DIVINE JUDGMENT. – It is the further manifestation of divine justice, by which, at the accounting of each man’s life, there will be an infallibly exact assignment of reward or punishment.
This manifestation is twofold: one at the end of each person’s life (particular judgment), the other at the end of time for the whole of humanity (universal judgment).
I. PARTICULAR DIVINE JUDGMENT
The doctrine defined by the Church inseparably links the particular judgment, which follows the death of each individual, with the immediate retribution of souls.I. Errors
According to the ancient Jewish conception, all the dead, Jews and pagans, good and bad, descend into a shadowy realm and undergo a half-life, immortal yet immersed in silence, darkness, and complete inaction, as if seized by a deep slumber (cf. Job 10:20-22; Eccles. 9:10). This conception strongly influenced some Christian writers from the beginning. St. Justin (Dial. cum Tryph., 5: PG 6, 487) held that souls would be kept in different places according to their respective merits, awaiting the time of judgment. St. Irenaeus (Adv. Haer., 5, 31: PG 7, 1208) believed that they would go to an invisible place to await the resurrection of the body. Tertullian (De anima, 55 and 58: PL 2, 742, 750) was convinced that all souls remained with the dead until the universal judgment, though the damned would experience in advance supplication and the saved would receive refreshment; to martyrs, however, he granted immediate vision of God as a privilege (De resurr. carnis, 43: ibid., 856). According to Lactantius (Institutiones, 7, 21: ibid., 6, 80), all souls would be kept in a common custody awaiting the final judgment. Vigilantius, strongly opposed by St. Jerome (Contra Vigil., 6 and 17: PL 43, 344, 352), held that souls would remain in a state of semi-wakefulness (πανυγχία) or sleep (ἀπνος) until the second coming of Jesus.
This error reappeared in the East with Photius and, through Theophylact, Euthymius Zigabenus, John Zonaras, Joseph Bryennius, and Simeon of Thessalonica, was transmitted to those Greek theologians who, led by Mark Eugenicus, opposed the definition of the Council of Florence. From that time, as a reaction against the Latin Church, it became almost universal among the Greek dissenters and slowly penetrated even among the Russians.
In the West, a brief and partial revival of this ancient theory occurred in the controversy over the beatific vision that agitated the Franciscans and Dominicans during the pontificate of John XXII (d. 1334). It seems that the Pope himself, as a private doctor, for a time embraced the opinion of certain Minorite theologians who, while granting souls fully purified immediate entry into Paradise and vision of Christ’s humanity, held that the intuitive vision of the Godhead would be granted to them only after the resurrection of the flesh.
In the 16th century, the Protestants revived the old error: Luther affirmed that all sleep insensibly, except a few, until the day of judgment (Ep. ad Amsdorf, 13 Jan. 1522, E. L. Enders, III, Erlangen 1925, pp. 269-70); Calvin, after attacking the theory dear to the Anabaptists of the sleep of souls (De psychopannychia, Strasbourg 1542), maintained that all things remain suspended until Christ appears as Redeemer (Institutio religionis Christianae, III, 25). In the 18th century, the Anglican Thomas Burnet gave a scientific guise to the doctrine of the intermediate state of souls awaiting the final judgment, but was effectively opposed by Muratori (De paradiso regnique caelestis gloria, Verona 1738). Today, hostility toward the particular judgment is widespread among liberal Protestants. Opposed to the particular judgment are also the Tuteopichites, who, like Tatian (Adv. Graecos, 13: PG 6, 833) and some Arabs (cf. Eusebius, Hist. eccl., 6, 37: PG 20, 598), as well as Priestley (d. 1804) and the Adventists, teach that the soul, at the moment of death, is annihilated, only to rise again with the body before the universal judgment. The Gnostics, Manichaeans, and Theosophists, admitting metempsychosis (q.v.), necessarily reject the particular judgment.
2. Catholic Doctrine
From the 13th century, due to frequent contacts with the East, the popes were led to clarify this point and repeatedly reaffirmed the same doctrine: that righteous souls and those fully purified are immediately (mox) received into heaven, while those stained with mortal sin are immediately (mox) cast into hell. Thus the Council of Lyons (1274) in the profession of faith of Michael Palaeologus (Denz.-U., 464), Benedict XII in the dogmatic constitution *Benedictus Deus* (1336), which ended the controversy arising under John XXII (ibid., 530-31), the Council of Florence (1439) in the decree of union with the Greeks (ibid., 693), Gregory XIII and Benedict XIV in the professions of faith prescribed for dissenters returning to the unity of the Church (ibid., 1084, 1468). In this doctrine it is implicitly affirmed that all souls, immediately after death, undergo the particular judgment by which their reward or punishment is assigned.Similarly, in Sacred Scripture, while the immediate retribution of the good and the wicked is directly spoken of, the particular judgment is indirectly affirmed. The immediate reward is clearly indicated by Jesus both when He states that at the moment of death Lazarus is carried to the bosom of Abraham and that the rich man is buried in hell (Lk. 16:22), and when He answers the good thief: “Today you will be with me in Paradise” (Lk. 23:43). St. Paul teaches the same when he expresses his desire to die (to be away from the body) in order to be at home with the Lord (to be present with the Lord: ἐνδημῆσαι πρὸς τὸν Κύριον [2 Cor. 5:8]), as when he affirms that Christ died for us so that, whether we live or die, we may live together with Him (1 Thess. 5:9-10). The same idea underlies other texts: Mt. 26:24, 2 Cor. 5:10, Phil. 1:23, Heb. 9:27, Rev. 14:13.
The New Testament doctrine is reflected in the thought of the Apostolic Fathers: Ignatius (Rom. 4 and 7; Trall. 13), Clement of Rome (1 Cor. 5:4; 5:7), Polycarp (Phil. 9), and receives particular clarification in St. Cyprian: “We accept death, which assigns to each his abode and, tearing us from the bonds of the world, restores us to Paradise and the Kingdom... Up there our loved ones await us, and a great multitude desires us, now secure in their own fate but still anxious for our salvation” (De mortalitate 26: PL 4, 601). Even Origen, when reproducing traditional thought, asserts that the soul, at the moment of death (cum ex hoc mundo discesserit), will be dealt with according to its merits, attaining the joys of heaven or the eternal pains of fire (De principiis, 1, praef. 5: PG 11, 118).
In the 4th–5th centuries the idea of judgment and retribution at the moment of death is widely attested by the great Doctors: St Gregory Nazianzen (Oratio in laudem Gorgoniae 23: PG 35, 815), St Gregory of Nyssa (In funere s. Pulcheriae: ibid. 46, 870; *tibi oculum clausit, sed lumini aeterno aperuit... de regno ad regnum traducta est*), St John Chrysostom (In Mt. hom. 14, 4: ibid. 57, 222; *cum hinc abierint*; De beato Philogonio: ibid. 48, 749; *hodie beatus ille ad tranquillam vitam translatus est... ad beatam sortem hodie transit*), St Jerome (In Ioel. 2: PL 25, 965; *quod in die iudicii futurum est omnibus, hoc in singulis die mortis implentur*). Some uncertainties remain in St Hilary of Poitiers and St Ambrose, but these are due to the influence of Jewish and original eschatology. St Augustine, though at times hesitant, wrote in *De anima et eius origine* (2, 4, 8: PL 44, 499): “it is most correct and salutary to believe that souls are judged when they depart from the body.” Finally, the concise and clear formula of St Gregory the Great (Dial. 4, 28: PL 77, 365) *die exitus sui* indicates the path that all scholastic theology would follow.
St Thomas explains the fittingness of particular judgment: the attainment of the ultimate end of every being cannot be deferred (C. Gent. 4, 91); man must be judged both as an individual (particular judgment) and as a member of human society (universal judgment), cf. Sum. Theol. 3, q. 59, a. 4, ad 1; Suppl. q. 69, a. 2; q. 88, a. 1, ad 1.
3. Nature of particular judgment
The judge is Jesus Christ, not only as God but also as man (cf. Mt. 28, 18; Jn. 5, 22; Acts 10, 42). At the instant of judgment the soul does not intuitively behold the Godhead—otherwise it would already be blessed—nor does it see the Redeemer’s humanity; rather, through an infused light it learns that the God-Man is the supreme judge of the living and the dead.God knows the soul by immediate intuition, and under the irradiation of the divine light the soul gains an adequate knowledge of itself, embracing all its deeds down to the smallest details and evaluating them without possibility of error. This interior reckoning, in the light of eternity, constitutes the sentence.
In the swift illumination of its whole being and its entire work, the soul spontaneously forms an infallible judgment upon itself, experiences and learns that it is being judged by God. This occurs in the same place and moment in which it ceases to inform the body. At that same instant the judgment is executed by divine omnipotence, to which the soul’s own internal inclination spontaneously conforms; for as heavy bodies descend and light ones rise, so “by their own weight the wicked shall fall into torment, the good shall fly to the place of delights” (cf. Sum. Theol., suppl. q. 69, a. 2).
II. UNIVERSAL JUDGMENT
1. The truth of universal judgment is formally contained in Sacred Scripture. In the Old Testament, after the first hints in Ps. 97(8–9) and Eccles. 12:4, the announcement of universal judgment is progressively clarified in the vivid descriptions of the prophets (Isa. 13:9; 66:15; Joel 2:1; Zeph. 1:2; Dan. 7:8) and of Wisdom (Wis. 5:1–13). The entire New Testament is dominated by this great prospect. Jesus speaks of it often in His preaching (Mt. 11:22–23; 12:41; 16:27; 26:64; Lk. 10:12–14; 11:31–32; Jn. 5:29; 12:48) and describes its details magnificently in the eschatological discourse: “When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, He will sit upon His royal throne, and all the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will place the sheep on His right and the goats on His left. Then the King will say to those on His right hand, ‘Come, you blessed of My Father, take possession of the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world’... Then He will say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels’” (Mt. 25:31–46; cf. Mk. 13:26–27; Lk. 21:27). The Apostles echo the Master’s teaching (Acts 10:42; 17:31; 24:25; Rom. 2:16; 14:10; 1 Cor. 3:4; 4:5; 2 Cor. 5:10; 2 Tim. 4:1; 2 Thess. 2:5; 2 Pt. 2:9; Jude 15; Rev. 20:12).The whole Christian tradition lived under the strong impression of this announcement and gladly described its details for purposes of edification (cf. M. J. Rouët de Journel, *Euchiridion Patristicum*, 11th ed., Freiburg in Br. 1937, nn. 74, 364, 396, 579, 694, 724, 964, 1172, 1456, 1768, 1880, 2140). St Augustine summed up the constant teaching of the Fathers in the well-known phrase: “No one doubts or denies that Jesus Christ, as announced in Sacred Scripture, will pronounce the last judgment” (*De Civitate Dei* 20, 30: PL 41, 708). The Church has repeatedly defined this truth in the Apostles’ Creed, the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, the Athanasian Creed, in the Lateran Councils of 649 (Denz.-U. 225) and 1251 (ibid., 429), in the Council of Florence (ibid., 63), and in the profession of faith issued after the Council of Trent (ibid., 994).
4. Circumstances of universal judgment
The judge will be the God-Man (Jn. 5:22; Acts 10:42; Rom. 14:10; 2 Cor. 5:10), who will appear from the heights of heaven, preceded by the Cross (Mt. 24:30), surrounded by hosts of angels and saints (Mt. 24:31; Mk. 8:38; Lk. 9:26; 1 Thess. 3:13; 2 Thess. 1:7), in a luminous halo of clouds and fire (Mt. 25:30; 26:64; Mk. 13:26; 14:62; Lk. 21:27; Acts 7:30; 1 Thess. 4:17; 2 Thess. 1:8), seated upon a throne of majesty (Mt. 19:27; 25:31; Rev. 20:11–12), assisted in the act of judging by the Apostles (Lk. 22:30), by martyrs, and by those who observed the evangelical counsels (Mt. 19:27–28).All angels (1 Cor. 6:3; 2 Pt. 2:4; Jude 6) and all men (Mt. 25:32; Rom. 14:10; 1 Cor. 5:10; Rev. 1:7) will be judged concerning their thoughts (1 Cor. 4:5), words (Mt. 12:36), deeds (Rom. 2:6), and omissions (Jas. 4:17; Eccles. 12:14).
The sentence will be rendered through a collective interior illumination, by which all intelligent beings will know their own and one another’s actions in their individual value and above all in their social repercussions, in relation to the history of the world and the economy of all things (cf. *Summa Theologiae*, *Supplement*, q. 88, a. 2).
The time of universal judgment is known only to God (Mt. 24:36; Mt. 13:32; Acts 1:7), although Scripture indicates certain precursor signs: the preaching and acceptance of the Gospel throughout the world (Mt. 24:14; Mk. 16:15–16; Lk. 21:24; Rom. 9:25), the appearance of the Antichrist (v.), the conversion of Israel (Hos. 3:4–5; Rom. 11:25–27; 2 Cor. 3:14–17), the great apostasy (2 Thess. 2:3; Mt. 24:11–12; Lk. 17:26–30; 18:8; 1 Tim. 4:1; 2 Tim. 3:1), and cosmic disturbances (in the heavens: Joel 2:30; Mt. 24:29–30; Lk. 21:25–26; and on earth: Mt. 24:7–8; Lk. 21:25–26).
The place will be chosen by God. The identification of the valley of Josaphat rests on an illegitimate transposition of a symbolic name (*Josaphat: “God will judge”*), to which Joel 3:2 alludes.
5. Reasons for universal judgment
Good and evil have social repercussions and extensions in time and space whose ultimate effects can be assessed only when the course of time is halted (cf. *Summa Theologiae* 3, q. 59, a. 5). The resounding condemnation of sin in all its consequences will restore extrinsic glory
(from Herrad of Landsberg, *Hortus deliciarum*, Strasbourg [66], pl. 67) *Griffozio pifimo* – G. d. universale: 1. Procession of the elect; 2. General configuration of the present world; 3. Christ at the centre of the new firmament, and a new earth. Detail from the miniatures of the *Hortus deliciarum* (c. 123
The moral order lies hidden in the hearts; external deeds are but its testimony. Yet one day this order shall emerge in all its beauty, fulfilling Christ’s prophecy: “There is nothing hidden that will not be revealed, nothing secret that will not be made known” (Lk 12:2). Reasons of wisdom may keep some things secret for a time, but time itself will finally pour out its treasure before the eyes of the universal assembly. All masks will fall, and the smug Pharisaism of the happy will bear the mark of indelible infamy.
Schiller maintained that the Last Judgment consists in universal history. The experience of the centuries has shown that the judgment of history, as written by men, is neither clear nor equitable. The judgment of the Son of Man will not only be just but will appear in its connection with all prior judgments as the supreme act that seals all God’s work from beginning to end. That judgment will not consider events merely along the horizontal line of time flowing from today to tomorrow, but along the vertical line that links them to the single instant of eternity. God will be justified in every deed, and the paths He has taken in guiding individuals and peoples will appear blameless. They will shine forth as the ways of wisdom and love once the mysteries and enigmas of the world are unraveled. If history may in a sense be called the judgment of the world, in a truer sense the universal Last Judgment will be history unveiled and manifested. In the dazzling light that will strike the gaze of all gathered at the sound of the angelic trumpet, each will see that the fortunes of human history are bound to the person of the God-Man, who is the intimate reason and supreme crown of all human vicissitudes.
A. Feuillet, *Le triomphe eschatologique de Jésus d’après quelques textes isolés des Évangiles*, in *Nouvelle revue théologique*, 81 (1949), pp. 701-22; P. Heinisch, *Teologia del Vecchio Testamento*, Italian trans. by D. Pintonello, Rome 1950, pp. 329-44; A. Piolanti, *De novissimis*, 3rd ed., Rome 1950, pp. 18-33, 149-69. Antonio Piolanti
ICONOGRAPHY. –
70. Archaeology
Christ is the judge of the dead, as the Apostle Peter declares in his instruction to the centurion Cornelius before baptizing him (Acts 10:25 ff.).A fourth-century inscription from Gaul expressly states: “Here rests in peace Dalmatius, redeemed by Christ’s death, and while the saints intercede for him, he awaits joyfully the day of the future judgment” (CIL, 12, 1694). Paulinus of Nola composed the epitaph for the boy Nicetas, likewise expressing the same idea (ibid., 10, 1370). At Vercelli, in the inscription of the priest Sarmata, it is said that he will be presented to Christ by the martyrs Nazarius and Victor (ibid., 5, 6739). In later inscriptions one finds the deprecatory formula “per tremendum diem iudicii” against violators of tombs.
In the vault of a cubicle in the Domitilla cemetery the Lord is enthroned, making the gesture of speaking with His right hand while holding the scroll in His left. At His feet two young men prostrate themselves in supplication, assisted by two standing saints (A. Bosio, *Roma sotterranea*, Rome 1632, p. 231). In the ceiling of a cubicle in the hypogeum called the Nunziatella, there is likewise the scene of the Lord enthroned: around Him stand four praying deceased, each between two sheep, alternating with four saints who hold the scroll of the Law. Also on the vault of a cubicle in the Major Cemetery on the Via Nomentana, Christ the Judge is depicted enthroned between two chests containing scrolls of the Law and four praying deceased, two male and two female.
In the cemetery of Vigna Cassia in Syracuse, a now-lost fresco depicted the Lord nimbed with the monogram X, who with His right hand invites the deceased Marcia, prostrate in supplication to His left, who died at the age of twenty-five years, seven months, and twenty-five days, as indicated by the Greek epitaph; on either side of Christ were the apostles Peter on one side and Paul on the other, each holding the scroll of the Law. Above the arch was the inscription, also in Greek: “Remember your servant Marcia” (G. B. De Rossi, *Arcosolio dipinto di singolare importanza*, in *Bull. arch. crist.*, 3rd ser., 2 [1877], pp. 149–159 and pl. 11).
In the cemetery of Bassilla, the nimbed Lord is seated enthroned upon the tribunal; in His left hand He holds the scroll, while with His right He touches the head of an orant standing before the tribunal, assisted by two saints as advocates. On the right side of a relief in the cemetery called that of SS. Mark and Marcellian, the Lord is seated enthroned above a high tribunal, distinguished by the monogram X incised upon His head and by the words ΑΕΙΟΤΗΣ ΗΜΩΝ “our Lord.” He places His right hand upon the head of the deceased ΕΥΟΛΟΓΙΑΣ, depicted humbly below, between two sheep symbolizing the flock of the elect. Beside him is the Greek inscription of Aurelius Theodulus and Caecilia Maria; on the left side was represented Moses with the volume of the Law, as learned from the words ΜΩΥΣΗΣ ΠΡΟΦΗΤΗΣ (Wilpert, *Pitture*, pp. 382, 434, fig. 41; id., *Sarcofagi*, pl. 205, 2). To the deceased Aurelius Theodulus is expressed the wish ΕΙΣ ΑΠΑΙΤΗΝ that he may be received into the celestial banquet, according to the Lord’s promise to the Apostles (Lk 22:28 ff.). Other Christian inscriptions likewise conclude with the same wish: “Iuste nomen tuum in Agape, Licinius Iustinae coniugi merenti in Ag(a)p(e)” (G. B. De Rossi, in *Bull. arch. crist.*, 4th ser., 1 [1882], p. 113).
Also in the syncretistic hypogeum on the Via Appia, the deceased Vibia, after her judgment, is conducted (inductio Vibia) by the angelus bonus into the celestial garden to join the feast with the others judged righteous by the judgment of the good (Wilpert, *Pitture*, pl. 132, 1).
A beardless Christ in tunic and pallium performs the separation of the sheep (the elect) from the goats (the guilty), according to Mt 25:33–34, on a sarcophagus lid edited by Wilpert (*Sarcofagi*, pl. 83, 1). This subject is repeated in the museums of S. Martino in Caelo Aureo (S. Apollinare Nuovo) in Ravenna (R. Garrucci, *Storia dell’arte cristiana*, IV, Prato 1880, pl. 248, 4) and S. Paolino of Nola had it painted in the basilica of S. Felice (PL 61, 339).
Enrico Josi
2. Art
Later the theme is often taken up again in miniatures, both Eastern and Western, especially those to be assigned to Carolingian art, particularly the school of Reichenau. Thus in the Psalter of Karlsruhe (CLXI), and in the Evangelary of Munich (LVII), where the universal judgment is depicted in two superimposed scenes, dedicated respectively to the universal judgment and the resurrection of the flesh. Beside Christ the Judge upon the throne are the angels and the Apostles. Below, besides the angels and groups of the elect and the damned, appears Satan accompanied by devils who chain the sinners.
More complex is the Apocalypse of Bamberg (Cod. A. II. 42), also from the year 1000 B.C., which contains a vivid depiction of the resurrection of the bodies.
The most ancient fresco with the universal judgment, that in the apse of S. Giorgio at Oberzell, also belongs to the school of Reichenau. Besides the elements already seen there, the Virgin interceding and the rising from the earth in the various moments of their rebirth are depicted. The universal judgment of S. Angelo in Formis, near Capua, is iconographically connected with these representations in C[entral Italy]. The fresco, which extends over the wall of the counterfaçade (c. 1075), is composed of five horizontal bands dominated by a gigantic image of Christ.
In the twelfth century the representations of the universal judgment multiply, especially in the miniatures illustrating the headpieces of the *Officia defunctorum*. In the miniature of the *Hortus deliciarum* of Herrad of Landsberg (v.) are found the flaming river flowing from the throne of the Majesty, the Prophets and the Patriarchs, Adam and Eve supplicating, two angels rolling up the sky and the stars like scrolls.
This iconographic scheme, with additions or simplifications, spreads in the sculptural decorations of Romanesque and Gothic cathedrals, leaving, in France alone, between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries, more than forty monumental complexes. In the earliest representations, which occur on the lateral portals of the façade or of the naves, at Moissac, Arles, Beaulieu, Conques, etc., the central part of the New Dispensation is occupied by the immense figure of Christ. But at Autun, toward the middle of the twelfth century, Gislebertus, reducing it, is able to depict, besides the Majesty and the judgment, the resurrection and the weighing of souls, characteristically depicting the damned (the miser, the lustful, etc.). With the advent of Gothic (Laon, Chartres, in 1212–20) the narrative engages the archivolts as well, while the Apostles, accompanied by the wise and foolish virgins and the sibyls, are arranged vertically along the architectural moldings. Finally, at Notre-Dame of Paris, in the first quarter of the thirteenth century, the representation of the universal judgment occupies the place of honor in the entire decoration of the building, imposing itself in the great portal of the façade.
The lunette of the baptistery of Parma, dated 1196 and the work of Antelami, is also close to French sculpture. In the archivolt the Apostles are aligned; in the architrave are placed the elect and the reprobates still rising. In the central semicircle is Christ with arms outstretched.
Italy still possesses an extremely important series of painted universal judgments ranging from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century. The famous mosaics of Torcello, despite evident Byzantine influences, are to be considered Western works and exercised a strong influence on similar representations in Greece and the East. The scene, divided into six horizontal zones, may be considered the most extensive composition of the theme. Nearly similar is the universal judgment of the baptistery of Florence, which occupies a quarter of the vault.
At Rome, between 1293 and 1295, Cavallini (v.) frescoed on the counterfaçade wall of the basilica of S. Cecilia a great universal judgment, now fragmentary, in whose center is Christ, between two rows of Apostles solemnly seated upon thrones. The blessed are divided into three choirs, and the damned are cast down into hell. The depiction of the individual torments of hell occupies a large part of the fresco by Giotto at Padua (1303–1305), while already in the reliefs of the pulpits of Giovanni and Nicola Pisano, and then in the frescoes of the Strozzi chapel in S. Maria Novella in Florence (the work of Nardo di Cione, second half of the fourteenth century), the separations between saints, Apostles, and angels are not so rigid, and the universal judgment begins