Although Romanists reject the doctrine of an intermediate state in the sense of the ancient Church, they nevertheless divide the world into which the souls of men enter at death, into many different departments.
The Limbus Patrum.
They hold that the souls of the righteous before the coming of Christ descended into Sheol, where they remained in a state of expectancy awaiting the coming of the Messiah. When Christ came and had accomplished his work of redemption by dying upon the cross, He descended into Hades, or the under-world, where the souls of the patriarchs were confined, delivered them from their captivity, and carried them in triumph to heaven. In other words they hold the common Jewish doctrine as to the state of the dead, so far as the saints of the Old Testament period are concerned. Their views on that subject have an intimate relation, whether causal or inferential is uncertain and unimportant, with their doctrine of the sacraments. Holding, first, that the sacraments are the only channels by which the saving blessings of redemption are conveyed to men; and, secondly, that the sacraments of the Old Testament signified but did not communicate grace, they could not avoid the conclusion that those who died before the coming of Christ were not saved. The best that could be hoped concerning them was that they were not lost, but retained in a salvable state awaiting the coming deliverer. Whether they inferred that the Old Testament saints were not saved because they had no grace-bearing sacraments, or concluded that their sacraments were ineffectual, because those who had no others were not saved, it is not easy to determine. The latter is the more probable; as most naturally they received the doctrine of Sheol from the Jews, as they did so many other doctrines; and being led to believe that the patriarchs were not in heaven, they could not avoid the conclusion that circumcision and the passover were very far inferior in efficacy to the Christian sacraments.
The Limbus Infantum.
This is the name given to the place and state pertaining to the departed souls of unbaptized infants. As this class includes, perhaps, a moiety of the whole human race, their destiny in the future world is a matter of the deepest interest. The doctrine of the Church of Rome on this subject is that infants dying without baptism are not at death, or ever after it, admitted into the kingdom of heaven. They never partake of the benefits of redemption. This doctrine is explicitly stated in the symbols of that Church, and defended by its theologians. Cardinal Gousset, for example, says that original sin, of which all the children of Adam are partakers, is the death of the soul. Its consequences in this life are ignorance or obscuration of the understanding, feebleness of the will which can do nothing spiritually good without the assistance of divine grace, concupiscence or revolt of our lower nature, infirmities, sorrow, and the death of the body. Its consequences in the life to come are exclusion from the kingdom of heaven, privation of life eternal, of the beatific vision; “no one can enter into the kingdom of God unless he be born again in Jesus Christ by baptism; ‘Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.’ This is what faith teaches, but it goes no further. The Church leaves to the discussions of the schools the different opinions of theologians touching the fate of those who are excluded from the kingdom of heaven on account of original sin; infants, for example, who die without having received the sacrament of baptism.”1
Perrone speaking on this subject says, “We must distinguish the certain from the uncertain. What is certain, yea, a matter of faith, we have from the decisions of the Second Council of Lyons and the Council of Florence, both of which declare concerning infants and idiots: ‘Credimus … . illorum animas, qui in mortali peccato vel cum solo originali decedunt, mox in infernum descendere, pœnis tamen disparibus puniendas.’ Ita quidem Florentinum ‘in decreto Unionis,’ quod descripsit verba Lugdunensis in fidei professione. De fide igitur est, (1.) parvulos ejusmodi in infernum descendere seu damnationem incurrere; (2.) pœnis puniri disparibus ab illis quibus puniuntur adulti. Quæ proinde spectant ad hunc inferni locum, ad pœnarum disparitatem, seu in quo hæc disparitas constituenda sit, ad parvulorum statum post judicii diem incerta sunt omnia, nec fidem attingunt. Hinc variæ de his sunt patrum ac theologorum sententiæ.”2 Perrone goes on to show that the Latin fathers represent infants as suffering “pœnam sensus;” while most of Greek fathers say that they incur only “pœnam damni,” a sense of loss in being deprived of the blessedness of heaven. What that involves, however, he says is much disputed among theologians.