Question Four
Why Christ, descending to limbo, did not liberate all the children together with the holy fathers
It is doubted why Christ, descending into the limbo of children, did not draw out from there the children found in it.
To this it is answered that Christ, descending to the lower regions, did not liberate the children from limbo for this reason: Christ’s descent to the lower regions had its effect only in those who were joined through faith and charity to the Passion of Christ, by whose power Christ’s descent to the lower regions was liberative.
But the children who had died with original sin were in no way joined to Christ’s Passion through faith and love. For they could not possess their own faith, since they had not possessed the use of free choice; nor had they been cleansed from original sin through the faith of their parents or through any sacrament of faith. And therefore Christ’s descent to the lower regions did not liberate children of this kind from limbo.
For this reason the holy fathers were liberated from limbo and admitted to the grace of Paradise, and this through grace, without which no one can arrive at heaven, according to Romans 6:23: “The grace of God is eternal life.” Since, therefore, children dying in original sin did not possess grace, they were not liberated from limbo by Christ.
Likewise, the Apostle says in Romans 3 that God set forth Christ as a propitiator through faith in his blood. But children who died with original sin alone were in no way participants in faith. Therefore they did not receive the fruit of Christ’s propitiation so that they might be liberated by him from limbo, and so forth.
These things are Thomas’s exact teaching in Part III, question 52, article 2.