Table of Contents | Words: Alphabetical - Frequency - Inverse - Length - Statistics | Help | IntraText Library
St. Augustine
Enchiridion
IntraText CT - Text
Previous - Next
Click here to hide the links to concordance

CHAPTER XXIX - "The Last Things"


109. Now, for the time that intervenes between man's death and the final resurrection, there is
a secret shelter for his soul, as each is worthy of rest or affliction according to what it has
merited while it lived in the body.

110. There is no denying that the souls of the dead are benefited by the piety of their living
friends, when the sacrifice of the Mediator is offered for the dead, or alms are given in the
church. But these means benefit only those who, when they were living, have merited that such
services could be of help to them. For there is a mode of life that is neither so good as not to
need such helps after death nor so bad as not to gain benefit from them after death. There is,
however, a good mode of life that does not need such helps, and, again, one so thoroughly bad
that, when such a man departs this life, such helps avail him nothing. It is here, then, in this life,
that all merit or demerit is acquired whereby a man's condition in the life hereafter is improved or
worsened. Therefore, let no one hope to obtain any merit with God after he is dead that he has
neglected to obtain here in this life.
So, then, those means which the Church constantly uses in interceding for the dead are not
opposed to that statement of the apostle when he said, "For all of us shall stand before the
tribunal of Christ, so that each may receive according to what he has done in the body, whether
good or evil."
236 For each man has for himself while living in the body earned the merit
whereby these means can benefit him [after death]. For they do not benefit all. And yet why
should they not benefit all, unless it be because of the different kinds of lives men lead in the
body? Accordingly, when sacrifices, whether of the altar or of alms, are offered for the baptized
dead, they are thank offerings for the very good, propitiations for the not-so-very-bad [non valde
malis], and, as for the very bad - even if they are of no help to the dead - they are at least a sort
of consolation to the living. Where they are of value, their benefit consists either in obtaining a
full forgiveness or, at least, in making damnation more tolerable.

111. After the resurrection, however, when the general judgment has been held and finished,
the boundary lines will be set for the two cities: the one of Christ, the other of the devil; one for
the good, the other for the bad - both including angels and men. In the one group, there will be
no will to sin, in the other, no power to sin, nor any further possibility of dying. The citizens of
the first commonwealth will go on living truly and happily in life eternal. The second will go on,
miserable in death eternal, with no power to die to it. The condition of both societies will then
be fixed and endless. But in the first city, some will outrank others in bliss, and in the second,
some will have a more tolerable burden of misery than others.

112. It is quite in vain, then, that some - indeed very many - yield to merely human feelings
and deplore the notion of the eternal punishment of the damned and their interminable and
perpetual misery. They do not believe that such things will be. Not that they would go counter
to divine Scripture - but, yielding to their own human feelings, they soften what seems harsh
and give a milder emphasis to statements they believe are meant more to terrify than to express
the literal truth. "God will not forget," they say, "to show mercy, nor in his anger will he shut up
his mercy." This is, in fact, the text of a holy psalm.
237 But there is no doubt that it is to be
interpreted to refer to those who are called "vessels of mercy,"
238 those who are freed from
misery not by their own merits but through God's mercy. Even so, if they suppose that the text
applies to all men, there is no ground for them further to suppose that there can be an end for
those of whom it is said, "Thus these shall go into everlasting punishment."
239 Otherwise, it
can as well be thought that there will also be an end to the happiness of those of whom the
antithesis was said: "But the righteous into life eternal." But let them suppose, if it pleases
them, that, for certain intervals of time, the punishments of the damned are somewhat mitigated.
Even so, the wrath of God must be understood as still resting on them. And this is damnation -
for this anger, which is not a violent passion in the divine mind, is called "wrath" in God. Yet
even in his wrath - his wrath resting on them - he does not "shut up his mercy." This is not to
put an end to their eternal afflictions, but rather to apply or interpose some little respite in their
torments. For the psalm does not say, "To put an end to his wrath," or, "_After_ his wrath," but,
"_In_ his wrath." Now, if this wrath were all there is [in man's damnation], and even if it were
present only in the slightest degree conceivable - still, to be lost out of the Kingdom of God, to
be an exile from the City of God, to be estranged from the life of God, to suffer loss of the great
abundance of God's blessings which he has hidden for those who fear him and prepared for those
who hope in him
240 - this would be a punishment so great that, if it be eternal, no torments
that we know could be compared to it, no matter how many ages they continued.

113. The eternal death of the damned - that is, their estrangement from the life of God - will
therefore abide without end, and it will be common to them all, no matter what some people,
moved by their human feelings, may wish to think about gradations of punishment, or the relief or
intermission of their misery. In the same way, the eternal life of the saints will abide forever, and
also be common to all of them no matter how different the grades of rank and honor in which
they shine forth in their effulgent harmony.





236 Rom. 14:10; I1 Cor. 5:10.



237 Cf. Ps. 77:9.



238 Rom. 9:23.



239 Matt. 25:46.



240 Cf. Ps. 31:19.





Previous - Next
Table of Contents | Words: Alphabetical - Frequency - Inverse - Length - Statistics | Help | IntraText Library
Best viewed with any browser at 800x600 or 768x1024 on Tablet PC
IntraText® (V89) - Some rights reserved by EuloTech SRL - 1996-2007. Content in this page is licensed under a Creative Commons License