Part IV
PART IV:
ESCHATOLOGY
CHAPTER I:
STATE OF THE SOUL AFTER DEATH
§ 1. Protestant Doctrine
The Protestant doctrine on the state of the soul after death includes, first of all, the continued conscious existence of the soul after the dissolution of the body. This is opposed, not only to the doctrine that the soul is merely a function of the body and perishes with it, but also to the doctrine of the sleep of the soul during the interval between death and the resurrection.
The former doctrine belongs to the theory of materialism, and stands or falls with it. If there be no substance but matter, and no force but such as is the phenomenon of matter; and if the form in which physical force manifests itself as mind, or mental action, depends on the highly organized matter of the brain, then when the brain is disorganized the mind ceases to exist. But if the soul and body are two distinct substances, then the dissolution of the latter does not necessarily involve the end of the conscious existence of the former.
There is another view on this subject adopted by many who are not materialists, but who still hold that mind cannot act or manifest itself without a material organ. Thus, for example, the late Isaac Taylor says that as extension is an attribute of matter, the soul without a
body cannot be extended. But extension is a relation to space; what is not extended is consequently nowhere. "We might as well," he says, "say of a pure spirit that it is hard, heavy, or red, or that it is a cubic foot in dimensions, as say that it is here or there, or that it has come, and is gone." "When we talk of absolute immateriality, and wish to withdraw mind altogether from matter, we must no longer allow ourselves to imagine that it is, or that it can be, in any place, or that it has any kind of relationship to the visible and extended universe." In like manner, he argues that mind is dependent upon its corporeity, or union with matter, for its relationship to time. A pure spirit could not tell the difference between a moment and a century; it could have no perception of the equable flow of duration, for that is a knowledge drawn from the external world and its regular motions. To its union with matter, mind is indebted also for its sensibility or sensations, for its power over matter, for its imaginative emotions, and for its "defined, recognizable individuality," and of course for its personality. The soul after death, therefore, must either cease its activity, at least in reference to all out of itself, or be furnished at once with a new body. The latter assumption is the one commonly adopted. "Have the dead ceased to exist?" he asks, "Have those who are fallen asleep perished? No;—for there is a spiritual body, and another vehicle of human nature, as well as a natural body; and, therefore, the dissolution of this animal structure leaves the life untouched. The animal body is not itself the life, nor is it the cause of life; nor again is the spiritual body the life, nor the cause of it; but the one as well as the other are the instruments of the mind, and the necessary medium of every productive exercise of its faculties."
On this theory of the dependence of mind on matter, "for every productive exercise of its faculties," for its individuality, and its susceptibilities, it may be remarked, (1.) That the theory is admitted to be untrue in relation to God. He has no body; and He can act and be acted upon, and his activity is productive. If such be the case with God who is a pure spirit, it is altogether arbitrary to deny that it is true with regard to the human soul. Man as a spirit is of the same nature with God. He is like Him in all that is essential to the nature
of a spirit. (2.) The theory has no support from Scripture, and, therefore, has no right to intrude itself into the explanation of Scriptural doctrines. The Bible never attributes corporeity to angels; yet it ascribes to them a "ubi"; speaks of their coming and going; and of their being mighty in power to produce effects in the material and spiritual worlds. It never speaks of man's having any other body besides his earthly tabernacle, and the body which he is to have at the resurrection. And yet it speaks of the soul as active and conscious when absent from the body and present with the Lord. (3.) If the soul is a substance it has power, power of self-manifestation, and productive power according to its nature. Electricity may be a force in nature manifested to us, in our present state, only under certain conditions. But that does not prove that it is active only under those conditions, or that beings constituted differently from what we are, may not be cognizant of its activity. It is enough, however, that the theory in question is extra-scriptural, and therefore has no authority in matters of faith.
It is no less evident that according to the pantheistic theory, in all its phases, which regards man as only one of the transient forms of God's existence, there is no room for the doctrine of the conscious existence of the soul after death. The race is immortal, but the individual man is not. Trees and flowers cover the earth from generation to generation; yet the same flower blooms but once. The mass of men whose convictions, on such subjects, are founded on their moral and religious nature, have in all ages believed in the continued existence of the soul after death. And that universality of belief is valid evidence of the truth believed. But men whose opinions are under the control of the speculative understanding, have never arrived at any settled conviction on this subject. To be, or not to be? was a question speculation could not answer. The dying Hume said he was about to take a leap in the dark. The continued existence of the soul after death is a matter of divine revelation. It was part of the faith of the Church before the coming of Christ. The revelation of all the great doctrines which concern the destiny and salvation of men has been indeed progressive. It is not, therefore, a matter of surprise
that the doctrine of the future state is much less clearly unfolded in the Old Testament than in the New. Still it is there. When the Apostle Paul (2 Tim. 1:10) speaks of "Our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel," he is not to be understood as saying that the future life was unknown, as Archbishop Whately argues, before the coming of Christ. This would be inconsistent with the most explicit declarations elsewhere. It is often said that Christ came to preach the Gospel, to make propitiation for sin, and to reveal the way of reconciliation with God. Paul says in Galatians 3:23, "before faith came we were kept under the law." Yet he strenuously insists that the Gospel, or plan of salvation which he taught, was taught by the law and prophets (Rom. 3:21); and that the patriarchs were saved by faith in the same promise on which sinners are now called upon to rely. What was imperfectly revealed under the old economy, is clearly revealed under the new. This is all that those passages which speak of the Gospel bringing new truths to light, are intended to teach. Christ shed a flood of light on the darkness beyond the grave. Objects before dimly discerned in that gloom, now stand clearly unveiled; so that it may well be said He brought life and immortality to light. He revealed the nature of this future state, and showed how, for the people of God, that state was one of life. It may be observed in passing, that many Christian writers who speak of the doctrine of a future life being unknown, at least to the patriarchs, and to the writers of the Psalms, mean "the Christian doctrine" on that subject. They do not intend to deny that the people of God from the beginning believed in the conscious existence of the soul after death. This Hengstenberg, for example, distinctly asserts concerning himself.
Doctrine of a Future Life revealed under the Old Testament
1. The first argument on this subject is an à priori one. That the Hebrews, God's chosen people, the recipients and custodians of a supernatural revelation, should be the only nation on the face of the earth, in whose religion the doctrine of a future state had no place,
would be a solecism. It is absolutely incredible, for it supposes human nature in the case of the Hebrews to be radically different from what it is in other men.
2. Instead of the Hebrews having lower views of man than other nations, they alone were possessed of the truth concerning his origin and nature. They had been taught from the beginning that man was created in the image of God, and, therefore, like God, of the same nature as a spirit, and capable of fellowship with his maker. They had also been taught that man was created immortal; that the death even of the body, was a punishment; that the sentence of death (in the sense of dissolution) concerned only the body. "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." The soul is not dust, and therefore, according to the earliest theology of the Hebrews, was not to return to dust; it was to return to God who gave it.
3. We accordingly find that throughout the Old Testament Scriptures the highest views are presented of the nature and destiny of man. He is the child of God, destined to enjoy his fellowship and favour; the possessions and enjoyments of earth are always represented as temporary and insignificant, not adapted to meet the soul's necessities; they were taught not to envy the wicked in their prosperity, but to look to God as their portion; they were led to say, "Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee;" and "I had rather be a door-keeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness." In the Old Testament, the righteous are always represented as strangers and pilgrims upon the earth, whose home and whose reward are not in this world; that their portion is in another world, and, therefore, that it is better to be the humblest and most afflicted of God's people than to be the most prosperous of the wicked. The judgments of God are represented as falling on the wicked in a future state, and thus effectually vindicating the justice of God in his dealings with men. The Psalmist said, he was envious at the foolish, when he saw the prosperity of the wicked, until he went into the sanctuary of God and understood their end. In contrasting his own state and prospects
with theirs, he said, "I am continually with thee.… Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory." (Ps. 73:23, 24.) Such is the drift and spirit of the Old Testament Scriptures. Their whole tendency was to raise the thoughts of the people from the present and turn them towards the future; to make men look not at the things seen, but at the things unseen and eternal.
4. The dead in the Old Testament are always spoken of as going to their fathers, as descending into "Sheol," i.e., into the invisible state, which the Greeks called Hades. Sheol is represented as the general receptacle or abode of departed spirits, who were there in a state of consciousness; some in a state of misery, others in a state of happiness. In all these points the pagan idea of Hades corresponds to the Scriptural idea of Sheol. All souls went into Hades, some dwelling in Tartarus, others in Elysium. That the Hebrews regarded the souls of the dead as retaining their consciousness and activity is obvious from the practice of necromancy, and is confirmed by the fact of the appearance of Samuel to Saul, as recorded in 1 Samuel 28. The representation given in Isaiah 14 of the descent of the King of Babylon, when all the dead rose to meet and to reproach him, takes for granted and authenticates the popular belief in the continued conscious existence of departed spirits.
5. In several passages of the Old Testament, the doctrine of a future life is clearly asserted. We know upon the authority of the New Testament that the Sixteenth Psalm is to be understood of the resurrection of Christ, with which, the Apostle teaches us, that of his people is inseparably connected. His soul was not to be left in Sheol; nor was his body to see corruption. In Psalm 17:15, after having described the cruelty and prosperity of the wicked, the Psalmist says, in regard to himself: "I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness." Isaiah 26:19, says: "Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust, for my dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead." (Dan. 12:2.) "And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake; some to
everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. And they that be wise, shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness, as the stars forever and ever." These prophetic declarations are indeed often explained as referring to the restoration of the nation from a state of depression to one of prosperity and glory. But the language employed, the context in which there is clear reference to the Messianic period, and the sanction given by Christ and his Apostles to the doctrine taught by the literal sense of the words here used, are considerations decisive in favour of the ordinary interpretation, which is adopted by Delitzsch, Hengstenberg,2 Oehler, and many others of the modern interpreters. Even Mr. Alger, in his elaborate work on the doctrine of a future life, concedes the point so far as the passage in Daniel is concerned. "No one," he says, "can deny that a judgment, in which reward and punishment shall be distributed according to merit, is here clearly foretold."4 Those German writers whose views of inspiration are so low as to enable them to interpret each book of the Bible as the production of an individual mind, and to represent the several writers as teaching different doctrines, in many cases take the ground that in the early books of the Scriptures, the simple fact of a future life is taken for granted, but not taught, and that nothing was made known as to the nature of that life. Thus Schultz says, "That all the books of the Old Testament assume that men are in some way or other to live after death. Even in the Pentateuch this is taken for granted. It is not taught, but assumed as a self-evident truth, immanent in the consciousness of the people."
6. It is to be remembered that we have in the New Testament an inspired, and, therefore, an infallible commentary on the Old Testament Scriptures. From that commentary we learn that the Old Testament contains much which otherwise we should never have discovered. Not only is the compass of the truths revealed to the fathers shown to be far greater than the simple words would suggest, but truths are declared to be therein taught, which, without divine assistance, we could not have discovered. There is another thing concerning the faith of the Old Testament saints to be taken into
consideration. They may have understood, and probably did understand their Scriptures far better than we are disposed to think possible. They had the advantage of the constant presence of inspired men to lead them in their interpretation of the written word, and they enjoyed the inward teaching of the Holy Spirit. What that spiritual illumination availed in their case, we cannot tell; but we know that now the humble Christian who submits himself to the teachings of the Spirit, understands the Bible far better than any mere verbal critic.
We have then in the New Testament the most explicit declarations, not only that the doctrine of a future state was revealed in the Old Testament, but that from the beginning it was part of the faith of the people of God. Our Lord in refuting the Sadducees, who denied not only the resurrection of the body, but also the conscious existence of man after death, and the existence of any merely spiritual beings, appeals to the fact that in the Pentateuch, the authority of which the Sadducees admitted, God is familiarly called the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; but as He is the God not of the dead but of the living, the designation referred to proves that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are now living, and living too in the fellowship and enjoyment of God. "Christ," says Mr. Alger, whom we quote the rather because he belongs to the class of men who call themselves liberal Christians, "Christ once reasoned with the Sadducees 'as touching the dead, that they rise;' in other words, that the souls of men upon the decease of the body pass into another and an unending state of existence: —'Neither can they die any more; for they are equal with the angels, and are the children of God, being children of the resurrection.' His argument was, that God is the God of the living, not of the dead; that is, the spiritual nature of man involves such a relationship with God as pledges his attributes to its perpetuity. The thought which supports this reasoning penetrates far into the soul and grasps the moral relations between man and God. It is most interesting, viewed as the unqualified affirmation by Jesus, of the doctrine of a future life which shall be deathless." The reasoning of Christ, however, is not only an affirmation of the truth of the doctrine of a future deathless
life, but an affirmation also that that doctrine is taught in the Old Testament. The words which He quotes are contained in the book of Exodus; and those words, as explained by Him, teach the doctrine of the blessed and unending life of the righteous.
That the Jews when Christ came, universally, with the exception of the sect of the Sadducees, believed in a future life, is beyond dispute. The Jews at this period were divided into three sects: the Sadducees, who were materialistic skeptics, believing neither in the resurrection, nor in angels, nor in spirits; the Essenes, who were a philosophical and ascetic sect, believing that the souls of the just being freed at death from the prison of the body, rejoice and are borne aloft where a happy life forever is decreed to the virtuous; but the wicked are assigned to eternal punishment in a dark cold place; and the Pharisees, who, as we know from the New Testament, believed in the resurrection of the body in the sense in which Paul believed that doctrine (Acts 26:6), for he claimed in his controversy with the Sadducees, that the Pharisees were on his side. They believed that the soul was in its nature immortal; that the righteous only are happy after death, and that the wicked are eternally miserable. That the Jews derived their doctrine from their own Scriptures is plain, (1.) Because they admitted no other source of religious knowledge. The Scriptures were their rule of faith, as those Scriptures had been understood and explained by their fathers. (2.) There is no other known source from which the doctrine of a future state as held by the Jews in the time of Christ, could have been obtained. The doctrines, whether religious or philosophical, of their heathen neighbours were antagonistic to their own. This is true even of the doctrines of Zoroaster, which in some points had most affinity with those of the Jews. (3.) The inspired writers of the New Testament teach the same doctrines, and affirm that their knowledge was derived not from men, but from the revelation of God as contained in the Old Testament, and as made by Christ.
A few of the passages in which the Apostles teach that the doctrine of a future life was known to the patriarchs before the coming of Christ,
are the following: Paul was arraigned before the council in Jerusalem, and "when Paul perceived that the one part were Sadducees, and the other Pharisees, he cried out in the council, Men and brethren, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisec: of the hope and resurrection of the dead I am called in question." (Acts 23:6.) He here declares that in the dispute between these two parties, on the question whether the doctrine of a future life and of the resurrection of the dead was taught in the Scriptures which both parties acknowledged, he sided with the Pharisees. Again in his speech before Agrippa, he said: "I stand, and am judged for the hope of the promise made of God unto our fathers: unto which promise our twelve tribes instantly serving God day and night, hope to come. For which hope's sake, King Agrippa, I am accused of the Jews. Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that God should raise the dead?" (Acts 26:6–8.) The promise to which he refers is the promise of redemption through the Messiah, which redemption includes the deliverance of his people from the power of death and other evil consequences of sin. This was the promise to which the twelve tribes hoped to come. The belief, therefore, in a future life is thus declared to have been a part of the religion of the whole Hebrew nation.
In Galatians 3:8, the Apostle says, God "preached before the gospel unto Abraham." The Gospel, however, in the Apostle's sense of the term, is the glad tidings of salvation; and salvation is deliverance from the penalty of the law and restoration to the image and favour of God. This of necessity involves the idea of a future life; of a future state of misery from which the soul is delivered, and of a future state of glory and blessedness into which it is introduced. In teaching, therefore, that men before the coming of Christ needed and desired salvation, in the Christian sense of the word, the Apostle assumed that they had a knowledge of the evils which awaited unpardoned sinners in the world to come. The evidence, however, that the New Testament affords of the fact that the Hebrews believed in a future state, is not found exclusively in direct assertions of that fact, but in the whole nature of the plan of salvation therein unfolded. The New
Testament takes for granted that all men, since the apostasy of Adam, are in a state of sin and condemnation; that from that state no man can be delivered except through the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the only Saviour of men. It is, therefore, taught that the knowledge of this Redeemer was communicated to our race from the beginning, and in express terms in the promise made to Abraham; that the condition of salvation was then, as it is now, faith in Christ; that the blessings secured for believers were enjoyed before the advent of the Son of God in the flesh, as well as since. The heaven of believers is called the bosom of Abraham. All this of course assumes that the truths made known in the New Testament are in their germs revealed in the Old; just as all the doctrines unfolded in the Epistles are contained in the words of Christ as recorded in the Gospels.
The Epistle to the Hebrews is specially devoted to the object of unfolding the relation between the Old Dispensation and the New. The former was the shadow, or image, of the latter. What in the New is taught in words, in the Old, was taught through types. That men are sinners, and as such under condemnation; that sin can only be cleansed by blood, or that the expiation of guilt by a vicarious sacrifice is necessary in order to forgiveness; that men therefore are saved by a priest appointed to draw near to God in their behalf and to offer gifts and sacrifices for sin; and that the effect of this priestly intervention is eternal salvation, are said to be the truths which underlie the religion of the Old Testament, as they constitute the life of the religion of the New. Faith was to the saints of old as it is to us, "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." They walked by faith, and not by sight. They lived with their eyes fixed on the unseen and eternal. It was the future that filled their vision and elevated them above the present. They "died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might
have had opportunity to have returned; but now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly; wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for He hath prepared for them a city." (Heb. 11:13– 16.) Moses by faith chose rather "to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season." It was through faith, the belief and hope of a better life hereafter, that the saints of old "subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Women received their dead raised to life again: and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection: and others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment: they were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheep-skins and goat-skins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented (of whom the world was not worthy); they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth." Nothing more than this can be said of Christian confessors and martyrs. The faith of the Old Testament saints in the unseen and eternal was, therefore, as strong as that of any set of men since the creation. It has been said that the opinion of the New Testament writers is of no weight in a matter of criticism, and, therefore, it is of no consequence what they thought about the teachings of the Old Testament. This is true, if those writers were ordinary men; but if they spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, then what they said, God said. We have, therefore, the sure word of inspiration that the people of God from the beginning of the world have believed in a state of conscious existence beyond the grave. That such is the doctrine of the New Testament is not disputed, and therefore need not be argued.
The Intermediate State
As all Christians believe in the resurrection of the body and a future judgment, they all believe in an intermediate state. That is, they
believe that there is a state of existence which intervenes between death and the resurrection; and that the condition of the departed during that interval is, in some respects, different from that which it is to be subsequent to that event. It is not, therefore, as to the fact of an intermediate state, but as to its nature, that diversity of opinion exists among Christians.
The common Protestant doctrine on this subject is that "the souls of believers are at their death, made perfect in holiness, and do immediately pass into glory; and their bodies, being still united to Christ, do rest in their graves till the resurrection." According to this view the intermediate state, so far as believers are concerned, is one of perfect freedom from sin and suffering, and of great exaltation and blessedness. This is perfectly consistent with the belief that after the second coming of Christ, and the resurrection of the dead, the state of the soul will be still more exalted and blessed.
In support of the Protestant doctrine as thus stated, it may be remarked,
1. That it is simply a question of fact. What do the Scriptures teach as to the state of the soul of a believer immediately after death? It is not legitimate to decide this question on psychological grounds; to argue that such is the nature of the soul that it cannot retain its individuality, or personality, when separated from the body; or, that it is a mere function of the brain; or, that it cannot act or be acted upon—can neither perceive nor be perceived except through and by means of the senses; or, that as vegetable and animal life are only manifest and active in connection with some form of matter, in other words, as there must be a physical basis of life, so the soul necessarily requires a material basis for its manifestation and activity. All these speculations, or theories, are, for the Christian, of no account, if the Bible teaches the fact of the continued, personal, individual existence of the soul after the death and dissolution of the body. The Bible does not formally teach anthropology in either of the branches of physiology or psychology, as a department of human
science, but it assumes a great deal that falls under these several heads. It assumes that soul and body in man are two distinct substances united in a vital union so as to constitute the man, in the present state of existence, one individual person. It assumes that the seat of this personality is the soul. The soul is the self, the Ego, of which the body is the organ. It assumes that the soul continues its conscious existence, and its power of acting and of being acted upon after its separation from the body. This we have seen to be the doctrine of the whole Bible. The dead, according to the Scriptures, do not cease to be; they do not cease to be conscious and active.
There is, therefore, nothing in the psychology of the Scriptures, which is that of the vast majority of men, learned or unlearned, inconsistent with the doctrine that the souls of believers do, at death, immediately pass into glory.
2. According to the Scriptures and the faith of the Church, the probation of man ends at death. As the tree falls, so it lies. He that is unjust let him be unjust still, and he that is righteous let him be righteous still. When the bridegroom comes, they that are ready enter in, and the door is shut. According to the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, there is no passing after death from one state to another; there is a great gulf between the righteous and the wicked from that time for evermore. It is appointed unto all men once to die, and after that the judgment. The destiny of the soul is decided at death.
3. There is no satisfaction to be rendered in the future life for the sins done in the body. The Romish doctrine of satisfactions renders necessary the assumption of a purgatorial state after death for those who have not in this life made full expiation for their sins. But if the one offering of Christ forever perfects them that believe; if his sacrifice be a perfect satisfaction for our sins, then there is no reason why believers should be kept out of blessedness until they have expiated their sins by their own sufferings.
4. There is nothing contrary to Scripture, or to analogy, in the assumption of a sudden and immediate change from imperfect to perfect holiness. The Protestant doctrine is that the souls of believers are at death made perfect in holiness. But it is asked, what sanctifying power is there in death? Progress in moral excellence is gradual; as no one becomes thoroughly evil by one act, or in a moment, so, it is said, it is unreasonable to suppose that a sudden change from imperfect to perfect moral excellence takes place at the moment of death. This objection supposes that the salvation of men is a natural process; if it be a supernatural work, the objection has no force. Curing a man of leprosy was a slow process; but when Christ said to the leper "I will; be thou clean," he was healed in a moment. The change which takes place in a believer at death, can hardly be much greater than that instantaneously produced in Paul on his journey to Damascus. Paul, in Galatians 1:16, attributes that change to the revelation of the Son of God to him. If the momentary vision of the divine glory of Christ produced such an effect upon the Apostle, is it strange that the Scriptures should teach that the souls of believers, when separated from the world and the flesh, and redeemed from the power of the devil, and bathed in the full brightness of the glory of the blessed Redeemer, should in a moment be purified from all sin?
If, therefore, there be nothing in the nature of the soul inconsistent with its separate existence; if the body be not a necessary condition of its consciousness or activity; if its probation terminates at death; if the perfection of Christ's work precludes all necessity of future satisfaction for sin; and if the immediate change from imperfect to perfect holiness be consistent with the analogy of faith, then there is no à priori objection to the doctrine that the souls of believers at death do immediately pass into glory.
5. That such is the doctrine of Scripture may be argued from the general drift of the sacred volume, so far as this subject is concerned. The Bible constantly speaks of the present life as a state of conflict, of labour, and of suffering; and of death as the entrance into rest. There
remains a rest for the people of God. That rest follows the state of labour and trial. Believers then cease from their works. The rest on which they enter is not merely a rest from conflict and sin, but a rest which arises from the attainment of the end of their being, from their restoration to their proper relation to God, and all their capacities being satisfied and filled.
6. Besides these general considerations the doctrine in question is taught in many passages of Scripture with more or less distinctness. Thus, in Revelation 14:13, the Apostle says, "I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them." The simple meaning of this passage is that those who die in the Lord are, from that moment onward, in a state of blessednesss; because they cease from their labours, and enter on the reward of the righteous. Death is for them emancipation from evil, and the introduction into a state of happiness.
Our Lord constantly teaches concerning those who believe in Him, (1.) That they are not condemned. They are no longer under the sentence of the law. (2.) That they have eternal life. That the effect of the union between Himself and them, consummated by faith, is that they partake of his life in a sense analogous to that in which the branch partakes of the life of the vine. As He lives always, those who partake of his life can never perish. And as He lives unto God, so the life of his people is a holy and divine life. That life, from its nature, is an unfailing source of blessedness. It purifies, exalts, and glorifies. It is impossible that the souls in which Christ thus lives should remain in a state of misery and degradation, or in that dreamy state of existence in "the under-world" which so many of the fathers imagined to be the abode of the departed spirits of believers, awaiting the second coming of Christ. (3.) Our Lord promised that He would raise his people from the dead on the last day. It would seem, therefore, to be involved in the nature of the redemption of Christ, and of the union between Him and his people, that when
absent from the body they are present with the Lord. It is inconceivable that with the Spirit of God dwelling in them, which is the Spirit of holiness and of glory, they should sink at death into a lower state of existence than that which they enjoyed in this world. We accordingly find that in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, Christ says: "The beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom." (Luke 16:22.) The implication is undeniable that in his case the transition was immediate from earth to heaven. Still more explicit is the declaration of our Lord to the penitent thief, "Today shalt thou be with me in paradise." (Luke 23:43.) The word paradise occurs in two other places in the New Testament. In 2 Corinthians 12:4, Paul says he was caught up into paradise, which he explains by saying that he was caught up into the third heaven. And in Revelation 2:7, Christ says: "He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches: To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God." There can, therefore, be no doubt that paradise is heaven, and consequently when Christ promised the dying thief that he should that day be in paradise, he promised that he should be in heaven. It would, therefore, seem impossible that any who do not rest their faith on the fathers rather than on the Bible, should deny that the souls of believers do at death immediately pass into heaven. The fathers made a distinction between paradise and heaven which is not found in the Scriptures. Some of them regarded the former as one division of Hades, corresponding to the Elysium of the pagans; others located it somewhere on the earth; while others regarded it as a locality high up above the earth, but below the dwelling-place of God. These are mere fancies. The word heaven is indeed a term of wide application in the Bible as it is in common life. We speak of the fowls of heaven; of the stars of heaven; of our Father who is in heaven; and of believers being the citizens of heaven. In each of these cases the word has a different sense. Whether paradise and heaven are the same is a mere dispute about words. If the word heaven be taken in one of its legitimate senses, they are the same; if it be taken in another of its senses, they are not the same. It would not be in accordance with Scriptural usage to say that believers are now in
paradise; but the Apostle does say they are now ἐν τοῖς ἐπουρανίοις (Eph. 2:6), i.e., in heaven. Paradise, as the word is used by Christ and his Apostles, is the place where Christ now is, and where He manifests his presence and glory. Whether it is the place where He will finally establish his kingdom; and whether all the redeemed, clothed in their resurrection bodies, shall there be gathered together, is a matter of which we have no knowledge, and in which we need take no interest. All we need know is that it is where Christ is; that it is a place and state in which there is neither sin nor sorrow, and where the saints are as exalted and happy as, in the existing circumstances of their being, it is possible for them to be. Whether any, in obedience to patristic usage, choose to call this paradise a department of Hades, is a matter of no concern. All that the dying believer need know is that he goes to be with Christ. That to him is heaven.
In 2 Corinthians 5:2, the Apostle says: "We know, that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." There are three ways in which these words, in connection with those which follow, are interpreted. (1.) According to one view, the house not made with hands into which the believer is received at death, is heaven. (2.) According to another view the meaning of the Apostle is, that when our present body is dissolved the soul will not be found naked, but will be immediately clothed with another and more spiritual body suited to the altered state of its existence. (3.) That the new house or body intended is the resurrection body. The second of these interpretations is founded on a gratuitous assumption. It assumes that the soul is furnished with a body of which the Scriptures make no mention, and of the existence of which we have no evidence. The Bible knows nothing of any human body save that which we now have, and that which we are to have at the resurrection; the one natural, the other spiritual. The third interpretation assumes that the Apostles erred not only in their own convictions, but in their teaching. It assumes that what they taught could be true only on the condition that the second coming of Christ
was to occur while the men of that generation were alive. The point, however, in which all these views of this passage agree, is the only one which concerns the question under consideration. They all suppose that the soul is received into a state of blessedness immediately after death. This the Apostle clearly teaches. As soon as our earthly house is destroyed, the soul, instead of being left houseless and homeless, is received in that house which is eternal in the heavens. "We are always confident," he says, "knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord: we are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord."
In Philippians 1:23, he expresses the same confidence: "For," he says, "I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better: nevertheless, to abide in the flesh is more needful for you." Two things are here perfectly plain; first, that Paul regards the state of the soul after death as more exalted than its condition while in the flesh. This he distinctly asserts. And, secondly, that this change for the better takes place immediately after death. He was confident that as soon as he departed he would be with Christ. Both these points are conceded, even by those who deny the doctrine which they evidently involve. Some say that Paul, finding that Christ did not come as soon as he expected, changed his opinion, and held that the souls of believers were admitted at death into heaven, instead of awaiting the second advent in the underworld. The fathers said that while the great body of believers at death went into Hades, some few, especially the martyrs, were admitted at once into heaven. Mr. Alger conjectures that "we may assume … that Paul believed there would be vouchsafed to the faithful Christian during his transient abode in the underworld a more intimate and blessed spiritual fellowship with his Master than he could experience while in the flesh." All this is floundering. The simple fact is that the inspired Apostle confidently anticipated for himself, and evidently for his fellow-believers, immediate admission at death to the presence of Christ. The ancients regarded the "underworld" or Hades, as "a gloomy prison," as Mr. Alger himself calls it.
That Paul should have desired death in order that he should be thrust into a dungeon, no man can believe.
The Scriptures represent Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as being in heaven. The good, at death, are carried by angels to Abraham's bosom. Moses and Elijah appeared in glory on the mount of transfiguration, conversing with Christ. In the Epistle to the Hebrews, it is said, "Ye are come unto Mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the first born, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel." Nothing can be more utterly inconsistent with the nature of the Gospel, than the idea that the fire of divine life as it glows in the hearts of God's elect, is, at death, to be quenched in the damp darkness of an underground prison, until the time of the resurrection.
§ 2. The Sleep of the Soul
The doctrine that the soul exists, during the interval between death and the resurrection, in a state of unconscious repose, properly supposes the soul to be a distinct substance from the body. It is therefore to be distinguished from the materialistic theory, which assumes that as matter in certain states and combinations exhibits the phenomena of magnetism or light, so in other combinations it exhibits the phenomena of life, and in others the phenomena of mind, and hence that vital and mental activity are as much the result or effect of the molecular arrangements of matter, as any physical operations in the external world. As in this view it would be absurd to speak of the sleep or quietude of magnetism or light when the conditions of their existence are absent, so it would be equally absurd, on this theory, to speak of the sleep of the soul after the dissolution of the body.
The doctrine of the sleep of the soul, moreover, is not identical with that which assumes that, although matter is in none of its combinations the cause of mental activity, yet that it is the necessary condition (so far as man is concerned) of its manifestation. The best of scientific men teach with regard to life, or vital force, that it is not the result of material combinations, but that such combination is necessary to its manifestation. "We recognize that these [vital] phenomena," says Professor Nicholson, "are never manifested except by certain forms of matter, or, it may be, by but a single form of matter. We conclude, therefore, that there must be an intimate connection between vital phenomena and the 'matter of life;' but we can go no further than this, and the premises do not in any way warrant the assertion that life is the result of living matter, or one of its properties." "The more philosophical view as to the nature of the connection between life and its material basis, is the one which regards vitality as something superadded and foreign to the matter by which vital phenomena are manifested. Protoplasm is essential as the physical medium through which vital action may be manifested; just as a conductor is essential to the manifestation of electric phenomena, or just as a paint-brush and colours are essential to the artist. Because metal conducts the electric current, and renders it perceptible to our senses, no one thinks of therefore asserting that electricity is one of the inherent properties of a metal, any more than one would feel inclined to assert that the power of painting was inherent in the camel's hair or in the dead pigments. Behind the material substratum, in all cases, is the active and living force; and we have no right to assume that the force ceases to exist when its physical basis is removed, though it is no longer perceptible to our senses. It is, on the contrary, quite conceivable theoretically that the vital forces of an organism should suffer no change by the destruction of the physical basis, just as electricity would continue to subsist in a world composed universally of non-conductors. In neither case could the force manifest its presence, or be brought into any perceptible relation with the outer world; but in neither case should we have the smallest ground for assuming that the power was necessarily non-extant."
This view when transferred to the soul, or mental phenomena, may be applied in three different forms to the doctrine of the state of man after death. First, God may be regarded as the universal mind-force which manifests itself through the human brain as electricity does through a conductor. When the brain is disintegrated, the mind-force remains, but not the individual man. Secondly, we may assume the realistic doctrine of generic humanity, manifesting itself in connection with proper corporeal organizations. Here again, it would seem to follow that when any individual human body is dissolved, the generic human life remains, but not the man. This is nearly the doctrine of Olshausen, before referred to. He held that the individuality of man depends on the body; so that without a body there can be no soul; that the only existence of the soul of man possible between death and the resurrection must be the scattered dust of its human frame. Thirdly, we may take the doctrine of Swedenborg, who taught that man has two bodies, an exterior and interior, a material and spiritual, and that it is the former only that dies; the latter remains as the organ of the soul. Or, as others believe, the new, or spiritual, or resurrection body is provided at the moment of death, so that the soul passes from its earthly to its heavenly tabernacle in a moment. In none of these forms, however, is this theory of the absolute dependence of the soul for its power of selfmanifestation properly applicable to the doctrine of the sleep of the soul after death. It is nevertheless probable that those who advocated this doctrine, in different periods in the history of the Church, had some such theory underlying their views.
Eusebius mentions a small sect of Christians in Arabia who held that the soul remained unconscious from death to the resurrection. At the time of the Reformation there was such a revival of that doctrine that Calvin deemed it expedient to write an essay devoted to its refutation. Socinus also taught that the soul after death perceived and received nothing out of itself, although it remained selfconscious and self-contemplative. Archbishop Whately2 says that, so far as the Scriptures are concerned, it is an open question whether the soul remains in a conscious state after death or not. In the third
lecture he gives reasons which favour the view of continued consciousness; and in the fourth, those which seem to teach the opposite doctrine. To the understanding, he says, there is no difference between the two views; although to the imagination, the difference is great. In the consciousness of the soul of the believer, in either case, entrance into heaven would instantaneously succeed death. An interval of which the soul was unconscious, would, for it, have no existence. The archbishop for himself thinks that the arguments on the one side are as strong as those on the other. The two considerations which seem to him to favour the doctrine of the sleep of the soul between death and the resurrection, are, first the fact that death is so often called a sleep. The dead are those who are asleep. (1 Thess. 4:14.) This expression cannot properly be understood of the body. A dead body can no more be said to sleep than a stone. The fair intimation, therefore, is, as the Archbishop thinks, that the soul sleeps when the body dies. The second consideration is that the New Testament clearly teaches that there is a solemn final judgment at the last day, when the destiny of each soul will be decided for eternity. But this appears inconsistent with the doctrine that the fate of the soul is decided immediately after it leaves the body. He admits that, according to the Scriptures, probation ends with this life, and therefore if the righteous at death pass into a state of happiness and the wicked into a state of misery, they are thereby judged; and there is no apparent necessity for a future judgment. It is obvious that these arguments have little force against the clear teachings of the Bible, and the faith of the Church universal, and indeed of all mankind. As to the first of the above mentioned arguments, it is enough to say, that as a dead body and a body asleep are so much alike in appearance, it is the most natural thing in the world to speak of death as an unending sleep. This is done continually by those who are firm believers in the continued conscious activity of the soul after death. The other argument has, if possible, still less weight. Although the fate of every man should be decided for himself and to his knowledge at the moment of death, there may be important and numerous reasons why there should be a public, solemn adjudication at the last day, when the secrets of all
hearts shall be made known, and the justice of God revealed in the presence of men and angels.
§ 3. Patristic Doctrine of the Intermediate State
Although the true doctrine concerning the state of the dead was, as has been shown, revealed in the Old Testament, it was more or less perverted in the minds of the people. The prevalent idea was that all souls after death descended into Sheol, and there remained in expectation of the coming of the Messiah. When He came it was expected that the Jews, or at least, the faithful, would be raised from the dead, and made partakers of all the glories and blessedness of the Messiah's reign. The views presented in the writings of the Rabbins of the condition of the souls in Sheol are not only diverse but inconsistent. The common representation was that Sheol itself was a gloomy, subterraneous abode, whose inhabitants were shades, weak and powerless, existing in a dreamy state; the best of them not in a state of suffering, and yet with no other enjoyment than the anticipation of deliverance when the Messiah should come. At other times, however, more life was attributed to the souls of the departed; and Sheol was represented as divided into two departments, Paradise and Gehenna. In the former were, according to some, all Jews, according to others only those who had faithfully observed the law; and in the other, the Gentiles. The common opinion was that all the Jews would be raised from the dead, when the Messiah came, and all the Gentiles left forever in the abode of darkness. Paradise, according to this view, was a place of positive enjoyment, and Gehenna a place of positive suffering. It is evident that there is no great difference between this Jewish doctrine in its essential features, and the true doctrine as presented by our Lord in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. Both are represented as going into Sheol or Hades. The one was comforted, the other tormented. There was an inseparable barrier between the two. So far both doctrines agree. When the Rabbi Jochanan was dying, he said, "Two paths open before me, the one leading to bliss, the other to torments; and I know not which of them will be my doom." "Paradise is
separated from hell by a distance no greater than the width of a thread."2
According to many modern interpreters the New Testament writers adopted this Jewish doctrine not only in substance but in its details. (1.) They are represented as teaching that all the people of God who died before the advent of Christ, were confined in Sheol, or the under-world. Sheol or Hades, as stated above, is constantly spoken of "as the gloomy realm of shades, wherein are gathered and detained the souls of all the dead generations." The soul at death is said to be dismissed "naked into the silent, dark, and dreary region of the under-world." (2.) That when Christ died upon the cross, He descended "ad inferos," into Hades, or Hell, for the purpose of delivering the pious dead from their prison; and that they were the redeemed captives of whom the Apostle speaks in Ephesians 4:8–10, as led by Christ into heaven. (3.) That those who die in the Lord since his advent, instead of being admitted into heaven, pass into the same place and the same state into which the patriarch passed at death before his coming. (4.) And as the Old Testament saints remained in Sheol until the first coming of the Messiah, so those who die under the New Testament, are to remain in Hades, until his second coming. Then they are not only to be delivered from Sheol, but their bodies are to be raised from the dead, and soul and body, reunited and glorified, are to be admitted into heaven.
Such is the scheme of doctrine said to be taught in the New Testament. Our Lord is regarded as giving it his sanction in the parable concerning Lazarus. Paul is made to teach it when he speaks of Christ as descending to "the lower parts of the earth," which is said to mean "the parts lower than the earth," that is, the under-world. His object in thus descending was, according to the theory, to deliver the souls confined in the gloomy prison of Sheol. Christ's triumph over principalities and powers is referred to the same event, his descent into Hades. Mr. Alger, representing a large class of writers, says that according to Paul's doctrine, "Christ was the first person clothed with humanity and experiencing death, admitted into
heaven. Of all the hosts who had lived and died, every one had gone down into the dusky under-world. They were all held in durance waiting for the Great Deliverer." The fate of those who die since the advent is no better, for they, as Paul is made to teach, are "all to remain in the under-world" until the second coming of Christ, "when they and the transformed living shall ascend together with the Lord."2
St. Peter is made to teach the same doctrine in still more explicit terms. In his discourse delivered on the day of Pentecost, he argued that Jesus is the Christ from the fact that God raised Him from the dead. That He was thus raised he argued from the sixteenth Psalm, where it is written, "Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption." That these words cannot refer to David, Peter argued, because he did see corruption, and his sepulchre remained until that day. The words of the Psalmist, therefore, must be understood of Christ, whose soul was not left in hell (Sheol), neither did his flesh see corruption. As for David, he "is not ascended into heaven." (Acts 2:34.) Something, therefore, happened to Christ that did not happen to David or to any other man. Christ was not left in hell; David and all other men were thus left. Christ did ascend to heaven; David did not; and if David did not, then other saints of his time did not. Thus it is that Peter is made to teach that the souls of the pious dead do not ascend to heaven, but descend to the gloomy abode of Sheol, Hades, or Hell, all these terms being equivalent. This exposition of the Apostle's teaching is plausible, and if consistent with other parts of Scripture, might be accepted. But as it contradicts what the Bible clearly teaches in many other places, it must be rejected. Peter's object was to prove the Messiahship of Christ from the fact of the resurrection of his body. The essential idea of "rising from the dead" was the restoration of the body to life. The soul does not die, and is not raised. The Apostle proved that Christ's body did not see corruption, but was restored to life; first, because it was a historical fact of which he and his brethren were witnesses; and secondly, from the prediction of the Psalmist that the Messiah was not to remain in the grave. That the sixteenth
Psalm does not refer to David, he argued, because David died and was buried; his body did see corruption; his sepulchre remained among them; he, his body, he, as a man composed of soul and body, had not ascended to heaven. The whole argument concerns the body; because it is true only of the body, that it dies, is buried, sees corruption, and does not ascend to heaven. The simple meaning of Psalm 16:10, is that the person there spoken of was not to remain under the power of death. He was to rise from the dead before his body had time to see corruption. This is all that the passage teaches. This is true of Christ; it was not true of David or of any of the saints who died before the advent; and it is not true of those who have died since the advent. In this respect, as in so many others, Christ stands gloriously alone.
The difficult passage 1 Peter 3:18, 19, however it may be interpreted, proves nothing against the Protestant doctrine that the souls of believers do at death immediately pass into glory. What happens to ordinary men happened to Christ when He died. His cold and lifeless body was laid in the tomb. His human soul passed into the invisible world. This is all that the creed, commonly called the Apostle's, means, when it says Christ was buried, and descended into Hell, or Hades, the unseen world. This is all that the passage in question clearly teaches. Men may doubt and differ as to what Christ did during the three days of his sojourn in the invisible world. They may differ as to who the spirits in prison were to whom he preached, or, rather, made proclamation (ἐκήρυξεν); whether they were the antediluvians; or, the souls of the people of God detained in Sheol; or, the mass of the dead of all antecedent generations and of all nations, which is the favorite hypothesis of modern interpreters. They may differ also as to what the proclamation was which Christ made to those imprisoned spirits; whether it was the gospel; or his own triumph; or deliverance from Sheol; or the coming judgment. However these subordinate questions may be decided, all that remains certain is that Christ, after his death upon the cross, entered the invisible world, and there, in some way, made proclamation of what He had done on earth. All this is very far from teaching the
doctrine of a "Limbus Patrum," as taught by the Jews, the Fathers, or the Romanists.
It is a great mistake in interpretation of the New Testament, to bring down its teachings to the level of Jewish or Pagan ideas. Because the Jews expected the Messiah to establish an earthly kingdom, it is inferred that the kingdom of God, as proclaimed by Christ and his Apostles, was to be realized in this life. Because they expected that the Messiah was to deliver the souls of their fathers from Sheol, it is assumed that this was the work actually effected by Christ. Because the Jews regarded imprisonment in the under-world as the special penalty of sin, it is inferred that deliverance from that imprisonment was the redemption our Lord actually effected. This is to interpret the Scriptures by the Talmud and Cabala, and not Scripture by Scripture. This is historical interpretation "en oûtre." It is true that Christ proclaimed that the kingdom of God was at hand; but his kingdom was not of this world. It is true that He came to open the prison doors and proclaim liberty to the captives; but the prison was not Sheol, and the captives were not the souls of departed patriarchs. It is true that He came to redeem his people; but the redemption which He effected was from the curse of God's violated law, and not deliverance from the gloomy land of Shades.
We all know that the great evil with which the Apostles had to contend in the early Church, and the great source of corruption in the Church in after ages, was a Judaizing spirit. Most of the early Christians were Jews, and most of the converts from the Gentiles were proselytes imbued with Jewish doctrines. These doctrines, moreover, were congenial with what the Apostle calls "the carnal mind." It is not wonderful, therefore, that they were transferred to the Christian Church, and proved in it a permanently corrupting leaven. Modern critics are going back to the beginning, and doing in our day what the Judaizers did in the age of the Apostles. They are eliminating Christianity from the Gospel, and substituting Judaism, somewhat spiritualized, but still essentially Judaic.
It is notorious that the Jewish doctrines of the merit of works; of the necessity and saving efficacy of external rites; of a visible kingdom of Christ of splendour and worldly grandeur; of an external church out of whose pale there is no salvation; of the priestly character of the ministry; and of a church hierarchy, soon began to spread among Christians, and at last became ascendant. This being the case it would be strange if the Jewish doctrine of Sheol, or of an intermediate state, had not been adopted by many of the fathers, together with the other elements of the corrupt Judaism of the apostolic age. We accordingly find that as the Jews, contrary to the teaching of their own Scripture, held that the souls of those who died before the coming of the Messiah descended into Sheol, and there awaited the advent of the Redeemer, so the Christians began to believe, contrary to the teaching of their Scriptures, that the souls of believers at death, instead of passing into glory, are shut up in Hades, awaiting the second coming of Christ. It is true there were varying and inconsistent notions entertained of the nature of this intermediate state; and the same is true also with regard to the views on this subject which long prevailed in the Church. There are two facts which stand out so plainly in the New Testament Scriptures that they could not be always overlooked or denied. The one is that Christ, forty days after his resurrection, ascended into heaven, and is now seated at the right hand of the Majesty on high. The other is that the souls of believers when absent from the body are present with the Lord. As many of the Jews, therefore, assumed that in Sheol there were two departments, Paradise and Gehenna, the one the abode of the righteous, the other of the wicked; so the Christians, in many cases, made the same distinction with regard to the intermediate state; the souls of believers went to paradise; the souls of the wicked into hell. And they often so exalted the blessedness of the former as to make it a mere dispute about words whether they went to heaven or into an intermediate state. The real controversy, so far as any exists, is not as to whether there is a state intermediate between death and the resurrection in which believers are less glorious and exalted than they are to be after the second advent of Christ, but what is the nature of that state. Are believers after death with Christ?
Do their souls immediately pass into glory? or, are they in a dreamy, semi-conscious state, neither happy nor miserable, awaiting the resurrection of the body. That this latter view was for a long time prevalent in the Church may be inferred, (1.) From the fact that this was the view of the intermediate state commonly adopted by the Jews. (2.) It is the view attributed to the writers of the New Testament. (3.) It is the doctrine avowed by many of the patristic and mediæval writers. (4.) There would otherwise be no ground for the opposition manifested to the doctrine of Protestants on this subject. Daillé says, "The doctrine that heaven shall not be opened till the second coming of Christ,—that during that time the souls of all men, with few exceptions, are shut up in the under-world,—was held by Justin Martyr, Irenæus, Tertullian, Augustine, Origen, Lactantius, Victorinus, Ambrose, Chrysostom, Theodoret, Œcomenius, Aretas, Prudentius, Theophylact, Bernard, and many others, as is confessed by all.… This doctrine is literally held by the whole Greek Church at the present day; nor did any of the Latins expressly deny any part of it until the Council of Florence, in the year of our Lord 1439."
Flügge says in reference to the early fathers, that they "were not in doubt as to the fate of the soul when separated from the body until the resurrection, because they rested on the Jewish doctrine on that subject." Justin Martyr speaks in this way:3 [Φημὶ:] Τὰς μὲν [ψυχὰς] τῶν εὐσεβῶν ἐν κρειττονί ποι χώρῳ μένειν, τὰς δὲ ἀδίκους καὶ πονερὰς ἐν χείρονι, τὸν τῆς κρίσεως ἐκδεχομένας χρόνον τοτε, that is, "I say, that the souls of the pious dwell in some better place, and ungodly and wicked souls in a worse place, thus awaiting the time of judgment."
The fathers say but little about Hades. Hippolytus, however, gives an account of it which is in substance as follows: Hades, in which the souls of the righteous and unrighteous are detained, was left at the creation in a state of chaos, to which the light of the sun never penetrates, but where perpetual darkness reigns. This place is the prison of souls, over which the angels keep watch. In Hades there is a furnace of unquenchable fire into which no one has yet been cast. It
is reserved for the banishment of the wicked at the end of the world, when the righteous will be made citizens of an eternal kingdom. The good and the bad, although both in Hades, are not in the same part of it. They enter the under-world by the same gate. When this gate is passed, the guardian angels guide the souls of the departed different ways; the righteous are guided to the right to a region full of light; the wicked are constrained to take the left hand path, leading to a region near the unquenchable fire. The good are free from all discomfort, and rejoice in expectation of their admission into heaven. The wicked are miserable in constant anticipation of their coming doom. An impassable gulf separates the abode of the righteous from that of the wicked. Here they remain until the resurrection, which he goes on to explain and defend.