• DOI:10.1353/frc.1999.0010
• Corpus ID: 170682454

The Idea of Limbo in Alexander of Hales and Bonaventure

@article{Beiting1999TheIO,
  title={The Idea of Limbo in Alexander of Hales and Bonaventure},
  author={Christopher J. Beiting},
  journal={Franciscan Studies},
  year={1999},
  volume={57},
  pages={3 - 56}
}

• C. Beiting
• Published 1999
• History, Philosophy
• Franciscan Studies

many aspects of their world, particularly those aspects for which there was only theological evidence, namely, the afterlife. When thirteenth-century writers considered heaven and hell, they had a great body of established opinion with which to work; even purgatory had been examined in depth under such a name for quite some time.1 But certain categories of individuals the Fathers of the Old Testament, or the ancient just; and infants who died without baptism, still gripped by original sin defied ready classification. Unbaptized infants were, on the authority of Augustine, generally confined to hell, but with a different punishment than the rest of the damned.2 In both cases, the difficulty was with original sin, which according to Christian thought could only be eliminated through the person of Christ. The Fathers had lived blameless lives of faith, though they were still weighed down by original sin. Likewise, unbaptized infants had led blameless existences, but had died before their original sin could be absolved. Christian thought had from the earliest times consigned both of these classes of individuals to hell for their original sin, but a "higher" portion of hell, on account of their virtue or innocence.3 These ideas largely held sway for centuries, but were in time regarded as inadequate for the theological sophistication of the thirteenth century. By that time, a word had come into being "limbo" considered as a place on the rim of hell but separated from its worst features. Thanks largely to the efforts of Albertus Magnus4, the single realm of limbo was