was standing in the Quad shouting about Jesus, said that he didn’t know why he was here.

“I just want to tell them about Jesus and warn them about hell,” Zaccoro said.

Students surrounding him in the Quad didn’t seem to want the warning. Many of them heckled him, some with Christian comments about Jesus and others with jokes.

“When is Jesus coming?” Zaccoro asked the crowd.

“When he chooses!” came one response.

“Thursday at Arco Arena!” came another.

Some students began to engage in a sort of debate with Zaccoro. Patricia O’Brien, a senior in government, entered the circle of people with Zaccoro and countered his shouting of Bible verses with verses of her own.

“He was claiming that everyone should follow Jesus while calling everyone ‘hellians,'” O’Brien said.

Off to one side, on the grass between the Quad and Brighton Hall, another man stood with a sign proclaiming sins.

Jeremiah Baldwin, the man with the sign, was in a heated debate with a student. The debate was more shouted than spoken, with Baldwin sometimes calling the student a sissy.

Baldwin said he was simply here to talk about Jesus and the Bible. Ric Reyes, a senior in English, took the sissy comment in stride.

“I think that we have very similar beliefs and intentions,” Reyes said.

The two men simply attracted a crowd in the Quad. However, some of their more inflammatory comments raised concerns for Louis Camera, the director of Student Activities.

“My biggest concern is that a student may get hit with battery or slapped,” Camera said.

However, not every student surrounding Zaccoro and Baldwin was there to heckle them or to shout messages back at him.

“I just like to listen to stuff,” Valeriy Filyk, a senior in business and finance, said.

Jenna Hughes can be reached at [email protected]