From the authorities of the Church, we find that the admission of tlie belief in a purgatory had in the West great influence on the ideas concerning the future. The scholastics, in the course of time, erected these views into a system. Besides the above-named three plac ;s of abode for departed spirits deprived of hea\enly felicity recog- nised in the Itoman Catholic Catechism, they asserted the existence of a fourth, intended for children who died previous to Ijaptisni. Bellarmine (Purr;, ii, 7) considers it a very dillicult (picstion to decide whether there may not be a fifth, inwhich the purified souls remain until their final admittance into the kingdom of heaven, and which must conseipiently be situated somewhere be- tween purgatory and heaven (Boda, Hist, v, 13 ; Diony- sius Carthusianus, X'jt//. de jud. imrticul. 31; Lud. Bio-
LIMBO
435
LIMBO
sius, Monil. Spirit. 13). The necessity of ascribing to each of these loca jjcenalia its special position accounts sufficiently for the fact that the word limbus is made to answer both for the place where the saints who lived before Christ remain, and for the abode of children who died without baptism. It appears to have been first set forth by Thomas Aquinas, and to have been at once adopted by the Church. Hell is considered as situated ill the centre of the earth ; next comes purgatory, which surrounds hell ; then the Limbus infantum, or j)uerorum ; and finally, as the central point between hell and heav- en, the Limbus patrum, or Sinus AbraJue. Of course each different place has its own special punishments : in hell it is poena ceterna damni et sensus ; in purgatory, pmia temporalis damni et sensus ; in the Limbus miaw- X.\xm,2mna damni ceterna; and in the Limbus patrum, poe7ta damni temporalis (Thom. Aq. iii, d. 22, q. 2, a. 1, q. 2, 4; d. 21, q. 1, a. 1, q. 2; d. 45, q. 1, a. 1, q. 2, 3, 3, q. 62, 2, 4, 4; d. 45, q. 1, a. q. 2, etc. ^ Eleucidar. G4; Dante, Inf. 4; comp. 31 sq. ; Durand, De S. Port. Sentt.
3, d. 22, q. 4; Sonnius, Demonstr. rel. Chr. ii, 3, 15, and ii,
4, 1 ; Bellarmiue, Purg. ii, G ; Andradius, Defens. Trid. Synod, ii, 299).
The Limbus patrum is exclusively reserved to the saints of the Mosaic dispensation. They suffer only by the consciousness that they are deprived, in consequence of original sin, from beholding God, and by an ardent longing for the coming of their IMessiah. Since Christ has atoned for original sin, and freed them from impris- onment, this limbo is empty, and no longer of any im- portance in a religious sense. It is called Limbus infer- ni, -'quia erat poena carentite," Sinus Abrahce "propter requiem, quia erat exspectatio gloria:" (Bellarmine, De Christo, iv, 10; Becanus, Append, purrj. Calv.'). This view is defended partly by means of some passages in Scripture (such as Gen. xxxvii, 35; 1 Sam. xxviii; Zech. ix, 11; Luke xvi, 23; xx, 37; xxiii, 43; John viii, 56; Heb. xi, 6 ; 1 Peter iii, 19); but especially by oral tradition. This last is the more available because, with the exception of the later attempts at locatuig the different places, the Western Church has always taught the same things on this point, at least since St. Augus- tine {De civ. Dei, xx, 15), that the limbus in general was only the caput mortuum which the doctrine of the pur- gatory had yet left to the old Church. The Greek Chiurch, on the other hand, holds no such views (Smith, De Locks. Grcec. statu, 1678, p. 103; Heineccius, Abbil- dmvj d. alten u. neuen griech. Kirche, 1711, ii, 103).
The doctrine of the Limbus infantum, or, rather, of the fate of unbaptized children, is insisted on with much greater Ibrce. On this point, however, the consequences of the system and the natural feelings of humanity come into conflict, and therefore the Church has never officially proclaimed its views as to the exact nature of it, so that a certain latitude is given for different opin- ions concerning it. The fathers early held different opinions on this point. Ambrosius (Orat. 40) does not venture to give any A'iew concerning unbaptized chil- dren. Gregory of Nazianzum {Orat. in s. Bapt. xl, 21) claims that tol'Q ni]Ti (iot.aa^ijaiaiai, fii]Tt KoXaa^))- ci(TSrai TTspi Tov ciKaiov KpiTov ; and Gregory of Nys- sa (eii. Paris, 1615, ii, 770) only denies in the very mild- est manner their being tv d\y(ivoi(:. Pelagius knew better wliere they do not go to than where they do go. Ill accordance with his general theory, St. Augustine consigns them " ad ignem aitornum damnaturum iri ;" but at the same time he admits that theirs is the slight- est punishment consequent to original sin ; their dam- nation is even so very slight that he expresses the doubt, " an eis, ut nuUi essent, quam nt ibi essent, potius ex- pediret," and declares '"definirc se non posse, quse, qiialis et quanta erit" (Sermo 294, n. 3 sq. ; Enchirid. c. 93 ; De pecc. merit, i, c. 16, n. 2 ; Contra Julian, v, 44 ; Epist. ad Ilieron. 131). This is the view most generally held in the Roman Catholic Church. General coimcils held at Lyons and at Florence decided that both those who died in mortal sin and those who were only tainted by orig-