Eschatological Justice in Scéla laí brátha

Scéla Laí Brátha is a Middle Irish homily on universal judgment preserved only in Lebor na hUidre (Dublin, Royal Irish Academy, MS 23 E 25).1 Written in a complex rhythmic and alliterative prose style, the text draws on a wide range of sources, both poetic and homiletic, in Latin and Irish. The purpose of the present study is to analyse the presentation in Scéla Laí Brátha of the moment of collective judgment and the descriptions of the eschatological kingdoms which, Christians believe, will exist thereafter. I suggest that the central theme of the text is the role of Christ as the source of ultimate justice, and that the author describes the communities of the elect and the damned in terms of 'citizenship' of the civitas Dei or the civitas diaboli. The extensive use of vocabulary pertaining to kingship, community, and judgment is, I argue, a significant aspect of the literary coherence and theological sophistication of a text which has hitherto been largely overlooked by scholars of medieval Irish literatur