Mozley: A Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of

2 88 Scholastic Doctrine CHAP. x.
the Augustinian schoolman could not expressly contradict
this position ; but what he could not contradict he could
explain. Augustine had laid down that the punishment of
such children was the mildest of all punishments in hell
omnium esse mitisslmam. Taking this as the authorised
definition of the punishment of unbaptized infants, he
proceeded to raise a structure of explanation upon it. First,
was the punishment of such infants sensible punishment
sensibilis poena ? No ; because then it would not be
mitissima, the mildest of all. Moreover, sensible pain is
a personal thing personce proprium, and therefore in
appropriate to a kind of sin which is not personal. Nor
could any argument be drawn from the fact, that children
suffered pain in this world ; because this world was not
under the strict law of justice, as the next was. Nor did
this immunity from pain imply in their case any invasion
of the special privilege of the saints ; for they enjoyed no
internal impassibility, but only a freedom from external
causes of suffering. Did the punishment of such infants,
again, involve affliction of soul animce afflictionem
for such affliction must arise either
spiritualem ? No ;
on account of their sin, or of their punishment de culpa
or de poena. But if it arose on account of their sin, it
would involve despair and the worm of conscience in
;
which case their punishment would not be the mildest one,
and would therefore be opposed to the original supposi
tion. If it arose on account of their punishment, it
would involve an opposition in their will to the will of
God in which ;
case, their will would actually be deformed
actualiter deformis ; which would imply actual sin, and
so be contrary to the original supposition.
The punishment of such children, then, not being pain
either of body or mind, what is it ? Aquinas answers, it is
the want of the Divine Vision, or exclusion from the sight
of Grod carentia Divince visionis, quce est propria et
sola poena originalis peccati post mortem which he
;
proves by the following argument.
Original sin, he says, is not the corruption of natural
good, but the subtraction of supernatural ; its final punish-