Section CCLXXVIII

If these things suffice, it is well; but if there continue to be those who resist, I shall finally employ that defense, VII., by which I shall either untie the knot or certainly cut it. Therefore, just as damnation is twofold, so a twofold acceptation of universal restoration can be distinguished. For just as one damnation is positive and another negative; one which comprises both the privation of the intuitive vision and eternal—

—fires, and another which is concluded by the privation of the intuitive vision alone; so universal restoration can be understood in two ways: either as it is opposed to the necessity of incurring positive damnation and supplies the opportunity and faculty of avoiding it, or as it also excludes the very necessity of negative damnation. Therefore, when we call restoration universal, it can be asked whether it is affirmed by us as universal insofar as it is opposed to the necessity of positive damnation, or also insofar as it excludes the necessity of negative damnation. For it is not the same whether it is established as universal in the former or in the latter sense. But even if, constrained by the difficulty, we should confess that the compass of restoration does not extend to those infants who die before they could receive the means by which the original stain is cleansed and the splendor of adoption is bestowed, it would nevertheless by no means follow that restoration ought not to be called and believed universal in the former sense. If you ask the cause, I have one to bring forth which is altogether lucid. Namely, it is a hypothesis which no prudent man would spurn and no one would condemn without rashness: that infants bound only by the guilt of origin are punished by no damnation other than the negative. This hypothesis alone a) the Eastern Church has approved and approves¹; this alone b) not a few of the Latin Fathers have followed²; to this alone c) the School from the twelfth century onward has given its suffrage³—

—d) Innocent III confirmed it in express words⁴; e) the Synod of Florence seems not obscurely to have preferred it⁵; f) it alone occupied the minds and souls of the faithful⁶; and g) the analogy of dogmas and the harmony of doctrines alone persuade it⁷. Therefore, although the benefits of restoration did not pertain to those infants who are snatched away by a bitter fate, it would nevertheless remain fixed and ratified that there is no one who is pressed by the necessity of bearing positive damnation and who therefore rushes into Gehenna because he lacked the power by which he might avoid so great a destruction.