1. On the words of Isaias, Thou art our Father, and Abraham hath

not known us, and Israel hath been ignorant of us, the Interlinear Gloss has: "For the Saints who are dead know not what the living do, even their own children." This is taken from S. Augustine's treatise On Care for the Dead, xiii., where he quotes these words, and adds: "If these great Patriarchs were ignorant of what concerned those whom they had begotten, how can the dead be concerned with knowing and assisting the affairs and the deeds of the living?" Hence it would seem that the Saints are not cognizant of our prayers.

But these words of S. Augustine are to be understood of the natural knowledge of the souls separated (from this world); and this knowledge is not obscured in holy men as it is in sinners. Moreover, S. Augustine is not talking of that knowledge which is in the Word, a knowledge which it is clear that Abraham had not at the time that Isaias said these things; for anterior to Christ's Passion no one had attained to the Vision of God.