the
Saints see that He wills.

6. Lastly, the prayers of the entire Court of Heaven should, if they can
gain anything at all, be far more efficacious than all the suffrages of
the Church on earth. But if all the suffrages of the Church on earth
were to be accumulated upon one soul in Purgatory, it would be entirely
freed from punishment. Since, then, the Saints who are in our Fatherland
have the same reason for praying for the souls in Purgatory as they have
for praying for us, they would by their prayers, if they could obtain
anything for us, wholly deliver from suffering those who are in
Purgatory. But this is false, for if it were true, then the suffrages of
the Church for the dead would be superfluous.

But the suffrages of the Church for the dead are, as it were,
satisfactions offered by the living in place of the dead, and
thus they free the dead from that debt of punishment which they
have not paid. But the Saints who are in our Fatherland are not
capable of making satisfaction. And thus there is no parity
between their prayers and the Church's suffrages.

FOOTNOTES:

[267] xiv. 21.

[268] _Moralia in Job_, xii. 14.

[269] _Dialogue_, li. 35.

[270] _Contra Vigilant._, vi.

[271] S. Augustine: _Of the Trinity_, xiii. 5.

[272] _Of the Heavenly Hierarchy_, iii.

[273] lxiii. 16.

[274] _De Cura Mortuorum_, 13, 14, 15.

[275] S. Matt, xviii. 10.

[276] _Of the Heavenly Hierarchy_, vii.; and _Of the Ecclesiastical
Hierarchy_, vi.

[277] v. 1.

[278] _Moralia in Job_, v. 30.

[279] Rom. xv. 30.

[280] _Of the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy_, v.

[281] Dan. ix. 14.

[282] _Ep. contra Vigilantium_, vi.

[283] Apoc. vi. 11.

[284] vi. 10.

[285] xv. 1.

[286] S. Matt. xxii. 30.

[287] x. 12-13.

[288] _Moralia on Job_, xvii. 12.

[289] _De Dono Perseverantiae_, xxii.

[290] i. 8.

QUESTION CLXXIX

OF THE DIVISION OF LIFE INTO THE ACTIVE AND THE CONTEMPLATIVE

I. May Life be fittingly divided into the Active and
the Contemplative?
S. Augustine, _De Consensu Evangelistarum_, I., iv. 8
" _Tractatus, cxxiv. 5, in Joannem_
II. Is this division of Life into the Active and the
Contemplative a sufficient one?
S. Augustine, _Of the Trinity_, I., viii. 17

I

May Life be fittingly divided into the Active and the Contemplative?

S. Gregory the Great says[291]: "There are two kinds of lives in which
Almighty God