Limbo: The History of an Idea or Place

By Stephen J. Vicchio

This is the story of an idea that become a place called Limbo. The name comes from the Latin Limbus, which means "edge," "boundary," or even "hem." In Christian Theology it referred to the condition of those who die in original sin without being assigned to the Hell of the damned. In this fascinating excavation of the history of Limbo, many Medieval Christian schoolmen came to divide the underworld into three distinct parts, the third of which was Limbus Infantium or Limbus Puerorum, the Limbo of the Infants. For some of the Church Fathers, but not all of them, this is the place of the unbaptized children who were too young to have committed any actual sins. This study explores the development of this idea into a tangible place with strong parallels in early Judiasm, Chinese religion, Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and the Homeric Era of ancient Greece.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1962834417
• ISBN13: 9781962834414
• Release Date: April 2025
• Publisher: Wisdom Editions
• Length: 178 Pages
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.5" x 6.0"