APPENDIX

Can it be said that the dead who have been miraculously restored to life had reached the end of their time of probation?

The question is of some importance, as an affirmative answer would, to a great extent, weaken the whole basis of our argument throughout this treatise, the principle of the soul’s fixation in good or evil imme­diately after death. A brief examination is, therefore, necessary.

First of all, the fact of certain miraculous resurrections cannot be denied. There is no question here of those legends of souls having been freed from Hell.

But the Bible gives us several examples, especially in the New Testament, of the dead being raised to life, and the divine inspiration of the Scriptures is sufficient guarantee of the truth of these records.

It is a matter of but little moment whether the persons thus raised had died in the state of grace or of mortal sin. For all the same question arises: was death the end of their state of probation, and had they entered upon the state wherein the soul is irrevocably fixed in good or evil?

The theologian must admit that these cases are excep­tions to the general rule established in our first chapter. From all eternity God had foreseen and foreordained the reunion of these souls with their bodies; therefore, at the moment of death the definite sentence of judg­ment was not pronounced, but held over.

“These men were adults in the full exercise of reason. There are then but two alternatives; they died either in a state of grace, God’s friends, or in a state of sin, his enemies. If you choose the second alternative the argument is ended, for here we have sinners whose sentence of condemnation is suspended, so that they can re-enter the state of probation and, doing penance, arrive at justification. If you prefer the former alternative, then you must admit that their final sentence calling them to their eternal reward had not been pronounced when the voice of the worker of the miracle called them back to life. But if the verdict that beatifies can be suspended why not the sentence of condemnation? When we remember that ‘mercy exalteth itself above judg­ment’ (James 2:13), the more wonderful thing is not that God should bring back a sinner to the life of probation in order to save him, but rather that he should postpone the sentence that in the ordinary way should follow immediately upon death, and make the just man unchangeably fixed in his state of grace” (Terrien, La Mère des Hommes, T. II, pp. 359-360).

The further question may be asked, what was the state of these souls pending their resurrection?

Fr. Terrien continues:

“In so obscure a matter it seems most likely that these souls, during the short time of separation from their bodies, were devoid of all consciousness until restored to their former state. Hence their complete lack of knowledge as to anything that took place during the period of separation. I am quite aware that several ancient records tell us of wonderful visions concerning other-worldly things vouchsafed to certain souls. These are isolated cases of which it is not for me to judge; but in any case we cannot regard as authentic any visions which imply the exercise of organic faculties, for a disembodied soul has no other mode of cognition but that proper to spirits.” (p. 361)

Hence we may conjecture that these disembodied souls were given infused knowledge, and consequently as, upon reunion with their bodies, they would be unable to link up these infused ideas with the perceptive cognition proper to this life, they would be unable to remember what they had learned in the other world.

However these miraculous resurrections afford no serious ground for disputing the psychological law of the immutability of the soul that has really reached the state of finality.

CHAPTER IX

LIMBO

I Catholic doctrine.

II. Sufferings of Limbo.

III. Who go to Limbo: disputed points.

(1)   Virtuous pagans;

(2)    Duration of Limbo.

I. CATHOLIC DOCTRINE

The Gospels seem to exclude any middle state in the next world, between Heaven and Purgatory on the one hand, and Hell on the other.

But it is easy to see that the dogmatic passages concerning the future life, have also an undeniable moral connotation. They refer only to the future state of men capable of moral action and able to choose between good and evil.

They do not treat of unbaptized children, incapable of com­mitting actual sin, or of those adults who must be classed with children.

That Scripture is silent as to the future destiny of those whom theology consigns to Limbo need not astonish us. Limbo is mentioned, under the name of“Abraham’s bosom,” only as the dwelling-place of the just who died before the coming of Christ, but as far as unbaptized infants are concerned, the only scriptural justification for Limbo is the general teaching as to God’s eternal justice.

It is then to Tradition that we must appeal for the dogmatic development of this principle of divine justice into the assertion that there is a future state which is neither that of the blessed in Heaven, nor that of the damned tormented in Hell.

Some of the Greek Fathers of the fourth century, notably St. Gregory of Nazian­zum and St. Gregory of Nyssa, hint at such a state.

Among the Latins Fathers, St. Augustine clearly admitted it for unbaptized infants, before the rise of Pelagianism, but owing to the exigencies of controversy, he after­wards was led to postulate the existence of some light, but positive punishment for unbaptized infants, in order to safeguard the doctrine of the Fall.

And the XVI Council of Carthage promulgated the rigorous doctrine that children dying without baptism will find no place of salvation and rest, even outside of the kingdom of Heaven. But it is to be observed that what St. Augustine and the council condemned was the Pelagian conception of a middle state, which implied that infants were exempt from original sin and from the punishment due to it; a wholly heretical idea, denying the necessity of baptism for eternal life.

Afterwards, although the traditional teaching, that unbaptized infants are exempt from neither guilt nor penalty, was consistently upheld, it came to be recog­nized that they could not be classed with adults guilty of actual sins.

Theologians asked themselves what the consequences of original sin would be in the next world, having regard to the claims of God’s justice.

Pope Innocent III, writing to the archbishop of Arles (France), laid it down that actual sin will be punished by the torments of Hell, but that the penalty of original sin will be merely the deprivation of the beatific vision.

St. Thomas, starting from the principle that there must be an exact proportion between the nature of the sin and its punishment, draws the logical conclusion from his con­ception of original sin by teaching that for infants dying unbaptized there will be a special place in the next world, where they will not enjoy eternal life in union with God seen face to face. But, he adds, they will undergo no posi­tive punishment and will be united with God in so far as they will enjoy their share of natural possessions.

Pope John XXII in his letter Nequaquam sine dolore (1321) to the Armenians makes explicit mention of the “special place” for souls stained with original sin alone.

But we have to wait until the end of the XVIII century for the first declaration of the existence of Limbo in any document emanating from ecclesiastical authority.

The Jansenist synod of Pistoia had said that belief in Limbo was “a Pelagian fable.” This gave Pope Pius VI the opportunity of expounding clearly the mind of the Church as to those who die in a state of original sin only.

He declares to be:

“False, temerarious, and insulting to Catholic theology the proposition which rejects as a Pelagian fable that part of Hell, commonly known as the Limbo of infants, in which the souls of those dying in original sin only are punished by the pain of loss, without the pain of fire, and which regards this teaching as a repetition of the Pelagian error that there is a middle state and place between the kingdom of Heaven and eternal damnation.”

Hence we must conclude that belief in Limbo is an orthodox belief, the certainty of which is sufficiently guaranteed by the now unani­mous agreement of theologians.

So we find that the theologians at the [First] Vatican Council had prepared a dogmatic pronouncement on the penalty due to original sin alone:

“All those who die in a state of actual mortal sin are shut out from the kingdom of God and will suffer eternally the torments of Hell, without hope of redemp­tion, and even those who die in original sin alone will be deprived of the beatific vision of God.”

This, though not an explicit affirmation of the doctrine of Limbo, lays down the dogmatic principle whence that doctrine necessarily follows, and it must, therefore, be regarded as theologically certain.

II. THE SUFFERINGS OF LIMBO

Theological speculation concerning the sufferings of the souls in Limbo is divided into two currents of opinion, represented by St. Augustine and St. Thomas.

1. According to St. Augustine, as we have seen, unbap­tized infants are not only deprived of the beatific vision, but have to undergo a positive, though very light,punishment.

It has been asserted that this doctrine is implied in the profession of faith of Michael Paleologus, at the II Council of Lyons (1267) and in the decree of the Council of Florence, which repeats the formula of Lyons: “The souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin, or a state of original sin alone, go down at once into Hell, to suffer, however, dissimilar punishments, poenis tamen disparibus puniendas.”

But there is nothing really to justify the assertion. The word Hell in the conciliar decree is used with its vague and general meaning of “the lower regions,” without any exclusive reference to Hell properly so called. Also the phrase “poenis tamen disparibus” indicates a difference of kind rather than of degree, so that the usual translation, “unequal” is less exact than that now suggested, “dissimilar.”

Never­theless many eminent theologians, such as Petavius, St. Robert Bellarmine, Estius, Bossuet and others have upheld the Augustinian interpretation of the decree.

We are by no means bound to accept their view, especially as the decree may be differently rendered in a way quite in agreement with the opinion of St. Thomas.

2. St Thomas holds, and most modern theologians hold with him, that the penalty of original sin is merely privative and nowise afflictive.

It must be granted that unbaptized infants will know that they are deprived of eternal life and why they are deprived of it, but on the other hand, this knowledge will not cause them to suffer.

In the Commentary on the Sentences, St. Thomas says that the depriva­tion of the beatific vision will not cause these infants to suffer, because they will understand that they possess no capacity for it.

And in De Malo he explains his reason more exactly:

“The souls of these infants will not lack the natural knowledge proper to separated souls, according to their natural exigency, but they will lack the supernatural knowledge which comes by faith, for in this life they neither made an act of faith nor received the sacrament of faith. Now it is natural for the soul to know that it is made for happiness and that this consists in the possession of the sovereign good. But that this supreme good is precisely the glory enjoyed by the saints is something surpassing natural knowledge.... Hence the souls of these infants will not know that they are deprived of so great a good, and cannot therefore suffer from its loss.” (q. 5, art. 3, and ad. 1)

Being in ignor­ance of their vocation to the beatific vision, its loss will cause them no pain. Yet though they do not feel it, the loss of the beatific vision is, in its elf, a very great punishment.

Cardinal Billot, in speaking of the state of these children, says:

“Hence we do not use the word ‘beatitude.’ It is true that their condition taken and con­sidered in itself is one of happiness such as would have been man’s heritage if he had been left in a merely natural state, for, as St. Thomas puts it, though cut off from a participation in God’s glory, they are not sepa­rated from him as regards their participation in natural perfections. But man has been raised to the super­natural state and destined for a supernatural end and beatitude is the state of (supernatural) perfection... But unbaptized infants are in a state of guilt, a fallen state, and have failed to reach the end which, in the actual order of Providence, they were meant to attain. The word ‘beatitude’ then, cannot be applied to them in its proper meaning, and so we say simply, that their state is that of painless possession of their natural per­fections” (Etudes, vol. 163, p. 32).

III. WHO GO TO LIMBO?

Theoretically the answer to this question is easy. All those go to Limbo who die with original sin only upon their souls.

But who these are it is not so easy to determine with accuracy.

Two points are certain:

- Children who die without baptism before reaching the age of reason are in a state of original sin alone. And with these must be classed those unbaptized adults who, from birth to death, have always been really and totally insane.

- But when we come to treat of adults who have enjoyed the use of reason, at least to a certain extent, we find ourselves in the region of theological controversy.

Two much dis­cussed opinions have been put forward.

1. The first is the theory that virtuous pagans go to Limbo.

Claude Seyssel, archbishop of Turin, strongly upheld this opinion in the beginning of the XVI century, in his Traité sur la Providence divine, written under the influence of the ideas aroused by the recent dis­covery of America. He discriminates between several classes of infidels. Some are not wholly excusable, because they do not do all they can to find out the truth; they will be punished in proportion to their guilt, but less severely than bad Christians or the enemies of Christ. But in those places to which the truths of Chris­tianity have not been able to penetrate, and where therefore, faith, which is the first step towards salvation, is impossible, we may admit the existence of unbelievers who, following the light of reason, recognize and adore God, Creator and Lord, who practise the precepts of the moral law engraved on men’s hearts, and who, if they sin, repent of their sins.

Among these unbelievers Seyssel distinguishes two classes. There are those who do their utmost to find and come to a knowledge of God, and they will certainly be called by grace and be enabled to save their souls. But others, though following the light of reason in the doing of their natural duties, are not so zealous in their efforts to discover the truth; and these, since God can neither admit them into Heaven nor send them to Hell, will go to a middle place, Limbo. There they will enjoy forever a natural happiness, greater than that of earth, though lower than that of the blessed in Heaven.

This theory is unacceptable because it implies what is false and contradictory.

It is false to suppose that any class of men can keep the pre­cepts of the natural law or repent of their sins without supernatural help, which, by the very fact of being super­natural, directs the soul towards a supernatural end.

It is contradictory to distinguish two classes of virtuous unbelievers: those who, doing their best, find the truth, and those who, doing less than their best, yet keep the moral law, but know not God. For there is, in effect, no moral law without a knowledge of God, the Law-giver.

Nevertheless the leading ideas of this theory have been repeated under different forms during the XVIII and XIX centuries. The Abbé de Malleville, Mgr. de Pressy, Mgr. Duvoisin, Muzzarelli, Fraysinous, Ber­gier and others held that virtuous pagans will enjoy a natural happiness in Limbo. The theory is put forward in Migne’sRevision des Démonstrations Evangéliques (T. XVIII, col. 997), in the Catéchisme du concile de Trente anno­tated by the Abbé Doney, in the Traité de l’Origine et de la Réparation du mal by the Abbé Actorie, and in the Mélanges of Balmes. Echoes of it are to be found in the works of the Abbé Martinet, the Abbé Moigno, and even of de Broglie. So that the thesis maintained by “Un Professeur de Théologie” in the “Science et Religion” series, far from being a novelty, is but the re-assertion of a four hundred years old theory which, as it stands, cannot be accepted.

2. The theory recently propounded by Cardinal Billot in a series of articles on the Providence de Dieu in the Etudes is of a very different character.

The eminent theologian asks whether “in addition to unbaptized infants, we must not include a perhaps equally great number of adult unbelievers... adult, that is, in years, in physical development, and even, if you like, in mind as far as the understanding of temporal things is concerned, though not as regards the higher reason, and as regards awareness to the dictates of conscience.” These physical or material adults are lacking in the higher faculty of reason, that faculty which deals with things divine, transcendental and eternal, especially with God and his law as the binding rule of human conduct. Such adults are not idiots, but their minds are always absorbed in purely earthly things and cannot rise to the considera­tion of God and the true good. Hence they are not adults in the formal and theological meaning of the world. May there not be a large number of such men, adults in age but not in mind or conscience, who are quite incapable of committing formal sin, and who, therefore, cannot possibly be condemned to the torments of Hell? Cardinal Billot lays it down that, for the mass of mankind, the only means of coming to a definite know­ledge of God as the Creator of the world, and of the moral law, is instruction. But instruction, though natural provision and preparation for it have been made, may be lacking owing to the use or misuse of human freedom. Instruction in divine truth may have disap­peared from certain parts of the world owing to man’s fault, and so paved the way for invincible ignorance, which relieves man of responsibility.

The difference between this theory and Seyssel’s is clear. The latter consigns to Limbo formal adults, that is, those who are matured in mind as well as years, and even those who, according to Catholic principles are quite able to direct their lives towards God and supernatural happiness.

Cardinal Billot, faithful to the principles of tradition and St. Thomas, allows to formal adults only the alternatives of Heaven or Hell. But in addition to these, adults in the formal and theological sense, he recognizes a whole class of merely physical or material adults, whose higher reason is not sufficiently developed to give them real moral responsibility. They are innocents, with a wholly negative innocence, and not formally and theologically adults. Hence the teaching of the Fathers and theologians relative to adults is not applicable to them.

It would be hard to contest the validity of the principle on which this theory is based. But on the question of fact there may well be differences of opinion. Does there really exist such a class of physical adults, who because of their invincible ignorance of the true, living God, cannot be called adults in mind and conscience? From the eminent cardinal’s principles, “principles shown to be true by the clearest evidence of constant and universal experience,” it follows, he declares, that “the hypothesis of whole masses of men wallowing in invincible ignorance of God’s law and commandments, owing to the absolute lack of teaching and the contrary influence of pagan education, is by no means improbable in itself, and cannot a priori be looked upon as rash or inadmissible.”

There is, however, one serious objection that Cardinal Billot does not deal with, that of the universality of God’s call to salvation. Does God give or does he not give to each and all of those able to correspond, grace sufficient for salvation? We know that many modern theologians hold that God not only prepares graces sufficient to ensure the salvation of all men and of every individual, but that he actually gives these graces to each and all. The first part of this assertion is a matter of faith, because of the universality of God’s will to save all men, and of Christ’s redemptive death for all; but theologians are not unanimous on the second half of the proposition. The actual giving of sufficient grace de­pends on many causes besides God’s saving will and Christ’s redemptive death.

And Cardinal Billot’s answer to the objection brought against him would, no doubt, be cast in the mould of what he has written in his treatise De Deo Uno about the fate of unbaptized infants:

“God is prepared to give to all and each sufficient means of salvation; he actually gives such means unless pre­vented by some obstacle arising from the exercise of man’s free will, or from the course of natural events.”

In the case of material adults the obstacle to the actual giving of grace sufficient for salvation arises from the exercise of human liberty, through former generations forgetfulness of primitive revelation.

Whatever we may hold as to this, it is certain that they who go to Limbo will stay there for eternity. Catholic tradition is unanimous in excluding them definitely from Heaven. In fact the continuity of the Church’s teaching on Limbo, in spite of a fuller understanding of the penalty due to original sin, is engrafted upon this tradition of definite exclusion from Heaven. We must therefore reject, as certainly erroneous, the theory put forward in a manual of dogmatic theology lately pub­lished in Germany, that the souls of unbaptized infants may possibly, in time, come to enjoy eternal beatitude, “if good men would but offer up for them Christ’s merits and their own.”

CHAPTER VIII

THE RESURRECTION OF THE FLESH

AND

THE GENERAL JUDGMENT

      I. The general resurrection of all men.

(1)   Resurrection natural yet miraculous;

(2)   How it will come about;

(3) It endows the body with an inward principle of incor­ruptibility.

II. The glorious resurrection of the elect.

      Qualities of glorified bodies: impassibility, subtlety, agility, clarity.

III. The general judgment.

(1)   Dogma.

(2)   Theology;

(3)  Inquiry and retribution.

The resurrection of the flesh is a dogma of faith ex­plicitly set forth in the various Creeds of the Church.

The Sacred Scriptures, especially St. Paul’s epistles, speak of it so often that it would be quite superfluous to expound the scriptural argument in proof of it (cf. St. John 5:28; 6:39, 40, 44, 55; St. Mark 12:26; Rom. 6:5; 2 Cor. 5; Phil 3; 9; 1 Thess. 4:15; 1 Tim. 2:16; Hebr. 11:35, etc.)

From among the many pronouncements of the Church bearing upon the resurrection it will suffice to quote the dogmatic declaration issued by the IV Council of the Lateran:

“He (Christ) will come at the end of the world to judge the living and the dead, and to render to all, whether elect or reprobate, according to their works; and all will rise with their own bodies which they have borne in this life, to be rewarded accord­ing to their works, whether good or evil, the bad to go into eternal punishment with the devil, the good to receive everlasting glory with Christ.” (Dz 429)

Leaving aside certain subsidiary questions relative to the “living and the dead” who are to be judged by Christ, we shall consider:

(1)   The dogma of the general resurrection of all men;

(2)   That of the glorious resurrec­tion reserved to the elect;

(3)  That of the General Judg­ment.

I. THE GENERAL RESURRECTION OF ALL

The dogma of the general resurrection may be stated very briefly.

At the last day all men will rise again, and will rise with the same bodies as they had in this life.

The soul will not be joined to a body taken haphazard, but will be rejoined to the body which had been its companion in this life. It is only right that it should be so, for since the body had its part in most of the actions to be submitted to God’s judgment, it ought likewise to share in their reward or punishment.

All this is so simple that we need not delay over it.

But there are three points, not so clear, to which we may turn our attention.

Theologians, following St. Thomas, show:

- Firstly, how the resurrection, though a miracle wrought at God’s pleasure, is yet in accordance with nature.

- Secondly, the human mind seeks to understand how the resurrection takes place, and Thomist philosophy is asked to give a reasonable explanation.

- Thirdly, accord­ing to theologians, the body after the resurrection possesses an inward principle of incorruptibility.

(1) Since the resurrection is miraculous, how can it be said to be natural?

When speaking of death we said that the separation of the two elements that go to the making of man does not respond to the exigencies of the formal element, his immortal soul.

The state of separation, though not contrary to the soul’s nature (since this is capable of self-existence), is yet less natural to it than union with the body.

So the union of soul and body being natural, their re-union would seem to be natural; the soul, being made for the body, would seem to yearn to be rejoined by its life-companion.

It would appear as if St. Thomas tries to prove the resurrection with argu­ments of this kind (Cont. Gentes, IV, 79).

But, as has often been shown, such arguments are not meant to be demonstrative but persuasive only.

When St. Thomas says that the future resurrection of the body is supported by the evidence of reason (evidens ratio suffragatur), he is speaking merely of persuasive evidence.

Certainly if we consider the effect of the resurrection, namely, the reconstitution of man in his whole being, it may be called natural.

But as the cause of this reconstitution is not natural, man cannot be said to have any claim to it. The only natural efficient cause of man is human gene­ration, and every other way of bringing him into exist­ence is miraculous.

So, for example, the union of Christ’s body and soul, considered as an effect, was natural, but considered in its cause it was miraculous, since the conception of Christ in his virgin Mother’s womb was a miracle.

Similarly in the case of Adam and Eve, a natural effect was produced by a non-natural cause, for they were not begotten, but created.

So, at the end of the world, nature will be unable to provide any active principle capable of re-uniting soul to body. It may be granted that the soul has a claim upon the body, but only if this be rightly understood.

It cannot be admitted that the soul has any positive tendency of any sort towards rebuilding the body. If the body is restored to the soul, the soul will naturally actuate it and revitalize it as its own, but the body must first be given back to it. And the body, reduced to dust, dis­persed and lost, perhaps, in the thousands of transfor­mations undergone by the elements once composing it, can have in itself no natural tendency towards being again actuated and vitalized by the soul.

Therefore, there is necessary the intervention of some external cause, more potent than the forces of nature, more potent even than the angels, for it is beyond their power to invest matter with the dispositions needful for human life.

In a word, God’s intervention is necessary, and although, in speaking of the general resurrection of all men we cannot strictly call his intervention super­natural(for this term implies a relation to eternal life), it must be described as miraculous.

The miraculous character of the resurrection has never been explicitly defined, but it is a theological conclusion to be accepted as true, because of the unanimous agreement of theologians. To deny it would be temerarious.

(2) How the resurrection is effected

The dogmatic assertion that “the dead will rise again with the same bodies as they had in this life,” is rather apt to astonish the mind; especially when it is pointed out that the question is one of numerical identity.

At once a multitude of questions arise that, together or singly, seem to overwhelm our reason.

How can such a resurrection be possible, seeing that throughout his life a man’s body is ceaselessly changing and its elements subject to continuous transformations? And when we think of what happens to the body after death, the difficulties grow quickly. What of those bodies that are eaten by cannibals, or those devoured by animals that afterwards serve as food for men? The difficulty is equally great as regards bodies committed to the earth in burial; they suffer decomposition and their elements are taken up into various forms of vegetable life, of which some are used as food, and so forth. In such an endless course of changes what becomes of the particles that made up any human body, and how can they possibly be brought together again at the last day?

In such a question as this reason alone must guide us; the imagination cannot but lead us astray. And, indeed, if we seek an answer from any philosophy but that of St. Thomas, we shall, in all probability, seek in vain.

According to the Scholastic philosophy two elements only go to make up any individual man: the soul, called the form, and the body called the matter. The soul is the principle that gives to the matter its being as a living, sensitive and intelligent substance, and invests it with continuous self-identity, despite the flux and change of its component elements. St. Thomas was fully aware of the difficulties arising from the continual displacement of the atoms or particles of the body, but maintains that, in spite thereof, the form preserves the permanent identity of the whole.

With his usual precise brevity he declares that “secundum materiam partes ftuunt et reftuunt,” but numerical identity depends upon the form not upon the matter;“non semper sunt eadem partes secundum materiam sed solum secundum speciem” (De spiritualibus creaturis, art. 3).

Hence material iden­tity of the body’s particles, impossible to maintain, is not needed to explain the resurrection. We can fully safeguard the dogma, and expound it indeed clearly, by simply upholding the formal identity of the whole man. And, as we have seen, according to the Thomistic philo­sophy, which looks upon the soul as the substantial form of the human body, formal identity persists despite all the changes and variations affecting the material elements of the body. If the soul is the only form of the whole man, at one and the same time, intellectual, sensitive, vegetative and corporal; if, in other words, it is from the soul that the body draws the whole of its being, as man, as animal, as living, as substance, as thing, then at the resurrection the soul will give back to the body identically the same endowments as it had bestowed on it from the first. On this hypothesis we need not worry about what happens to the particles of matter when the body decomposes.

Whatever material elements God may use and submit to the sovereignty of the soul, this matter will become the same body that the soul possessed in this life, and hence, as Cardinal Billot puts it:

“God could cause a dead man to arise, without giving him a single atom of the matter which had belonged to his body before death” (De Novissimis, p. 136).

What matters it, therefore, if it please God that the infant shall arise as a grown man or the old man as still in the flower of youth! Such speculations as these, in which theologians indulge, are quite secondary, and even altogether without any bearing on the dogma of the resurrection, expounded according to St. Thomas’s philosophy.

Objection: It may be objected that this explanation tends to destroy the worship we give to relics and the value of the reverence we pay to the bodies of the dead. But the objection will not hold water.

Answer: Such worship and reverence are purely relative and, in reality, are directed to the persons whom the relics and bodies bring to our remembrance. And though the Church has forbidden cremation, this is not because the resurrection would be thereby hindered. Still the burial of the dead has in it a certain power of symbolism well calculated to sus­tain faith in the future resurrection.

(3) The risen body will be endowed with an inward principle of incorruptibility

To be able not to die is one thing, to be unable to die is another.

Adam, in the state of innocence, was immortal in the former sense; the latter kind of immor­tality is proper to spiritual substances (angels and souls); but it will also belong to men’s bodies after the resur­rection.

As far as the elect are concerned, this is ex­plicitly stated in the gospel according to St. Luke (20:34-36):

“The children of this world marry and are given in marriage; but they that shall be accounted worthy of that world and of the resurrection from the dead shall neither be married nor take wives. Neither can they die any more; for they are equal to the angels, and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection.”

It must be granted, too, that the risen bodies of the damned also have in them a principle of incorruptibility, for they also rise again for eternity. But their immortality will be their punishment, imply­ing none of those qualities that make for happiness; and since the Scriptures always speak of immortality as a blessing it is only natural that St. Luke should mention the incorruptibility of the blessed alone.

A consequence of the immortality of risen bodies, whether in Heaven, Hell or Limbo, will be the cessa­tion of all nutritive and generative functions. The organs that now perform these functions will remain, for the body will be restored in its integrity, but they will occasion no suffering and no movements of concupi­scence or sensuality. The soul will rule the body instead of serving it.

II. THE RESURRECTION UNTO GLORY

The bodies of the blessed in Heaven will be endowed with certain qualities, which the damned in Hell will lack, namely impassibility, subtlety, agility and bright­ness.

1. Impassibility means that the glorified body will be beyond the reach of all injury and corruption. (cf. S.T. Suppl. Q.82)

The inward principle of incorruptibility will be common to them and the lost, but impassibility adds to this the absence of all pain and affliction.

It is to this quality that St. Paul’s words are generally applied: “It (the body) is sown in corruption, it shall rise in incorruption” (1 Cor. 15:42).

2. Subtlety is not, as some theologians have thought, a sort of spiritualization of the body, investing bodies with the power of mutual penetration. (cf. S.T. Suppl.Q.83)

It means rather that the body will be wholly under the dominion of the soul, which will, as it were, irradiate it and refine all its pleasures and sensations, so that, though material, it will depend to the slightest possible extent upon the conditions of matter: “It is sown a natural body, it shall rise a spiritual body” (ibid. 5:44).

3. Owing to the gift of agility the body will be able unresistingly to obey the soul’s commands. (cf. S.T. Suppl. Q.84)

“It is sown in weakness, it shall rise in power” (ibid.) Through this gift the whole material world will be at the disposition of the blessed, for whom the universe was made. The immense spaces of the world will be under the rule of the saints who will shine in the infinite vaults of heaven as the stars above us. But however great may be the speed at which the glorified bodies of the blessed move through space, it will still be measured by time, real time even though infinitesimally short.

4. Lastly the glory of the soul, irradiating the body, will invest it with brightness, making it shine as did Christ’s body on the mount of Transfiguration. (cf. S.T.Suppl. Q.85)

“It is sown in dishonour, it shall rise in glory” (ibid.).

But after all, what can we say of the future state of glory, we who, as long as we are here, are still subject to the whims of this body of flesh? Better far is it to attempt no detailed description of what is beyond our ken and to wait for the happy experience of heavenly glory that, we hope, is in store for us.

III. THE GENERAL JUDGMENT

(1) The Dogma

There are few things upon which the Scriptures lay greater emphasis.

1. Jesus Christ has told us clearly that, at the end of the world, he will judge all men; he will not be simply a witness before God’s judgment-seat, but will, himself as Judge, pass sentence (Mark 13:34-37; Matt. 13:37-42; 16:48-51; Luke 12:36-38; 45-48; 21:34-36, but specially Matt. 7:22-23; 16:27; 24:30-31).

The awe-inspiring scene of the last judgment, described by St. Matthew 25:31-46, is well known:

“And when the Son of Man shall come in his majesty, and all the angels with him, then shall he sit upon the seat of his majesty; and all nations shall be gathered together before him, and he shall separate them one from another, as the shepherd separateth the sheep from the goats; and he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on his left. Then shall the king say to them that shall be on his right hand: Come ye, blessed of my Father, possess you the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world . . . Then he shall say to them also that shall be on his left hand: Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels . . . And these shall go into everlasting punishment; but the just into life everlasting.”

2. The epistles of St. Paul are equally explicit.

Their teaching on the last judgment is simply the development of the gospel teaching, that Jesus is the “judge of the living and the dead” (Acts 10:42; 2 Tim. 4:1).

In St. Paul, as in the gospels, “the judgment is so closely bound up with the parousia (that is, with Christ’s second coming) that it is impossible to separate these two scenes, and the Church joins them together in one and the same article of the creed” (Prat, La théologie de St. Paul, II, p. 152).

St. Paul’s favourite term for the general judgment is “the day of the Lord,” the day, that is, when the glory of Jesus will be manifested and his kingdom set up in triumph (2 Thess, 1:10; 1 Cor. 15:25). The object of the judgment will be to do justice, its effect the final establishment of the moral order.

“Everyone of us shall have to render account for himself” (Rom. 14:52); all will have to make known all the actions of his life, good or evil (2 Cor., 5:10); a piercing light will reveal our most hidden deeds (Rom. 2:6); and even the secret movements of our hearts (1 Cor. 4:5). A sen­tence corresponding with the outcome of thisrigorous examination will follow. God will render to every man according to his works (Rom. 2; 6; 2 Cor. 11:15; 2 Tim. 4:14; 1 Cor. 3:8), and just as God is not ‘a respecter of persons’ in distributing his gifts (Acts 10:34), so he will not be in apportioning retribution (Rom. 2, Col. 3:25); the evil that has been done will not be forgotten (ibid.), but the good will also be remembered (Eph. 6:8) So that everyone will receive according to his works,” (J. Rivière, art. Jugement in Dict. de théol. catholique, vol. VIII, col. 1758).

Lastly, St. Paul teaches that the judgment will be truly universal. All men, Greeks as well as Jews, will come before God’s tribunal and, in a sense, the angels themselves (Rom. 14:10; 2:12-16; 1 Cor. 6:3).

3. The other books of the New Testament, though full of the thought of the last judgment, contain hardly any fresh elements.

True, the Apocalypse is pre-eminently the eschatological book, but its interpretation is diffi­cult, though the last judgment is clearly proclaimed.

Fr. Rivière again says:

“This final judgment is mentioned for the first time, when the four and twenty ancients, pros­trate before God, do homage to his power and kingdom; ‘And thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest render reward to thy servants the prophets, and the saints, and to them that fear thy name, little and great, and shouldest destroy them that have corrupted the earth”’ (11:58)

The book ends with a picture of the scene itself. . . The mysterious reign of a thousand years is over, Satan and his allies are consumed by fire from Heaven. Then, behold, sitting upon his great white throne, him before whose face heaven and earth take flight. All the dead, great and small, rise again to come before the throne, and the books are opened to see what judgment shall be given. The sentence is at once put into execution: those whose names are written in the book of life go into the heavenly Jerusalem; the others, along with Hell and death, are cast into the pool of fire” (20:7-15; 21:1-5, art. cit. col. 1763).

(2) Theology of the Judgment

The theologian has to study all the various elements and aspects of a dogma taught by Scripture and the Church, and carefully to distinguish the certain from the merely probable, so that the truth may be the more clearly seen.

With regard to the general judgment, two points are to be accepted with the certainty of faith: the fact of the judgment and the person of the judge, Jesus Christ, who will come in glory: iterum venturus est cum gloria judicare vivos et mortuos.

1. The Fact.

Theology provides us with arguments which prove the reasonableness of the dogma, and of which it will suffice to give the outlines as drawn by Father Rivière:

“The general judgment is necessary because it is the realization of the moral order that God had originally intended to reign in the world, but that the disorders resulting from sin had done so much to disturb. If the balance is restored for individuals by the particular judgment, it seems only right that the general situation should also be restored by a general judgment. Ideal justice, postulated by the Christian idea of God, cannot come to its full development before the end of time. Up till then all sorts of obstacles impede its course and prevent us from realizing our individual responsibilities.”

As St. Thomas well ex­presses it:

“Although death puts an end to man’s tem­poral life, if this be considered in itself, yet in a sense it still depends upon the future.”

And he then goes on to analyse minutely and carefully the various forms of this “dependence” wherein is verified the wonderfully complex repercussion of man’s actions upon human affairs. He instances a man’s reputation, which but seldom corresponds with his actual deserts; the family which often falls away from the high standard set by the father; the results of men’s deeds, endlessly con­tinued through history, so that we are still suffering from the heresy of Arius and benefiting from the Apostles’ faith; the body, in one instance receiving honourable burial, in another suffering abandonment or neglect.

“All these are the objects of our activity; some soon pass away, others last a long time, but before God they constitute a perpetual reality, awaiting his final verdict.” (Art. quoted, col. 1815).

We may men­tion another argument in justification of the general judgment, namely, the glorification of God, of Christ and the saints.

2. The Person.

As regards the person of the Judge, it is of faith that Christ himself will judge the living and the dead. But whereas he came first into the world in suffering and lowliness, his second coming will be in glory. In theory one might conceive him exercising his judicial authority without leaving Heaven, but in order that his triumph over death may be complete, it is but fitting that he should be seen once again in this world as its judge.

So far we have set down what is certain, but as regards other matters, such as the circumstances of the judgment, its place and time, the signs that are to announce it, the vesture of Christ’s glory, the separation of just and unjust on right and left, and so forth, there can be no certainty, for we are in the realm of symbo­lism and conjecture.

St. Thomas interprets very broadly the scriptural texts referring to these matters, and in this we cannot do better than imitate him. The judgment, he says, will take place mentally, so that discussion and accusation are to be understood in the manner explained in Chapter II.

(3) Inquiry and Retribution

St. Thomas distinguishes two aspects of the judgment:

-  The inquiry or discussion of each man’s merits and demerits;

- And the retribution, wherein he is rewarded or punished.

Men must either be let into Heaven or kept out. At the judgment sentence will be passed upon all, a sentence of salvation or damnation. And to avoid all misunderstanding it must be understood that the sentence of condemnation is passed upon all who are shut out from Heaven, even though, escaping Hell, they be relegated to Limbo.

As for the “inquiry,” those alone will have to undergo it whose lives are a mixture of good and evil necessitating the discussion of their merits and demerits. But this discussion will not, of course, raise any doubt or question about anything.

St. Thomas says:

“The discussion of the merits of the blessed will not destroy the certainty of happiness in the hearts of those who are to be judged, but will make it evident to all that in them good has triumphed over evil, and will thus vindicate God’s justice.” (Suppl. q. 89, art. 6, ad. 2).

Similarly:

“although those who die in mortal sin are certainly damned, yet, since they have some good works mingled with their sins, the discussion of their merits is necessary for the manifestation of divine justice, and to show that they are justly shut out from the city of the saints” (ibid., art. 7, ad. 1).

We may make some concrete applications of this principle.

1. Firstly infants who have died before coming to the use of reason will not have to undergo the judgment of inquiry. They will, of course, be present at the judg­ment, but the sentence passed upon them will relate solely to their eternal destiny, and thus will belong to the judgment of retribution.

St. Thomas, it is true, says that “children who die before the age of reason will also appear before God’s tribunal, not to be judged, but in order to see the judge’s glory” (ibid., art. 5, ad. 3), but there is no doubt that St. Thomas includes these chil­dren among those who will have to undergo the judg­ment of retribution.

Thus in his Commentarium in II Epist. ad Corinth, c.v. lectio 1, he says:

“Infants will not be judged concerning the things they have themselves done in this life, but concerning the things they have done through others, as, for example, whether, through others, they were Christians or infidels, baptised or unbaptised; or again, it might be said that they will be condemned on account of the sin committed by our first father.”

2. Secondly, St. Thomas seems to exclude adult infidels from the judgment of discussion; they “will be condemned as enemies who are exterminated without any discussion of their merits” (art. 7).

Simi­larly with the adult blessed whose deeds present no admixture of good and evil: “there will be no discus­sion of their merits, they will be saved without being judged” (art. 6).

Hence the only ones to undergo judgment will be those among the faithful whose lives have been sinful or imperfect. In the case of all others the judgment will be one of retribution only.

3. Thirdly, this teaching which, at first sight, might seem foreign to the ordinary doctrine of the Church, is the common teaching of the mediaeval doctors, and represents that of many of the Latin Fathers.

A too literal interpretation of St. John 3:8, “He that doth not believe is already judged,” and of Psalm 1:5, “The wicked shall not rise again in judgment,” led these Fathers to set up two classes of the damned, the faithful who are to be judged and the unbelievers whose judg­ment has already taken place.

And since what is true of the lost must apply also to the saved, they divided the latter also into two classes:

- The first, of those whose deeds will have to be investigated and submitted to judgment;

- The second containing those whose sanctity is so manifest as to admit of no discussion.

St. Gregory, whose influence upon the eschatology of the Latin church was decisive, thus sums up the common teaching of his time:

“Some are judged and perish, others are not judged, yet perish likewise; some are judged and reign in glory, others are not judged, but share in the same glory”(Moralia, b. 26, ch. 27, no. 5).

It is to be noted, however, that this teaching of the Fathers has a wholly moral significance. Undoubtedly, they interpret the psalmist’s words too narrowly, but, from the moral point of view, it is profoundly true that the wicked, unbelievers especially, will be incapable of facing God’s judgment; they have already delivered, and without any mitigation being possible, their own sentence of condemnation; judgment has already been held upon them: jam judicatus est.

And, on the other hand, the just who have always been loyal to Jesus, who have always lived the perfect life of faith, are already saved in advance, and no doubt can be entertained of their admission into Heaven. Such is the moral signification of the distinction established by the Fathers and echoed by the Scholastics in the phrases “judgment of inquiry” and “judgment of retribution.” But apart from this, it is still true that every man will be judged and will have to answer for his works.

As Suarez (whose treatment of the whole question of the judgment is masterly) well says, why postulate a discussion of the merits and demerits of believers, and deny it in the case of un­believers? The sins that are the cause of their damna­tion must be made manifest, as well as those of believers. St. Paul’s words, “for 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) are true of all without exception. On the other hand where can be found the just man who is without sin? Apart from the specially privileged case mentioned by the council of Trent (De justificatione, can. 23), who is there who can flatter himself that he has avoided all venial sin during life and that, therefore, he has built upon the foun­dation of faith an edifice of gold, silver and precious stones alone, without any admixture of wood, straw and stubble? St. Thomas, it is true, holds to be exempt from the judgment of inquiry certain of the blessed who, by a very perfect life given wholly to spiritual things, have been made worthy to sit by the side of Jesus Christ and to have a part in the giving of the judgment sentence. These are the Apostles to whom it was said: “You shall sit upon twelve seats judging the twelve tribes of Israel” (Matt. 19:28). These are also those who have despised worldly things in order to seek the only true goods of the spirit, and especially the poor in spirit, who have been promised the kingdom of Heaven (Matt. 5:3).

Such is St. Thomas’s opinion in the Supplementum q. 89, art. and 2. But it is clear that, if the inquiry means only an examination and weighing of men’s works, good and bad, then all those saints who have ever com­mitted a venial sin will have to submit to the judgment of enquiry. But the investigation will be but slight com­pared with that to be undergone by those who have com­mitted mortal sins and great crimes. (Suarez In. III. St. Thomae. disp. 57, sect. 5-7).

The judgment of the saints being, therefore, of but little importance, may be considered as non-existent.

4. Fourthly, the qualified way in which St. Thomas speaks of the judgment of infants, shows that it can be called a retributive judgment only analogically. For Heaven is not given to baptised infants as a reward, but as their inheritance; and similarly, the withholding of the beatific vision from unbaptised infants has not a really penal or afflictive character. Rather is it the consequence due to fallen nature, just as celestial happi­ness is the result due to the state of restored nature. Hence St. Thomas hesitates to speak of infants being judged and says that they will appear before the judg­ment-seat in order to behold the judge in glory. We have now to show how there is nothing of a penal nature in the denial of the beatific vision to infants who die unbaptised and to others who must be classed with them.