Apart from interpretations put on Scripture texts, such as Jude 6: 1 Pet, iii, 19: the belief in the deferring of rewards and punishments to the last day has been based upon a view of disembodied spirits as 'ghosts' that 'squeak and gibber' (Shakespeare, Julius Caesar: cf. Homer, Odyssey, xxiv, 5-9, where they are compared to 'bats'), existences altogether too slight, fleeting, shadowy and dormant, to be the subjects of any signal reward or punishment. Nor is this view readily disprovable, except by the positive teaching of revelation to the contrary, which indeed is express and clear in the Catholic Church.

Of God and His Creatures: 4.91