HistoricalChristian.Faith
HistoricalChristian.Faith
Dates: c. 395 (Discourses on Lazarus and the Pauline homilies, Antioch period; John Chrysostom, c. 347–407) · Wikipedia
Summary: John Chrysostom (c. 347 – 407), archbishop of Constantinople and the great
preacher of the Antiochene school, gives the fullest patristic portrait of the soul's lot immediately
after death — chiefly in his discourses on the rich man and Lazarus and his homilies on Paul. He
teaches that the soul is conscious the moment it leaves the body and does not linger
on earth but is led away by guides: the righteous soul is carried off by angels with
honour, like a victor crowned, to Abraham's bosom, while the sinner's soul is dragged away like a
prisoner. Between the two states an impassable gulf is fixed, so that the rich man,
fully aware in torment, can see Abraham and Lazarus afar but cannot cross to them. For the believer
this departure is gain: to die is to be "absent from the body" and "at home with the Lord," to "depart
and be with Christ."
Mark also: in one passage it is said that the soul is carried away by angels; in the other, that "they require it;" and in the latter case they lead it away as a prisoner; in the former, they guard and conduct it as a crowned victor. And like as in the arena a combatant, having received many wounds, is drenched with blood; his head being then encircled with a crown, those who stand ready by the spot take him up, and with great applause and praise they bear him home amid shouting and admiration. In this way the angels on that occasion led Lazarus also away.
— Four Discourses, chiefly on the parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Discourse 2), historicalchristian.faith. Preaching on Luke 16:22, Chrysostom insists the soul does not become a wandering ghost nor stay near the earth: "souls when they leave the body do not still linger here, but are forthwith led away." Every soul needs a conductor — "if when we travel from one city to another we need guides, much more does the soul stand in want of those who can conduct it" — and the destinies diverge at once: angels escort the righteous soul as a crowned victor, "dreadful powers" haul the sinner off as a captive.
(Conc. 2. de Lazaro.) As it made the poor man's affliction heavier while he lived to lie before the rich man's gate, and to behold the prosperity of others, so when the rich man was dead it added to his desolation, that he lay in hell and saw the happiness of Lazarus, feeling not only by the nature of His own torments, but also by the comparison of Lazarus's honour, his own punishment the more intolerable.
— Catena Aurea by Aquinas, historicalchristian.faith. On Luke 16:23 Chrysostom (as gathered in Aquinas's catena from the second discourse on Lazarus) takes the rich man's lifting up of his eyes and seeing Abraham as proof that the damned are fully sentient after death — they perceive, recall, and are tormented the more by the sight of the bliss they have lost. He saw Lazarus "not with any other righteous man, but in the bosom of Abraham," the hospitable patriarch, as a rebuke of his own inhospitality.
The gulf is said to be fixed, because it cannot be loosened, moved, or shaken.
— Catena Aurea by Aquinas, historicalchristian.faith. On Luke 16:26 Chrysostom reads the "great gulf fixed" as a permanent, unbridgeable separation between the place of rest and the place of torment. He glosses Abraham's reply as: "We can see, we cannot pass; and we see what we have escaped, you what you have lost; our joys enhance your torments, your torments our joys." The two compartments of the intermediate state are mutually visible but forever divided.
Why mourn ye, says he, at my death? It had been far better to have passed away long since. "For to depart," he says, "and to be with Christ, is very far better."
— Homily on Philippians 3, historicalchristian.faith. Expounding Philippians 1:23, Chrysostom takes Paul's longing "to depart and be with Christ" as showing that, for the faithful, death is not a sinking into oblivion but an immediate passage into Christ's presence — so much better that Paul could regard his own end as gain, and his continuing in the body as a self-sacrificing delay for the Philippians' sake.
That which is greater than all he has put last, for to be with Christ is better, than receiving an incorruptible [body.] But what he means is this: 'He quencheth not our life that warreth against and killeth us; be not afraid; be of good courage even when hewn in pieces. For not only doth he set thee free from corruption and a burden, but he also sendeth thee quickly to the Lord.'
— Homily 10 on 2 Corinthians, historicalchristian.faith. On 2 Corinthians 5:7–8 ("willing to be absent from the body, and to be at home with the Lord") Chrysostom presses Paul's reversal of the natural fear of death: the body is the "foreign and strange land," and to be away from it is to be "at home." Death does not merely release from corruption; it "sendeth thee quickly to the Lord" — the soul's arrival into the Lord's presence follows at once upon its departure.
When thou hearest these words, think not of a mere removal from one place to another … by "the lower parts of the earth," he means "death," according to the notions of men … And of what captivity does he speak? Of that of the devil; for He took the tyrant captive, the devil, I mean, and death, and the curse, and sin. Behold His spoils and His trophies.
— Homily 11 on Ephesians (on Eph 4:9–10), historicalchristian.faith. Notably, Chrysostom does not press Ephesians 4:9 ("He also descended into the lower parts of the earth") into the harrowing-of-Hades / liberation-of-the-patriarchs reading later systematized in the West. Taking it with Philippians 2:7–8, he reads "the lower parts of the earth" as a figure for death ("according to the notions of men") and the self-emptying humility of the Incarnate Son — "think not of a mere removal from one place to another" — and reads "led captivity captive" (Eph 4:8) of Christ's leading captive His defeated enemies — "the devil … and death, and the curse, and sin" — in triumph, not of emptying a holding-place of the OT righteous. His own descent doctrine is real (see the conscious-Hades sections above), but he rests it elsewhere; on the load-bearing proof-text of the descent-to-the-dead argument he stands with the reading that the verse is about the Incarnation/death rather than a descent to Hades.