Principal Question Five of Chapter Three
On the limbo of children dying with original sin alone, containing six Questions
Question One
Whether the bosom of Abraham differs from the limbo of children
Now it is asked how the limbo of the holy fathers, called the bosom of Abraham, differs from the limbo of children.
To this it is answered that the limbo of children and the limbo of the holy fathers differ with respect to four things.
First, with respect to the hope of eternal life, because children dying with original sin have no hope of the blessed life. But the fathers, in whom the light of faith and grace shone, had the hope of the blessed life.
Second, with respect to guilt, because guilt in the holy fathers had been expiated insofar as it was infective of the person; there nevertheless remained an impediment on the part of nature, for which full satisfaction had not been made, and therefore temporal punishment was owed to them. But for the children there is an impediment on the part both of nature and of the person, and therefore eternal punishment is owed to them.
Third, because the name “limbo of children” was never transferred to anything else, but after the death of Christ the name “limbo of the holy fathers,” or “bosom of Abraham,” was transferred to the name of the empyrean heaven. Hence now by “the bosom of Abraham” is understood the harbor and rest of the saints in heaven.
Fourth, with respect to the condition of the place and situation. For although it is probably believed that the place of both was the same, the repose of the blessed was nevertheless in a higher part than the limbo of children.
For, as was said above, at the center of the earth are four places positioned successively one beneath another. The first is the bosom or limbo of the perfect fathers. The second is Purgatory, or the place of those being purged. The third is the limbo of children. The last is the hell of the damned.
Concerning these four places it is said in the Apostles’ Creed, “He”—namely, Christ—“descended to those below,” or “to the lower places,” in the plural. Ecclesiasticus 24: “I shall penetrate all the lower parts of the earth, and I alone”—namely, in power and virtue, or with the human soul—“shall behold all who sleep” in hell and the limbo of children.
For none of them saw the divinity. They saw the apple—that is, the soul of Christ—but they did not see the fragrance of the apple—that is, his divinity; for then they would have been blessed.
And it follows: “And I shall illuminate all who hope in the Lord.” First, namely, in the limbo of the holy fathers, whom the soul visited together with the divinity and immediately made blessed. Likewise in Purgatory, by liberating all or some, as has been said: those whom the Liberator, seeing them personally, set among the blessed, but not the others.
These things are from Thomas in Book IV, distinction 46, and Blessed Vincent in his sermons.