ORIGIN OF A CHURCH DOGMA.
THERE are many people who think that the doctrine that the righteous when they die enter immediately into the presence of God, is as old as the Bible itself, because they imagine that the Bible teaches it. Others, who know of a surety that the doctrine has no countenance in the Bible, suppose that it is as old as the beginning of the spread of the mystery of iniquity. But such forget that the working of the mystery of iniquity was simply the insidious creeping of pagan principles into the Christian church, and that paganism had no fixed system of rewards and punishments. No doubt the great majority of people will be surprised to learn that the dogma is of comparatively recent introduction into the professed Christian church, and that it was for many years bitterly fought, and was anathematized by Popes. Yet such was the case. The history of its incorporation into the professed Christian belief, and the reasons which led to it, are thus graphically given in the "History of the Inquisition in the Middle Ages," by Henry Charles Lea, Book 3, chap. 8:— The annals of an intellectual center like the University of Paris are crowded with sentences pronounced against novel points of faith and their unlucky authors. Occasionally, however, some new dogma would arise, would be vehemently debated, would refuse to be suppressed, and would finally triumph after a more or less prolonged struggle, and would then take its place among the eternal verities which it was heresy to call in question. This curious process of dogmatic evolution in an infallible church is too instructive not to be illustrated with one or two examples.441 It might seem a question beyond the grasp of finite intelligence to determine whether the souls of the blessed are wafted to Heaven and at once enjoy the ineffable bliss of beholding the Divine Essence, or whether they have to await the resurrection and the day of Judgment. This was not a mere theoretical question, however, but had a very practical aspect, for in the existing anthropomorphism of belief, it might well be thought that the efficacy of the intercession of saints depended on their admission to the presence of God; and the guardians of every shrine boasting of a relic relied for their revenues on the popular confidence that its saint was able to make personal appeals for the fulfillment of his worshipers' prayers. The desired conclusion was only reached by gradual steps. The subject was one which had not escaped the attention of the early Fathers, and St. Augustin assumes that the full fruition of the vision of God can only be enjoyed by the soul after it has been clothed in the resurrected body. Among the errors condemned in 1243 by Guillaume d'Auvergne and the University of Paris were two, one of which held that the Divine Essence is not and will not be seen by either angels or glorified souls; the other, that while angels dwell in the empyrean heaven, human souls, even including the Virgin, will never advance beyond the aqueous heaven. The decision of the bishop and university was cautious as regards the divine vision, which was only asserted in the future, and not in the present tense, both as regards angels and human souls, but there was no hesitation in declaring that all occupied the same heaven. Thomas Aquinas argues the question with an elaborateness which shows both its importance and its inherent difficulty, but he ventures no further than to prove that the blessed will, after the resurrection, enjoy the sight of God, face to face. It must be borne in mind that the prevalent expectation in each successive generation that the coming of antichrist and the second advent were not far off, rendered of less importance the exact time at which the beatific vision would be bestowed, while the development of mystic theology tended to bring into ever more intimate relations the intercourse between the soul and its Creator. Bonaventura does not hesitate to treat as an accepted fact that the souls of the just will see God, and he asserts that some of them are already in Heaven, while others wait confidently in their graves for the appointed time. The final step seems to have been taken soon after this by the celebrated Dominican theologian, Master Dietrich of Friburg, who wrote a tract to prove that the blessed are immediately admitted to the beatific vision, a fact revealed to him by one of his penitents who, by order of God to solve his doubts, appeared to him ten days after death and assured him that she was in sight of the Trinity. Yet the doctrine was not formally accepted by the church, and the mystical tendencies of the time rendered dangerous a too rapid progress in this direction. The illuminism of the Brethren of the Free Spirit was a contagious evil, and the Council of Vienna in 1312 refrained from an expression of opinion on the subject, except to condemn the error of the Beghards, that a man does not need the light of glory to elevate him to the sight of God—thus only by implication admitting that with the light of glory the soul is fitted to enjoy the beatific vision. When and how the dogma spread that the souls of the just are admitted at once to the presence of God does not appear, but it seems to have become generally accepted without any definite expression of approbation by the Holy See. In October, 1326, John XXII. treats as a heresy to be extirpated among the Greeks, the belief that the saints will not enter paradise until the day of Judgment; but not long afterwards he changed his mind, and his pride in his theological skill and learning would not let him rest until he had forced Christendom to change with him. He expressed his doubts as to the truth of the new dogma, and indicated an intention of openly condemning it. His temper rendered opposition perilous, and none of the cardinals and doctors of the Papal court dared to discuss it with him until, in 1331, an English Dominican, Thomas Walleys, in a sermon preached before him, boldly maintained the popular opinion and invoked the divine malediction on all who asserted the contrary. John's wrath burst forth. Walleys was seized and tried by the Inquisition, cast into jail, and almost starved to death, when Philippe de Valois intervened and procured his liberation. Having thus silenced his opponents, John proceeded to declare his opinions publicly. In the Advent of 1331 he preached several sermons in which he asserted that the saints in Heaven will not have distinct vision of the Divine Essence before the resurrection of the body and the day of Judgment, until which time they will only see the humanity of Christ. "I know," he said, "that some persons murmur because we hold this opinion, but I cannot do otherwise." It shows the peculiar condition of the human mind engendered by the persecution of heresy, that this was a political event of the gravest importance.