HistoricalChristian.Faith

Augustine of Hippo on the Intermediate State

Dates: c. 430 · Wikipedia
Summary: Augustine (354–430), bishop of Hippo, gives the intermediate state its most influential Latin shape: between death and the resurrection the soul waits in "hidden retreats" (abdita receptacula), resting or suffering in proportion to its earthly merit; Abraham's bosom is the hidden rest of the righteous, divided by a fixed gulf from torment; Tartarus is the prison of the fallen angels; and the dead can be helped by the prayers, alms, and the Eucharistic sacrifice of the living. He grants that a purgatorial fire for some believers is "not impossible," but holds it cautiously as a matter that "may be left doubtful."

Claims & evidence

A conscious interval in hidden retreats — rest or affliction by desert

During the time, moreover, which intervenes between a man's death and the final resurrection, the soul dwells in a hidden retreat, where it enjoys rest or suffers affliction just in proportion to the merit it has earned by the life which it led on earth.

— The Enchiridion, ch. 109 ("The State of the Soul During the Interval Between Death and the Resurrection"), historicalchristian.faith. This is Augustine's compressed creed on the question: the soul is conscious and located in the interval (Latin in abditis receptaculis, "in hidden receptacles / retreats"), and its rest or affliction already tracks the merit fixed in this life — there is no earning of new merit after death.

Abraham's bosom = the hidden rest of the righteous, a gulf fixed

If you would not fall into a childish mistake, you must understand Abraham's bosom to be a retired and hidden resting-place where Abraham is; and therefore called Abraham's, not that it is his alone, but because he is the father of many nations, and placed first, that others might imitate his preeminence of faith.

— Catena Aurea on Luke 16:22 (Augustine, De Origine Animae 4.16, as gathered by Aquinas), historicalchristian.faith. Against a crassly bodily reading, Augustine takes "Abraham's bosom" as a spiritual resting-place holding many souls — the rest of the faithful, entered by imitating Abraham's faith. In his preaching on the same parable he warns that the rich man's torment is owed to "his impiety, infidelity, pride and cruelty," not his wealth, and points to the gulf the rich man begs across "too late in hell."

Tartarus = the prison of the fallen angels

It is a fixed and unchanging religious truth that the devil and his angels are never to return to the life and holiness of the saints. From Scripture we know that God's sentence implies that he dragged them down by infernal ropes to Tartarus and delivered them to be tortured and kept in custody for judgment. They will be received into everlasting fire and there tortured forever and ever.

— City of God 21.23, historicalchristian.faith. Reading 2 Peter 2:4 ("cast them down to Tartarus," tartarōsas), Augustine places the rebel angels in Tartarus as a present prison of "custody for judgment" — a holding-place for the demonic dead distinct from the rest of the righteous, anticipating the everlasting fire to come.

The dead are aided by the prayers, alms, and Eucharistic sacrifice of the living

Nor can it be denied that the souls of the dead are benefited by the piety of their living friends, who offer the sacrifice of the Mediator, or give alms in the church on their behalf. But these services are of advantage only to those who during their lives have earned such merit, that services of this kind can help them.

— The Enchiridion, ch. 110 ("The Benefit to the Souls of the Dead from the Sacraments and Alms of Their Living Friends"), historicalchristian.faith. The offerings, he adds, are "thank-offerings for the very good," "propitiatory offerings for the not very bad," and merely "a species of consolation to the living" for the very bad — their benefit being "either in obtaining a full remission of sins, or at least in making the condemnation more tolerable." This is the doctrinal seed of later prayers for the dead, but tightly bounded: efficacy depends on merit already fixed in this life.

Burial honors comfort the living; prayer and the sacrifice profit the dead

So, then, all these things, care of funeral, bestowal in sepulture, pomp of obsequies, are more for comfort of the living, than for help to the dead.

— On Care to Be Had for the Dead, §4, historicalchristian.faith. Augustine distinguishes the two: lavish burial does the dead no spiritual good (the poor Lazarus, carried off by angels, fared better than the rich man with his handsome obsequies), but supplications truly reach them — "there is no doubt that it profits them who while living in the body merited that such things should profit them after this life" (§6). When even bodies cannot be buried, "yet should there be no pretermitting of supplications for the spirits of the dead."

A purgatorial fire for some is "not impossible" — but held tentatively

And it is not impossible that something of the same kind may take place even after this life. It is a matter that may be inquired into, and either ascertained or left doubtful, whether some believers shall pass through a kind of purgatorial fire, and in proportion as they have loved with more or less devotion the goods that perish, be less or more quickly delivered from it.

— The Enchiridion, ch. 69 ("It is Not Impossible that Some Believers May Pass Through a Purgatorial Fire in the Future Life"), historicalchristian.faith. Reading 1 Corinthians 3:11–15 (the man "saved, yet so as by fire"), Augustine builds the case from the "fire" of adversity already at work in this life and then extends it cautiously beyond death — but only for those who will inherit the kingdom, never for the unrepentant "saved by fire" opinion he rejects in ch. 67–68. The hedging is deliberate: the fire "may be ascertained or left doubtful," and is offered as conjecture, not settled doctrine.

That Christ descended into hell is "beyond question" — only whom he freed is uncertain

It is established beyond question that the Lord, after He had been put to death in the flesh, descended into hell; for it is impossible to gainsay either that utterance of prophecy, You will not leave my soul in hell … Who, therefore, except an infidel, will deny that Christ was in hell?

— Letter 164 (to Evodius), §2–3, newadvent.org. Augustine treats the bare descensus — that Christ's soul went to the realm of the dead — as settled and creedal, grounded in Psalm 16:10 (Acts 2:27) and Peter's "loosed the pains of hell" (Acts 2:24): to deny it is infidelity. What he refuses to settle is the payload — exactly whom Christ delivered there, and whether 1 Peter 3:19's "spirits in prison" belong to the descent at all (he leans toward a non-literal reading, the spirits preached to "in the days of Noah" through Noah's own preaching). So Augustine firmly holds the fact the descent-to-the-dead argument calls sound, while staying cautious about the contested liberation it is usually made to carry. See his detail page on 1 Peter 3:19 / the Nephilim question.

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