SENTIMENTO

FEELING. - Feeling is distinguished from the simple "sensation" of external or internal sensibility in that while sensation refers to objective "contents," feeling presents the situation of the subject, for example, of satisfaction or dissatisfaction. Feeling therefore constitutes an attitude of the deep self, the core of individual interiority: in this sense indeed it has been said that feeling as such is a pure attestation of the self, not only without requiring a precise reference to objects but also without a direct relation even to the consciousness of the substantial self, so that in the most intense feelings the consciousness of the self is very weak or even absent, while the emergence of individual consciousness weakens and can even make feeling itself disappear.

The controversy, therefore, between those who maintain the intentionality (v.) of feelings—i.e., that feeling, like every psychic act, relates to an object inasmuch as "one is glad, one is sad about something..." (Brentano school, Bollnow)—and those who deny such reference on the grounds that it belongs to the cognitive moment and falls outside of feeling, which is an ineffable experience of the self (Pfaender, Beck), can be resolved by distinguishing two moments within feeling itself: one centripetal as original pure feeling, and the other centrifugal insofar as feeling enters as an element in the subject’s orientation toward reality. Clearly every feeling arises in the subject as a result of some more or less distinct apprehension and constitutes the subject’s response to the presentation of the object; however, the first moment, namely the original impression (Stimmung in German), is directed toward the subject in itself, as in feeling happy or unhappy, fearful or confident..., and only subsequently can, but is not required to, follow the relation to the other.

Feeling has therefore been defined as "the situation of the psychic subject of the self" as such (cf. A. Pfaender, *Einführung in die Psychologie*, 2nd ed., Leipzig 1920, pp. 205 and 214). This situation presents itself in two fundamental forms: either as an affirmation of the self (v.), and then assumes the form of pleasure or satisfaction in general, or as a negation and limitation, a constraint of the self, which is indicated as displeasure. Around these two fundamental feelings are grouped other forms of feeling, both the so-called elementary ones (e.g., sympathy, antipathy, love, hatred...) and the higher ones, or those belonging to the sphere of intellectual and volitional life (aesthetic, religious, moral feelings...): yet in this area, no uniform classification has yet been reached among psychologists. In the approach of "Gestalt and holistic psychology" (Gestalt- und Ganzheitspsychologie), feeling is considered as a global attitude inasmuch as "in feelings we immediately live the essence of the changing situations of the self within us and in others," and in this sense feelings are called "formal qualities of total consciousness" (Gestaltqualitäten des Gesamtbewusstseins). Thus, feelings, together with knowing (sensation and thought) and striving activity (instinct, will), constitute a distinct sphere of subjectivity, which makes a decisive contribution to the very qualification of objects by the self: it is a merit of modern psychology to have distinguished the original state of feelings from "affections," which indicate acute, already objective states, as well as from "inclinations," which are innate striving elements, and from "passions" (v.), which are acquired and morally defined striving structures. Inasmuch as feelings are immediate impressions, they abstract from every object, and they also abstract from morality and from every judgment of value: if one wishes to say that feelings also have a reference to the object (intentionality), this does not belong to feelings as such but depends on the self itself, which, operating as a whole individual and personal, relates to the external realities of the world of nature and society (family, state, Church); it is, in other words, the relation between microcosm and macrocosm (cf. M. Beck, *Psychologie, Wesen und Wirklichkeit der Seele*, Leiden 1938, pp. 235 and 239). Existential thought has extensively and deeply analyzed feelings such as anxiety and fear (Kierkegaard, Heidegger), boredom and nausea (Sartre) and the like, which, however, presuppose a definite orientation on the nature of the dialectic of consciousness and freedom.

The normality or abnormality of the behavior of feelings deeply affects the constitution of individual personality: in feelings, this has its secret and most active form, determining its preferences and aversions, inclinations, and often even the ultimate decision of its actions, such as the choice of a vocation or profession, or the sudden change in conduct (perversions, conversions...). It can be recognized that there is still no satisfactory theory of feelings: the empiricist theory supported by James, Lange (followed by Sergi), which identifies feeling with its manifestation ("we are sad because we weep!"), has been definitively refuted by phenomenology and by existentialism itself. The intimate nature of feelings is not the object of definitions but of experience, because it is an absolute privation that eludes every reflective analysis and can only be described indirectly.

**Philosophy of Feeling.** - In general, this is the philosophical approach that attributes to feeling the directive primacy in conscious life over reason. In English empiricism, Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, Butler, and Hume affirm that both knowledge of the real and moral judgment itself are founded on immediate feeling, understood as conviction or belief (belief, custom, feeling). In French philosophy, Pascal (v.) had already proclaimed "les raisons du cœur," followed by Malebranche and Rousseau, according to whom the judgment of feeling is infallible; Maine de Biran (v.) and Bergson ([v.] cf. the "dynamic morality" of *Les deux sources de la morale et de la religion*, Paris 1932) return to the philosophy of feeling. In German philosophy, the doctrine of feeling develops especially from Kant’s *Critique of Judgment* (Jacobi, Fries, Schleiermacher); particular mention should be made of Max Scheler’s philosophy, according to which even the "intuition of essences" (Wesensschau) is a process of affective apprehension insofar as it is conceived as "participation in sympathy" (Einschulung): this also applies to the knowledge of God itself (cf. Max Scheler, *Vom Wesen der Philosophie*, in *Vom Ewigen im Menschen*, II, 2nd ed., Leipzig 1923, pp. 68 ff.).

The philosophies of feeling represent the reaction and the claim of the mystery of being and of consciousness against the absolute objectivism of rationalism (v.).

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**SENUTE (SINUTHIUS).** - Native of Atrine, he is the most renowned leader of Egyptian chronotibism after Pachomius; b. ca. 333, d. 451.

Monk from 370 and superior of the “White Monastery,” from 388 he had under his obedience some 2,200 monks and 1,800 nuns. A true Copt, St. Pachomius established an extremely austere religious discipline, not without corporal punishments, and introduced the custom of pledging in writing to observe the rules he had written. St. Pachomius accompanied St. Cyril of Alexandria to the Council of Ephesus (431). His feast among the Copts is celebrated on July 1.

He wrote in Coptic (Sahidic) letters, sermons, and apocalypses or visions. The authenticity of the writings attributed to him is not always certain; some are preserved in Syriac, Ethiopic, and Arabic versions.

SHEOL. — A feminine term that in Israel (not among other Semites) designated the subterranean region where the dead dwell.

Though it is the end of all activity and thought (Eccl. 9:10), the wicked have far more to fear from it (Ps. 48:15) than the just. Reference is also made to the devouring fire (Deut. 32:22; Is. 50:11; Eccl. 51:4); for the wicked the worm shall not die and the fire shall not be quenched (Is. 66:24; Eccl. 7:17; Judg. 16:21; Mark 9:43), an allusion to cadaveric corruption and the valley of Gehenna (q.v.). Like love, S. is connected with sin. Already in Num. 16:30, 33 it is associated with the idea of divine punishment: the rebels of Korah are swallowed alive; in Ps. 54:24 it is the pit of perdition into which God casts the perverse. The wicked are consigned thither (Ps. 9:18; 30:18; 54:16), as are the wanton woman and her accomplices (Prov. 2:18; 7:27); there too are heaped up those who forget God, sinners (ibid. 9:18; 21:16), and those who despise the Law (Eccl. 41:11). It increasingly appears as the “wages” of sin (cf. Rom. 2:7; 5:12, 21; 6:23), in contrast to the “life” reserved for the good (Prov. 3:18; 8:35; 9:6; 12:21; 16:21); beneath S. is opposed the “way of life” that leads upward (Prov. 15:24). Even after the exile, the double conception persists, partly interwoven, of S. as the receptacle of all the dead and as the punishment of the wicked.

The prospect of death, the tomb, universal S., fills Job with dread: though S. is a repose (“sleep”) compared with earthly agitations and abolishes social inequalities (Job 3:13–26), he who falls into that place of darkness (ibid. 10:21–22) shall not return; “he shall remain chained and shall not rise, shall not awake from his sleep” (ibid. 14:7–22). This pessimism is of moral order; it coincides with the faith, later reaffirmed in the Gospel, that every man is by nature a sinner, “impure” (ibid. 14:4). Yet Job’s pathetic description, like the topography of S. (“channel” leading into the pit: ibid. 33:18; the “chambers of death” Prov. 7:27), is hyperbolic and allegorical and does not correspond to the general conception held in Israel. S. was regarded as an impenetrable, inviolable secret, save to God (Job 11:8; 38:17).

In Ecclesiastes (c. 200 B.C.), S. is the abode of the departed (9:12), whether sinners (21:9–10) or just (41:4); it is a place of rest (22:9; 30:17; 38:23; 46:19), a tranquil realm where the dead subsist without activity (9:10), without light (22:9), without joy (14:16), without praise of God (17:26–27); man can hope for nothing but worms (7:17; Heb.).

S. is a monster that does not release its prey (Prov. 1:12) without ransom: wealth avails nothing (cf. Matt. 16:26; Luke 12:20); yet with Jahweh remains “the bundle of the living” (1 Sam. 25:29), and God delivers His faithful from S. (Ps. 48:15–18; 1 Sam. 2:6); He will not abandon him to S. but will show him “the way of life” (Ps. 15:8–11) and “take him to glory” (ibid. 7:23, 23 ff.). The two categories of the damned and the eternally glorified are described in Dan. 12:2–3, at least from the moment of the resurrection. This distinction between the reprobate and the rewarded is presented as actual in the oldest part of Enoch (c. 170 B.C. onward): 1 Enoch 22 divides S. into four compartments, the first two for the just “near the fountain of living water, light,” the other two for sinners, whose punishment is defined in 1 Enoch 54:2—the king and the mighty are punished in the “deep valley,” while the just are in the “garden of life” or paradise (60:8, 23; 61:12; 70:3–4); in the latest part of Enoch the just appear in S. together with the wicked, but at the final judgment the just will be rewarded and the wicked cast into S., tormented forever in darkness and fire (102:4–8; 103:1–4; 104:1–6): here S. is the place of punishment reserved for the wicked. In 1 Enoch 51:1–2 “S. will restore what it has received”: the just will rise and, guided by the Elect One, will reach their fathers in paradise. Sinners will be punished by failure (1 Enoch 22:10–13; Ps. Sol. 3:16 and 14:2; cf. Ps. 1:5), remaining therefore in S., which becomes the hell of the damned; on the contrary it is affirmed that the just “will be gathered in paradise” (Gan Eden: Strack–Billerbeck [q.V. bibliography], pp. 1118–65). As the apocalyptic writers, the Pharisees advocated the resurrection of the dead, but only for the good (Josephus, Ant. Jud. XVIII, 14).

This concept was already hinted at in biblical texts that oppose to life for sinners S. (Prov. 2:18; 10:18; 15:24; 23:18; 24:14; Ps. 48:15–20). Perhaps in this sense Eccl. 3:21 asks whether the human breath “goes up on high” instead of descending into S. Indeed the spirit of Adam goes up to God in Apoc. Mos. 32:4; 35:2, and the Essenes held that “the soul is immortal... freed from the flesh it soars upward” (Josephus, Bell. Jud. II, 8, 11; VII, 8, 7). Wis. 1:12–4:20 insists on future retribution: the immortal glory of the just and the punishment of the wicked in the hereafter, to be ratified by divine judgment (ibid. 5:1–25). In the martyrdom of the seven brothers the hope of glory in the hereafter shines forth “in the bosom of divine mercy” (2 Macc. 7:9–29); the sainted dead follow what happens on earth and intercede for Israel (ibid. 15:12–16; the high priest Onias, Jeremiah); S. is also conceived as a place of purification (ibid. 12:43).

Even before Jesus, S. or Hades had both meanings. It was the world of all the dead (at least until the resurrection: thus the Pharisees) in 2 Macc. 6:23; 1 Enoch 22:1–14; 51:1; 102:5; 103:7; 4 Ezra 4:41; 7:32; Bar. 3:21; 6:21; 23:1. It was the prison of the wicked and sinners alone in Wis. 2:1; 17:14 (21); 1 Enoch 63:10; Jub. 7:29; 22:22; Philo, Som. I, 15; Gr. Bar. 4. The two conceptions alternate in the same book: Ps. Sol. understands Hades as the receptacle of all souls (4:15) and as the hell of the damned (14:6; 15:11; 16:2); in 1 Enoch 51 they seem to merge (10; 40:12–42:1). In the manuscripts of Qumran the same oscillation appears: in the Psalm of Joshua (c. 100 B.C.) S. is the world of all the dead, and its deepest part is Abaddon; in the Commentary on Habakkuk the wicked man is in the “house of condemnation,” a prison in S., and at the final judgment he will be cast into the fire of sulfur. Among post-Christian rabbis S. (“never filled,” Eccl. R. 1:19) was identified with Gehenna, also considered a receptacle of all the dead (Shabbat 104a; ‘Erubin 101a: the just trample the nations there; Baba Mezi’a 58b; Pesiqta R. 109b). Samuel ben Nachman in Tosefta Sanhedrin XIII, 3 (11th cent.) distinguished three categories of the dead: the eternally glorified and damned, and those who are purified by passing through the fire of Gehenna.

There remained a deep hope of emerging from the “region of the shadow of death” (Is. 9:1) and from exile without return. In Is. 26:19 is the oldest explicit attestation of resurrection (“to rise” from Sheol: Job 7:9). The divine promises of redemption and spiritual restoration present themselves as liberation from Sheol (Hos. 13:14 = 1 Cor. 15:55; Is. 25:8; 26:19, etc.; Ezek. 37:1 ff.; Job 19:15 ff.; Dan. 12:2) as “resurrection from the dead” (Rom. 11:15); rising from the abyss-necropolis (“from the dead”) is the supreme messianic hope (cf. 1 Cor. 15:54–58; Rev. 20–21).

At the time of Jesus a clear distinction was made between Sheol for sinners and the “bosom of Abraham” (v. LIMBO): an impassable abyss separates the just from sinners (Lk. 16:22–26), although all are beneath the earth. Yet the prevailing image for the abode of the just is one of “eternal tents” and a heavenly paradise (Lk. 16:9; 23:43; “heavenly world”: Flavius Josephus, Bell. Jud., III, 8, 5). In the New Testament Sheol is called Hades, whose dominion is not on earth (cf. Wis. 1:14) but beneath it (Mt. 11:23 = Lk. 10:15; Rev. 9:1). God consigned the rebel angels to the depths of Tartarus (ἐπαρτάρωσα), shutting them in those shadowy caverns (2 Pet. 2:4); so also 1 Enoch 10:12; 18:11–19:1; 88:1, where Satan is imprisoned for a thousand years (Rev. 20:7). The hell (v.) GEGENNA (v.); Jesus insists on the eternal torment of the reprobate in “outer darkness” (Mt. 8:12; 22:13; 25:30) where there is “weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Mt. 13:42; 50; 24:51) because they are excluded from the Kingdom of God (Lk. 13:28) for having rejected God’s invitation (Mt. 22:13; 24:51; 25:30; Lk. 14:24) and that of their neighbor (Mt. 25:41–45); cf. 2 Thess. 1:9. In the black darkness (ὁξόρος τοῦ σκότους, 2 Pet. 2:17; Jude 13) the smoke of the torment of the wicked will rise (Rev. 14:10–11). The Hades-death for all will be transformed, after the resurrection and the judgment of all according to their works, into a Hades-death “second” (final) for the damned alone (Rev. 20:13–15). Among the Fathers the term Hades or inferi long remained multivalent. In Tertullian inferi has a broad sense and includes purgatory (A. d’Alès, La théologie de Tertullien, Paris).