the one best suited to preserving the most essential features of Aquinas's theory.4 1 . THE RICH MAN AND LAZARUS At first glance, it might not be clear why the story of the rich man and Lazarus, found only in the gospel of Luke (16:19–31), should shed any light on Aquinas's account of the separated soul. Placed at the end of a series of four parables (including the Prodigal Son and the Shrewd Manager), the story today is often understood as itself a parable. General opinion in the 4 In this paper I shall be focusing primarily on Aquinas's later discussions of the separated soul in an effort to avoid familiar concerns about the development of his views. (For a clear discussion of this concern, see Anton Pegis's"The Separated Soul and Its Nature in St Thomas," in A Maurer (ed.), St Thomas Aquinas 1274–1974: Commemorative Studies (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1974). Because Aquinas's later claims about the cognitive capacities of the separated soul are more modest than his earlier claims, it will be enough to show that the difficulty I am concerned with arises even from those later, weaker claims. OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRST PROOF, 5/4/2014, SPi 26 Christina Van Dyke thirteenth century, however, held that this story described actual events involving separated souls; as such, it was taken to shed light on disembodied existence after death and prior to the final judgment.5 Aquinas himself mentions the story of the rich man and Lazarus in every single one of his discussions of