On Glorification
XXXVI. On Glorification
1. God bestows glory upon the good,
and makes them His own companions
by means of grace and forgiveness.
2. Since God is possessed of generosity,
justice and compassion,
He desires us to be glorified.
3. God is eternal glory,
which He bestows everlastingly
upon those who refrain from committing sin.
4. God bestows glory upon <one’s> will
insofar as He causes it to love His divinity
and He bestows it upon <one’s> senses by means of His humanity.
5. Who is capable of writing or speaking
about the glory that the saints enjoy when they recall
that they shall reside in a state of perpetual glory?
6. The suffering to be endured by each of the damned
is a horrendous thing to conceive,
since they shall remain therein for time everlasting.[1]
7. The great suffering the damned shall endure
will consist in the fact that they shall know themselves to be deprived
of that end for which they have been created.
8. Each part of one who has gone astray
shall possess a natural instinct towards salvation,
yet shall possess the contrary in one who has fallen.
9. Memory shall suffer even as it remembers,
and will shall suffer even as it loves,
and the intellect shall suffer even as it thinks.
10. The body shall suffer even as it feels,
shall suffer even as it lives
and evermore shall suffer, in want of death.
[1] Cat. serà eviternat. Eviternity is a state relating to created beings within the temporal realm which have a beginning but no end; it is therefore intermediate between eternity and temporality.