t Adopting for this verse 5 1 the reading of the Vatican manuscript, itavrtQ ov KoifiTjTOfieOa, irdvrts ft dXXay^trofieOaj I have been led to take a different view of this chapter. " The whole chapter is written on the theme of the resurrection of the just: the wicked are nowhere considered " (&(otes on St Pauly pp. 131 sq.; cf. pp. 378, 381, on Romans viii, 21- 39). It is St Paul's manner at times to prescind from the wicked, and treat of the destiny of the normal Christian; or, as St Thomas would put it, to tell us of what is per se> and omit what is per accidens. St Thomas himself, in this very chapter, takes 1 Cor. xv, 44, to refer only to the resurrection of the just. Elsewhere however, on the solemn occasion of his trial before Felix, St Paul bears witness to the resur- rection of the wicked: Having hope in God that there is to he resurrection of the dead, both just and unjust (Acts I According to the schoolmen, the reason why any substance is changeable is because its matter is not fully actuated by its substantia] form, and thus remains in potentiality to other forms. The heavenly spheres {corpora caelestia) they thought were fully actuated by their forms, and were therefore im- perishable. They applied this doctrine to the body ffter the resurrection, saying that then the body, whether of a good or of a wicked man, was fully actuated by the soul, and therefore was incorruptible. This doctrine however had its difficulties, as we see here, in respect of the lost being subject to sensible pain, and even the just being susceptible of pleasur- able impressions of sense. Cf. II, Chap. XCVIII (a passage not translated): " The matter of a heavenly sphere is so thoroughly perfected by its own form as not to lie potentially open to other forms." Just so is every risen human body, good or bad.
OF GOD IN HIS REVELATION CHAPTER XG-How Incorporeal Subsistent Spirits suffer from Corporeal Fire and are bejittingly punished with Corporeal Punishments WE must not suppose that incorporeal subsistent spirits, — as the devil, and the souls of the lost before the resurre&ion,— can suffer from fire any disintegration of their physical being, or other change, such as our perishable bodies suffer from fire. For incorporeal substances have not a corporeal nature, to be changed by corporeal things. Nor are they sus- ceptible of sensible forms except intelledtually; and such intelle6tual impres- sion is not penal, but rather perfe6tive and pleasurable.* Nor can it be said that they suffer affli&ion from corporeal fire by reason of a certain contra- riety,t as their bodies shall suffer after the resurre&ion: for incorporeal sub- sistent spirits have no organs of sense nor the use of sensory powers. Such spirits shall suffer then from corporeal fire by a sort of constriftion {alligatio). For spirits can be tied to bodies, either as their form, as the soul is tied to the human body to give it life; or without being the body's form, as magi- cians by diabolic power tie spirits to images. J Much more by divine power may spirits under damnation be tied to corporeal fire; and this is an afflidion to them to know that they are tied to the meanest creatures for punishment.§ 1. Every sin of the rational creature comes of its not submitting in obe- dience to God. Now punishment ought to correspond and be in proportion to offence, so that the will may be penally afflidted by enduring something the very reverse of what it sinfully loved. Therefore it is a proper punishment for a sinful rational nature to find itself subject by a sort of 1 constri&ion 9 to bodily things inferior to itself.
2. The pain of sense answers to the offence in respe6t of its being an inordinate turning to some changeable good, as the pain of loss answers to the offence in respe<5t of its being a turning away from the Unchangeable Good (B. Ill, Chap. CXLVI). But the rational creature, and particularly the human soul, sins by inordinate turning to bodily things. Therefore it is a befitting punishment for it to be afflidted by bodily things.
Though the promises in Scripture of corporal rewards, like meat and drink (Isai. xxv, 6: lxv, 13: Luke xxii, 29: Apoc. xxii, 2), for the Blessed, are to be taken in a spiritual sense, nevertheless some corporal punishments, # In itself it is so: it is a good quality to be open torn from its place: on the other hand the fire too to sensible impressions: but what if the impressions takes hold of the same body, and endeavours, as fire that come in are disquieting, disgusting, dreadful, ever will do, to disintegrate and break the body up: the sensible settings of a vision of woe? The unsolved thus over that body a conflict rages between the imdifficulty of the subject is to know how pure spirits, mortal soul and the everlasting fire. And this is the having no organs of sense, are cognisant of anything * contrariety 9 in question; and in this contrariety, sensible: cf. II, Chap. XCIX. How can we know, felt, the agony of hell-fire consists, tied as our experience is to sense? X The angel Raphael seized the evil spirit, and tied t This is explained by a sentence at the end of it up in the desert of Upper Egypt (Tobias viii, 3). the previous chapter: — "The bodies of the damned $ The spirit may be ' constricted/ or tied, to shall be afflicted by corporeal fire, inasmuch as the some material substance, and that material substance keen quality of that fire is contrary to that equable be kept in violent agitation, such that, for every bodily structure and harmony, which is connatural vibration or other agitation of the substance, there to sense, though it cannot break up the structure: shall be a corresponding pang of the constricted for such affliction shall not be able to separate the spirit. — I need scarcely add that this notion of * con- soul from the body, since the body must ever remain striction 9 is not of faith, but is a theory devised to under the same form." — The notion is that the soul, explain what is of faith, namely, that everlasting fire reunited with the body in hell, has such a drastic teas prepared for the devil and his angels (Matt, xxv, 41), hold upon the body that not one bodily atom can be and somehow torments those spirits, GOD & HIS CREATURES BOOK IV with which the wicked are threatened in Scripture, are to be understood as corporal punishments in the proper sense of the terms used. For though it is not becoming for a higher nature to be rewarded by the use of something inferior to itself: rather its reward should consist in union with some- thing higher than itself: nevertheless the punishment of a superior nature may fittingly consist in its being rated with things inferior to it. Some, however, of the corporeal imagery that we find in Scripture, speaking of the pains of the lost, may very well be interpreted in a spiritual and figura- tive sense. Thus in the saying, Their worm dieth not (Isai. lxvi, 24: Mark ix, 44), by the worm may be understood the remorse of conscience with which the wicked will be tormented: for it is impossible for a material worm to gnaw a spiritual substance, or so much as the bodies of the damned, which will be imperishable. Weeping and gnashing of teeth too (Matt, xiii, 42) can only be understood metaphorically of subsistent spirits; although in the bodies of the lost after the resurre&ion the phrase may be taken to have its bodily fulfilment, — not that there can be any flow of tears, for there can be no secretion from such bodies, but the weeping will mean pain of heart, trouble of eyes and head, and such usual accompaniments of weeping.
CHAPTER XCI-That Souls enter upon Punishment or Reward immediately after their Separation from their Bodies THERE can be no reason for deferring reward or punishment beyond the time at which the soul is first capable of receiving either the one or the other, that is, as soon as it leaves the body.
2. In this life is the state of merit and demerit: hence the present life is compared to a warfare and to the days of a hired labourer: Man's life is a Warfare upon the earthy and his days as those of a day-labourer (Job vii, 1). But when the state of warfare is over, or the labour of a man hired for the day, then reward or punishment is due at once, according as men have acquitted themselves well or ill in the effort: hence it is said: The reward of thy hired labourer shall not rest with thee till morning (Levit. xix, 13).
3. The order of punishment and reward follows that of offence and merit. Now it is only through the soul that merit and demerit appertain to the body: for nothing is meritorious or demeritorious except for being voluntary. Therefore reward and punishment properly pass from the soul to the body, not to the soul for the body's sake. There is no reason therefore why the re- sumption of bodies should be waited for in the punishing or rewarding of souls: nay, it seems fitting rather that souls, in which fault or merit had a prior place, should have a priority likewise of punishment or reward.
Hereby is refuted the error of sundry Greeks, who say that before the resurrection of their bodies souls neither mount up to heaven nor are plunged into hell.* But we must observe that there may be some impediment on the part of the good in the way of their souls receiving their final reward in the vision of God immediately upon their departure from the body. To that vision, # Apart from interpretations put on Scripture they are compared to ' bats '), existences altogether texts, such as Jude 6: I Pet. iii, 19: the belief in the too slight, fleeting, shadowy and dormant, to be the deferring of rewards and punishments to the last day subjects of any signal reward or punishment. Nor is has been based upon a view of disembodied spirits as this view readily disprovable, except by the positive ' ghosts ' that 1 squeak and gibber ' (Shakespeare, teaching of revelation to the contrary, which indeed Julius Casar: cf. Homer, Odyssey, xxiv, 5-9, where is express and clear in the Catholic Church.
transcending as it does all natural created capacity, the creature cannot be raised before it is entirely purified: hence it is said that nothing defiled can enter into it (Wisd. vii, 25), and that the polluted shall not pass through it (Isai. xxxv, 8). Now the pollution of the soul is by sin, which is an inordinate union with lower things: from which pollution it is purified in this life by Penance and other Sacraments. Now it happens sometimes that this process of purification is not entirely accomplished in this life; and the offender re- mains still a debtor with a debt of punishment upon him, owing to some negligence, or distraction, or to death overtaking him before his debt is paid. Not for this does he deserve to be entirely shut out from reward: because all this may happen without mortal sin; and it is only mortal sin that occa- sions the loss of charity, to which the reward of life everlasting is due. Such persons then must be cleansed in the next life, before entering upon their eternal reward. This cleansing is done by penal inflictions, as even in this life it might have been completed by penal works of satisfaction: otherwise the negligent would be better off than the careful, if the penalty that men do not pay here for their sins is not to be undergone by them in the life to come. The souls then of the good, who have upon them in this world some- thing that needs cleansing, are kept back from their reward, while they en- dure cleansing purgatorial pains. And this is the reason why we posit a purgatory, or place of cleansing.
CHAPTER XCII-That the Souls of the Saints after Death have their Will immutably fixed on Good SO long as a soul can change from good to evil, or from evil to good, it is in a state of combat and warfare: it has to be careful in resisting evil, not to be overcome by it, or in endeavouring to set itself free from it. But so soon as the soul is separated from the body, it will be no longer in the state of warfare or combat, but of receiving reward or punishment, according as it has lawfully fought or unlawfully.* 3. Naturally the rational creature desires to be happy: hence it cannot will not to be happy: still its will may turn aside from that in which true happiness consists, or, in other words, it may have a perverse will: 'this comes of the objeft of true happiness not being apprehended as such, but^some other objeft in its stead,t and to this the will inordinately turns, and makes a last end of it: thus he who makes bodily pleasures the end of his existence, counts them best of good things, which is the idea of happiness. But they who are already blessed in heaven apprehend the objedt of true happiness as making their happiness and last end: otherwise their desire would not be set at rest in that objeft, and they would not be blessed and happy. The will of the blessed therefore cannot swerve from the obje6t of true happiness.
•"There might be probation after probation relation " (ib. p. 165). St Thomas however pre- even in the world to come. But some human souls sently (Chap. XCV) argues the notion of any pro- would continue obstinately and unrepentingly set in bation at all in the next world to be an a priori wickedness, age after age, and probation after proba- impossibility.
tion: for the possible malice of the will is vastly great. t Plato, Theatetus, 199b. " When the various What is to become of such obstinate characters? It articles of knowledge are flying about in the aviary of seems against the idea of probation, that periods of, his mind, wishing to catch a certain article out of the trial should succeed one another in an endless series, il general store, he takes the wrong one by mistake, as...The series of probations must end somewhere, it were getting hold of the ring-dove, which he had And then?" (Ethics and Natural Lav, p. 166.) " All in his mind, when he wanted the pigeon." this speculation, be it understood, lies apart from re- 4. Whoever has enough in what he has, seeks nothing else beyond. But whoever is finally blessed has enough in the object of true happiness, and therefore seeks nothing that is not in keeping with that objedt. Now the only way in which the will can be perverse is by willing something incon- sistent with the objedt of true happiness.
5. Sin never befalls the will without some ignorance in the understanding [cf. B. Ill, Chap. X]: hence it is said, They are mistaken who do evil (Prov. xiv, 22); and the Philosopher says that every evil man is ignorant.* But the soul that is truly blessed can in no way be ignorant, since in God it sees all things that appertain to its perfect well-being. In no way then can it have an evil will, especially since that vision of God is always adtual.
6. Our soul can err about conclusions before it is brought back to first principles. When the knowledge of conclusions is carried back to first prin- ciples, we have scientific knowledge which cannot be false.t Now as the principle of demonstration is in abstract sciences, so is the scope, end and aim, in matters of desire. So long then as our will does not attain its final end, it may be perverted, but not after it has arrived at the enjoyment of its final end, which is desirable for its own sake, as the principles of demonstra- tion are self-evident. J CHAPTER XCIII-7%*/ the Souls of the Wicked after Death have their W ill immutably fixed on Evil THE very disorder of the will is a punishment and a very great afflic- tion, because insomuch as a person has a disordered will, everything that is done rightly displeases him: thus it will displease the damned to see the will of God fulfilled, in all things, that will which they have sin- fully resisted.
3. The will is changed from sin to goodness only by the grace of God (B. Ill, Chapp. CLVII, CLVIII). But as the souls of the good are admitted to a perfect participation in the divine goodness, so the souls of the damned are totally excluded from grace.
4. As the good, living in the flesh, make God the ultimate end of all their doings and desires, so the wicked set up their rest in some undue end which turns them away from God. But the disembodied spirits of the good will immovably cling to the end which they have set before themselves in this life, namely, God. Therefore the souls of the wicked will immovably cling to the end which they too have chosen for themselves.§ As then the will of the good cannot become evil, so the will of the evil cannot become good.
# EtL Nit. Ill, ii, 14. evident to any man who is not an idiot; and prot It cannot be false, in so far as the principles positions relatively self-evident to the expert, who are correct, the sequence rigorous, and all facts rele- has kept up with the progress of a particular science, vant to the question are adequately gauged and put while to the layman, or the unprogressive student, into the reckoning. A very difficult thing to do in they are not evident at all. At the same time, novelty the concrete sciences: not so difficult in arithmetic, is not always progress.
geometry, and formal logic, upon which abstract § Even when that end has been wrested from sciences the dmonstratio of the schoolmen, the Aris- them and put out of their reach, e.g., sensual gratifi- totelian dm&ifo, is modelled. cations? To this some answer is attempted in Etkks t Ptr a nota. As St Thomas observes (ia 2*, and Natural Lain, pp. 162, 163. q. 94, art. 2), there are propositions absolutely self- CHAPTER XCW-Ofthe Immutability of the Will of Souls detained in Purgatory BUT because there are souls which in the instant of their parting do not arrive at happiness, and yet are not damned, we must show that even these souk cannot change their purpose after parting from their bodies; and the proof is this: — the souls of the blessed and of the lost have their will immutably fixed according to the end to which they have adhered. But the souls that carry with them into the next world some matter for purgatory are not ultimately in a different case from the blessed, for they die in charity, whereby we adhere to God as to our last end. Therefore they too will have their will immutably fixed.
CHAPTER XCV-Ofthe General Cause of Immutability in all Souls after their Separation from the Body THE end is in matters of desire like the first principles of demonstra- tion in the abstra6t sciences. These principles are naturally known, and any error concerning them could come only from a perver- sion of nature [verging on idiotcy]: hence a man could not be moved from a true understanding of such principles to a false one, or from a false to a true, except through some change in his nature. It is impossible for those who go wrong over first principles to be brought right by other and more certain principles; or for any one to be beguiled from a true under- standing of such principles by other principles more plausible. So it is in regard of the last end. Every one has a natural desire of the last end; and the possession of a rational nature, generically as such, carries with it a craving for happiness: but the desire of happiness and the last end in this or that shape and aspect comes from a special disposition of nature: hence the Philosopher says that as the individual is himself, so does the end appear to him.* If then the frame of mind under which one desires a thing as his last end is fixed and immovable, the will of such a person is unchangeably fixed in the desire of that end. But these frames of mind, prompting such desires, can be removed from us so long as the soul is united with the body. Sometimes it is an impulse of passion that prompts us to desire a thing as our last end: but the impulse of passion quickly passes away, and with it is re- moved the desire of that end. In other cases the frame of mind, provocative of such desire, amounts to a habit; and that frame of mind is not so easily got rid of, and the desire of an end thence ensuing is consequently stronger and more lasting: yet even a habit is removable in this life. We have seen then that so long as the frame of mind lasts, which prompts us to desire a thing as our last end, the desire of that particular end is irremovable, because the last end, or whatever be taken for such, is desired above all things else; and no other obje<5t of greater desire can ever call us away from the desire of that which we take for our last end. Now the soul is in a changeable state so long as it is united with the body, but not after it is parted from the body.* Separated therefore from the body, the soul will be no longer apt to advance to any new end, but must rest for ever in the end already attained. The will then will be immovable in its desire of what it has taken for its last end. But on the last end depends all the goodness or wickedness of the will. Whatever good things one wills in view of a good end, he does well to will them,t as he does ill to will anything in view of an evil end. Thus the will of the departed soul is not changeable from good to evil, although it is changeable from one objedt of volition to another, its attitude to the last end remaining constant.
- 1 Nor is such fixedness of will inconsistent with free will. The aft of free will is to choose, and choice is of means to the end, not of the last end. J As then there is nothing inconsistent with free choice in our will being im- movably fixed in the desire of happiness and general abhorrence of misery, so neither will our faculty of free choice be set aside by our will being resist- lessly carried to one definite objeft as its last end.§ As at present our common nature is immovably fixed in the desire of happiness in general, so hereafter by one special frame of mind we shall be fixed in the desire of this or that particular objeft as constituting our last end.|| Nor is it to be thought that when souls resume their bodies at the resur- reftion, they lose the unchangeableness of their will, for in the rcsurreftion bodies will be organised to suit the requirements of the soul (Chapp. LXXXVI, LXXXIX): souls then will not be changed by re-entering their bodies, but will remain permanently what they were.
* In other words, the soul in the body is still selves deliberating continually about means, but very $v(jiq> something that grows: out of the body it is rarely about ends. Character is said to become 'formed' ri\os, a made thing for ever, as an angel is. as life advances: that is to say, some definite view of t Bona qtuecunqui aliquis vult in ordine ad bonum fi- the meaning and purpose of life comes to be finally nemybene tult. The things must not only be 4 in view adopted: or, in Thomistic phraseology, ' the will of of a good end/ they must also be 'good,' that is, per- the last end becomes fixed,' practically speaking, bemissible, in themselves. See Ethics and Natural Lay*, fore death; and if so, he would argue, much more in p. 32, n. 3. But has not St Thomas said that "on death. A conversion or perversion, that is to say, a the last end depends all the goodness or wickedness total change of front for better or worse, does not of the will"? Yes, and therefore it is to be further occur in mature life, except where a series of choices observed that "whoever has placed a good end before and preferences has for years been leading up to such him, and regards it steadily with a well-ordered love, a consummation. We must not look for conversions never swerving in his affection from the way that beyond the tomb, nor, happily, for perversions either, reason would have him love, must needs take towards § Unless that object be so narrowed down as that his end those means, and those only, which are in all means of approach to it are limited and exclusive, themselves reasonable and just:...thus an end as if I were compelled to go to London, and saw only entirely just, holy, and pure, purifies and sanctifies one way.
the means, not by investing with a character of jus- || Concerning angels' wills, good and bad* St Thotice means in themselves unjust, but by way of elimi- mas writes (Sum. TheoL I, q. 64, art. 2): nation, removing unjust means as ineligible" (ib. pp. "Appetitive power is proportioned to apprehen- 36, 37). sive. Now an angel's apprehension differs from a man's X St Thomas here is not denying, what he through- in this, that the angel apprehends a thing at a glance, out supposes, that in this life our acceptance (intentio, by one fixed intuition; man by a course of reasoning, infuesio, desiderium ultimi finis) of anything as our last inclining him to opposite conclusions. Hence man's end is a free act. He is merely quoting Aristotle as will adheres to an object unsteadily, but an angel's sufficient authority for his present purpose. Aristotle's fixedly and immovably." See above, Chap. LV, § 4. words are in Eth. Nic. Ill, iv, 8. Cf. Aquinas EtAicus, Thus naturally there is no repentance for fallen I, pp. 51-54: Political and Moral Essays, p. 2 50. — Free angels, will goes with deliberation. We mortal men find our- CHAPTER XCVl-Of the Last Judgement THERE is a twofold retribution for the things that a man has done in life, one for his soul immediately upon its separation from the body, another at the resumption of the body. The first retribution is to individuals severally, as individuals severally die: the second is to all men together, as all men shall rise together. Therefore there must be a twofold judgement: one of individuals, regarding the soul; another a general judge- ment, rendering to all men their due in soul and body. And because Christ in His Humanity, wherein He suffered and rose again, has merited for us resurre&ion and life everlasting, it belongs to Him to exercise that judge- ment whereby risen men are rewarded or punished, for so it is said of Him: He hath given him authority to exercise judgement^ because he is the Son of Man (John v, 27). And further, since in the last judgement there will be question of the reward or punishment of persons present in visible bodily shape, it is fitting for that judgement to be a visible process. Hence Christ will take His seat as judge in human shape, so that all can see Him, good and bad. But the vision of His Godhead, which makes men blessed, will be visible only to the good. As for the judgement of souls, that is an invisible process, dealing with invisible beings.
CHAPTER XCVll-Ofthe State of the World after the Judgement T needs must be that the motion of the heavens shall cease; and there- fore it is said that time shall be no more (Apoc. x, 6).* A WORD in conclusion from the translator, or restorer. There has been present in my mind throughout my task the figure which I employed in the preface, of the restoration of a thirteenth-century church. I find myself surrounded with debris which I have found it neces- sary to remove from the stru&ure of the Contra Gentiles: — Ptolemaic astro- nomy pervading the work even to the last chapter; a theory of divine providence adapted to this obsolete astronomy (B. Ill, Chapp. XXII, XXIII, LXXXII, XCI, XCII); an incurred view of motion (B. I, Chap. XIII); archaic embryology (B. II, Chapp. LXXXVI, LXXXIX); total igno- rance of chemistry, and even of the existence of molecular physics: deficient scholarship, leading at times to incorrect exegesis (B. IV, Chap. VII, § 5: Chap. XVII, § 2: Chap. XXXIV in Heb. ii, 10): even a theology of grace and the Sacraments that might here and there have expressed itself other- wise, had the writer lived subsequently to the Council of Trent and the