From: The 1885 "A Catholic Dictionary"
LIMBO
LIMBO. The Latin word Limbus (or “fringe”) was used in the middle ages for that place on the fringe or outskirts of hell in which the just who died before Christ were detained till our Lord's resurrection from the dead. It likewise signifies a place (also supposed to be beneath the earth and on the outskirts of hell) inhabited by infants who die in original sin.
(A) The Limbus Partrum is the Paradise of Luc. Xxiii, 43, so called because it was a place of rest and joy, though the joy was imperfect. In Luc. Xvi. 23, it is called by the Rabbinical name “Abraham's bosom,” ( בְחֵיקוֹ שֶל אבְרָהָם ) because there the just remained in loving intercourse with Abraham, the father of the faithful. Estius thinks it was to spirits in the Limbo of the Fathers as well as to those in Purgatory that Christ is said to have preached (1 Pet, iii. 19,20). The passage, however, is very difficult, and very different interpretations are given by Fathers and other Catholic commentators.
(B) Limbus Infantium. - It is an article of faith that those who die without baptism, and in whose case the want of baptism has not been supplied in some other way, cannot enter heaven. This is plainly stated, e.g., by the Council of Florence in the Decree of Union. But there was a natural repugnance to the belief that those who had committed no sin should be tortured in hell, and this difficulty led theologians to adopt various theories as by way of escape. 1. Some few theol0gians thought that God might be pleased to supply the want of baptism in infants by other means. Thus St. Bernard (“De Baptismo," c. i. n. 4, c. ii. n.1) thought that possibly such infants might be saved by the faith of their parents. A similar opinion is attributed to Gerson, Cardinal Cajetan and others - viz. that the lack of baptism might be supplied by the wish for the sacrament on the part of their parents or others; Cajetan requiring in addition the use of some external sign with the invocation of the Trinity. (See Billuart, “De Baptism." diss. iii. a. 1.) Another theologian, Albertus a Balsano ("Compend. Theol." vol. ii. § 325, quoted by Jungmann, "De Noviss."), believed that God might commission angels to confer baptism on infants who might otherwise perish without it. 2. The theologians of the Augustinian order (e.g. Cardinal Noris and Berti) held an opinion at the opposite pole - viz. that the infants in question were punished both by exclusion from heaven and by positive pain, though much less pain than is inflicted on those who die in actual mortal sin. This undoubtedly is the opinion of St. Augustine (Serm. 294, where he teaches that unbaptised infants were consigned to eternal fire), though their damnation will be "the lightest of all" ("De Peccat. Meritis et Remiss." i. 20). 3. The great majority of theologians - the Master of the Sentences, St. Buonaventure, St. Thomas, Scotus, &c. - teach that infants dying in original sin suffer "pain of sense," but are simply excluded from heaven. This opinion is no modern invention, for it is found in St. Gregory Nazianzen ("Or. in Sanct. Baptism." 23).[1] But do they grieve because they are shut out of Heaven? Bellarmin ("De Amiss. Gratiae," vi. 6, apud Jungmann) answers Yes. St. Thomas answers that they do not, because pain of punishment is proportioned to personal guilt, which does not exist here. He says they do not grieve because they cannot see God, any more than a bird is grieved because it be emperor or king: "nay, they rejoice, because they share in God's goodness and in many natural perfections." The opinion of St. Thomas is the common one in the Church. It is believed that unbaptised infants in Limbo know and love God by the use of their natural powers, and have full natural happiness.
The existence of the Limbo of Infants has never been defined by the Church, although the Jansenist Council of Pistoia was censured by Pius VI. For scoffing at it as a Pelagian fable. The doctrine of the Pelagians was widely different. They denied original sin and obliterated the destinction between grace and nature, and when pressed to explain the need of baptism replied that it was necessary to secure admittance to the kingdom of heaven, but not to obtain eternal life. “Eternal life,” to which the Pelagians admitted unbaptised infants, was of the same order as the Kingdom of Heaven. The happiness obtained in the Limbo of Infants is of wholly different order, being natural instead of supernatural.
("A Catholic Dictionary," by William E. Addis and Thomas Arnold, M.A., Third Edition Revised, London, Kegan Paul, Trench, & Co., 1 Paternoster Square, 1885, pp.518-9.)
Footnote:
- He thinks that infants who die unbaptised "will neither be glorified nor punished by the just judge, as being without the seal [i.e. baptism] indeed, but without wickedness."