Question Three
By which angels the soul is accompanied when it departs from the body, and whether it is immediately conducted to the place assigned to it
It is asked whether souls, immediately upon leaving the body, are accompanied by good or evil angels and are conducted by them without delay to the places assigned to them.
In answer to this, two conclusions are set down.
The first: after separation from the body, if there is no impediment—that is, if they possess nothing requiring purification, namely venial sin—the souls of the good immediately fly away and are conducted to heaven. The souls of the evil, however, are immediately conducted to hell after the manner of fire and stone: the former immediately ascends to its own sphere if there is no impediment, while a stone, when every obstacle has been removed, suddenly tends toward the center by its own weight. The contrary is heresy, as Thomas says in Book IV of the Sentences, distinction 49, article 5, question 2.
This is also proved by reason and authority.
First, it is proved by reason, through the topic of sufficient division, as follows. For if its reward is not rendered to the soul immediately after separation from the body, this can be for one of three reasons: either because the soul is not capable of it, because the reward is not owed to the soul, or because it is not owed immediately.
Not the first, because, since the soul is of an intellectual nature, it is capable of the blessed knowledge and vision of God, who is the principle of its being and whom the soul naturally desires to see. Human beings are also to be like the angels of God, Matthew 22, who always see God face to face. Therefore they immediately receive the reward.
Likewise, the reward is properly owed to the soul, for the whole principle of merit and demerit comes from the soul, because the body was only, as it were, an instrument.
Likewise, the wage ought immediately to be rendered to the hired laborer who merits it, according to Leviticus 19: “The work of your hired laborer shall not remain with you until morning.” It belongs most especially to God to do this. Therefore the soul leaving the body immediately receives the reward.
This is also proved by authority, and first concerning the good. For Christ says to the thief in Luke 23, “Today you shall be with me in Paradise,” placing the punctuation after “to you,” as Chrysostom expounds it in one way. And Gregory says in the Dialogues: “As soon as the souls of the perfect just leave the confines of this flesh, they are received in the heavenly seats.”
It is also proved concerning the evil. Job 21 says: “They spend their days in good things, and in a moment they descend into hell.” “In a moment,” that is, at the indivisible terminus of life. And Gregory says: “As each person departs from here, so he is presented at the judgment,” distinction 25, chapter Qualis. Thomas, Book IV, distinction 45, question 2.
The second conclusion: souls that have left the body go, accompanied, to the receptacles assigned to them.
Saint Bonaventure proves this in Book IV, distinction 2, saying:
It must be believed that, at the soul’s departure from the body, one or more good and evil spirits stand by. Then, when sentence has been given by God according to truth, if the soul is good, it is brought through the ministry of a good angel into heaven or into Purgatory until it is purified. After it has been purified, it is led out through his ministry. But if the sentence is unfavorable to the one judged, then it is conducted to hell through the ministry of demons.
This, however, as he says, is to be granted as probable and not asserted rashly. For Gregory says in Book IV of the Dialogues that the souls of the reprobate descend to hell by themselves.
These are Lord Bonaventure’s words.