Pastoral Rule, Dialogues & Letters 119

GREGORY: Since it is written: 「The just man, by whatever death he be overtaken, his justice shall not be taken from him」 (Wisdom 4:7; cf. Ezekiel 33), what harm is it to the elect, who without doubt tend toward eternal life, if for a little while they die hardly? And perhaps there is sometimes some fault of theirs, though the least, which ought to be cut away in that same death. Whence it comes that the reprobate do indeed receive power against the living, but, when these die, this is more grievously avenged in them—that they received the power of their cruelty against the good; just as that same executioner who was permitted to strike the same venerable deacon while living, was not permitted to rejoice over him when dead. Which the sacred oracles also attest.

For the man of God who was sent against Samaria, because through disobedience he ate on the way, a lion killed him on that same journey. But at once it is written there: 「That the lion stood beside the ass, and did not eat of the carcass」 (1 Kings 13:28). From which it is shown that the sin of disobedience was loosed in that very delay, since the same lion, which he presumed to kill living, did not presume to touch when slain. For he who had the daring to kill, did not receive the license of eating from the carcass of the slain, because he who had been culpable in life was already just from death, once his disobedience was punished. The lion, therefore, which had first slain the sinner's life, afterward guarded the just man's corpse. PETER: What you say pleases me;

but I should like to know whether now, before the restoration of bodies, the souls of the just are able to be received into heaven. GREGORY: This we can neither affirm of all the just, nor deny of all. For there are some souls of the just which are deferred from the heavenly kingdom by certain dwellings still. In which loss of delay what else is intimated, save that they had somewhat less of perfect justice? And yet it is more clear than light that the souls of the perfectly just, as soon as they go forth from the lodgings of this flesh, are received into the heavenly seats; which the very Truth attests, saying: 「Wherever the body shall be, there will the eagles be gathered together」 (Luke 17:37);

for where our Redeemer Himself is in body, thither without doubt are gathered the souls of the just. And Paul desires to be dissolved and to be with Christ (Philippians 1:23). Whoever therefore does not doubt that Christ is in heaven, neither do they deny that Paul's soul is in heaven. Who also, concerning the dissolution of his body and the inhabiting of the heavenly fatherland, says: 「We know that, if our earthly house of this habitation be dissolved, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, but eternal in the heavens」 (2 Corinthians 5:1). PETER: If then the souls of the just are now in heaven, what is it that they receive on the day of judgment for the reward of their justice? GREGORY:

This indeed increases to them in the judgment: that now they enjoy the blessedness of souls alone, but afterward of bodies also, so that they may rejoice even in the very flesh in which they endured pains and torments for the Lord. For this their germinated glory it is written: 「In their own land they shall possess double」 (Isaiah 61:7). Hence also, before the day of resurrection, it is written concerning the souls of the saints: 「There were given to them single white robes; and it was said to them that they should rest yet a little time, until the number of their fellow servants and brethren should be fulfilled」 (Revelation 6:11).

Those, therefore, who now have received single robes, are to have double robes in the judgment, because now they rejoice only in the glory of souls, but then in the glory of souls and of bodies together. PETER: I assent; but I should like to know how it comes about that very often the dying foretell many things.