The remedy for males who die before their eighth day.
The remedy for males who die before their eighth day.
§ 383. Second: “It is by no means credible that there was not a remedy for males who died before their eighth day, on which day alone they could be circumcised; yet there is nothing about this in Scripture.” We respond. (1) Let Bellarmine bring out that remedy from the repository of traditions! If not, let him admit that Scripture is not perfect even when traditions are added to it. (2) How absurd is it to invent a remedy for males who die before their circumcision yet consign to damnation all infants dying in the New Testament before their Baptism, though the grace of the New Testament is richer and more abundant than that of the Old? Bellarmine does both. (3) It never occurred to the Scholastics to think about such a remedy. Lombard claims: “They died in original sin.” Biel thinks: “This is too harsh and inconsistent with the truth” (Sent., 4, dist. 1, q. 4). Hugh and Alexander of Hales claim: “Those little ones are saved in the faith of their parents” (part 4, q. 7, mem. 4, art. 3). (4) Bede thinks: “Little ones in peril of their life were circumcised even before their eighth day.” The divine institution, however, binds circumcision to the eighth day, and it is not likely that devout Israelites departed from this. (5) That which was a remedy for all infants before circumcision was established and for females after the establishment of circumcision was also a remedy for males who died before their eighth day. (6) Those who died before their eighth day could not be considered as transgressors of the Law concerning circumcision because that had clearly been restricted to the eighth day. Therefore God treats them in extraordinary fashion with the power of His promise, “I shall be the God of your seed,” as they are offered to Him through the prayers of their parents and of the Church. But if all infants who died before their eighth day without being circumcised had been damned absolutely, no commandment would have been given about postponing it until the eighth day nor would Moses have omitted it for the entire forty years in the wilderness. (Cf. our treatise On Circumcision [Commonplace XXII], § 18.)