Hades and the Resurrection

So much, then, for the passage about demons. But now we must speak about Hades, where the souls of the righteous and of the unrighteous alike are held. Hades is a place in the created order, unfinished, a region under the earth where the light of this world does not reach; and since the sun does not shine there, the darkness in that place must be unbroken. It was appointed to serve as a kind of guardhouse for souls. Angels are stationed there on watch, and they hand out to each one, according to what he has done, the punishments that fit different characters and that last only for a time. And within this region there is one particular place set apart by itself: a lake of unquenchable fire. We suppose that no one has yet been thrown into it, for it is being kept for the day God has fixed, when one sentence of righteous judgment will be applied justly to all. Then the unrighteous, and those who did not believe God, who have honored as God the empty works of human hands, idols they shaped themselves, will be sentenced to that punishment without end. But the righteous will receive the kingdom that cannot decay or fade. [a]

They too are held in Hades at present, but not in the same place as the unrighteous. There is only one way down into this region, and we believe that an archangel with a company of angels stands at its gate. When those who are escorted by the angels assigned to souls have passed through that gate, they do not all go on by one and the same road. The righteous are led toward the right, in the light, and the angels stationed there sing over them, and they are brought to a place full of light. There the righteous who have lived since the beginning make their home. Nothing forces them; they enjoy without a break the sight of the good things set in front of them, and they take delight in expecting others always new, and they count what is coming better than what they have. That place brings them no hard labor. There is no fierce heat there, no cold, no thorn; the faces of the fathers and of the righteous are always seen smiling, as they wait for the rest and the eternal renewal in heaven that follow this place. And we call it by the name Abraham’s bosom.

But the unrighteous are dragged off to the left by angels who serve as punishers, and they no longer go of their own will; they are hauled along by force, like prisoners. The angels set over them drive them on, reproaching them and threatening them with a terrifying look, forcing them down into the lower parts. And when they have been brought there, those assigned to that duty drag them to the borders of Gehenna. Those who are that close hear the churning of it without a pause and feel the hot smoke. And when the sight itself is that close, and they see the terrible, fiercely glowing blaze of the fire, they shudder in horror at what the judgment will be, as though they were already feeling the force of their punishment. And again, when they see the place of the fathers and of the righteous, they are punished by that too. For a deep and vast chasm is fixed there between them, so that no righteous person can think of crossing it out of pity, and no unrighteous one would dare to cross it.

So much, then, on the subject of Hades, where the souls of all are held until the time God has determined. Then he will bring about a resurrection of all — not by moving souls into other bodies, but by raising the bodies themselves. And if you Greeks refuse to believe this because you watch these bodies come apart, learn not to be so quick to disbelieve. For if you believe that the soul is brought into being and then made immortal by God, as Plato holds, and made so at a point in time, you have no ground for refusing to believe that God is able to raise the body as well, which is put together out of the same elements, and to make it immortal. To be able to do one thing and unable to do another is not something that can be said of God. So we believe that the body too is raised.

For if the body decays, at least it is not destroyed. The earth receives what is left of it and keeps it; and those remains, becoming a kind of seed and wrapped up in the richer part of the soil, sprout and bloom. What is sown is sown as bare grain, but at the command of God the Craftsman it buds and is raised clothed and glorious — though not until it has first died, and come apart, and been mixed with the earth. So it is not without good reason that we believe in the resurrection of the body. And if it is dissolved in its own season because of the first transgression, and is handed over to the earth as to a furnace, to be molded over again, it is not raised as the same thing it is now, but pure and no longer able to decay. To every body its own soul will be given back; and the soul, clothed with it again, will not grieve but will be glad along with it, itself pure and its body pure with it. Since it lives with the body now in the world righteously, and never once finds it a traitor, it will receive the body back again with great joy. But the unrighteous will receive their bodies unchanged — not ransomed from suffering and disease, not made glorious, still carrying every one of the ills they died with. And whatever sort of people they were while they lived without faith, they will be faithfully judged as exactly that.

For all alike, the righteous and the unrighteous, will be brought before God the Word. The Father has committed all judgment to him, and, carrying out the Father’s purpose, he comes as Judge — the one we call Christ. It is not Minos and Rhadamanthys who are to judge the world, as you Greeks imagine, but the one whom God the Father has glorified, about whom we have spoken more fully elsewhere, for the benefit of those who are looking for the truth. Administering the Father’s righteous judgment to all, he assigns to each what is right, according to his deeds. And standing before his decision, all of them — human beings, angels, and demons — will say with one voice: Your judgment is righteous. And that cry will be shown to be just by what is awarded to each. To those who have done well, eternal happiness will be assigned righteously; and to those who loved what is wrong, eternal punishment will be given.

The fire that waits for these last is unquenchable and without end, and with it a certain fiery worm that does not die, and that does not eat the body away but keeps breaking out of the body with pain that never stops. No sleep will give them rest. No night will soothe them. No death will release them from punishment. No voice of a friend pleading for them will do them any good. For the righteous are no longer seen by them, nor are they worth remembering. But the righteous will remember only the righteous deeds by which they reached the heavenly kingdom, where there is no sleep, no pain, no decay, no worry, no night, and no day measured out by time; no sun running its required course around the sky, marking off the limits of the seasons, or the points that measure out a person’s life so easily read; no moon waning or waxing, or bringing on the changes of the seasons, or wetting the earth; no burning sun, no shifting Bear, no Orion coming out, no crowd of wandering stars, no earth that is painful to walk on, no dwelling in paradise that is hard to find; no furious roaring of the sea, forbidding anyone to touch it or cross it — that too will be easy for the righteous to pass, though it is not without water.

There will be no heaven that people cannot reach, and no way up to it that cannot be found. There will be no earth left unworked, or wearing people out, but one that bears its fruit of itself, in beauty and order. There will be no breeding of wild beasts again, and no more of the substance of other creatures thrown up. Neither will there be any more begetting among human beings; the number of the righteous stands complete, together with the righteous angels and spirits.

You who believe these words will share the lot of the righteous, and will have a part in the good things to come — the things that no eye has seen and no ear has heard, and that have never entered the human heart, which God has prepared for those who love him. To him be the glory and the power, forever and ever. Amen.