The Punishment of the Reprobate (Hell)

The Punishment Of The Reprobate

[From Brownson's Quarterly Review for January, 1862]

We had no intention in the few questions we asked last July concerning the doctrine of the church on the future condition of the reprobate, to open a discussion on that subject.  We recurred to it, last Octover, indeed, but solely for the purpose of correcting the inaccuracy of some expressions which, owing to the condition of our eyes, had escaped us, and of stating clearly and distinctly the meaning which we ourselves gave to our questions.  No good, in our judgment, can result from continuing a discussion, which, certainly, it was never our wish to provoke.  But the following letter from a most pious and worthy clergyman is so well meant, so sincere and earnest, and written with so much kind feeling toward ourselves, that we are sure we shall be pardoned for laying it with a few comments before our readers.

"DEAR DOCTOR:--Though a stranger to you, I find myself compelled to write you a few lines in humble but sincere language, in order to express to you the Catholic belief on the punishment of the reprobate, for it seems to me that you did not pay attention enough to the common and universal belief of the Catholic people, when you wrote on that subject.  But this is no little fault in a Catholic Reviewer, because Christ came into the world to preach to the poor, Evangelizare pauperibus misit me and commanded his Apostles to do the same.  The preaching of Christ and of his Apostles formed the universal belief,--the Catholic faith among the nations of the world, the perpetual tradition of the Church.  The learned man, the philosopher, cannot be a Catholic philosopher, if he does not take his principles from the Gospel as preached to and understood by the faithful Catholic people, because Jesus Christ himself preached it, and comanded it to be preached to the poor and illierate class.

"The doctrine of the holy Church is identical with the common belief of the faithful, and this common belief finds its experience in the lives of the Saints, who are given  hesametime asmodels of life to the people.  Such an experience is, for instance, given by St. Teresa of Jesus, whose manly spirit is admired even in our days, and whose writings are recommended by the Church of Christ in the following words: Multa eclestis sapientice documenta conscripsit quibus fidelium mentes ad supernce patrice desiderium maxime excitantur.  Brev. Rom.  

"The Saint relates the following fact which happened to herself.--See her autobiography, chapter xxxii

" 'Being one day in prayer.  I suddenly found myself in hell, without knowing in what manner I had been carried there.  I only perceived that God wished me to see the place which the devil had prepared for me, and which my sins had deserved [had she continued in the lukewarm direction, in which she was gradually declingin].  It lasted for a very little time; but should I live many years, I do not believe it would be possible for me to lose the remembrance of it.  The entrance appeared to be like a small street, long and narrow, and closed at one end, and such as would be the door of an extremely low, close and dark oven.  The floor seemed to me to be of dirt, very filthy, emitting an insupportable stench, and full of a very great number of venomous reptiles.  At the end of this little street, there was a hole made in a wall in the form of a narrow niche, into which I was thrust; and although what I have just related was much more frightful than as I described it, it could pass for agreeable in comparison with what I suffered in that niche.  This torture was so terrible, that all that I can say would not be able to represent the least part of it.  I felt my soul buring in such a horrible fire, that it would be the greatest difficulty to describe it as it was, since I would not even know words wherewith to espress it.  

"'Physicians have assured me that I have endured as dreadful pains as can be suffered in this life, as well by the contraction of the nerves and in many other ways, as well as by the evils which the devils have caused me; but all the sufferings are nothing in comparison with what I then suffered, besides the horror which I had at seeing that these were eternal; and that is yet little if we consider the agony in which the sould then finds herself.  It seems as if she were strangled, as if she were smothered, and her affliction and her despair attained such an excess that I would in vain attempt to describe it.  It is little to say that it appears to her that she is unceasingly torn in pieces, because this would be making it appear as if an external force was endeavoring to deprive her of life, where it is she herself who tears heself into pieces.  (How fearful must be the second death, that continual agony! how far from any amelioration and natural beatitude!) As to that fire and that despair, which are the summit of so many awful sufferings, I avow myself to be still less able to describe them.  ("For each one will be salted by fire" Mark ix. 46.) I did not know who caused me to endure them, but I felt myself buring and as it were chopped into a thousand pieces, and this seemed to me to be the most frightful of all these pains.  In a place so fearful there does not remain the least hope of receiving any consolation, and there was not room enough even to sit or to lie down.  I was in a hole made in the wall, and those horrible walls, against the order of nature, press and squeeze what they enclose.  In that place every thing stifles, nothing but dense clouds ('And the smoke of their torments shall ascend up for ever and ever." Apocal. xiv. 11), without any mixture of light, and I do not understand how it could be, that although there was no light, all that is most frightful and painful to the sight could be seen.

"'Although six years have passed since what I just relate took place, I am even now so frightened in writing this, that it seems to me, that fear freezes the blood in my veins.  So that, whatever evils and whatever pains I experience, I cannot call to remembrance what I then endured without causing all possible sufferings to appear contemptible.'

"This narration of St. Teresa, and similar ones of different other saints, as for instance of St. Frances of Rome, and the common belief, are identical, and form a true commentary on what the Scripture tells us with regard to this subject.  Touchingly they explain the state of the reprobate and of hell, that there is no life, no natural amelioration, no natural beatitude; but that there is the kingdom of death, an everlasting agony, no hope of change, but the stagnation of the evil.  Reading St. Teresa's experience, we at once see the fire, and perceive what is meant by the 'worm that dieth not,'--an expression which our Savior so emphatically repeats three times, Mark ix. 43, 45, and 47.  Yes, we see the sting which is within the reprobate soul, as it 'is she herself who tears herself into pieces.' This is the one and the only description of hell, and this one and only description is just as Scriptural as it is popular, for it is given by our Savior himself--given to the faithful in his time, given to the faithful at all times, given by the Apostles, given by the Catholic Church. 

"How did our Savior convey the idea of either life or death in the next world to the people?  First, by parables; as for instance; Luke xvi/ 19-31, in the parable of Dives he conveyed the full and true idea of reprobation to the minds of his hearers by stating: 1. That the unfortunate man was 'buried in hell.' 2. 'Toremnted in this flame;' and, 3, that there is a separation that cannot be crossed; 'between us and you there is fixed a great chaos. (Xaoua, chasm.) In our present order of things if one is buried, he is cut off from society, so, in the second order, if aman dies the 'second death,' and is buried in hell, for in heaven there is no burial ground,--being the land of the living,--he is among the dead, and in this manner, so long as the second order of things lasts, he is cut off from the society of the living, and even the yawning chasm would not permit any excape, and consequently, as there is no excape from hell, there is no excape from the flames, no excape from the torments.  The resting-place, where Abraham was with Lazarus, may not have been far from the place of torments, for it is also called inferi, or 'hell,' or, limbo,'--and our Savior descended there--whilst it is said that he ascended into heaven.  But, nevertheless there was no reunion imaginable, far less with the lofty place above, with the mansions of heaven.

"Is there any substantial difference between what our Savior preaches and what St. Teresa relates? At least the illiterate, poor people, to whomit was given by our Savior, took it just as it was given, took just the idea which was intended by Christ.  DEAR DOCTOR, let us ask the illierate, 'the little ones,' to whom it was explained by the Savior of mankind, and let us not confide too much in our own wisdom, for it may be confounded.  Yes, my DEAR DOCTOR, stay a moment, and listen to the unchangeable sentence, which our divine Redeemer once expressed: 'I give thanks to thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and hast revealed them to little ones.  Yea, Father; because so it hath pleased thee. Luke x. 21.  So it had pleased the Father to ordain, so the Son has confirmed it; so it is.  The Catholic philosopher, in order not to mount too high, must in all essential points ask and consult the poor Catholic faithful people.  'Non plus sapere, quam oportet sapere, sed sapere ad sobrietatem.' Rom. xi. 3.  And as the apostle advises a few verses after:' Idipsum invicem sentientes; non alta sapientes, sed humilibus consentientes; nolite esse prudentes apud vosmetipsos.' Rom. xii. 16.

"But let us proceed to another parable given by the Redeemer: St. Math. xiii. 30-43, 'Wheat and Cockle'--the one to be preserved, the other to be burnt up, ad comburendum, kata kavoat. Zum verbrennen; that is to say, to burn it as long as there is any substance capable of being burnt.  But as the immortal soul cannot be consumed, but in union with the body is confied to that awful place, which is separated from all communication--from which there is no excape-- it follows that the burning is without any intermission, and forever.  But what is meant by the cockle?  Our SAvior explains it himself: 'And the cockle are the children of the wicked one!' The Cockle on the field--the wicked as viator--as long as on the field it would be possible in the moral order of things for the cockle to change into whear, and therefore permission is given, 'to let them grow both together'--as the servants might take and pluck out what afterwards is no more cockle but wheat;--but as soon as it is cut off--it remains either the one or the other.  Therefore the cockle, the wicked, taken from the field is to be cast into the furnace of fire!  Does St. Teresa not speak of a furnace, or oven, or something like to it?  Is this not the common belief of the Catholic people in all the countries of the world?  Let us wait for no decison of a Council, when the simple believer is able to instruct us!

"St. Math. xii 47-52, follows with the parable of the net, which is filled with fishes, and after being drawn to the shore, the separation begins, and they cast forth the bad, (oanpa, which signifies putrid) which are of use any more: real outcasts!!

"In St. Math. xxv. 1. and following verses, in the parable of the Ten Virgins, we meet the expression: Nescio vos; 'I do not know you.' The reprobate are ignored by the Redeemer as they have failed to become what they should have become, according to the idea of God.  In the free creature co-operation is necessary.  If therefore by the abuse of the free-will this end, which God had intended, is not obtained, the creature is abandoned and cast out of the creation, into the outer darkness. And when, therefore, our Lord addressed the foolish virgins with: Nescio vos,it is just as if he would have said: ‘You have thrown yourself out of the sphere of my ideal world, out of my kingdom, out of my life!’ And St. Chrysostom remarks, that this expression. ncscio vos, is worse than hell itself, and is identical with the sentence: Discedite a me; ite in ignem aeternum! It is the sentence of reprobation. 

"So far the parables show the division either for life or for death; no medium, no recovery, no amelioration in man. as he is, as he historically is, in his present state. No natural beatitude can be expected when the supernatural is lost. 

"But we have particular expressions, used by our Saviour and the apostles, to signify the unchangeable and miserable state of the reprobate; expressions, which absolutely do not admit a mild explanation, or any natural life or happiness whatsoever. Therefore, in the second place, let us examine some of those weighty expressions. 

"1. Perdere in gehenna, St. Math. x. 28. ‘Fear not those that kill the body and cannot kill the soul; but rather fear him that can destroy both body and soul in hell.’ The natural death is nothing—for there is a resurrection, but the second is similar to destruction: no life whatsoever follows it. 

"2. Perire;‘For God so loved the world, as to give his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting.' St. John iii. 16. And the same Apostle in the same chapter explains the perire, perish, in the last verse: 'He that believeth in the Son hath life everlasting. but he that believeth not in the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth (yea/sl is the future, manebit)on him. St. John iii. 16. Life and death are thus undeniably and most clearly expressed; and every other state excluded. 

"3. Haec est mors secunda. This is the ‘second death.' Apoc. xx. 14. It is endured in the pool of fire and brimstone, where both the Beast (the luxurious, sensual and proud world) and the False Prophct (Anti- christ and all his forerunners) shall bc tormented day and night (without any intermission) for ever and ever (throughout eternity).’ Apoc. xx. 9, 10. 

"There is in that pool: 1. The Beast (wicked world). 2. The False Prophet; but 3. There is, moreover, every one else, who is not written in the Book of Life. ‘Aud whosoever was not found written in the Book of Life , was cast into the pool of fire,’ and, consequently, ‘tormented day and night' without any intermission, ‘for ever and ever,' throughout eternity. 

"By these expressions, of which many more are in the Scriptures, I intend to prove only, that there are but two states after this mortal life —·either life, restoration and glory, in heaven; or death, misery and eternal reprobation; for any one who is not written in the Book of Life-is with the Beast, and the False Prophet. There is no alternative- either life, or death; either with the False Prophet or with the Apostles; either with the Beast or with the Church; either in torments or in happiness; either in outer darkness or in the unalterable light; either with the devil in the pool of tire or with the children of the Kingdom in the glory of the Father; either in hell or in heaven! The state of the reprobate is a complete ruin, a complete death, prefigured only by our natural death, which, though dreadful, is only a slight representation of what shall happen, when the agony is perpetuated, and death feeds, as it were, on the immortal spirit without being able to devour it. Yes, it is a complete death, and worse than annihilation, for in this case death would consume and destroy itself by once completing the work of destruction; but this cannot be, on account of the nature of the spirit, which, being simple, cannot he annihilated. Therefore was the fate of Judas lamented by our Saviour himself, of whom he spoke without wounding charity, as he saw him as a real reprobate, in whom the last spark of that good-will, which is necessary to co-operate with divine grace, was extinguished. ‘Woe to that man by whom the Son of Man shall be betrayed; it were better for that man if he had not been born.' St. Math. xxvi. 24. Not to be, therefore, is infinitely better than to be a reprobate. 

"And this is the reason why St. Peter twice calls that state, ‘destruction.’ In Second Pet. ii. 1, he speaks of false prophets ‘bringing upon themselves swift destruction’-—‘whose destruction slumbereth not;' and in verse 4, he explains what he means by this destruction: ‘the place of torments,’ into which the reprobate angels were cast. In Second Pet. iii. 7, he calls it: ‘The perdition of wicked men;' and more palpably still in Second Pet. ii. 19, he calls the reprobate: ‘Slaves of corruption.' What a perfect harmony between St. Peter and the Evangelists, where we found them saying, ‘perish,' 'destroy,’ ‘the wrath of God abideth’ on the ‘slaves of corruption.’ Is there a priest who could possibly find expressions as strong as these `before us; and who blames him if he uses strong language in describing that ‘pool of fire,’ that place of ‘torments!' Is that according to the spirit of Christ and of the Apostles, whom we so often hear repeating the punishment of the reprobate? No, my Dear Doctor, for the truth surpasses here every description, and it is the greatest charity to remind our sensual and indifferent century, that there are ‘dreadful things in store for all who obey not the truth.’ Rom. ii. 8. St. Paul ‘fears and trembles’ and ‘chastises his body, and brings it into subjection; lest, perhaps, when having preached to others, he himself should become reprobate.' First Cor. ix. 27. 

"Dear Doctor, ‘I beseech you to contend earnestly tor the faith once delivered to the Saints,’ Jude i. 3; and not to console those that walk according to their own desires and sensuality; for such men have not the slightest idea of a ‘beatific vision,’ and do not wish it. ‘Natural beatitudc' is all they desire. That is the great change which I have ob- served in you since some time ago; that you advocate the aspirations of poor, fallen nature; and that, if you continue thus, it is you who will be the kogvoaios of our time, leading and consoling those that have no hone. 

"But if you do not believe me, ask others, ask men of piety and learning, ask the Sons of St. Ignatius, whose particular vocation it is to crush every germ of whatever indicates the slightest beginning of heresy; ask the theologian, and, as you yourself have formerly advised, ask the mystic—theologian; and they all will tell you that there is but one beatitude, consisting in life everlasting, and one reprobation, consisting in death, that last forever. They all will tell you, that whosoever is not found ‘written in the Book of Life, is to be cast into the pool of fire.’ 

"But nulla regula sine exceptione. True, and even here there may be an exception with the children that die without being baptized. But this is a pious opinion only, and not more, and may he received—for there are good reasons to sustain it, as many learned theologians have proved. Nevertheless it is but an opinion, an exception, which confirms the rule still more, "Now, my Dear Doctor, accept my good-will, my pure intention which Iliad when writing these lines——all the rest is patchwork, and needs your benevolence, and begs for your excuse. "Yours in Christ Jesus." 

The highly esteemed writer, we hope, will take no offence if we say, that he tells us little that is new to us, or that we had not previously considered. We had read, before asking our questions, the life of St. Teresa, and that of St. Frances of Rome: we had, also, read and carefully weighed the several texts he cites from the Bible, many years before we became a Catholic reviewer, and had even come to his conclusion, which we hold as fast as he does, that in the future life there are but two states: the one, heaven for the saints; the other, hell, for the wicked; that these states are each everlasting; that those in heaven cannot fall into hell, and those in hell cannot ascend into heaven; and, finally, that those who receive heaven, receive it as a reward of their merits, and those who suffer hell, suffer it as a punishment for their sins. This, as we understand it, is the substance of the belief of the church on this subject, even as he himself represents it, and therefore there was no necessity of his undertaking to prove it against us. 

Our theological friend labors under a grave mistake, if he supposes we deny that the punishment of the wicked is ever- lasting, or that we cannot, as well as he, say: "There are but two states after this mortal life,——either life, restoration, and glory in heaven,—or death, misery, and eternal reprobation; for anyone who is not written in the book of life is with the beast and the false prophet. There is no alternative: either life or death: either with the false prophets or with the apostles; either with the beast or with the church; either in torments or in happiness; either in the outer darkness or in the un- alterable light; either with the devil in the pool of fire, or with the children of the kingdom in the glory of the Father; either in hell or in heaven.” We know and believe all this. We stated expressly that the reprobate can never be saved, receive any lot or part in the palingenesia, can never see God in the beatific vision, or attain to any supernatural good, and therefore must be forever excluded from heaven, and remain forever in hell. There was little fairness or candor in arguing as if we held the contrary. We acquit the excellent writer of all intentional or conscious unfairness, but, upon reflection, we doubt not, he will admit that it is neither fair nor just to endeavor to prove against a man, as contrary to his opinions, what he undeniably and expressly maintains. 

Our pious and learned friend says, that there is no such thing as natural beatitude, and that there is no alternative—it is either heaven or hell; for there are but two states after this mortal life; and labors very unnecessarily to prove it against us, for we assert natural beatitude in no sense in which he denies it. Yet he tells us we 1nay hold that there is "natural beatitude," for children that die without being baptized. " But," he says, "nulla regula sine exceptione. True; and even here there may be an exception with the children that die without being baptized. But this is a pious opinion only, and not more; and may be received--for there are good reasons to sustain it, as many learned theologians have proved. Nevertheless, it is but an opinion, an exception which confirms the rule still more.” If there be no "rule without exception," it is also true that there is no dogma with exception. All dogmas of` faith express real truth, or truth of the ideal order, and therefore must be taken universally, and the admission of an exception to any one of` them is simply the denial that it is a Catholic dogma. lf, then, it be permitted to hold that infants are excepted from the second death, and are neither ad- mitted into heaven nor placed in hell with the beast and the false prophet, who are tormented day and night in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone, then it is not a Catholic dogma that there are only two states after this life, and that there is no natural beatitude. The exception, if admissible at all, instead of` confirming the dogma, simply denies it. The writer, then, must either deny that what he calls "a pious opinion" may be held, or he must modify his assertion that there are only two states after this mortal life. If` any thing is certain, it is that infants dying unbaptized, and adults dying in actual sin alike descend to hell, and to the same hell, are in the same state of` reprobation, only they are not all punished with the same degree of` pain or suffering. Such is the doctrine of the church as we have learned it. If our pious friend, then, concedes that it may be held that infants dying without baptism are not excluded from a certain natural good or beatitude, he must concede that every degree of, that good or beatitude is not necessarily excluded from “hell,” the "second death,” the "lake" or "pool that burneth ‘with fire and brimstone.” The author’s assertion, then, “no rule without exception,” however true it may be in practical matters, is fatal to himself: His concession of an exception with regard to infants dying without baptism, concedes all that he is endeavoring to refute ,all, indeed, that we ever thought of asserting. 

Our worthy and pious friend writes, no doubt, under the impression that we hold there is for man in the world to come a natural beatitude, to which even the reprobate may finally attain, or be restored; but if he had paid attention to the corrections and explanations we offered last October, he would have perceived that we hold no such thing, and that the melioration or diminution of their sufferings we spoke of, in no sense implies that they will ever attain either to the supernatural beatitude of heaven, or to what theologians understand by natural beatitude. This misapprehension grew out, we are willing to admit, of our use in July of the word beatitude, and which was understood by our theological friends in their sense instead of ours. We used the word not as implying that there is a natural destiny for man to which we supposed the reprobate might ultimately attain or be attaining, for we do not admit that man has or can have any natural destiny at all. His only destiny is supernatural. We used the term as the synonyme of good, some degree of which must always be supposed for man, if we suppose his existence at all as the creature of God. The complete severance of the creature, either from his first cause or his last cause, is not, as we said, his complete misery, but his total annihilation, since to the existence of any creature the final cause and the first cause are alike essential. Man by his creation participates of good in the first or cosmic cycle, and hence, is said to be physically good, but, as he could not exist without a final cause, he must have an initial or inchoate good in the second cycle, and therefore is not ' and cannot be totally depraved. Hence St. Augustine may say with truth that existence is itself good, and that for the damned even it is better to be than not to be. The words of our Lord with regard to Judas cannot be understood according to the strict letter, and may simply be a strong way of expressing the deep and terrible misery to which Judas had doomed himself forever by his betrayal of the Son of man.  

If this reasoning be correct, it is not necessary to believe in the ease even of actual sinners, that the damned are absolutely severed from all good, that is, from every degree of good ; but simply to believe that they are eternally reprobated from heaven, and therefore, as the fulfilment or completion of man’s destiny is heaven, for ever remain initial or inchoate existences for ever below their destiny, deprived of all means and of all hopes of ever attaining to beatitude, or the end of their existence. We never asserted that they would attain, or asked if we might not hope they would ultimately attain to natural beatitude or a natural destiny; but simply, if we might not hope that they would ultimately attain to that degree of imperfect good called by our theologians natural beatitude. The term, we grant, was ill-chosen, because we do not believe in natural beatitude at all; for beatitude is in fulfilling our destiny, which is in the palingenesia or supernatural order alone. But it was not beatitude in any order, but simply an imperfect degree of natural good that we really spoke of.

  It may be that in excluding from our conception of hell every degree of natural initial or inchoate good, we grievously erred; but still the doom of the reprobate, as we represented it, since it includes the loss of heaven, the loss of` God, the supreme good, the loss of glorification, and all the joys of the kingdom, and since it includes, in the case of all who die in actual sin, the internal torture of feeling that the loss has been voluntarily and maliciously incurred, and in the case of` all the necessity of remaining for ever mere initial or inchoate existences, for ever below their proper destiny, without any hope or possibility of ever being able to attain to it, seems to us sufficiently deplorable, sufficiently wretched, sufficiently miserable to satisfy even those who luxuriate with the greatest fondness on the tortures of the damned, and are the most ready to improve on the maxim of` the holy Scriptures; "The fear of` the Lord is the beginning of` wisdom,” by making it read : "The beginning of` wisdom is the fear of hell.” At least, we could wish no greater suffering to our most bitter enemy, and we can conceive it possible for the damned to suffer no greater misery, unless we suppose that God by a continuous miracle sustains them in existence for the sole purpose of` enabling them to bear a punishment above their nature. Our view of the case supposes as much misery for the damned as they are naturally capable of enduring, and hence, as we cannot conceive them to be supernaturalized, that is, raised above their nature, we hesitate to believe that the church teaches and requires us to believe that they will suffer any greater misery. 

The melioration of the sufferings of the damned we incidentally referred to, as our friend might have gathered from our remarks in October, was not a point we very strenuously insisted upon. We inferred it from the expiatory view of` punishment, which we were disposed to take, if` permitted to do so by Catholic faith. Expiation is in itself good, and, as far as it goes, tends to good. We cannot, therefore, conceive the wicked to be for ever expiating their sins, without inferring the gradual diminution of the punishment they have incurred; but, as their expiation can never be completed, their punishment can never completely end, and consequently is and must be everlasting. The diminution, therefore, is evidently only a logical inference drawn from tl1e expiatory character of the punishment. The point, then, to make good against us, is that the punishment is not expiatory, but purely and simply vindictive. Hence the question we asked; Are we obliged to believe the punishment of the wicked is simply vindictive, that is, vindictive in the popular sense of the term; or are we permitted to believe that it is expiatory? If our reverend friend had told us what is the real doctrine of the church on this point, he would have settled an important question for us, and answered the precise doubt we raised. We find in some theological writers deserving of great respect, the opinion advanced that the punishment is expiatory. If so, all that we concluded with regard to the gradual diminution of the sufferings of the reprobate must be conceded.  If this view of their punishment cannot be taken, then we know no reason or ground on which we can assert it, or in any sense hope for it. Why has not our friend, who undertook to teach us the belief of the church, instructed us on this point? 

He sends us for an answer to "the people" to "the poor and the illiterate," and says: "Dear Doctor, let us ask the illiterate ‘the little ones,’ to whom it was explained by the Saviour of mankind, and let us not confide too much in our own wisdom, for it may be confounded. Yes, my dear Doctor, stop a moment, and listen to the unchangeable sentence which our divine Redeemer once expressed: ‘I give thanks to thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and the prudent, and hast revealed them to little ones. Yea, Father, because so it hath pleased Thee.’ So it has pleased the Father to ordain, so the Son has confirmed it; so it is; the Catholic philosopher, in order not to mount too high, must in all essential points ask and consult the poor Catholic faithful people." But to refer us on a difficult point of theology to the illiterate, though very humble and edifying in one who writes English, and quotes Latin, Greek, and German, is not, we must be permitted to say, altogether satisfactory; for it docs not seem to us that the illiterate and simple are those best fitted to give us the true Catholic explanation. Our Lord, in the words cited, was not, as we understand it, contrasting illiterate, docile, and childlike Catholics with learned, scientific, and philosophical Catholics, and sending us to the former, instead of to the latter, to learn the mysteries of divine revelation; but docile and childlike Catholics, whether learned, or unlearned, with the proud gentile philosophers and the wise and prudent of this world, who neither know nor accept the true Catholic faith. That is to say, he contrasts Christians with non-Christians; those who are instructed by divine revelation, with those who either have received no such revelation, or through their pride and self- sufficiency have rejected it. The poor, no doubt, have the- Gospel preached to them, and it is a proof that the promised Messiah has come, that it is preached to the poor and illiterate; but it does not follow from this, that they who preach it are the poor and illiterate, or that science and learning are not very useful qualifications in those who are appointed to preach it.

If what appears to be the doctrine of our friend’s letter, that we are to learn our faith from the poor and illiterate, be the doctrine of the church, why does she demand a learned and highly educated ministry, and why do we found colleges, seminaries, universities, and make liberal expenditures to educate not only the clergy, but the great body of our people ? and why does our friend himself consult the Scriptures, the fathers, and the writings and experiences of the saints, and not content himself with simply consulting his housekeeper or his stable-boy? Why not shut up all our schools, burn all our libraries, and henceforth learn only what the unlearned are capable of teaching? We must believe that the writer, in his humility, has forgotten to inquire what would be the consequences of such a doctrine as this. It would tend to repress all thoughts and inquiry, render useless all literary or scientific culture; would condemn as useless, if not worse than useless, all the theological literature of the church ; declare worthless all the labors of the great fathers, doctors, and philosophers of the Catholic world; would endorse with a vengeance De Rancé’s plea for ignorance; and , if received as the doctrine and sentiment of the church, would justify the charge brought by her enemies against her, that she crushes thought and forbid all inquiries and all discussions which rise above the reach of  the illiterate and the simple. 

The writer mistakes entirely the question at issue between him and us, if any question there be. It was not what the illiterate or the poor faithful Catholic people receive as he faith of the church, we wished to ascertain; for of that belief we could hardly be ignorant. Moreover, we had and have some doubts whether the faith of the church can always be concluded with infallible certainty from popular belief. We have great respect for the poor faithful Catholic people: we honor them for their fidelity, and we have great confidence in their Catholic instincts; but it would be idle, it seems to us, to pretend that all that is popularly believed, that all the notions circulating among the ignorant and illiterate and held by them to be true, are to be received as Catholic dogmas, or the true and full expression of the belief of the church. They have many opinions which no well-instructed Catholic entertains, and many practices which every enlightened Catholic regards as childish and even superstitious. It is possible, then, we may know the belief of the poor, ignorant, and illiterate people, without being quite sure that we have the belief of the church. The question does not turn on what is the belief of the illiterate, but how far is their belief itself true Catholic faith? Even supposing them to hold in words the dogma, it may still be asked, if they understand the dogma in its true sense. Our questions did not relate to the terms in which the dogma is expressed, either in the language of Scripture, or of popular belief, but to the sense in which that language or those terms are to be taken. It is evident from the very nature of the case, that on this point the poor faithful people, the illiterate and uncultivated, however humble or docile they may be, can give us no information.  

One is almost tempted to think that the pious writer of the letter has never felt the need, either for himself or for others, of understanding the Catholic dogma, and ascertaining its scientific significance. This may be a merit in him, and he may, perhaps, not unwisely thank God that he is quite willing to accept the infallible speech of the church without asking what it means, or whether it means any thing or not; but we can assure him, all men have not, as yet, attained to his degree of perfection,-- or indifference, and that, in our times at least, there are a great many respectable persons who have a strong desire to understand what they read or hear spoken, and who really wish to penetrate beyond the mere letter, seize the intellectual sense, and give it a scientific expression, both for themselves and others. There are men, and, we confess, we are among them, who would understand what they believe, and be able to render a reasonable service to God--ratio nabile obsequium. These persons may be very wrong, and regarded by our friend as proud and haughty philosophers, against whom all honest men should be on their guard. But still there are such persons, and we cannot, for ourselves, agree in the wisdom or justice of rejecting their demands, much less of excluding them from the pale of our charity, and consigning them over to Satan, as incorrigible. It would be doing Satan quite too much honor. It is far better to allow them to use their reason, and to do our best to enable them to understand according to the best of human ability the word of God. 

We really know and understand nothing till we see and understand it in its principle, in its relation to the whole, of which, if it, be not a mere chimera or ens- rationis, it is an integral part. Take the popular belief on this subject of future punishment,—we must still ask, What is the principle or reason of this belief? What is its relation to the whole system of Catholic faith? Do you tell me that the church teaches it,  and therefore I must ask none of these questions? Let me tell you, if I am a thinking man, really a live and not a dead man, my mind does and will ask these questions, and others like them; and the only way that I can prevent it from asking them, is by a violent effort of my will absolutely refusing to think of the subject at all. The mind has its own laws, and, if it acts at all, it does and will act in accordance with them. When once it has been quickened into activity, it is in vain that you come forward with wise and prudent, or even pious admonitions, and tell it that it must not ask this or that question, and that, if it does, it will only wander from the truth, be involved in the inextricable mazes of error, and find its place at last with the beast and the false prophet, in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone. Either you must prevent the quickening of the mind, the bursting into life of its activity, or you must suffer it to think, think freely, think earnestly, think deeply, and aid and direct it to think truly, wisely, and justly, The suppression of thought, of all mental activity, may be attempted, but it can never be more than partially successful; for It is at war with the very nature of the intellect, and the manifest intention of divine Providence. Why were we made intellectual beings, why were we endowed with reason, if we are to live and die as if we were unintellectual and unreasoning animals? Why did God give us understanding, if understanding is not to be exercised? And if understanding is to be exercised at all, where will you fix its limits, set up your  stakes, and say: "Hitherto, but no further"? To suppress our mental activity is to suppress our manhood; is not to make us pious, devout, faithful, and docile Catholics, but mere brute-beasts. The great men, the fathers and doctors of the church, your Basils and your Chrysostoms, your Jeromes and your Augustines, your Gregories, Hilarys, Ambroses, Anselms, Thomases, Bonaventuras, and even Bossuets and Fénelons, were thinking and living men, men of the highest, the most cultivated, and the most advanced reason of their respective ages, and they labored not to suppress thought, to suppress inquiry, to suppress reason, and keep the multitude ignorant and brutish, but to quicken thought, to instruct intellect, to enlighten the ignorant, and to answer fully and scientifically all the legitimate questions the human mind asks or is disposed to ask. If we are men, living men, who love the truth, and seek the glory of God in the redemption, intelligence, and love of mankind, we too shall labor not to suppress, but to quicken, guide, and assist the activity of the mind, the characteristic of our nature. We wish our friend would understand, what we are sure he is not disposed to deny, that belief is an intellectual act, and that no man believes a proposition itself, any further than he understands it, and sees and assents to its reasonableness. You may tell me the church teaches an unintelligible proposition, and as I believe her, because I have reason to believe her God’s church, and that she has authority to teach, I must believe it. Very true, I believe her, but I believe it, and can believe it no further than I understand it, and I understand it no further than I see its relation or its analogy to the system of truth which has been committed to her keeping, or as a part of the whole doctrine of which she is the teacher. Beyond this I may accept the words, but they are to me empty words, with no distinct meaning. I have no difficulty in believing that they who die unregenerate are eternally excluded from heaven, and suffer for ever in hell, for that follows necessarily from the fact that heaven is the crown of the regeneration, and, to attain it, one must be regenerated, and live the regenerated life in this world. This eternal reprobation and the misery of the reprobate, as the consequence of the abuse of free-will, harmonize with the whole system of rational and revealed truth the church teaches, explains, evolves, and implies in her life through the ages, So far as this is the popular belief, so far the popular belief is reasonable and Catholic. But if you go further, and tell me the wicked are excluded from heaven not because they exclude themselves, but by an arbitrary act of God, by way of wreaking his vengeance on those who have obstinately, during this life, refused the good he proffers them, I naturally ask: What do you mean by this vengeance, and on what principle of natural or revealed truth do you assert it? Do you mean that this punishment is any thing more or less than the natural consequence of the reprobate state or condition in which the sinner dies and enters the world to come, and from which there is and can be for him no redemption? Is this your meaning? Then I understand you, and have no difficulty with the popular belief.  If it is not, and you say that the church requires me to believe more than this, I ask you to tell in plain and unequivocal language, what it is that you really mean, and what in addition Catholic faith requires me to believe? I ask you also, to show that what, in addition, is required of me, harmonizes with the known attributes of God, and with the general principles of revealed truth. 

Now, what is the teaching of the church on this subject, in relation to the precise difficulty we have stated, we do not pretend to know; but we must know it, we must understand it, and we must see its consistency with whatever else we are required to believe, or else there will be in spite of ourselves a doubt in our mind, a doubt which cannot be mechanically removed, or in any way removed without some intelligible reason addressed to our understanding. You may tell us that such a doubt is sinful, and that, if we entertain it, we are no true believers. But that will not remove the doubt. The motives you adduce are addressed to the will, not to the intellect, and may make us wish to get rid of the doubt, but they cannot convince the understanding. To will or not to will is always in our power, but not to believe or to disbelieve. There is no use in finding fault with us for this, for thus far we are not and cannot be blameworthy. Doubt is sinful only when it arises from some malice in the will, some indifference to truth, some neglect to seek for it, or for the evidence that it is truth; that is, it may be sinful in its cause, but not in itself as a purely intellectual act. Indeed, doubt is the first act of the reflex understanding, and he who has never doubted has never learned any thing. The merit of faith is in the fact that it is an act of love as well as of understanding. But we have no disposition to prolong this discussion, and whatever opinions we may have, directly or indirectly, advanced on the future punishment of the wicked, we, in intention at least, hold the Catholic doctrine, and wish to have on this, as on all other subjects, no doctrine not in accordance with it. The only two opinions we have advanced, which are supposed not to be in harmony with the teachings of the theologians and the belief of the people, are: 1. That the punishment of the wicked is not a positive infliction, but a necessary consequence of the state or condition in which the sinner dies, and vindictive only in the sense that it vindicates the wisdom, justice, and goodness of the creative act; and 2. That the future punishment of the wicked, which in the case of all actual sinners is a perpetuce gehennae cruciatus, involving what theologians call the paena sensus, though, in our judgment, the pain of internal rather than of external sense, but nevertheless is not punishment by material fire, as that term is ordinarily understood, in a literal lake or pool that burneth with literal fire and brimstone. With regard to the first point, St. Teresa’s experience testifies to nothing against us, for her experience does not represent God as inflicting pain, or the pain itself as produced by any external fire, but declares it to be "the soul herself who tears herself into pieces," which shows that the sufferings of the soul grow out of her internal state, not that God positively inflicts them. On both points, however, we are content with the doctrine of the following passage, which we find in Archbishop Kenrick’s Theology: "Attamen necesse non est eum concipere poenas irrogantem; nam ex ipsa peccatorum conditione, quum procul sint a regno coelorum, vehemens oritur dolor, qui, omnibus fatentibus theologis, est maximus damnatorum cruciatus, paena damni dictus. Quae autem supplieia ignis nomine in Scripturis designantur, non satis feliciter quis explicuerit; nec enim igni quo fovemur est similis. Caeterum carceris ipsius, ut ita loquamur, adjuncta haberi possunt quaecumque sint externa damnatorum supplicia, quin Deus ea inferens concipiatur." This, if we understand it, teaches that it is not necessary in order to hold the Catholic faith to believe that the punishment is a positive infliction, and therefore a supernatural punishment; but it suffices to believe that it grows out of the state or condition in which the sinner has placed himself, or in which he is found on entering the future world. As that state is the natural consequence of the abuse of his freedom, which constitutes the dignity and glory of his nature, we see no injustice, nothing contrary to the essential attributes of our Creator, who is good and goodness itself, in leaving the reprobate to suffer it, and we see not how God himself could, without reversing the whole order of his providence, do otherwise. But as we regard all suffering, even in this life, as expiatory in its nature and character, we regard this future punishment as an everlasting expiation for sin. Whether we have a right to hold this latter view or not, is a point on which we have asked for instruction from those who have the authority to teach, and are capable of setting us right, if we are wrong. The expiatory character of future punishment is, in our mind, connected with a general principle which runs through all the Creator’s works, and without which we could never discover or establish the dialectic character of pain of any sort. All the Creator’s works are dialectic, and every thing in them when rightly understood, has a dialectic sense. Several highly esteemed and learned theologians, to whom the very name of Gioberti is an abomination, have objected even to our criticism on that philosopher’s assertion that sin has its dialectic side, and assure us that we are wrong in saying that it is on no side and under no aspect dialectic, that is, reconcilable with good.  

With regard to the second point, as to the paena sensus asserted by our theologians, we are not disposed to say any thing more than is said by Archbishop Kenrick in the passage we have quoted. We by no means deny what theologians call the paena sensus, but we consider it rather a pain of internal than of external sense, and look upon it as growing necessarily out of the loss of heaven, or the supernatural destiny of man, which leaves the sinner and compels him for ever to remain an initial or inchoate existence, and therefore in the world of the senses, infinitely below that world of mentality in which the blest are. That the reprobate will suffer from creatures in hell, on the principles and in the way they suffer from them here, is possible and not improbable; but that they will be crowded into “ ovens, " thrown into “ pits, " or plunged into a "lake," literally burning with " fire and brimstone," and actually punished by material fire, as the term is ordinarily understood, we by no means deny; we only say that we do not believe that it is necessary to believe it. These and various other images used by the Scriptures and by our preachers, and taken literally by the illiterate or the vulgar, we content ourselves with regarding as used to express the greatness and intensity of the sufferings of the damned. So much it is evident the Archbishop in his Theology would concede us, and nothing more can really be collected from the experience of St. Teresa quoted in our friend’s letter. There may be great doubt whether the highly figurative or symbolic language of the Apocalypse has any reference at all to the condition of men after this mortal life, and, at any rate, there is no more reason why the beast should be taken figuratively to represent, as our friend says, " wicked world," than the lake of fire and brimstone should be taken figuratively. St. Teresa nowhere says that the damned are subjected to a literal burning, or that their agonies proceed from literal fire. Her language is highly figurative, and she uses the strongest expressions in her power to express the intensity of the sufferings of hell. But, after all, we place no great reliance on the saint’ s experience. She was a great saint, a noble woman, and a classical writer, yet it is not necessary to believe that she was inspired to reveal truth, or that she ever actually in her own person experienced the tortures of the damned. We have great respect for the experiences and visions of saints, but we are not disposed to take them as infallible commentaries on the Holy Scriptures, or as of any special value in determining what is or is not the Catholic dogma. We believe in the perennial inspiration of the church, that is, in the sense of a never—failing assistance of the Holy Ghost, but only to the end of preserving inviolate in its unity and integrity the idea, or truth itself, which she in her whole life is engaged in evolving, explaining, and applying, to the glory of God and the salvation of souls. But we regard this inspiration or assistance as given to the church as the new or regenerated human race, not to individuals, however learned, or saintly, or worthy to be venerated on our altars. Still, if our friend insists upon the literal interpretation of the language of Scripture and of the popular belief, we shall not quarrel with him; we shall only tell him that we think he has no right to accuse us of denying hell because we do not agree with him that it is literal fire. He may hold his opinion, but not impose it upon us as Catholic dogma. We would, however, say to him and to others who have accused us of denying the everlasting punishment of the wicked, that they seem to us to take a very low view, not of hell indeed, but of heaven. They seem to consider the loss of heaven, of the supernatural, that is to say, of their proper destiny, therefore of their supreme good, as a very trifling affair, and to imply no hell at all. Perhaps if they had a little more of that spiritual-mindedness and penetration into celestial things, which they are so ready to deny to us, they would perceive that we might more justly accuse them of denying heaven, than they us of denying hell. They seem to us to attach very little importance to the supernatural destiny of man, and therefore to the Incarnation, and to think somewhat more of escaping hell than of securing the joys of heaven. Will they permit us to suggest that, if they would more frequently prefer life to death as the subject of their meditations they would be none the worse theologians, and none the weaker Christians? Since the foregoing was written, we have received another communication from a learned and able theologian, and which, as we wish to have done with the subject, we append with a few brief remarks :— 

Sir: Excuse me, if I take the liberty of offering to your attention a few remarks relative to the two last numbers of your Review. I should perhaps, not have been under the necessity of doing so, if you had seen my short exposition on the eternity of punishment in a German news- paper, the Wahrheitsfreund.  Though I am not a great theologian, nor, in comparison with you, in the world of science of any importance, still I feel in the present case a great confidence in being able to give such answers to your questions as will put an end to the whole controversy. 

Your questions are founded on a false principle, on a false idea of eternity. If you had the right notion of eternity, you would never come to conclusions like yours. According to the Holy Scriptures, eternity is the natural opposite of time; or, better, time is the true opposite of eternity. In eternity, as far as it is eternity, there is no time——quia tempus non erit amplius, Apoc. x. 6. But if there be no time, then there is no succession: if there be no succession, then there is no mutation of  will and of punishment. “The will is in eternity" is equivalent to this proposition, "the will is immutable;” as long as it is mutable, it is not _ yet in eternity, but in time. In eternity vermis non moritur, et ignis  non extinguitur. Mark ix. 43; because there is no transition from existing to not existing, or from not existing to existing; no mutation, no annihilation, because there is no succession, no time, any more, whilst time reflects itself in motion eternity finds its picture in repose; whilst time is succession of the state of potentiality to the state of act. eternity is a simple state of act. There is only this difference between the necessary Being and contingent beings, that the eternity of the former excludes all state of potentiality be it anterior or posterior, whilst the eternity of the latter excludes only the state of posterior potentiality. But in any case eternity excludes all succession of the state of act and potentiality, so that the definition of eternity is necessarily this: "Eternity is a state of act excluding all succession."  It is a simple moment of existence enduring without change.  

I think it would not be so difficult to show to a rationalist the ration-ability of this idea. There is nothing extraordinary, nothing impossible in it; on the contrary, it concords with reason and experience. A man with a fixed idea, offers us a partial picture of the state of the wicked in eternity. His reason is directed to one point, from which even with the greatest labor it cannot be removed. It is in the state of immutability, of fixity, and in so far no more subjected to the laws of time. Suppose now, that his intellect and his will, all his conceptions and acts of will were in this state of fixity, then we should have a perfect image of the state of man in eternity. A man with a fixed idea through exterior influences can certainly come again to the full use of reason, because he is not yet quite free of the law of time; but if he were in the state of fixity with all acts of intellect and will, he never could be saved from such a state. 

After this, it will not be very difficult, Sir, to answer your questions. But first, I might make some few other remarks. Your doctrine, Sir, is, when not quite destructive, at least very dangerous to Christian morality. Human nature is so inclined to evil, that, if we should offer to the impious, hopes of natural beatitude, crime, which nevertheless pre- dominates, would reign to a far greater extent. Then your doctrine destroys the free-will of men. You say: "lf they (the wicked) continue to commit sin, how can we say, that Christ has triumphed over sin, that he has overcome Satan and destroyed his works?" Now, I ask you if a man should be obstinately determined to commit sin, throughout eternity, how could you suppose him not committing sin without doing violence to his free-will?  But is this not the grossest contradiction,— free-will and violence? He who is compelled, is not free, and he who is free cannot be compelled. So the triumph of Christ over sin cannot involve the consequence you draw from it, that men cannot continue to commit sin. But you ask perhaps: "Should the wicked in eternity continue to sin, would they remain eternally bad?" This question is a contradiction of terms as you easily will understand, when you remember, that their will, being in eternity, is necessarily immutable. 

I come now to your fundamental questions. You ask, 1st: "Are the wicked everlastingly punished because they are everlastingly sinning?" Answer: Yes. They enter with their sin in eternity and so this sin, though they do not commit new sins, is everlasting; they enter, as Dr. Klee says, into the state of Satanity. In Luke, viii. 18; the debt remains the same, consequently the punishment remains the same. You ask, 2dly: "Is their punishment vindictive, or simply expiative? " Answer: There is no difference, whether the punishment be vindictive or expiative, since it is eternal. Call it as you like, it is always the same punishment. But it is really both; it is vindictive and expiative, but remember well, eternally vindictive for an eternal sin, and eternally expiative of an eternal sin. • Does not Jesus Christ say himself of the wicked: Non videbit vitam, sed ira Dei manet super eum? John, iii. 36. In hell, Sir, there is no grace any more; but expiation in your sense, that is, satisfaction, involves and supposes grace. I beg to consider also the following oracles of the Holy Scripture: "Vae genti insurgenti super genus meum; Dominus enim omnipotens vindicabil in eis. . . . Dabit enim ignem et vermes in carnes eorum, ut urantur et sentiant usque in sempiternum." Judith xvi. "In flamma ignis dantis vindictam iis, qui non noverunt Deum, et qui non obediunt Evangelio Domini nostri Jesu Christi, qui paenas dabunt in interitu aeternas." Sec. Thessal. i. In the same sense St. Cyprian says: "Quos ineaxpiabili malo saeviens ignis aeterna scelerum ultione torquebit." Laud. martyr. 618. Bal. You ask, 3dly: "Does it necessarily include any thing more than is implied in the loss of heaven or supernatural good?" Answer: Though the loss of God is, according to the Holy Fathers, the hell in hell, still the Scriptures and the Fathers and the Church in her definitions speak always of positive, not only of negative or privative sufferings. But even supposing, that the eternal punishment does not necessarily include any thing more than is implied in the loss of heaven or supernatural good, we still must protest against a consequence such as this, that with eternal punishment natural beatitude can coexist. For it is self-evident, that to be out of God, consequently to be out of all good and within all bad and evil, is to be in hell, and likewise that the highest paena damni is also the highest paena sensus (vide Klee’s Dogmatik. V. ii. p. 463). You ask, 4thly: "Because none but the elect can receive may supernatural good, is it therefore necessary to exclude the reprobate from all diminution of their sufferings under the expiation eternally going on, or from gradually attaining to that degree of imperfect good foreshadowed in what theologians call the state of pure nature ?" Answer: Certainly it is; as in eternity there is no time any more, so there can be no succession, no mutation, no gradual diminution of suffering, no transition to any degree of perfect or imperfect good. Does not also the Holy Gospel indicate the impossibility of this alleged mitigation in the parable of the rich man, to whom a drop of water, i.e., the smallest mitigation is denied? You see, Sir, that all my answers are founded in the true Biblical idea of eternity, whilst your questions sup- pose eternity to be a time without limits, which is, you will agree with me, a chimera. Do you still require definitions of the church? I am here living, Sir, in the country, far from all communication with large cities; I have not all the books I should have to write on theological matters, I have not the Decreta Pontificum, nor the Concilia CEcumenica nor the Holy Fathers; I have nothing else than some hooks of theology. and some remarks written during the time of my studies; I am a poor missionary in Upper-Canada, and so I cannot furnish you with a great apparatus of science; but I hope you will not ask too much from me. I have said nothing but what a candid spirit must admit, and the whole of what I have said can convince you that your theory is not in harmony with the doctrine of the church. So this is not a point in which popular belief needs to be modified. Yea, the popular belief itself is a real argument against you. What is popular belief else, than the belief of all ages, all countries, and all the people of God, of the whole mystic body Christ, of the church herself? 

"Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus creditum est, non est erratum, sed traditum." When Nestorius in the fifth century asserted that the blessed Virgin was only the mother of a man, it was not yet defined by the church, but it was popular belief, that she was the mother of God, and is not this popular belief considered till now as the strongest proof against the heresiarch? Before the last Decennium the dogma of the Immaculate Conception was not yet decreed, but it was popular belief, and this popular belief was the strongest argument for our theologians. On this popular belief Father Passaglia founded his large work, De Immaculato Conceptu, and Father Ballerini’s Sylloge Monumentorum ad Mysterium Conceptionis Immaculatas illustrandum, is nothing else than a proof of the popular belief in this dogma. 

Another remark we have to make before closing this already too long letter. We believe in your good will, in your orthodoxy; we believe that you have not the slightest intention to assert any thing against the church; we are happy to see in your last Review such a firm declaration of your readiness to subject your opinions to the decision of the church; but, Sir, you must concede, that you were in an earlier number of your Review a little too incautious in speaking of the Index. In your article, Gioberti’s Philosophy of Revelation you say: "We know also, that modern orthodoxy is timid , and its defenders are more ready to denounce, to place upon the Index, or to pillory a man’s writings, than to refute them, to silence by authority than to convince by reason." Are such expressions not incautious? Can you conscientiously speak so about a congregation of the greatest dignitaries of the church and the most learned theologians of the world, who never place a work on the Index without having examined it on all sides, to whose decisions the greatest men of the Catholic world, such as a Ventura, Rosmini, Hirscher, Gunther, &c., &c., willingly and humbly subjected themselves?  But "errare aut errasse humanum est." Excuse me again, Sir, and, believe that I would not have said any thing against you, if not compelled by my conscience and my love of the truth and of our holy church, to whose service I offer my little faculties, my little labors, and my whole life. 

I am, Sir, 

Your obedient servant.

We were not ignorant of the definition of eternity given us by the writer, but the word eternal is frequently used in the sense of everlasting, in which sense it does not exclude the conception of time, or potentiality. When applied to punishment, it must be so used, and can only mean that the punishment is endless, or never comes to a conclusion. Taken in the sense in which it excludes all conception of time and potentiality, it applies and can apply only to God. Defined as our critic defines it, eternity, since it excludes all potentiality, is pure act, and only God is or can be pure act, for he only is or can be absolutely infinite. Eternity, in his sense, is God, who alone is eternal, or the Eternal One. To be in eternity is to be in God, and the blest are eternal, possess eternal life, only in him. To be "in eternity,” in the sense that it excludes all time, is to be in God, is to be God, for what is in God is God. The saints in glory participate in his eternity, because they have returned to him in- the palingenesia,—and through union with the Word made flesh, are united to him as their final cause, and are thus, as St. Peter says, made "partakers of the divine nature," divince consortes naturce.  

But this cannot be said of the reprobate. They are not in eternity, for they are not in God,—are not united to him in the palingenesia, for they are reprobate precisely because they are not and never can be so united. In them the potentiality of their nature is not reduced to act, and their misery is that it never can be; or, in other words, they have not attained, and never can attain to their final cause,——have not reached and cannot reach the term of their existence; that is, have not fulfilled and cannot fulfil their destiny. Hence they remain for ever initial, inchoate, unfulfilled, or incompleted existences, Hence they are and must remain for ever subject to time and its mutations, never reaching eternity. Possibly it did not occur to our critic, that, if the wicked are in eternity, they have reached the term of their existence, have reduced their potentiality to act, have fulfilled their destiny, and therefore are neither wicked nor miserable, but deificated and blest, are in fact saints in glory, which, he will permit us to say, is a "contradiction in terms." 

Time and eternity are not contradictories, but simply opposites, reconciled and brought into dialectic harmony in the palingenesia. Time and space are related to eternity and immensity precisely as the creature is related to the Creator; and as Creator and creature are not contradictories, so neither are time or space and eternity or immensity. Time is initial eternity, and space is initial immensity, and each is complete or completed only in God, who is eternity and immensity in his own real and actual being. The blest have fulfilled their destiny, have returned to God as their final cause, and in them the final chronotope has not been destroyed, for they remain creatures still, are not absorbed in God, as the Buddhists teach, but are brought into dialectic union and harmony with the infinite chronotope, that is to say, the eternity and immensity of God, indistinguishable from the divine essence itself. The difficulty with the reprobate is, then, that this union and harmony are not and cannot be attained to. They remain eternally in finite time and space, out of their dialectic union and harmony, out of the Logos, and are therefore sophistical. Had our critic duly considered this, he would have had less confidence in his demonstration of the impossibility of the sort of melioration under the expiation, for ever going on, we spoke of.  This demonstration is founded not on a false notion of eternity, but on the false notion of the relation of time and eternity, in supposing them to be contradictories, when they are only simple contraries, susceptible of reconciliation. Time has its origin and its being in eternity, as the creature has its origin and being in the Creator. 

  We cannot conceive of time being no more without conceiving of the total annihilation of all creatures. The time for This or That may come to an end, but not all time. The time of probation ends at death, and the unregenerate are from that moment fixed in their state of reprobation for ever. There is no time for them to enter the palingenesia, and they must remain for ever in their state of reprobation. On this point there is no disagreement between the critic and ourselves.  But that their condition within the limits of this reprobation is immutable, may be true, but is not, we maintain, a necessary logical conclusion.  

This disposes of the philosophic argument adduced against us. In answer to one of our questions, the critic concedes that the reprobate do not commit new sin, and simply contends that they remain for ever in the same sinful state in which they enter the world to come. Substitute the same reprobate state, and we accept his answer. That the wicked, as he maintains after Dr. Klee, “enter into the state of satanity," is a proposition that we do not fully understand, or which, if we understand, we do not accept; for we do not recognize two eternal principles, one good, one evil,——or the Manichean dualism. He says, furthermore, that it makes no difference whether we call the punishment vindictive or expiative, since it is eternal. With his permission, we think it does make some difference, if the word vindictive is taken in its popular sense and it was only in its popular sense that we objected to it. Popularly, the word vindictive means revengeful, given to revenge, and in this sense we doubt the propriety of calling the punishment of the wicked vindictive. In the other sense of the word the sense in which we use it when we say we vindicate a proposition against an opponent, or a truth against him that denies it, we are willing to admit that all punishment is vindictive. In the punishment of the wicked, God does not avenge or revenge himself, in the vulgar sense of those terms, but vindicates the logical or dialectic character of his own providence, proving it in harmony with the eternal Logos, which he himself is. He does universally and effectually what our critic is attempting, on a small scale, to do to us, that is, to vindicate the truth against our sophistry. The pain and mortification we should feel by being convicted would be our expiation of having been illogical, and vented sophisms. All sin is a sophism, is an error of logic, or an error against the dialectic truth of things, and really consists in the sophism of  on the part of the creature that he is not creature, but God. The expiation is the just reward of the error or sin, and is, therefore retributive. 

But when our critic talks of an "eternal sin," he talks again of something we do not understand. An eternal sin can be the act only of an eternal sinner, and therefore again only of an infinite sinner; an infinite sinner must be an infinite being; but an infinite being is actus purissimus, and therefore incapable of sinning. He only can commit an eternal sin who is in eternity; but eternity is God, and God cannot sin, nor he who is in God. Man may commit a sin that will never be forgiven, therefore a sin whose punishment or expiation will never end; but that is something very different from an eternal sin. 

The writer concedes our proposition that "hell does not necessarily imply any thing more than the loss of heaven or supernatural good," but protests "against a consequence such as this, that with eternal punishment natural beatitude can coexist. For it is self-evident, that to be out of God, consequently to be out of all good and within all bad and evil, is to be in hell, and likewise that the highest paena dammi is also the highest paena sensus." If he had paid attention to what we said in October, he would have omitted what he here says of "natural .beatitude." In the proper sense of the term, we believe in no natural beatitude; for beatitude is in the palingenesia, not in the cosmos. Yet the cosmos is initial palingenesia. The reprobate have no palingenesiac existence; yet, since they exist, they have a cosmic existence, and therefore an initial good. To deny this would be to deny that the reprobate have any existence, and if no existence, they can be the subjects neither of happiness nor of misery. But we have sufficiently explained this point elsewhere. We only add here, that, in our October number, we frankly admitted the inaccuracy of our language, and explained what we meant. There is neither fairness nor candor in our critics continuing to assert that we maintain that the reprobate attain or even may be attaining to natural beatitude. All the good pertaining to what theologians call the "state of pure nature," which they, not we, call natural beatitude, is simply an initial or inchoate good, as the cosmos is initial or inchoate palingenesia, or as man in the order of genesis is an initial or inchoate Christian. The reprobate never get beyond this initial or inchoate state, never attain to the stature of full-grown men, never actualize the potentialities of their nature or race and therefore remain for ever dishumanized and below their destiny and hence are said to be in hell infernus the below. 

Our critic says that “to be out of God, consequently to be out of all good and within all bad and evil is to be in hell." Will he tell us what he means by being within all bad and evil? Are bad and evil something positive? Are they positive entities?  If so, they must either be eternal or created. If you say eternal you are a Manichean; if you say they are created, you deny, that all the Creator’s works are good, and maintain that God can do evil, therefore be bad and wicked. He says, “the Scriptures, the fathers, and the church in her definitions, speak always of positive, not only of negative or privative sufferings." No doubt of it. But do they ever speak of evil as a positive principle, or a positive existence?  Nobody denies that suffering is positive, that is to say, actual suffering; but it is not by virtue of the presence of a positive existence called evil, but by virtue  of the absence of a positive good.  It is not necessary, Archbishop Kenrick tells us, to believe that the punishment of the wicked is a positive infliction,--and he, we must believe, is as good a theologian, as learned and philosophic as even our critic.  We have no doubt that the suffering of the reprobate is very real and very intense, but we are disposed to regard it not as a positive infliction, but as the natural and necessary consequence of the loss of God, the privation of heaven, which compels the reprobate to remain for ever mere initial, inchoate, unfinished existences, intensified in the case of actual sinners by the consciousness that it is through their own fault they must for ever so remain.

With regard to popular belief as a criterion of Catholic truth, we have already spoken. Popular belief is orthodox, so far as it conforms to the external and internal tradition of the church, and no further. The external tradition is the infallible speech of the church maintained by her definitions and decrees; the internal is the idea or Word whose divine human life she is evolving in her own life, as we have elsewhere explained. As to the words of theologians and even of Scripture, we wish it to be understood that the question is not what they are, but what do they mean. This question it requires a higher authority than either his or ours to answer. As to the moral effect of our alleged doctrine, we reply, first, that we have nothing to do with it, because we do not hold the doctrine objected to; and, second, that the fear of hell is a restraint only to those who believe it, and, if we present hell in such a light that nobody will or can believe it, the fear of it will restrain nobody. We thank the critic for the confidence he expresses in our personal orthodoxy and good intentions, but we are not aware that any one can justly suspect them, or that they need any special endorsement.  As to the complaint he makes of an incautious expression of ours when speaking of Gioberti, we assure him that we have very little sympathy with the meticulousness of modern theologians. We complain not that bad books are placed on the Index; that is all right and necessary as a guide to the faithful; but we mean to say that that is not enough. The discipline of the Index can be enforced in the case of very few who would be injured by reading the works censured. To place a book, in • our times, on the Index, only creates a greater eagerness to read it. It is necessary in addition to refute bad books. This is all we meant to say, and this, we think, no one can censure. 

There are two or three other points in the letter which we intended to notice, but we think we have said enough; and if, after the explanations we have given, our critics persist in accusing us of maintaining that there is natural beatitude to which the reprobate attain or can be attaining, or of denying the everlasting punishment in hell of the wicked, they must be a little dull of understanding, or deficient in fairness and candor. Our views on this, as on all other theological subjects, are submitted in humble deference to the Holy See, with the promise to abide by her decision. We seek to ascertain, to accept, and to obey the Catholic faith as committed by Him who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life to the church, not to make a Catholic religion, a Catholic faith, or a Catholic Church to suit ourselves, or after our own image.  With these remarks the discussion of the subject in our pages is closed.