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    LIMBO From The Dictionary of Dogmatic Theology

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    Quo Primum
    Limbo is described as a place adjoining hell where righteous souls who died before Christianity dwelled until liberated by Christ, and where babies who die without baptism remain forever. While Scripture speaks of Abraham's bosom, it does not mention a place for unbaptized babies. Early Church Fathers distinguished between adults who die in personal sin destined for hell and infants with only original sin who cannot enter heaven but are not damned to hell. Some theologians believe limbo is also the eternal home for those of low civilization comparable to infants in lack of moral development.

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    LIMBO From The Dictionary of Dogmatic Theology

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    Quo Primum
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    Limbo is described as a place adjoining hell where righteous souls who died before Christianity dwelled until liberated by Christ, and where babies who die without baptism remain forever. While Scripture speaks of Abraham's bosom, it does not mention a place for unbaptized babies. Early Church Fathers distinguished between adults who die in personal sin destined for hell and infants with only original sin who cannot enter heaven but are not damned to hell. Some theologians believe limbo is also the eternal home for those of low civilization comparable to infants in lack of moral development.

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    LIMBO From the Dictionary of Dogmatic Theology

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    Limbo is described as a place adjoining hell where righteous souls who died before Christianity dwelled until liberated by Christ, and where babies who die without baptism remain forever. While Scripture speaks of Abraham's bosom, it does not mention a place for unbaptized babies. Early Church Fathers distinguished between adults who die in personal sin destined for hell and infants with only original sin who cannot enter heaven but are not damned to hell. Some theologians believe limbo is also the eternal home for those of low civilization comparable to infants in lack of moral development.

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    LIMBO From The Dictionary of Dogmatic Theology

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    Quo Primum
    Limbo is described as a place adjoining hell where righteous souls who died before Christianity dwelled until liberated by Christ, and where babies who die without baptism remain forever. While Scripture speaks of Abraham's bosom, it does not mention a place for unbaptized babies. Early Church Fathers distinguished between adults who die in personal sin destined for hell and infants with only original sin who cannot enter heaven but are not damned to hell. Some theologians believe limbo is also the eternal home for those of low civilization comparable to infants in lack of moral development.

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    LIMBO From the Dictionary of Dogmatic Theology

    E. Doronzo ed 1951

    limbo (Lat. limbus border, hem of a garment). According to the present teaching of the
    Church, it is a place adjoining hell, where the just who died in the grace of God before
    Christianity dwelled until they were liberated by Christ, and where babies who die without
    baptism dwell and remain forever.

    Holy Scripture speaks of Abraham's bosom as sojourn of the just (Luke 16:22), but not of a
    place for babies who died without baptism. Tradition begins, especially with the Greek Fathers,
    to differentiate between adults who die in personal sin and infants who die with only original
    sin, who cannot enter the heaven of the blessed and yet cannot share the fate of the damned in
    hell. In reacting against Pelagianism, which denied the transmission of original sin and its
    consequences, St. Augustine, endeavouring to defend this truth, held that babies who die
    without baptism will be subjected to the pain of fire, of original sin. This opinion later on
    influenced some theologians, but did not hinder the course of the other more correct and more
    benign opinion, according to which babies who die without baptism will suffer only privation
    of the beatific vision. This opinion was defended and developed by St. Thomas, and from then
    on prevailed in the schools. We find it in a letter of Innocent III to the archbishop of Arles, and
    in the Constitution Auctorem fidei with which Pius V1 condemned the Synod of Pistoia (DB,
    1526).

    The babies in limbo will not enjoy the vision of God, but will not be unhappy on this score,
    since the beatific vision is a supernatural good of which they have no knowledge. Some
    theologians (Billot) think that limbo is the eternal residence not only of babies and abnormal
    adults who did not have the use of reason, but also of certain classes of men of low-grade
    civilization, who are comparable to babies in the lack of development of moral consciousness.
    A strange opinion has recently gained favour in the theologies of Protestants and Orthodox
    Schismatics who, by abusive interpretation of some gospel expressions (Matt. 12:32; i Pet.
    3:18; 4:6), hold that all pagans are evangelized in limbo after their death and given the
    possibility of conversion and salvation. This opinion is critically untenable.

    BIBLIOGRAP HY
    ST. THOMAS, Summa Theol., Ill, Suppl.,
    q. 69, a. 4 7; Quaest. Disp. De Malo, cl. 5.
    BILLoT, several articles published in Etudes
    (1920 1922). CAPERAN, Le problime du salux
    des infidNes (Toulouse, 1934). GAUDEL, "Limbes," DTC. TONER, "Limbo," CE.
    See under descent of Christ into hell.

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