HistoricalChristian.Faith
HistoricalChristian.Faith
Dates: c. 220 · Wikipedia
Summary: Tertullian of Carthage (c. 155–220), in De Anima (A Treatise on the Soul), gives the fullest early account of the intermediate state. Hades is no "bare cavity" but a real subterranean region — "a vast deep space in the interior of the earth" — where every soul is detained until the resurrection; heaven is not yet open to anyone, "for the world shall pass away" first. Within Hades the faithful rest in Abraham's bosom, awaiting "the comfort of the resurrection," while the wicked already taste punishment; the soul there is conscious and able to suffer or be refreshed "in the interval," because for Tertullian the soul is itself corporeal. The lone exception to the universal detention is the martyr, who passes straight to Paradise — "the sole key to unlock Paradise is your own life's blood."
By ourselves the lower regions (of Hades) are not supposed to be a bare cavity, nor some subterranean sewer of the world, but a vast deep space in the interior of the earth, and a concealed recess in its very bowels; inasmuch as we read that Christ in His death spent three days in the heart of the earth … (This being the case), you must suppose Hades to be a subterranean region, and keep at arm's length those who are too proud to believe that the souls of the faithful deserve a place in the lower regions.
— A Treatise on the Soul, ch. LV, historicalchristian.faith. Against those "too proud to believe that the souls of the faithful deserve a place in the lower regions," Tertullian insists Hades is a literal place beneath the earth — the same "heart of the earth" Christ entered at His death. He closes the discussion: "every soul is detained in safe keeping in Hades until the day of the Lord."
To no one is heaven opened; the earth is still safe for him, I would not say it is shut against him. When the world, indeed, shall pass away, then the kingdom of heaven shall be opened.
— A Treatise on the Soul, ch. LV, historicalchristian.faith. The soul cannot "mount up to heaven, where Christ is already sitting at the Father's right hand," before "the archangel's trumpet" — that is, before the resurrection. This places Tertullian squarely with the early "delayed-glory" account shared by Justin Martyr and Irenaeus: the faithful dead wait below, they do not ascend at death.
These persons, who are "servants above their Lord, and disciples above their Master," would no doubt spurn to receive the comfort of the resurrection, if they must expect it in Abraham's bosom.
— A Treatise on the Soul, ch. LV, historicalchristian.faith. Tertullian locates "Abraham's bosom" within Hades, not in heaven — it is where the faithful "expect" the resurrection's comfort, an interim repose distinct from "the fire" where the wicked are punished (he names both compartments together in ch. VII: "the fire or … Abraham's bosom"). In ch. LVIII he describes the state in the same key: "Why, then, cannot you suppose that the soul undergoes punishment and consolation in Hades in the interval, while it awaits its alternative of judgment, in a certain anticipation either of gloom or of glory?"
Therefore, whatever amount of punishment or refreshment the soul tastes in Hades, in its prison or lodging, in the fire or in Abraham's bosom, it gives proof thereby of its own corporeality. For an incorporeal thing suffers nothing, not having that which makes it capable of suffering …
— A Treatise on the Soul, ch. VII, historicalchristian.faith. Tertullian argues the soul's corporeality precisely from the parable of the rich man and Lazarus: "In hell the soul of a certain man is in torment, punished in flames, suffering excruciating thirst, and imploring … the solace of a drop of water." Because the disembodied soul genuinely feels torment and refreshment between death and resurrection, it must be a (subtle) body — "that which is capable of suffering" is "also corporeal." In ch. LVIII he presses that souls do not merely "sleep" in the interval but are already conscious of "gloom or … glory."
How is it, then, that the region of Paradise … displays no other souls as in it besides the souls of the martyrs? … The sole key to unlock Paradise is your own life's blood.
— A Treatise on the Soul, ch. LV, historicalchristian.faith. Tertullian carves out one exception to the universal detention in Hades: the martyr. Appealing to the Apocalypse (the souls "under the altar," Rev 6:9) and to the vision of Perpetua, who "saw only her fellow-martyrs there," he holds that "the sword which guarded the entrance permitted none to go in thereat, except those who had died in Christ and not in Adam." Martyrdom alone unlocks Paradise immediately; all other souls — heathen and ordinary Christian alike — remain "in safe keeping in Hades until the day of the Lord."
With the same law of His being He fully complied, by remaining in Hades in the form and condition of a dead man; nor did He ascend into the heights of heaven before descending into the lower parts of the earth, that He might there make the patriarchs and prophets partakers of Himself.
— A Treatise on the Soul, ch. LV, historicalchristian.faith. The descent is real and salvific for the OT righteous: Christ, "in the form and condition of a dead man," went down to the very Hades Tertullian has been mapping and "there made the patriarchs and prophets partakers of Himself." But Tertullian at once resists the popular inference — "it was for this purpose, say they, that Christ descended into hell, that we might not ourselves have to descend thither" — insisting the descent did not empty Hades of the ordinary faithful, who still "await its alternative of judgment" below until the resurrection. His descent benefits the patriarchs without abolishing the universal interim detention, a distinction the later limbus-emptying mainstream would smooth over (see the descent-to-the-dead argument).