De natura et gratia libri III, cum Apologia contra Catharinum

Concerning the punishment of original sin, which was proposed in the last place, there is nothing that we can establish so certainly that no doubt remains, and therefore the holy Synod of Trent¹ determined nothing about it. For Augustine seems to torment little children more than is right. Hence those who subscribe to his opinion are very few, and are called the tormentors of little children.² For he says in On the Faith, to Peter:³ Hold most firmly and in no way doubt that not only men who use reason, but also little children, who either begin to live in their mothers' wombs and die there, or having been born from their mothers pass from this world without the sacrament of baptism, are to be punished with eternal fire. Nor is there reason for us now to call into judgment (as some do) whether that book is Augustine's. For in the Hypognosticon, book 5, while refuting Pelagius, he seems to hold the same. For Pelagius used to say that little children who die before baptism, although they are not admitted to the kingdom of heaven so as to see God face to face as adopted sons, nevertheless, because they are free from sin, are received into the lowest dwelling of those of which Christ says, In my Father's house there are many mansions,⁴ where they would lead a happy life. And therefore they are baptized not for the remission of sin, which they had none, but so that they might receive adoption as sons and thus the right to the kingdom. To refute this, I say, Augustine argues that there is no third place where life could be perpetual,⁵ besides the kingdom of heaven (outside which there is no dwelling of the Father) and the gehenna of fire. For on the day of judgment, he says, there will be only two positions of those to be judged: namely at the right and at the left. The one will be sent into the house of the Father: the other into eternal fire. He does not deny here the limbo of the Fathers or purgatory, but a third place of perpetual life. Since the limbo of the Fathers was closed after the resurrection of Christ, when the Fathers were led out from there. And purgatory will cease on the day of judgment. And therefore there is no doubt that Augustine sent infants into eternal fire.⁶ He confirms this especially from that passage of Paul:⁷ Judgment from one offense unto condemnation. Whence he gathers that original sin merits condemnation. Nor does Paul's word add little strength to this opinion, where because of original sin he calls us children of wrath,⁸ that is, worthy of the wrath of God. For wrath carries punishment with it. But Augustine moderates his opinion in book 1 On Baptism of Infants, ch. 16, and in the Enchiridion ch. 93, saying that that punishment will be the lightest and mildest of all.⁹

Nevertheless, with the authority of the most illustrious Augustine always preserved, in short there are many who free little children from every punishment of sense whatsoever. In this opinion were the Master of the Sentences, and St Thomas, and almost all theologians. The reason approved by them is that it seems hardest to believe that the most just and most wise judge would exact the punishment of eternal fire from those who have committed nothing by their own will. Since John has left it written in the Apocalypse:¹⁰ As much as she glorified herself in delights, so much give her torment and sorrow. Whence on the contrary it is gathered that one who has glorified himself in nothing ought to experience no torment. Add that before baptism some sorrow for actual sins is required, but absolutely none is demanded for original sin: for the reason that it was not committed by one's own will, and no one can in any way repent of a fault for which he was in no way the cause: therefore for a sin for which in this life no repentance, no groaning or sorrow is demanded, why should any punishment of sense be inflicted afterwards? Nor indeed does this argument displease me, that if little children were punished with fire along with adults, it would follow that they would likewise hate God, murmuring against his justice, as adults continually do in hell: and thus they would be hardened and obstinate in actual sin: which it is certainly unjust to concede, since they had no evil will here: and in whatever place the tree falls, there it will be.¹¹ To this is added especially the authority of Innocent, in the chapter Maiores, On Baptism and its Effect.¹² Where he says: The punishment of original sin is the lack of the vision of God: but of actual sin, the torment of perpetual gehenna. Where, after he compares punishment with punishment, he clearly holds that no punishment of sense is inflicted on little children. It is true that he does not seem to say this by way of a determination in itself, but by arguing to prove another conclusion.

Therefore Paul is sufficiently answered,¹³ that that expulsion from the kingdom of heaven is a true condemnation. For in man created in pure nature it would be a mere natural negation not to be received into the kingdom of heaven. But since nature was created with justice, and (what we proved more fully above) with grace, and thus with a right to the kingdom, exclusion from it because of sin is a privation and condemnation, and an effect of wrath, and therefore a punishment. And from these things the answer to that passage about the day of judgment is gathered. For those who are sent into eternal fire most plainly hear that the causes of their damnation are actual sins: because Christ was hungry, and they did not suffer him: he was thirsty, and they did not give him drink, etc.¹⁴ Nor in the Gospel does that most just judge threaten that punishment except because of actual sin. But little children are condemned by that sentence alone: Unless one is born again of water and the Holy Spirit, he will not enter the kingdom of heaven.¹⁵ The words of Augustine also¹⁶ St Thomas and others intend to interpret, because they do not read in that passage of On the Faith, to Peter, anything except "to be punished with eternal punishment": where by the name of punishment they do not recognize fire, but the privation of vision. And this they say is called by him elsewhere the mildest punishment. If however it is read "to be punished with eternal fire" (as it is cited in the canon) or "to be punished with the eternal punishment of eternal fire," as it is circulated in his corrected works, and there is no doubt that the book is Augustine's, it does not admit of a gloss, except that it was his opinion, excessively rigid and harsh.

But there remains besides an argument¹⁷ from our declaration of original sin, whereby we said that it is that deordination of the soul from God: and to this aversion one can surely think that the punishment of fire is appointed. To this nevertheless it is answered that this kind of punishment is decreed only for that in which this kind of deordination exists by way of act, as it was in Adam, whose commandment was violated by his own will. In us however it remains only by way of habit, transmitted with nature. Therefore, since we are born deprived of grace and original justice, and for that reason are worthy only of that punishment, that we be driven from the kingdom into which that grace and justice would have sent us.

But a doubt still remains, whether at least those little children experience some spiritual punishment, because they are exiled perpetually from the kingdom of heaven: for this exile cannot by its nature fail to afflict a man severely.¹⁸ There may perhaps be someone who thinks that little children have no sense of sorrow about that exile, because, since they have not had faith, that ineffable happiness is entirely hidden from them, as being by nature in no way capable of being known.¹⁹ But such a thought is false. For natural knowledge, at least of a separated soul, and of a man departing hence, who is freed from the impediments of this world, reaches so far as to be able to know that his supreme end consists in conjunction with his first cause, through the contemplation of it. Which knowledge cannot fail to torture a man bitterly when he is an exile from it, even if he does not know in particular the Trinity of the divinity and other things revealed by faith above nature. Otherwise unbelievers of advanced age, on whom no ray of faith has shone, would feel no affliction in hell because they were not admitted to that divine vision. A pseudo-philosopher might perhaps say more profoundly that, since the soul cannot know except through species of things, by which objects are joined with the intellect, and the soul of a child has received none, or very few and slight ones, through the ministry of the body, it cannot, when separated, know in such a way as to apprehend its natural end.²⁰ But neither is this response approved by the wise. For since the soul, which is by its own nature perpetual, has from nature not only to be the act of the body, but also to subsist by itself, it follows that in separation from the body, by the concurrence of God, which he established with nature, it is imbued with species by which it can know natural things.²¹

And therefore finally the answer to the question is that although children, either outside the body or in the body after the world has ended, know that supernatural end, at least in general: nevertheless, because they understand that they never had a proximate proportion and aptitude for obtaining it, they are not saddened by it at all. Just as a wise man does not take it ill that he is not the supreme monarch of the world. For aptitude and proportion to eternal happiness do not exist except through grace and faith, or through the use of free will, by which, if a man had cooperated with God inspiring and knocking, he could have received that same faith by prevenient grace: but little children have had neither faith nor the use of free will. And therefore they are oppressed there by no anxiety, such as adults are. Many add besides, among whom is also St Thomas, that they love God as the first giver of natural goods, with that love which is possible to nature. Which I would not entirely reject: since natural reason inclines to it, and the weight of the flesh is not then an impediment. Yet I would not agree with those who ascribe to such little children the most happy life that can exist by nature.²² For in the first place it is necessary by no reasoning that they have all the sciences and knowledge of things which they could acquire here at a more advanced age, like the greatest philosophers. Nor would I approve that they enjoy the splendor of the sun over the face of the earth. For the sun and the spheres, then motionless, will not remain for any natural use of the living. And therefore it is far more approved that they will be in limbo:²³ namely in the third bosom above purgatory among the infernal regions. So that at least for this reason what Augustine says may be true, that there are only two places of perpetual life, namely above heaven and beneath the earth. Wherefore (as he also teaches in On Baptism of Infants, and is reported in De consecratione dist. 4 can. Nulla praeter)²⁴ it must not be denied that they are in perpetual darkness. Nor again must it be denied that this is perpetual death, as is in the decree of Pope John 30 quaest. 1 Ad limina. Indeed, because they were in some way hated by God and excluded from the kingdom, it cannot but make them unhappy. Wherefore either it must be said that²⁵ this cause by which they were expelled is hidden from them, which I would more approve, because it is outside the natural order of things; or if they know it, as some hold, I can scarcely understand how no sorrow from it troubles them. But in bodies resumed at the universal resurrection, they will have no injury: because although they are not incorruptible like the blessed through the gifts of glory, there will nevertheless be no natural cause that can harm them.