HistoricalChristian.Faith

The Shepherd of Hermas on the Intermediate State

Dates: c. 150 · Wikipedia
Summary: The Shepherd pictures the righteous dead who fell asleep before Christ — the just of earlier generations — still awaiting the gospel in the realm below, reached there by the apostles and teachers who, after their own deaths, preached the name of the Son of God and "sealed" them so that they too could be built into the tower (the Church) and enter the kingdom. It is an early witness to the evangelization of the dead and the descent motif.

Claims & evidence

The apostles and teachers, after their own deaths, preached the name of the Son of God to those who had fallen asleep before them

"Because," he said, "these apostles and teachers who preached the name of the Son of God, after falling asleep in the power and faith of the Son of God, preached it not only to those who were asleep, but themselves also gave them the seal of the preaching. Accordingly they descended with them into the water, and again ascended. [But these descended alive and rose up again alive; whereas they who had previously fallen asleep descended dead, but rose up again alive.] By these, then, were they quickened and made to know the name of the Son of God. For this reason also did they ascend with them, and were fitted along with them into the building of the tower, and, untouched by the chisel, were built in along with them. For they slept in righteousness and in great purity, but only they had not this seal.

— The Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 9.16, historicalchristian.faith. In the vision the tower is the Church, built of stones drawn up "out of the pit"; the forty stones that ascend already sealed are the apostles and teachers. Because "before a man bears the name of the Son of God he is dead," even the just who slept "in righteousness and in great purity" before Christ "had not this seal" and could not enter the kingdom unsealed. So the dead apostles and teachers descend to them in the place below, preach the name, and "seal" them — and those who "had previously fallen asleep descended dead, but rose up again alive," quickened to "know the name of the Son of God."

Notes

• This is one of the earliest Christian texts to picture a post-mortem preaching and "sealing" of the dead: the righteous who died before the gospel are reached in the realm below by the apostles and teachers after their own deaths, not by the descent of Christ in person. The motif sits close to descent to the dead and echoes 1 Pet 3:19 and 4:6 ("the gospel preached … to them that are dead"), though the agents here are the apostles rather than Christ.
• The concern is soteriological, not topographical — how the pre-Christian just are brought into the Church and the kingdom — so the passage tells us little about Hades-geography or the soul's state of waiting as such. It assumes a place "below" where the dead remain, but does not develop the layered intermediate state later writers describe.
• Clement of Alexandria likewise has the apostles (following Christ) preach to the dead in Hades, and cites this very passage of Hermas approvingly — making the Shepherd an important early link in the tradition of evangelization of the departed.