Two works of Carlo Passaglia, the Roman College theologian who labored for the definition of the Immaculate Conception in 1854, join the library together, both in English for the first time.
On the Eternity of Punishments and on the Fire of Hell (Rome, 1855) gathers three short and strictly dialectical commentaries, sent to press, as Passaglia’s preface says, because the question of eternal punishment was breaking out afresh in England, France, and Germany. The first proves the eternity of punishments from the Scriptures in seven theorems; the second, in eleven, shows that reason alone finds nothing in the doctrine to condemn; the third, a biblical dissertation in eight, shows that the fire of hell is no metaphor. Passaglia’s own synopsis of the theorems is linked to each.
Theological Commentaries, Part III (Rome, 1851) is a far larger undertaking: three hundred and ten numbered sections on the division of God’s will into first and second (antecedent and consequent) and on the universal extent of the order restored through Christ. Beginning from Chrysostom, Passaglia gathers the witness of the whole Church, region by region (Alexandria and Africa, Spain and Gaul, Italy and the Roman Pontiffs, Antioch, Asia, and Palestine), that God wills all men to be saved and that Christ died for all, and he closes with an exposition, clause by clause, of 1 Timothy 2:1-7. The contents follow the divisions of Passaglia’s own analytical Argument, whose references link to every section, and the cross-references in its nearly three thousand notes are linked as well.
Both works may be read online section by section, or downloaded as a PDF and as an EPUB.