HistoricalChristian.Faith
HistoricalChristian.Faith
Dates: c. 202 · Wikipedia
Summary: Irenaeus of Lyons (c. 130–202) holds that the souls of the departed go to an "invisible place allotted to them by God" and there remain until the resurrection, when they receive their bodies again. He grounds this on Christ's own pattern: the Lord did not fly straight to heaven at death but "tarried" three days among the dead — so the disciple cannot expect to do otherwise.
they … affirm that immediately upon their death they shall pass above the heavens and the Demiurge, and go to the Mother (Achamoth) or to that Father whom they have feigned. Those persons, therefore, who disallow a resurrection affecting the whole man … how can they be wondered at, if again they know nothing as to the plan of the resurrection? For they do not choose to understand, that if these things are as they say, the Lord Himself, in whom they profess to believe, did not rise again upon the third day; but immediately upon His expiring on the cross, undoubtedly departed on high, leaving His body to the earth. But the case was, that for three days He dwelt in the place where the dead were … And the Lord Himself says, "As Jonas remained three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the Son of man be in the heart of the earth."
— Against Heresies, Book V, ch. 31.1, historicalchristian.faith. Irenaeus rebukes those "reckoned among the orthodox" who "go beyond the pre-arranged plan for the exaltation of the just" and suppose they pass "immediately upon their death … above the heavens." His decisive argument is christological: if souls went straight to glory, then Christ Himself would have done so — but He observed "the law of the dead," lying three days "in the heart of the earth."
If, then, the Lord observed the law of the dead, that He might become the first-begotten from the dead, and tarried until the third day "in the lower parts of the earth; " then afterwards rising in the flesh … it is manifest that the souls of His disciples also, upon whose account the Lord underwent these things, shall go away into the invisible place allotted to them by God, and there remain until the resurrection, awaiting that event; then receiving their bodies, and rising in their entirety, that is bodily, just as the Lord arose, they shall come thus into the presence of God. "For no disciple is above the Master, but every one that is perfect shall be as his Master." As our Master, therefore, did not at once depart, taking flight [to heaven], but awaited the time of His resurrection prescribed by the Father … so ought we also to await the time of our resurrection prescribed by God and foretold by the prophets, and so, rising, be taken up, as many as the Lord shall account worthy of this [privilege].
— Against Heresies, Book V, ch. 31.2, historicalchristian.faith. This is Irenaeus's positive doctrine of the intermediate state: at death the soul goes to "the invisible place allotted to them by God," and there remains until the resurrection, "afterwards rising again at the time of the resurrection" to receive its body. The disciple follows the Master's pattern — no immediate flight to heaven, but a waiting in the appointed place until the bodily resurrection.
It was for this reason, too, that the Lord descended into the regions beneath the earth, preaching His advent there also, and [declaring] the remission of sins received by those who believe in Him. Now all those believed in Him who had hope towards Him, that is, those who proclaimed His advent, and submitted to His dispensations, the righteous men, the prophets, and the patriarchs, to whom He remitted sins in the same way as He did to us …
— Against Heresies, Book IV, historicalchristian.faith. Irenaeus reads Christ's descent to "the regions beneath the earth" as a real visitation of the place of the dead, where the Lord preached His advent and remission of sins to the righteous of old — the prophets and patriarchs who had hoped toward Him. The descent presupposes the very geography of his intermediate-state doctrine: the righteous dead waiting below for their redemption.
The same theme recurs across Book IV, anchored each time to an apocryphal prophetic saying Irenaeus quotes repeatedly — and ascribes now to Isaiah (AH III.20.4), now to Jeremiah (IV.22.1), now to no prophet at all — "The holy Lord remembered His dead Israel, who slept in the land of sepulture; and He descended to them to make known to them His salvation, that they might be saved" — on whose account, he says, "He also descended into the lower parts of the earth, to behold with His eyes the state of those who were resting from their labours" (AH IV.22.1), and again that Christ "remembered His own dead ones who had formerly fallen asleep, and came down to them that He might deliver them" (AH IV.33.1), historicalchristian.faith. For Irenaeus the descent is not incidental: it is the reason "He also descended into the lower parts of the earth" (Eph 4:9) — a verse he reads, against those who refer "the lower parts" to "this world of ours," straightforwardly of Christ's three days "in the heart of the earth" among the dead (AH V.31).