THE JUDGMENT OF THE LIVING AND THE DEAD.

Refutation of the moral, spiritual allegorical sense of this passage both of the Scriptures and of the Creed, and the proof against it, since there is only one proper and natural sense of the words, which is the literal and the original, and on which no other meaning prevails.

When speaking of the Resurrection of Christ, it is evident that it cannot be other than the physical Resurrection since Christ can never resurrect spiritually, nor allegorically, nor morally, this is obvious, since he cannot lose grace; and if next one speaks of judging the living and the dead, it is evident that the same words cannot change their meaning unless they fall into an absurd contradiction, as unfortunately has been done repeatedly and obstinately.

Thus we have that in the Acts of the Apostles the living and the dead are spoken of in the proper and natural sense, unless it is said, contradictorily, that by saying dead it refers to an allegorical or spiritual sense when previously speaking of Risen Christ, which is evident that it is in a physical and not a spiritual sense. A word cannot have, in the same text, two different meanings unless it is so clarified, since it would be to introduce an ambiguous term: "ButGod raised him on the third day and made him manifest, not to all the people, but to us God's predestined witnesses, who have eaten and drunk with him after his resurrection from the dead. He commanded us to preach to the people and testify that this is the One who has been appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead.” (Acts 10, 40-42).

Here, it must be said, the distinguished and wise Monsignor Straubinger, being a great millenarian albeit a little surreptitiously and timidly, foolishly concedes the possibility of a double meaning, that is, both the allegorical and the literal meaning and, therefore, , falls into contradiction because he grants the opposite possibility, and thus says in note 42: “It is then a fact that Christ is the judge of the living and the dead, whether we understand sinners as dead and those who live as sinners. they live righteously, whether with the name of the living those who will then live are understood, and with the name of the dead all those who died, (St. Thomas)”, although in the same quote, he then adds saying the opposite: “Yes. Peter clarifies this point by using those terms in their proper sense (I Pet. 4, 5f.)”.

Saint Peter, too, after speaking of the judgment of the living and the dead, refers to the dead judged in their own flesh, that is, the physically dead and once resurrected, with which the allegorical-spiritual sense is excluded, since it cannot to be using the word dead in a spiritual sense when he is referring to the dead who rise physically, and not spiritually: “ Now they are surprised that you do not run with them to the same unrestrained dissolution and begin to revile; but they will give an account to Him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. For that is why the Gospel was preached also to the dead, so that, judged in the flesh, as is proper to men, they might live according to God in the Spirit. (I Peter 4, 4-6). two

Mons. Straubinger comments on this in his note 6: “To the dead: St. Peter fixes here the meaning of the previous verse in that he uses the expression living and dead, preserved in the Creed and frequent in the New Testament (cf. 2 Tm 4, 1; Rom. 14, 9; Acts 10, 42). According to various ancient and modern commentators (St. Augustine, the Venerable Bede, etc.), the adjective dead should be understood in a moral sense and would designate those who are spiritually dead, the sinners, and particularly the pagans. But at the end of verse 5 this adjective has been taken in its proper sense, and there is no way to believe that two different senses are used in the same line' (Fillion)”.

About judging in the flesh, as Father Rovira explains, it means being judged after being physically resurrected, and thus he says: “So that, judged in the flesh according to men, that is, so that once again constituted men by the resurrection, they may be judged for what they did while living in the flesh according to men.” (The Kingdom of Christ consummated on earth, Vol. 2, Ed. Balmez, Barcelona 2018, p. 26).

Luckily, here Mons. Straubinger, very lucidly quoting the renowned commentator on the Scriptures, Fillion, specifies that there is no other meaning than its own and literal, in addition to what St. Augustine and others say, contrary to the logic that imposes.

St. Peter himself tells us, in the previous chapter, that when he refers to death, it is death in the flesh, physical death and not spiritual death, thus he says: “For Christ also died once for sins, the Just for the unjust, in order to bring us to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but called to life by the Spirit, in which he also went to preach to the spirits in prison .” (I Peter 3, 19) . Fortunately, Bishop Straubinger specifies in note 19: “Very diverse opinions have been expressed in this regard, on which Msgr. Charue notes: 'In the context this observation must prove the benefit of the Savior's sufferings, something that must remind him when speaking about the descent into hell, for it is of course impossible to interpret, called spiritual, St. Augustine, St. Thomas and all Westerners until the fourteenth century, according to whom the Christ, pre-existing, would have intervened through his prophet Noah to preach to the contemporaries of the deluge…'”.

There is not the slightest doubt, if one does not want to fall into contradiction and absurdity, that there is no room for more than the literal, proper and natural interpretation that is physical death and life when it is spoken of both in the Scriptures and in the Creed, to judge the living and the dead.

Thus we see that for this Christ, Our Lord, died and came back to life, to be Lord and Judge of both the living and the dead: “For this Christ died and came back to life, to be Lord both of the dead and of the dead. the living". (Romans 14, 9).

That is why St. Paul says: “I adjure you before God and Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, both at his appearing and at his kingdom: preach the Word, urge in season and out of season, rebuke, censure, exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine.” (II Timothy 4, 1-2). 3

  Once again we see how Christ comes to judge, in his Parousia, the living and the dead both for his appearance and for his Kingdom, that is to say that judging is also reigning, since this was the fundamental attribute of the king before Montesquieu divided power into executive, legislative and judicial. And so, very well, Msgr. Straubinger says in his note 1 to this passage: “This is the Judge of the living and the dead, that is, not of the just and sinners, but of men who will still be alive. alive in the day of his coming and of those who will have died. The formula entered the Symbol, and St. Paul may have already taken it from a Kerygma”.

To finish off, and to make it very clear, although it is embarrassing and very painful for me to have to say it, but as the adage amicus Plato says, sed magis amica veritas (a friend is Plato, but a friend is the truth), here you have nothing to make the spiritualist allegorical interpretation of some Holy Fathers and Doctors such as St. Augustine and Sto. Thomas then, when speaking of beheaded martyrs and as is evident, they cannot be spiritually resurrected under any circumstances, as is evident, since they have died in grace, as we can see in the following passage from the Apocalypse:“And I saw thrones; and they sat on them, and it was given them to judge, and to the souls of those who had been slaughtered because of the testimony of Jesus and because of the Word of God, and to those who had not worshiped the beast or his statue, nor had accepted the mark on their foreheads or on their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. The rest of the dead did not live again until the thousand years were completed. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection! Over these the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, with whom they will reign for a thousand years. (Revelation 20, 4-6).

That is why Fr. Antonio Van Rixtel warns: “It is said that this first resurrection of Revelation 20, 4-6 must be understood in its spiritual sense. But how can it be interpreted spiritually, when Saint John says: 'the rest of the dead did not revive until the thousand years were completed' and the same verses, later, prophesy the fulfillment of this prophecy, recounting the resurrection of the 'rest' dead ? And how can a decapitated person be spiritually resurrected? Their 'spiritual' resurrection (conversion) will have taken place before because it is a little rare that one who is not in the faith and in the grace of Christ allows himself to be beheaded by Him, however, Saint John says, that 'they rose after be beheaded'; therefore he cannot speak of a spiritual resurrection, but speaks of a bodily physical resurrection.”(Third Millennium-The Mystery of the Apocalypse, Caviglia Cámpora-Antonio Van Rixtel, Ed. Fundación Gladius, Bs. As. 1995, p. 502).

The obvious conclusion is that, when speaking of judging the living and the dead, the meaning is literal and exclusive, ruling out the allegorical meaning that erases with the elbow what is written with the hand, diluting the Scriptures and the Creed.

FONT. P. Basilio Méramo