Christ's Descent into Hell II: The Damned, Unbaptized Children, Purgatory, and the Start of Christ's Exaltation

Orientation #

He continues straight on through q. 52 (articles 6, 7, 8), having already established in earlier articles that Christ’s power extended in some way to everyone in hell, but differently to different groups (prev. lecture). After the second break he turns to “the new things”: the proemium of the fourth part on Christ’s exaltation. The neighbouring classes treat the Sentences on the descent into hell and then the Resurrection (q. 53).

The class, in order #

1. a. 6 — did Christ free any of the damned? (“Christ liberated some of the damned”) #

Objections read: (1) Isaiah 24 — those “gathered together in a bundle” [he plays with fasces] and shut up in hell “after many days shall be visited”; Isaiah there speaks of the damned who adored the host of heaven, so visitation looks like liberation. (2) Zechariah 9 — “thou also, in the blood of thy testament, hast brought forth thy prisoners out of the pit wherein is no water”; the gloss: he freed those bound in jails “where there is no mercy to refresh them” — the refreshment the rich man asked for; but only the damned are in prisons without mercy.

• Aside: give these texts to a modern scriptural scholar and see what he comes up with — “they read the objections, they didn’t read the answers.”

Sed contra: Hosea 13, “O death, I will be thy death; O hell, I will be thy bite” — the gloss: bringing out the elect, leaving the reprobate, he bit hell (took the good, left the bad).

His answer as Thomas gives it: the descent worked in the power of the passion, so it bore the fruit of liberation only in those joined to the passion through faith formed by charity, by which sins are taken away. Those in the hell of the damned either wholly lacked faith in the passion (infidels), or had faith without conformity to Christ’s charity — so they were never cleansed of sin, and the descent conferred no liberation from the guilt of infernal punishment. His gloss: “Tough luck.”

Aside: the terrorist tried in a New York courthouse under the Obama administration, all charges dismissed but destruction of property — “it shows the ridiculousness of it”; and the video of the Medal of Honor soldier.

2. Replies of a. 6 — visitation for consolation or for confusion (“some he visited for their confusion”) #

Reply 1: Christ visited all in every part of hell, but some for consolation and liberation, some for their refuting and confusion — as Isaiah 24 joins “the moon shall blush and the sun be confounded.” It may also refer to the visitation at the day of judgment, not to liberate but to condemn; so Zephaniah, “I will visit upon those men who are fixed in their filth.”

• Digression on the last judgment: one reason for it is that the good or evil a man does is not fully manifest until the end of time — a saint’s good continues for generations, and the harm of a Karl Marx descends for centuries; “the full record is not written yet.” A student adds Catherine of Siena, Dialogue: all your virtue and all your sin is through your neighbour.

Reply 2: “where there is no mercy, he refreshed them” is to be understood of the refreshment of perfect liberation, since the holy fathers could not be freed from those prisons before Christ’s coming.

• Digression: Socrates called the body a prison of the soul, thinking the separated soul better off for virtue and knowledge — “there is some truth to that, but it’s not the whole truth about the soul and the body.” Socrates would be scandalized by the resurrection; he’d have to publish a book of retractions. A student: “until death do us part” — and then you are joined again.

Reply 3: not Christ’s impotence but the diverse condition of the two states: men while they live can be converted to faith and charity, because in this life they are not confirmed in good or evil as they are after departing. The tree lies where it falls; pray that your will falls in the right direction. “As a man lives, so he dies” — and Aristotle: “such as a man is, so does the end appear to him.”

3. a. 7 — were infants dying in original sin freed? (“the boys who descended with original sin”) #

Objections: (1) they were held in hell only for original sin, just as the holy fathers, who were freed. (2) Romans 5 — if by one man’s sin many died, much more has the grace of Christ abounded to many; so much more should they be freed. (3) Baptism works in the power of the passion, as does the descent; baptism frees infants from original sin and from hell. Sed contra: Romans 3 — God proposed Christ as a propitiation “by faith in his blood”; these infants in no way shared the faith of Christ.

Answer: the descent had effect only in those joined by faith and charity to the passion. Infants had neither their own faith (no use of free will yet), nor were they cleansed by their parents’ faith or any sacrament of faith. Further, the holy fathers were freed because admitted to the glory of the divine vision, which no one reaches except through grace (Romans 6, “the grace of God, life everlasting”); the infants had no grace and so could not be freed. “It’s kind of a tough doctrine.” His remark: if this is true, those doing “these things called abortion” are responsible for a lot.

4. Replies of a. 7 — “the many” and the two applications (“the many should not be taken comparatively”) #

Reply 1: the holy fathers, though still held by the guilt of original sin as it regards human nature, were freed by faith in Christ from every stain of sin, and so were capable of the liberation Christ brought; not so the infants. Reply 2: “the grace of God abounded in many” is not comparative — not that more are saved by Christ’s grace than damned by Adam’s sin — but absolute: one man’s grace abounds to many as one man’s sin reached many. And as Adam’s sin reached only those carnally joined to him by his seed, Christ’s grace reaches only those made his members by spiritual regeneration — which does not belong to these infants. Reply 3: baptism is applied in this life, where a man can be changed from guilt to grace; the descent was shown to souls after this life, incapable of that change.

5. Discussion: the standing of limbo (“to deny limbo is temeraria”) #

A shared, unresolved exchange: how firm is limbo in the Church’s teaching? A document by theologians came out a couple of years ago; his recollection (as Father Peter told him) is that it is not defined, but that denying limbo has been judged temeraria — rash or bold — because it seems to call original sin and its consequence into question; “I have to look it up.” Objection from a student: then the present pope would be in trouble, and St Thérèse disliked the doctrine when she heard it in the catechism. Reply: it is a common opinion from Augustine, Thomas, Bonaventure, Alphonsus, “so it’d be risky to just throw it out.” He mentions Thomas’s position on Mary and original sin, and wonders whether these infants have any opportunity to accept Christ — “but I’ll leave that there.” Left unresolved.

6. a. 8 — did he free souls from purgatory? (“liberated souls from purgatory”) #

Objections: (1) Augustine, Epistle to Evodius: evident testimonies mention hell and its sorrows, and the Saviour is believed to have come there to make them safe from those sorrows — “but whether all whom he found there, or some whom he judged worthy of that benefit, I still require information”; yet that he came and granted the benefit, “I do not doubt.” Only those in purgatory were constituted in penal sorrows. He notes: Augustine is open to some being removed, but grants no liberation to the damned. (2) The presence of Christ’s soul is not less effective than his sacraments, and souls are freed from purgatory by the sacraments, especially the Eucharist.

• Aside on this: “I guess you put the coin in the box” — overzealous preachers rattling the box, and your uncle is out. (3) Whomever Christ cured in this life he cured wholly (Augustine, On Penance; John 7, “I made a whole man sound on the Sabbath”); he freed those in purgatory from the guilt of damnation excluding them from glory, therefore also from the guilt of purgatorial punishment.

Sed contra: Gregory, Moralia XIII — when our Redeemer penetrated the closed region of hell he brought out thence the souls of the elect; “it does not allow us to go there,” whence he freed others by descending but suffers us to go to purgatory.

7. His answer on purgatory — the passion’s power is not transitory (“did not have a temporary power, but an eternal one”) #

1. The descent was liberating in the power of the passion.
2. The passion’s power is not temporary or transitory but eternal — Hebrews 10:14, “by one oblation he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified.”
3. Therefore the passion had no greater efficacy then than it has now.
4. Therefore souls like those now detained in purgatory would not have been freed by the descent; but if any were found there such as are now freed from purgatory by virtue of the passion, nothing prevents those being freed by the descent. “So there he seems to say that some of them would be.”

Replies: (1) From Augustine one cannot conclude all in purgatory were freed, but that the benefit was bestowed on some — those already sufficiently purged, who while alive merited by faith, love and devotion to Christ’s death that they should be freed at the time of his descent from purgatory’s temporal punishment. (He compares the first-Saturday devotion.) (2) Christ’s power works in the sacraments by way of healing and expiation, so the Eucharist frees from purgatory inasmuch as it is a sacrifice satisfactory for sin; but the descent was not itself satisfactory, though it works in the power of the passion, which was satisfactory in general, and whose power must be applied to each one by something specially pertaining to him — hence not all were freed. Those had some special attachment to the passion and death of Christ.

• Aside: Catherine of Siena’s prayer on the blood of Christ, “a very striking prayer”; her great devotion to the blood, constantly referred to in a letter (to Raymond?). (3) The defects Christ at once cured in this world were proper to each man, but exclusion from the glory of God is a general defect pertaining to the whole human nature; so nothing prevents those in purgatory being freed from that exclusion while not from the guilt of purgatorial punishment, which belonged to each one’s own defect — just as conversely the holy fathers before Christ’s coming were freed from their proper defects but not from [the general one].

8. Proemium of the fourth part (“those things which pertain to the exaltation of Christ”) #

The plan: first the resurrection, second the ascension, third the sitting at the right hand of the Father, fourth the judicial power — “all those things are in the creed.”

9. Digression: the Sentences on procession (“the cause and reason for the proceeding of the creature from God”) #

The point: something the Sentences commentary brings out which he does not think is so clear in the Summa.

1. Thomas there says the proceeding of the Son from the Father and of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son is the causa et ratio of the creature’s proceeding from God.
2. There is a circle in God: what proceeds from God is ordered back to God; the rational creature is brought back through the mission of the Son and the Holy Spirit, and that mission includes their procession.
3. He ties this to the order of the Sentences: Book I on the processions of the Son and Holy Spirit, then the next book on the procession of the creature from God — the emphasis on procession, and “the old principle that the proceeding that is first and most perfect is the cause of every other proceeding.”
4. In detail: the creature’s procession is like the Son’s, since the Son takes the nature of the Father, and we are made to God’s image and likeness; and the Son as Word is the art of the Father, so we are made by the divine art. But we do not proceed from God’s nature by natural necessity as the Son does, but by God’s free choice — by way of will, not of nature — and so our proceeding is likened to the procession of the Holy Spirit, who proceeds by way of will.
5. In the return: we are joined to God by reason and by will, by wisdom and by love — and the Son proceeds as the wisdom of the Father, the Holy Spirit as love; “so together they’re bringing you back.” As we say, the Word enlightens every man coming into this world, and the love of God is diffused in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. Why the Sentences shows it: because of that order, this aspect of the truth has to come out, whereas reading the Summa one usually thinks of creation as a work of the divine nature, considering the substance of God, and does not think of the Son’s procession from the Father as the reason and cause of our procession from God. He reports mentioning this on the phone to Ryan Murray, who had not heard it said either. His own verdict: “I’m not sure I fully understand it, but it’s kind of interesting.”

His words #

• “the fasces” — his play on Isaiah’s “gathered together in a bundle.”
• “faith formed by charity” — the condition of being joined to the passion, and so of being liberated by the descent.
• “visited for their confusion” — the mode of Christ’s visitation of the damned, opposed to visitation “for their consolation and liberation.”
• “the full record is not written yet” — his gloss on why there is a last judgment.
• “temeraria” — rash or bold; the censure he recalls attaching to denial of limbo.
• “satisfactory in general” — the passion’s satisfaction, which must be applied to each by something specially pertaining to him; the descent itself “was not satisfactory.”
• “causa et ratio” — the Son’s and Spirit’s procession as cause and reason of the creature’s procession from God.

Texts #

Read in class: Summa Theologiae III, q. 52, aa. 6, 7, 8 (objections, sed contra, corpus, replies); q. 53 proemium (inferred); within these, Isaiah 24; Zechariah 9 with the gloss; Hosea 13 with the gloss; Zephaniah; Romans 3, 5, 6; Hebrews 10:14; John 7; Augustine, Epistle to Evodius; Augustine, On Penance; Gregory, Moralia XIII. Mentioned: Thomas, Commentary on the Sentences, Books I–II (the order and the doctrine of procession); Aristotle (“such as a man is, so does the end appear to him”); Catherine of Siena, Dialogue and a letter on the blood of Christ; Thomas on Mary and original sin; Plato’s Socrates on the body as prison.

His questions #

• Did Christ liberate any of the damned from hell? No: they lacked faith in the passion, or faith without charity, so were never cleansed of sin.
• Then what did his visitation do for them? He visited all parts of hell, some for consolation and liberation, some for refuting and confusion.
• Why are some converted in this life but none of the damned after death? Not from lack of power in Christ, but because in this life men are not yet confirmed in good or evil.
• Were infants who descended with only original sin liberated? No: they had neither their own faith nor a sacrament of faith, and no grace, without which none is admitted to the divine vision.
• Does “the grace of Christ abounded in many” mean more are saved than damned? No — “many” is taken absolutely, not comparatively.
• How firm is the doctrine of limbo? Left open — not defined, but he recalls that denying it was judged temeraria, and it is the common opinion of Augustine, Thomas, Bonaventure, Alphonsus.
• Did the descent free souls from purgatory? Only such as would now be freed by the power of the passion — those already sufficiently purged; the passion’s efficacy was no greater then than now.
• Why did he free those in purgatory from exclusion from glory but not from purgatorial punishment? Exclusion from glory is a general defect of human nature; the punishment answers to each one’s own defect.
• What does the Sentences bring out that the Summa does not? That the procession of the Son and the Holy Spirit is the cause and reason of the creature’s procession from God and of its return by wisdom and love.