The Idea of Limbo in Thomas Aquinas

The Thomist 62 (1998): 217-44 THE IDEA OF LIMBO IN THOMAS AQUINAS CHRISTOPHER BEITING Exeter College Oxford, England LIMBO WAS posited by Christian thinkers initially as a place for the Fathers of the Old Testament, and later as a place for unbaptized infants. In time, thanks largely to the efforts of Albertus Magnus,1 the single realm of limbo was eventually considered as two places, the limbus patrum, or limbo of the Fathers, and the limbus puerorum, or limbo of children.2 Aquinas's treatment of the idea of limbo is no less systematic than one would expect; he analyzes its distant origins in the questions of original sin and the incarnation, considers in a detailed way the harrowing of hell, and treats extensively the plight of unbaptized infants and the limbus puerorum. Although he is less preoccupied with the actual geography of the afterlife than other Scholastics, he is correspondingly more focused upon the theological and philosophical understanding of the various states, and the status of the souls within them. For the purposes ofthis article, we shall only examine excerpts from a select few works ofAquinas's vast literary corpus. The first work of importance is his commentary on Peter Lombard's Sentences, which dates from the period 1252-56 when he lectured as a sententarius at the University of Paris. Another work to be considered is the disputed question on evil (De Malo). Its dating is still a subject of controversy,3 but it was most probably completed before 1268. Finally, there is Aquinas's magnum opus, 1 Albertus Magnus, In III Sent., d. 22, a. 4, and elsewhere. 2 See A Gaudel, "Limbes," Dictionnaire de theologie catholique 9 (Paris, 1926), 760-71; J. Le Goff, "Les limbes," Nouvelle revue de psychoanalyse 34 (1986): 151-73. 3 J. Weisheipl, Friar Thomas d'Aquino (Oxford, 1977), 363-64. 217 218 CHRISTOPHER BEITING the Summa Theologiae, begun in 1266 and left unfinished at his death. I. ORIGINAL SIN Before considering the complexities of Aquinas's arguments about limbo, we should examine his views on original sin. Aquinas covers the question of original sin in depth in the Summa Theologiae, but fortunately he does so with a view to uncovering its simplest elements.4 Aquinas has a particular view of the state of prelapsarian man. Man was created to enjoy the full beatific vision, but he did not enjoy this in Eden, even though he retained there a greater ability to perceive God than we do. Adam possessed many other special graces from God. He had virtues that directed his reason correctly and enabled him to keep the elements of his will and body in harmony and under the control of reason.5 Furthermore, he was immortal, by virtue of divine gift, as long as he remained subject to God.6 Sadly, Adam fell into sin, which Aquinas defined as action contrary to God's eternal law. With Adam's disobedience, sin entered into the world and into human nature. Several earlier theories about the transmission of original sin were rejected by Aquinas. He denied the idea that a tainted soul is passed on from father to son as a seat of sin, that a soul receives sin from contact with corrupted flesh, and that guilt is passed along through reproduction in the same way that bodily defects could be passed along. Concupiscence is a by-product of original sin, not its primary transmitter. Aquinas placed himself in the Anselmian tradition that original sin was a privation of original justice.7 Original justice, as Aquinas defined it, was "a definite gift of grace divinely bestowed upon all human nature in the first parent."8 When it was removed, man became subject to all 'For a detailed study of these matters, see the appendices in volume 26 of the Blackfriars edition of the Summa Theologiae. 5 Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, q. 95, a. 3. 'STh I, q. 97, a. 1. 'STh 1-11, q. 85. 8 "erat quoddam donum gratiae toti humanae naturae divinitus collatum in pdmo parente" (STh 1-11, q. 81, a. 2). All quotations from the Summa are taken from the Blackfriars edition. LIMBO IN THOMAS AQUINAS 219...