THE BEATIFIC VISION. 591 angels or glorified souls ; the other, that while angels dwell in the empyrean heaven, human souls, even including the Virgin, will never advance beyond the aqueous heaven. The decision of the bishop and University was cautious as regards the Divine Vision, which was only asserted in the future and not in the present tense, both as regards angels and human souls, but there was no hesitation in declaring that all occupied the same heaven. Thomas Aquinas argues the question with an elaborateness which shows both its importance and its inherent difficulty, but he ventures no further than to prove that the Blessed will, after the resur- rection, enjoy the sight of God, face to face. It must be borne in mind that the prevalent expectation in each successive genera- tion that the coming of Antichrist and the second advent were not far off, rendered of less importance the exact time at which the Beatific Vision would be bestowed, while the development of mystic theology tended to bring into ever more intimate rela- tions the intercourse between the soul and its Creator. Bona- ventura does not hesitate to treat as an accepted fact that the souls of the just will see God, and he asserts that some of them are already in heaven, while others wait confidently in their graves for the appointed time. The final step seems to have been taken soon after this by the celebrated Dominican theologian, Master Dietrich of Friburg, who wrote a tract to prove that the Blessed are immediately admitted to the Beatific Vision, a fact revealed to him by one of his penitents who, by order of God to solve his doubts, appeared to him ten days after death and assured him that she was in sight of the Trinity.* Yet the doctrine was not formally accepted by the Church, and the mystical tendencies of the time rendered dangerous a too rapid progress in this direction. The Illuminism of the Brethren of the Free Spirit was a contagious evil, and the Council of Vienne in 1312 refrained from an expression of opinion on the subject, except to condemn the error of the Beghards, that man does not
- S. Augustin, De Genesi ad litteram Lib. xn. c. 35, 36 ; De Civ. Dei Lib.
xxit. c. 29. Cf. De Doctr. Christ. Lib. i. c. 31 ; Epistt. cxviii. § 14, clxix. § 3 (Ed. Benedict.).— Matt. Paris aim. 1243 (p. 415).— Th. Aquinat. Sum. Suppl. Q. xcii. — S. Bonavent. Breviloq. vn. 5, 7 ; Centiloq. in. 50 ; Pharetrse iv. 50.— W. Pregcr, Zeitschrift fur die histor. Theol. 1869, pp. 41-2.
