wish for them meliorem mentem.  Origen having applied the passage from Psalm lxxvii, verse 10:  God will not forget to be gracious, neither will he shut up his loving-kindness in displeasure, St. Augustine replies (Enchirid., c. 112) that it is possible that the pains of the damned last eternally, and that they may nevertheless be mitigated.  If the text implied that, the abatement would, as regards its duration, go on to infinity; and yet that abatement would, as regards its extent, have a non plus ultra.  Even so there are asymptote figures in geometry where an infinite length makes only a finite progress in breadth.  If the parable of the wicked rich man represented the state of a definitely lost soul, the hypothesis which makes these souls so mad and so wicked would be groundless.  But the charity towards his brothers attributed to him in the parable does not seem to be consistent with that degree of wickedness which is ascribed to the damned.  St. Gregory the Great (IX Mor., 39) thinks that the rich man was afraid lest their damnation should increase his:  but it seems as though this fear is not sufficiently consistent with the disposition of a perfectly wicked will.  Bonaventura, on the Master of the Sentences, says that the wicked rich man would have desired to see everyone damned; but since that was not to be, he desired the salvation of his brothers rather than that of the rest.  This reply is by no means sound.  On the contrary, the mission of Lazarus that he desired would have served to save many people; and he who takes so much pleasure in the damnation of others that he desires it for everyone will perhaps desire that damnation for some more than others; but, generally speaking, he will have no inclination to gain salvation for anyone.  However that may be, one must admit that all this detail is problematical, God having revealed to us all that is needed to put us in fear of the greatest of misfortunes, and not what is needed for our understanding thereof.

273.  Now since it is henceforth permitted to have recourse to the misuse of free will, and to evil will, in order to account for other evils, [295] since the divine permission of this misuse is plainly enough justified, the ordinary system of the theologians meets with justification at the same time.  Now we can seek with confidence the origin of evil in the freedom of creatures.  The first wickedness is well known to us, it is that of the Devil and his angels:  the Devil sinneth from the beginning, and for this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the Devil (1 John iii. 8).  The Devil is the father of wickedness, he was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth (John viii. 44).  And therefore God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to Hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgement (2 Pet. ii. 4).  And the angels which kept not their own habitation, he hath reserved in eternal (that is to say everlasting) chains under darkness unto the judgement of the great day (Jude i. 6).  Whence it is easy to observe that one of these two letters must have been seen by the author of the other.