CHAPTER I

PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS

I. Death puts an end to the time of probation. 
(1) Teaching of the Sacred Scriptures; 
(2) of the Church.

II.Psychology of the disembodied soul. 
(1) Desire of the last end the motive of all other desires;
(2) Instability of the will with regard to the last end during this life. 
(3) The will’s immutability in the next life.

III.  Duration of the next life. 
(1) Aeviternity 
(2) As applied to 
       (a) angels, 
       (b) disembodied souls.

    In order to understand the Catholic doctrine concern­ing man’s last end we must: first consider three things, namely,

-          the ending of the life of probation by death;

-          the psychology of the soul after its separation from the body;

-          and the duration which is the measure of the soul’s life in the next world.

I. DEATH PUTS AN END TO THE TIME OF PROBATION

    Man’s preparation for the future life does not extend beyond the end of this life; his future state of unending happiness or damnation depends upon the issue of his earthly pilgrimage. This is a truth which the Church has always explicitly and directly taught. True, there may be no solemn, conciliar definition of it, yet it has always been preached by the Fathers of the Church as a dogma of faith, while the contrary doctrine that the future life may admit of a further trial, of amendment and penance, was branded as heresy, and under the name of origenism condemned in the sixth century.

    (1) This dogma is taught by the sacred writers

· In the 25th chapter of St. Matthew there is a descrip­tion of the last judgment. It is described as being concerned solely with what men have done in this present life, and its outcome is the sentence either of eternal reward or eternal punishment. As a result, then, of this judgment there will follow a fixed state, either of misery or of happiness, depending wholly upon the ending of this present life.

The parable of Lazarus and the rich man (Luke 16) conveys the same lesson. We are told that they received the reward due to the deeds done in their earthly life, and that their present state allows of no change. Abra­ham’s words express the same truth: “And besides all this, between us and you there is fixed a great chaos; so that they who would pass from hence to you, cannot, nor from thence come hither” (16,26). And, when the rich man asks Abraham to send someone to warn his brothers to do penance, since he from his place of torments can do nothing, he only adds confirmation of the same teaching.

· This dogma, likewise, clearly forms the basis of Christ’s words when He warns us to break every attach­ment and give up every habit that may be a cause of scandal (Matt. 18, 8-9; Mark 9, 42-47); to deny ourselves and take up our cross (Luke 14, 27); to watch and pray in constant expectation of the last day (Matt. 24, 42-44) in order not to be taken unawares in

“surfeiting and drunkenness and the cares of this life,” with consequent eternal loss of the soul (Luke 21, 34). All this clearly presupposes that the moment of death is decisive, and that henceforth merit and demerit are alike impossible, and that man can no longer repent of his sins or, on the other hand, lose the grace of God. Death, then, puts a definite end to our time of probation.

· St. Paul further confirms this truth when he says that, “we must all be manifested before the judgment-seat of Christ, that everyone may receive the proper things of the body, according as he hath done, whether it be good or evil” (2 Cor. 5, 10).

According to the constant teaching of the Scriptures, our future state depends upon the sentence passed at this tribunal. But, as already seen, the judgment will be concerned only with what we have done during this life, with the deeds accomplished during the union of soul and body.

This fundamental thought throws light upon many of the Apostle’s words:

-          “Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation” (2 Cor. 6, 2);

-          and again, “Therefore, while we have time, let us work good to all men” (Gal. 6, 10);

-          and again, “Exhort one another every day, whilst it is called to-day, that none of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin” (Heb. 13).

In this last text the inspired writer barks back to the words of the ninety-fourth psalm: “Today, if you hear his voice harden not your hearts” (5, 8), and applies the word today to the whole time of man’s life on earth. His meaning then is, “exhort one another so long as God gives you the ‘day’ of this life, and before the coming of night, when it is impossible to labour for heaven, to put off the hardening arising from sin, to turn from evil to good, and to earn the reward promised to the just alone.’’

· We find the same teaching in St. John’s Gospel, 5, 25-29.    

According to him the voice of the Son of God will be heard upon two different occasions.

First, during this life: “The hour cometh and now is when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God” (5. 25). The reference here is to the spiritually dead, to those dead in sin. The Son of God’s voice shall be heard by them, for their spiritual resurrection, “and they that hear shall live” (ibid.). The call comes to many who are dead, but is not heard, that is, answered by all.

The second call will come at the end of the world: “The hour cometh (but this is not the hour that now is) wherein all that are in the graves shall hear the voice of the Son of God” (5, 28). The reference, then, is to the physically dead. But to what will they be called? They will not be called to an amendment of life. There is no room here for the distinction between those who will and those who will not answer to the call. All men, rising from death, will answer the summons to judgment. “And they that have done good things,” during this mortal life, “shall come forth unto the resurrection of life; but they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of judgment” (5, 29), which will seal their condemnation.

(2)      This dogma the Church’s official teaching

We have mentioned above the errors known as Origenism, which were rejected by the Church in the sixth century.

Origen himself was certainly responsible for some of them. We are bound to admit, for example, that, not only in his De Principiis, but also in several other works, the great doctor of Alexandria positively taught that it is possible for spiritual beings in the other world to be converted from evil to good. He laid it down as certain that all intellectual beings will undergo a final restoration; this conclusion be based upon the principle of freewill, which, he thought, must necessarily involve the power of choosing between moral good and evil.

This ultimate restoration is called by theologians, apocatastasis.

Origen’s error in this matter is thus des­cribed by Père Richard in the Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique (art. Enfer).

“According to the Apostle and the Psalmist everything must ultimately be brought back to unity, and all things be subjected to Christ. As to the nature of this subjection, I think, says Origen, that it is the same subjection as we desire for ourselves, the same as that practiced by the Apostles and all the saints. Now, in the beginning, all things made up a perfect unity; then was introduced variety with sundry perfections and defections. In heaven we see the different orders of angels, while the demons have suffered an irremediable defection, irremediable, that is, as long as this world lasts, but not absolutely so, as some have understood. For may it not be possible for even the demons, since they are free, to be converted in the far-off future? Meanwhile, all things occupy their proper positions, waiting until, at various times, and some only at the end of all time, they shall be restored to their original state. . . . The basis of this apokatastasis is the subjection of all creatures to Christ” (col. 58).

     It is not for us to enquire into how it was that this  teaching gave no offence until the fifth century, and seems not to have attracted the attention of the Church. Then, however, it began to work harm in the Church and to affect belief in the eternity of hell. It was denounced by St. Jerome.

But It was not until the sixth century that, on the Emperor Justinian’s personal  initiative, Origenism received its death-blow. The imperial theologian had drawn up an edict against the Origenist teachings, which was approved by the Council of Constantinople, presided over by the patriarch Menas (A.D. 538 or 543).. The acts of this council, which itself had no ecumenical authority, were afterwards sent to all the bishops and archimandrites, who were required to sign the anathemas against Origen and his errors. The emperor obtained likewise the approbation the patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem, and of Pope Vigilius. “And so,” writes Mgr. Duchesne, “the teachings of the illustrious Alexandrian were offi­cially condemned, with all the civil sanctions proper to such an act” (Revue des Questions historiques, 1834, p. 390).

The ninth anathema was directed against the denial of the eternity of the pains of hell and against the possibility of an apokatastasis or final restoration of the demons and the wicked in the next world.

Death, then, puts a term, in the full sense of the word, to this life. Now and here is the time of probation, the time of struggle, and of choice between good and evil. With death begins a state of immutability either in good or in evil. Then probation stops; the choice will have been made, and the moral determination of the soul at the moment of its separation from the body will persist for ever as the changeless choice of man’s free will.

II. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEPARATED SOULS

Why is this choice unchangeable?

Whence comes the absolute impossibility of passing from good to evil, or from evil to good?

These questions, at first sight dis­concerting, are easily solved when we consider the psychological processes proper to disembodied souls.

(1) The desire of the last end governs all other desires

The ultimate end is of itself the reason of all our desires and all our deliberate acts of willing and seeking. For, by the very fact of choosing something, some good as our final end, we look upon it as desirable above all other things, since we love, desire, seek other things only with a view to this highest good. The love, there­fore, with which we regard the object chosen as our final end is of itself definitive and irrevocable. For it cannot be modified except on account of some higher good, loved and sought with a still more ardent love. But this would be a fiat contradiction, since, by the very definition of the term, the final end is the highest good and, therefore, the love of this end leaves no room for any other greater love.

(2) During this life the will is unstable with regard to its choice of the ultimate end

During this life of probation, however, we experience a mutability and instability of the will with regard not only to the means, or the immediate objects, of desire, but also as regards the final end. Our frequent weak­nesses, failings and sins bear witness to this. Love of God gives place to the love of evil, that is, in reality, to self-love. Then, the heart having been touched by remorse, sorrow and repentance, the will moved, of course, and helped by grace, recovers itself turns sincerely towards God, and is converted.

The explana­tion of this instability of the will with regard to the final end is to be found in the conditions of our psychological life here below. While the soul is united with the body, the intelligence and will cannot act without the body’s co-operation; not, indeed, that the body provides any organ of mind or will, but because the will’s action follows that of the mind, which in its turn, is closely dependent upon sense-perception as a necessary con­dition.

Hence in the psychological conditions of this life we can only love our last end under the form in which it is presented by the mind, while the mind cannot form an idea of the supreme good except by the way of abstraction from sense-perception. Thus we arrive at the idea of bonum in communi, or good in general, which is the necessary motive of all our wishes and desires.

Objectively, indeed, this motive is identical with God, but this is by no means always the case, subjectively. 
For there is nothing more changeful and more unstable than the acts, impressions and perceptions of sense.

Therefore as long as the present psychological conditions continue, it is always possible for us to change in our estimate of the supreme good and in our choice of the final end. Since our freewill depends for its action upon the senses in the manner stated, thus participating in the instability which accompanies corporeal existence, and since it always depends upon the vague and confused idea of good in general as its ultimate motive, its field of possible variety of choice is almost boundless.

For the will to be fixed upon a determinate choice we should need, says St. Thomas (Summa contra Gentes, bk. IV, ch. 95)::

“A special disposition of our nature which would cause us to will this or that as an object invested with the character of our highest happiness and our last end.... But as long as the soul is united with the body, our dispositions in this respect are essentially changeable. Sometimes our desire of something as our last end arises from our being moved by a quickly passing passion, in which case the desire is easily suppressed.. . . At other times a habit may lead us to desire some true or false good as our end; and since it is not easy to overcome a habit, such a desire is more persistent . . . yet even so, such an habitual disposition may, in the course of our life, be overcome.”

(3)   In the next life the will is fixed in its adherence to the final end

In the next life, however, things are different. As soon as the soul goes forth from the body, its action is subject to the conditions proper to the life of spiritual beings. This action is independent of the operation of the senses and proceeds by the way, not of abstraction, but of intuition. Spiritual beings do not know good in the abstract; they do not cleave to the supreme good through the medium of the transient and perishable things of earth; their choice of their last end is not made under the influence of habits or passions. But in one single act of intelligence and will, an act which at once exhausts their power of action with regard to the last end, they cleave to that good which they conceive as their last end, and cling to it without the possibility of any future change. This good is a real, concrete object, and the love which ties them to it becomes the un­changeable first principle of all their desires and of every movement of their wills. Such was the psychology of the first deliberate act by which the angels, in the beginning, chose their last end and cleaved, some to God, and some to the surpassing perfection of themselves. By this act they entered into the state of attain­ment, and their glory or their fall was unchangeably fixed.

It is the same with the human soul after death, and will be the same after the general resurrection when the soul, though re-united to the body, will be free from all subjection to it. In the next life the soul will be delivered from:

“all possibility of change with regard to the object holding the highest place in its affections and loved above all things else. There, the love of this object becomes the immovable pivot of the soul’s freewill, and the object itself becomes the fixed pole, drawing to itself for ever all the powers of the soul’s will. Hence the principle enunciated by St. John of Damascus, and accepted as a theological axiom: Death is for men what their first deliberate act was for the angels” (Card. Billot, La Providence de Dieu, “Etudes,” 1923, p. 402).

But, it may be asked, when the unrepentant sinner’s soul leaves his body, to what object can it cleave as to its highest good? Here again Cardinal Billot gives us the answer:

“In saying that the lost sinner’s soul, on leaving his body, remains fixed for ever in that dis­position of his will in which he was at the moment of death, there can be no question of any attachment to those things which were the objects of his desires in this life; his appetite for these things, whether they be the pleasures of the flesh, or the accompaniments of riches, whether they be the objects of lust, or avarice, or human pride or of any other passion whatsoever, has gone never to return. But we refer to what was the motive and root-cause of his attachment to sin; we refer to his attachment to that object which he loved above all other things, to the love of which all the motions of his heart were subordinated, that object around which turned, as upon their pivot, all the many and various elective acts of his freewill. This object is his ego,the lost soul’s self; the ego set up as the final end of existence; the self which must be satisfied even though God and His laws and precepts be contemned; the self usurping the place of master and lord which belongs to Him alone who created us to praise, honour and serve Him; the self which, after death, is the only motive of a remorse like to that felt by the impious Antiochus when, racked by the awful disease that was killing him, he expressed regret for the monstrous excesses of his reign.

Well known are St. Augustine’s words (The City of God, bk. 14, ch. 28)::

“Two loves have built two cities, the love of self even to the contempt of God, and the love of God even to the contempt of self. The former has built the city of evil, of disorder, of confusion, the infernal Babylon; the latter the city of order and of peace, the eternal Jerusalem.” “These are the two su­preme loves; they are opposed to one another as con­traries, and all other loves are subordinate to them. These also are the two final ends between which we must make our choice while this life lasts. On the one side is God, holding in our hearts a higher place than our very selves, and therefore loved above all things, virtue’s last end; on the other hand is self, raised even over God’s head, the idol of our adoration, obedience and service, the final end of vice and sin. To whichever of these two ends the soul is actually attached at the moment of death, to that must it remain bound, by its own nature and of necessity, for all eternity. And since our last end governs all our actions, since all that is good or evil in the will depends upon it, the necessary result is, for some, an unchangeable fixation in evil and moral disorder, and for others an equally unchangeable stability in good and the beauty of order, with the happiness arising from the impossibility of ever falling” (loc. cit. p. 397).

III. DURATION OF THE FUTURE LIFE

     This state of stability in good or evil naturally suggests that, in the next world, time does not exist, at any rate under the same form as we know it in this life. And, in fact, when a man dies, do we not say that he has begun his “eternity”?

     (1)   Aeviternity

     The word “eternity” is not exact; it ought to be “aeviternity” (from the Latin aevum, an age or duration). Eternity, however, is partially true.

   “Since eternity,” says St. Thomas (Sum. Theol., pars. I, q. 10, art. 5), “is the measure of permanent existence,  it follows that the less permanent anything is, the less eternal it is. Now some things are so mutable that their very being is the subject of perpetual change, or even consists essentially in change. The measure of such beings is time. Time, therefore, is the measure of the movements of all corruptible things. Other things are less remote from permanence of existence. They are neither essentially change in themselves nor subject to change. Yet over and above this permanent foundation of their being, there may be in them, either actually or potentially, some variation. So is it... with the angels; their being is changeless, yet in the exercise of their freedom, in the use of their knowledge and affections, and in their relations to places, they are subject to change. But that existence which is measured by eternity neither changes nor is in any way the subject of change. Therefore, time connotes a “before” and an “after”; aeviternity in itself admits of neither, yet “before” and “after” may be its accidental concomitants; whereas ineternity there is neither “before” nor “after,” nor is it in any way compatible with either.”

The essential immutability of a pure spirit is a truth within the reach of human reason. Since the nature of a pure spirit is sheer perfection, unmixed with any element of imperfection, it cannot possibly undergo any substantial change. It possesses complete im­mutability; in its existence there can be no succession, no past or future; from the moment of its creation by God its life is a continuous present, which may rightly be called eternal. Hence St. Thomas does not hesitate to say that, “in an angel, if we consider his existence absolutely, there is no difference between the past and the future. . . . When we say of an angel that he is, or has been, or will be, we give different meanings to these expressions because we cannot conceive the exis­tence of angels without comparing it with different parts of time” (loc. cit. ad. 3).

But, on the other hand, faith as well as reason teaches us that this essential immutability does not give us the full measure of the life of pure spirits. A pure spirit cannot know everything by a single act of his intelligence; he can receive from God successive illuminations of his mind, and be entrusted with different missions, and so forth. Confining ourselves strictly to the teachings of revelation, we know that it was possible for the angels, despite the immutability of their nature, freely to give their adhesion to God or to sin, and thus to enter into happiness or be thrown into hell. The contention between St. Michael and the angelic “prince of the kingdom of the Persians,”described by the prophet Daniel (10, 13-20), shows that the angels are capable of successive acts of the will. So likewise the Annuncia­tion forms a special instant in the archangel Gabriel’s life. Hence, alongside the substantial immutability of spiritual beings we must acknowledge in them the co­existence of acts which, being distinct one from another, are therefore successive, though not with that continuous succession that is the characteristic note of time. For when it is a question of purely spiritual acts without any relation to material things, their succession cannot be linked together in a real continuity. Hence, theo­logians seeking a Latin word to express this want of continuity in a succession of indivisible instants, have called it tempus discretum, discontinuous time.

We may, then, with St. Thomas, define aeviternity, the measure of the life of discarnate spirits, as “the duration of a being which, substantially immutable, is, accidentally, subject to change.”

Here a caution is necessary. When we speak of substantial immutability in aeviternity, we do not mean that the substance only of the spirit, and not his operations, is changeless. For, after all, the nature of a being is made known by its operations, and it would be hard to conceive a nature tied down by the immutability of its being to an eternal present, while all its operations were subject to change or showed a succession of real instants. It must be understood, then, that a spiritual operation can itself be unchangeable substantially, and yet be subject to accidental variation.

(2)    Applications of the idea of Aeviternity

First of all let us see how the idea of aeviternity applies to angels who are pure spirits.

According to the principles laid down by St. Thomas, it is clear that aeviternity is the measure of the actual being of angels, whether good or bad. For as we have seen, although an angel is in his substance immutable, some of his actions may be subject to true changes. In him, therefore, we find verified the definition of aeviternity, that is, substantial immutability accom­panied by accidental variability.

But the one uniform measure cannot be applied to all the operations of a pure spirit.

“Some of them,” writes the eminent Dominican theologian, Gonet, “are measured by participated eternity, others by aeviternity, others by discontinuous time, and others, again, by continuous time. The operations of angelic spirits are many. In the first and highest place comes the beatific vision; and next is the act of self-knowledge and self-love, then the act by which other things are known and loved; fourthly and lastly there is the virtually transitive action by which an angel, whether upon God’s command or of his own initiative, produces local movements in corporeal things or some other effect in the world of visible creatures” (De Angelis, disp. VI, art. 1, No. 1). We may with advantage fill in the outlines drawn by the learned Dominican.

 Firstly, then, the durational measure of the beatific vision is participated eternity. Since it consists wholly in one immutable act its duration cannot be that of time, for time means succession and change. Nor is it quite accurate to say, with Suarez, that it is an aeviternal act, for in the intuitive vision of God, with all therein included, we find absolute stability with no element of any change whatsoever. And further, since this act of intuitive vision is a transcendental act, exceeding the natural capacity of any creature, its only possible measure of duration is eternity, not, indeed, the essential eternity of God, but what is called participated eternity, consisting in an everlasting “now,” and deriving from God as an effect from its cause.

 In the second place, an angel’s self-knowledge, with its resultant self-love, is produced by a single act, in which there is no potentiality, and which, therefore, can undergo no change. An angel’s knowledge and love of himself are always actual. “Being immaterial,” says St. Thomas (Sum. Theol. I, q. 56, art. 2), “he is always the actual object of his intelligence; so by his very nature he is always in the act of knowing and loving himself.” But to this natural cognition of himself must be added other cognitions which, though of the same order, are not necessarily actual, such as the knowledge of other created beings; these an angel knows by means of infused ideas upon which he may turn the light of his mind, or not, as he will. So we see that there is here a combination of substantial immutability and accidental change, the measure of which is aevi­ternity.

The natural knowledge and love of God (as distinct from the beatific vision) possessed by angels follow the same laws as their self-knowledge and love. Being made in the likeness of God, the angel sees God mirrored in his own nature, and loving himself, he is irresistibly drawn to the First Cause of all good and naturally loves Him above all. Since, then, his self-knowledge and love are always actual, so also are his natural knowledge and love of God; these therefore fall under the measure of the aeviternal.

But, further, the immutability of these acts of cognition and love extends also to those acts by which a discarnate spirit is cognizant of and cleaves to his last end. This end ought always, as we have seen, to be God. But some of the angels did not choose Him. On being raised to the supernatural state a certain number of them re­jected God’s gift, and elected to look for the whole reason of their perfection and happiness within them­selves. This amounted to putting themselves in God’s place as their supernatural end, and the act of self-

complacent cognition dictating their choice, as well as the choice itself, belongs to that class of irrevocable actions that can only be called aeviternal.

 Thirdly, the acts by which an angel has knowledge of other creatures and loves them, inasmuch as they follow one upon another, either because he elicits them as he wills or because they are governed by the course of events, cannot be measured by aeviternity. Their measure must be some kind of time, continuous time in the case of continuous and prolonged actions, discontinuous time, made up of distinct and discon­tinuous instants, when it is a question, as it nearly always is, of separate actions between which there is no continuous bond.

 Finally, we come to those actions which are called virtually transitive, because they are productive of a real effect external to the angel who is the active cause. These can be looked at from two points of view. We may consider them actively, that is, as they are produced in the angel, or passively, that is, from the creature’s point of view in which the effect is produced. Con­sidered actively, these operations, just as all other angelic actions, are measured by continuous time if they are continuous, or by discontinuous time if they consist of instants without successional continuity. But considered passively, that is, in the effects extrinsically produced, these angelic actions affect our material world, and are therefore measured by our time. I say, our time advisedly, because when speaking just now of angels’ actions being measured by a kind of time, we were re­ferring to a species of duration which has only an analogy with time properly so-called, which is the mea­sure of the movements of material things. St. Thomas is careful to put us on our guard, and though the reason he gives may be doubtful, the distinction must be maintained. “This kind of time (the measure of angels’ operations) is not,” he says, “the same as that time which is the measure of the motion of the heavens and of the duration of all corporeal things, the changes in which are the effect of the movement of the heavens” (Sum. Theol. I, q. 53, art. 3). The influence of the heavenly bodies upon terrestrial movement may be left out of consideration; it remains true all the same that the motion of corporeal things and the spiritual movements of angels cannot fall under one and the same measure of duration, for, as St. Thomas says, “their natures are different” (ibid. ad. 1). All this may seem abstract and difficult. It will help the reader if we give a con­crete application of it. The devils in Hell have to suffer the torments of fire. Hell-fire may be called eternal, since it will have no end, but its duration is measured by the continuity of its action, and therefore falls under the category of time, properly so-called. But the sufferings of the spirits subject to the action of this fire, though ceaseless and endless, cannot be measured by the same sort of time. The duration of their suffer­ings is not time properly so-called, but something analogous with it.

We have so slight an understanding of the nature of angels that this teaching is necessarily obscure, yet it will help us to understand somewhat better the condition of human souls in the next life both before and after the resurrection.

Before the resurrection, men’s souls, being separated from their bodies, are, practically, pure spirits, and are, therefore, subject to the same measure of duration as the angels. Therefore, as their being is unchangeable, their existence consists in a perpetual present and is aeviternal. The beatific vision of the blessed is measured by participated eternity, their natural self-knowledge and love, and their irrevocable choice of their last end by aeviternity, and their knowledge of things external to themselves by continuous or discontinuous time, just as in the case of the angels.

The resurrection of the body will bring about no change in the duration of the lives of either the saved or the damned. Their bodies will share in the substantial immutability of their souls. Their sense perceptions will undergo no physical alteration, but will share in the permanence of their suffering or their bliss. Everything will be, as it were, spiritualised. The reunion of souls with their bodies, and the passing of souls from Pur­gatory into Heaven, will simply constitute two of those instants which are the accompaniments, though not the measure, of aeviternity. In short, it all comes to this: the nearer that souls and risen bodies approach, by their degree of glory, to God’s immutability, the more completely will they be encompassed by the aeviternal. Aeviternity begins at death. But as the soul comes nearer to God, so the stability of its perfection grows. So in Hell there will be, together with the essential aeviternity of life, an interminable duration of con­tinuous instants of suffering and anguish afflicting both soul and body. In Purgatory aeviternity will be accom­panied by a similar continuity of suffering, which will, however, have an end, and when this end comes the aeviternity of the holy souls will be perfected and crowned with the eternity of the beatific vision. But in all this there is involved no substantial change in the existence or in the natural operations which are mea­sured by aeviternity; the domain of this measure of duration may be narrower or wider in the soul and in the risen body, but in all cases it constitutes a perpetual ‘‘now’’ in which those are substantially immersed who have passed into the next world.

CONCLUSION—REINCARNATION FALSE

It should be clear that the first section only of this chapter is to be accepted with the certainty of faith. The other two sections set forth merely a rational justification of the first, and their value does not exceed that of theological opinion. At the same time, the dogma that death puts an end to the life of probation is reason enough for the rejection of the false doctrine of re­incarnation, so common to-day in Spiritualist circles.

This teaching is really the revival, in a slightly dif­ferent form, of the Origenist heresy of the apokatastasis. It introduces some subsidiary errors, especially in so far as it holds that man is made up of three elements—a soul, an ethereal body and a physical body. At death, according to this system, the soul, keeping possession of the ethereal body, becomes a “spirit”; its dwelling-place  space, its life happiness for the good, anguish and suffering for the wicked. The unhappy state of the latter is, however, transitory. The infinitely good God will not allow them to suffer for ever. He offers them the possibility of rehabilitation, the chance of making good the past, by means of reincarnation, that is to say, a new life on earth lived in a new union with a physical body.

We cannot stay to discuss the details of this strange teaching, or the arguments by which it is supported, and to show their absurdity. It is enough here to recall the leading idea of this chapter, that death is the end of life; to weigh well the full meaning of this word, end, and to remember that this is a dogma of faith, in order to conclude that the reincarnation of souls is a heresy as fully deserving of condemnation as was Origenism.