The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Earliest church writings on the state of the dead.

Good points. :wink: I too am agnostic about this. Certain OT verses seem to suggest no consciousness and may just be ‘poetry’ and some NT verses seem to suggest consciousness, so I’ll have to say ‘I don’t know’. :sunglasses:

I think there have been very few quotes in response to Catherine’s request. I quoted Justin Martyr who said to the Jews whom he was debating that if they encounter any who say there is no resurrection and that when they die their souls go to heaven, do not even believe that they are Christians. Those to whom Justin was referring were doubtless gnostics.

It was a fairly common belief in the early days of the church that people’s souls go into the underworld at death, there to await the resurrection. There was disagreement whether or not these souls are conscious. Here are a couple of quotes concerning the intermediate state:

Irenæus 130-200 A.D.

  • If the Lord followed the normal course of death that he might be the “firstborn from the dead”, and stayed till the third day in “the lower parts of the earth”, and then rose in his physical body to show the marks of the nails to his disciples, and thus ascended to the Father; this must needs overthrow the contention that this world of our is the underworld, and that the “inner man” leaves the body here and ascends into the region above the heavens. For the Lord “departed in the midst of the shadow of death” (Psalm 22:23), where are the souls of the departed, and then arose in bodily form and after his resurrection was taken up [into heaven]. Therefore it is clear that the souls of his disciples, for whom the Lord performed this, will depart into an unseen region, set apart for them by God, and will dwell there until the resurrection which they await. Then they will receive their bodies and arise entire, that is, in bodily form as the Lord arose, and thus will come into the presence of God (Irenæus - Against Heresies v.xxxi.2)*

Tertullian — About 200 A.D.
"Are all souls, then,“in the realm of the underworld?” Yes, whether you like it or not. And there are punishments there and refreshments… Why cannot you suppose that the soul undergoes punishment or comfort in the underworld, in the interval while it awaits judgment, either of punishment or reward, with a kind of anticipation?.. Otherwise, what will happen in that interval? Shall we sleep? But souls cannot sleep… Or do you think nothing happens there?.. Surely it would be the height of injustice if in that place the souls of the wicked prospered, and the good still failed of happiness! (Tertullian De Anima 58)

Paidion, many thanks for your help in this matter. :smiley:

Interesting bit from Justin Martyr there.
As far as I know, most of the church today believes that one either goes straight to heaven or (ECT) hell upon death. If pressed on it, they’d probably say that is the resurrection to life or condemnation. This presents some obvious problems from the biblical witness though. If our resurrection is immediate, then why is there another (“general”) resurrection?
Ultra-U’s would probably say much the same, except everyone goes straight to heaven.

I understand where both viewpoints come from (immediate resurrection vs. non-immediate). I wonder if the early church still had an OT-based “pre-resurrection of Christ” viewpoint; they didn’t have the NT in it’s entirety yet (at least not in the form we have today), and so some of their viewpoints may have reflected a more OT influence. I do see some biblical merit for the idea that things changed after Christ was raised from the dead.

I was just pondering Dives and Lazarus. I knew that Evagrius (345-399), Christian monk and ascetic, follower of Origen had said the following in his (Commentary on the Book of Proverbs):

‘The seeds of virtue are indestructible. And I am convinced of this by the Rich Man almost but not completely given over to every evil who was condemned to hell because of his evil, and who felt compassion for his brothers; for to have pity is a very beautiful seed of virtue’

And I thought ‘Yay’ but presumed this was an isolated insight. However I have recently come across wider confirmation of Evagrius’ view. First D.P. Walker in ‘The Decline of Hell’ states that tow medieval Fathers realised the problem in Dives’s compassion for his brothers in terms of their doctrine of hell:

There is the awkward problem raised by the parable of Dives and Lazarus. If this parable is taken as representative of the afterlife, which it appears to be, then Dives charitable concern for the fate of his five brothers is difficult to fit in with the orthodox conception as the damned as immutable evil and locked in selfishness. The medieval theologians Bonaventura and Aquinas suggested that Dives would have liked everyone to be damned, but that, knowing that this would not happen, he preferred that his brothers should be saved rather than anyone else. Leibniz in his theodicy states – ‘ I do not think there is substance in this response’ (and it does seem torturous to me an unwarranted by the parable)

Again I recently have read a footnote to one of Fredrick Farrar’s sermons on ‘Eternal Hope’ where he tells us that Dives is in ‘Hades’ ) the exact equivalent of the Hebrew Sheol meaning ‘the unseen world of the dead’ which Farra argues is an intermediate condition of the soul after death and before Final judgement. And Farrar argues that it shows how rapidly in that condition improvements have been wrought in a sinful and selfish soul. Apparently Luther taught that the whole conversation between Dives and Lazarus took place in Dives’ conscience.

just tell him no-one is in hell now because the great judgement has not yet occurred. :sunglasses: Even under their own teachings, judgment needs to occur first before punishment or reward,

Hang on, something bad has happened here. That isn’t the Jewish view of the afterlife.

asktherabbi.org/DisplayQuestion.asp?ID=131

As fas as I can see Jesus is talking to a Jewish audience who are already universalist. Given that first century belief was the same, and the rabbis I have asked assure me it was, Jesus is using a model of hell that everyone knows is false as an illustration. It’s a bit like my thermostat joke in the humour section. I really hate to say this but I think the whole parable is rhetorical mickey-taking by Jesus which has become fossilised into theology. Does Jesus use the same device elsewhere? Think of camels and needles, or the man with a plank in his eye- he does. He uses an obvious absurdity to make a point. It’s very clever, and very funny, presentation.

We do the same thing today. I once opened an engineering meeting with a slide of a spaceship, and the words, “What’s that? It’s science fiction. So is most of the project documentation. This is how we are going to fix it…”

Hi Wormwood -

Hi Wormwood –

(Nice to speak to a fellow countryman!!! And I love your posts :slight_smile: )

I agree with you. Not sure this parable is humorous - although others certainly are, and very funny too - but Dives is not in eternal hell. He’s in Hades being purified in conscience. Which is why Aquinas and pals had such a difficult time explaining in ECT terms the inconvenient detail of Dives compassion for his brothers (Aquinas explanation is pretty pathetic IMHO).

Regarding the Rabbis - while it’s true today that the Jewish consensus is that God’s punishment is temporary and remedial and I see from you that this was Maimonides view - aren’t there passages in the Mishnah, close to the traditions of First Century Judaism - which suggest that Jewish views of Divine punishment in Jesus’ time were more varied? All that I have read is some footnotes at the back of the printed universalistic sermons of a C of E clergyman on ‘Eternal Hope’ (Fredrick Farrar) – he had written to prominent English Rabbis who confirm your view, but quotes passages from the Mishnah which suggest some had far harsher beliefs in the first century, although there was no consensus. I’d be interested to know more about the Mishnah. I want to agree wholeheartedly with you – but think perhaps your point needs a nuance to it.

A last thought – something you haven’t asked but hits me on reflection; regarding the difference between Hades and the place of Aeonian punishment after the Last Judgement - I’ll have to pass on that. I really don’t know. But I do understand that the idea of Purgatory developed from the NT hints about Hades.

All very good wishes

Dick

Hi Wormwood - I’ve just had a look at Rabbinic debates about hell. I think your view is right in a general sense; but the total picture is more complex –

Jews who followed the teachings of the Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection – therefore blessings or curses were to be had in this life only (adn the same is true of some Orthodox Jews today)

Some Rabbis seemed to have believed in annihilation or even ECT for the especially wicked. However neither destiny was expected to be the lot of the majority of mankind. And even Rabbis who believed in limited ECT seemed to have held out some hope of repentance for those tormented.

I guess we also have to reckon with some of the blood curdling passages from the Targums (Rabbinic paraphrases of the Hebrew Bible) from Jesus’ day, and the apocalyptic literature, and inter-testamental book of Esdras. Here there seems to be evidence of a more vengeful eschatology in sectarian Judaism than in later Rabbinic Judaism – and may scholars argue that Jesus uses but subverts this tradition in his teachings.

However as Farrar points out in ‘Eternal Hope’ it seems remarkable that the Jews – who have every reason for vengeful resentment – have on the whole held to a compassionate eschatology.
If you want quotes from Rabbis – I can give them.

Dick

What if the parable of Lazarus and the rich man isn’t even about the afterlife? I’ve been told Augustine first put forth this interpretation (hey, nobody’s ALL bad) and it just seems too perfect to me to not consider it as at least one explanation for the parable. Here are my thoughts on it: journeyintotheson.com/2012/0 … us-part-2/. I’d be interested to know what you think about it – either here or at my blog.

HI Cindy –

Your blog is really well written, and I love prefigurative links you make to the Hebrew Bible in your interpretation of the parable on your blog – very stimulating and great detective work. The idea that the Rich Man represents the Jews and Lazarus the Gentiles, and that the Parable has nothing to do with the afterlife seems to be pretty much that Augustinian view from what I can see. And yes I’m sure this is a layer of meaning and valid interpretation (but I’m no expert). I think you are right to emphasise that on this level of interpretation the Rich Man represents the Pharisees rather than the Jews per se. And I think ‘Pharisees’ is probably a loose term for the Judean Temple Authorities who presided over the whole mechanism of purity taboos, temple taxation etc that excluded the Jewish ‘sinners’ from the Kingdom of God; that is the poor who could not afford to pay the Temple tax or buy animals to sacrifice and who had to take on work that made then ritually unclean, the prostitutes who slept with Roman Soldiers out of desperate poverty etc… I perhaps think it was the Jewish outsiders who were originally represented by Lazarus in this parable.

My tentative point about the parable isn’t really about meaning. It’s just that Hades as represented in it seems to be the Hades that crops up in other Jewish and later Christian literature – including Perpetua’s vision of Dinocrates - as an intermediate state that souls go to when they die before the final judgement (and where they can progress). This suggests to me that Dives and Lazarus seems to have informed a certain type of early Christian eschatology; that’s it, and it may be of little consequence I guess. :slight_smile:

Hi, Dick

I didn’t mean to downplay what you said, and now I realize it sounded that way. :blush: I think it’s a great point about the rabbinical view of hell/hades as a place of purification. I’ve just been reading your other post, but at the moment I’m too tired to take it in so I’ll try again later. I do think it’s a hugely important matter to see that the rabbinical view of hell at the time of Christ was of a temporary duration. This works so much better for me than any other exegesis of Jesus’ comments about Gehenna. It’s simple and sweet and I’m always fond of the Occam’s razor principle. I don’t think it can always be true, but so much of the time, it IS. I really appreciate your posting that. It makes perfect sense that Jesus would play to His crowd, and knowing that His crowd held a certain view of hades/gehenna/hell, He would work with that.

So, as you pointed out, that picture of hell works perfectly in the Lazarus parable. I realize now (which I didn’t realize before a couple of years ago) that Jesus’ stories were often just like ours – they included furniture and atmosphere. But this parable in particular doesn’t seem to me to have any fat at all. It’s pure protein through and through. :wink: (But don’t take that literally!) :laughing: BTW, I also really appreciate your recommending those books on Jesus’ parables – Poet & Peasant, etc. So helpful. Thanks! I can’t tell you how much I’ve enjoyed them.

Love, Cindy

Wonderful :smiley:

love

Dick

My thinking is that Jesus used a belief which was common among the Pharisees as a basis for this parable to teach them that even if someone could return from the dead and warn them, they would not believe. I know I wrote in another thread that the Pharisees believe in reincarnation. I think that was also a common belief among some of them.

You can read the same description of Hades (but even more detailed) in Josephus’ discourse on Hades. Josephus was a Jew who wrote Antiquities of the Jews and Wars of the Jews. He apparently believed in Hades as a literal place where all souls go after death, the righteous to “Abraham’s Bosom”, and the unrighteous to a place of discomfort right next to the Lake of fire.

ccel.org/j/josephus/works/hades.htm

I’ve just been reading 'Jesus through Middle Eastern Eyes’ on Dives and Lazarus – and although I don’t with Kenneth Bailey that one lesson of the Parable is that there is no chance of repentance after death I do find his argument that Dives, in demanding leave to warn his brothers, is probably acting like a rich man who is accustomed to being obeyed (and perhaps there is a note of dark comedy here in the contradiction between his self assurance and the reality of his situation. However, I guess the history of how the parable has been interpreted – by universalists and by non-universalists – is interesting. Yes and the parallelism of Lazarus the poor man and Lazarus of Bethany who Jesus raises from the dead is also significant.