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
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