Bellarmine · De Controversiis · On the Church That Is in Purgatory · Book II: On the Circumstances of Purgatory
Chapter 12: That it cannot be known how a bodily fire burns souls
Our translation, from the Latin of the Opera Omnia (Paris: Vivès, 1870–74), vol. II, De Ecclesia quae est in Purgatorio, Book II, the third general controversy. The Latin source text is public domain; this English rendering is released with the site. Scripture quotations follow Bellarmine's Vulgate citations, rendered in Douay-Rheims wording where he quotes exactly. Click “Show the Latin” for the original (raw OCR of the scan; scanning errors remain — the scan itself is the authority).
On the second, the most true opinion is that it cannot be known in this life how a bodily fire acts on an incorporeal soul; for Durandus frankly confesses this, on the fourth book, distinction 44, last question, and before Durandus blessed Augustine, book 21 of the City of God, chapter 10, where he says that souls are tormented by fire in wonderful but true ways; and blessed Gregory, when in book 4 of the Dialogues, chapter 29, he says that from the visible fire souls draw an invisible punishment; for he calls the punishment invisible because it is hidden and unknown to us. But although we do not know how it happens, that it can happen Augustine teaches from another likeness; for do we not see an incorporeal soul united to a human body, giving it life, and rejoicing and suffering together with it, although the manner of this union is plainly ineffable? Who grasps how a spirit is the form of a body, when between body and spirit there is nothing in common? As, then, a spirit could be united to flesh so as to communicate life to it, so a spirit can be united to fire so as to draw punishment from it, although the manner of both unions is altogether unknown.
Show the Latin (Vives edition, OCR)
CAPUT XII. Sciri nonposse, quomodo ignis corporeus animas urot. De secundo. verissima sentenlia est, non posse in haec vila sciri,quomodo ignis corporeus agatin nnimam incorpoream : id enim ingenue confitetur Durandus in 4.disl. 44. quaesl. ult.et anle Diiran- dum b. Auguslinus lib. 21. de Civit. Dei c. lO.ubi dicit, animas torqueri ab igne miris. sod veris mo- dis; et b. Gn^gorius cum lib. 4. dialogor. c. 29. di- cit, ex igne visibili invisibilem poenam anim^s ira- hcre; vocal enim invisibilem poenam,quia occulla ct incognita esl nobis. Scd licet non sciamus quo- modo id iiat , posse tamen fieri, docel Auguslinus cx alio siinili; videmus enim animam incorpoream nniri corpori humano, et ei vilam darcet cura illo simul gaudere et pati . cura lamen raodus hujus unionis sit plane inelTabilis? Quis capiat.quoraodo spirilus sit forraa corporis,cum inter corpus et spi- ritum nulla sit proprio?Sicut ergo poluit uniri spi- ritus carni , ut illi vitam coramunicaret , ila potest uniri spiritus igni , ut ab illo poenam trahal , licet raodus utriusque unionis sit prorsusincognitus.