In Matt., viii, 11, it is spoken of under the figure of a banquet “with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven” (cf. In the New Testament, Christ Himself refers by various names and figures to the place or state which Catholic tradition has agreed to call the limbus patrum. For details see Charles in “ Encyclopedia Biblica”, s.v.” Eschatology“. Whatever name may be used in apocryphal Jewish literature to designate the abode of the departed just, the implication generally is (I) that their condition is one of happiness, (2) that it is temporary, and (3) that it is to be replaced by a condition of final or permanent bliss when the Messianic Kingdom is established. LIMBUS PATRUM.-Though it can hardly be claimed, on the evidence of extant literature, that a definite and consistent belief in the limbus patrum of Christian tradition was universal among the Jews, it cannot on the other hand be denied that, more especially in the extracanonical writings of the second or first centuries B.C., some such belief finds repeated expression and New-Testament references to the subject remove all doubt as to the current Jewish belief in the time of Christ. In this article we shall deal only with the theological meaning and connotation of the word.
The not unnatural transition from the theological to the literary usage is exemplified in Shakespeare, “ Henry VIII“, act v, sc. (2) In literary usage the name is sometimes applied in a wider and more general sense to any place or state of restraint, confinement, or exclusion, and is practically equivalent to “prison” (see, e.g., Milton, “Paradise Lost”, III, 495 Butler, “Hudibras”, part II, canto i, and other English classics). (I) In theological usage the name is applied (a) to the temporary place or state of the souls of the just who, although purified from sin, were excluded from the beatific vision until Christ’s triumphant ascension into heaven (the limbus patrum) or (b) to the permanent place or state of those unbaptized children and others who, dying without grievous personal guilt, are excluded from the beatific vision on account of original sin alone (the limbus infantium or puerorum). limbus), a word of Teutonic derivation, meaning literally “hem or “border”, as of a garment, or anything joined on (cf.
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