“Answer.  It was an advantage to the thief entering into paradise to learn by fact the benefits of the faith by which he was deemed worthy of the assembly of the {103} saints, in which he is kept till the day of judgment and restitution; and he has the perception of paradise by that which is called intellectual perception, by which souls see both themselves and the things under them, and moreover also the angels and demons.  For a soul doth not perceive or see a soul, nor an angel an angel, nor a demon a demon; except that according to the said intellectual perception they see both themselves and each other, and moreover also all corporeal objects.” [Page 470.]

On this same point I must here subjoin a passage from one of Justin’s own undisputed works.  In his Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, sect. 5, he says, “Nevertheless I do not say that souls all die; for that were in truth a boon to the wicked.  But what?  That the souls of the pious remain somewhere in a better place, and the unjust and wicked in a worse, waiting for the time of judgment, when it shall be:  thus the one appearing worthy of God do not die any more; and the others are punished as long as God wills them both to exist and to be punished.” [Page 107.]

Not only so; Justin classes among renouncers of the faith those who maintain the doctrine which is now acknowledged to be the doctrine of the Church of Rome, and to be indispensable as the groundwork of the adoration of saints.  In his Trypho, sect. 80, he states his sentiment thus strongly:  “If you should meet with any persons called Christians, who confess not this, but dare to blaspheme the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, and say there is no resurrection of the dead ([Greek:  nekron]), but that their souls, at the very time of their death, are taken up into heaven; do not regard them as Christians.” [Page 178.] {104}

This, according to Bellarmin’s own principle, is fatal evidence:  if the redeemed and the saints departed are not in glory with God already, they cannot intercede with him for men.  On the subject, however, of worship and prayer, Justin Martyr has left us some testimonies as to the primitive practice, full of interest in themselves, independently of their bearing on the points at issue.  At the same time I am not aware of a single expression which can be so construed as to imply the doctrine or practice among Christians of invoking the souls of the faithful.  He speaks of public and private prayer; he offers prayer, but the prayer of which he speaks, and the prayer which he offers are to God alone; and he alludes to no advocate or intercessor in heaven, except only the eternal Son of God himself.  In his first Apologia (or Defence addressed to the Emperor Antoninus Pius) he thus describes the proceedings at the baptism of a convert:—­