Christian views on Hades

In Christian theology, Hades is seen as an intermediate state between Heaven and Hell in which the dead enter and will remain until the Last Judgment.

In the Septuagint (an ancient translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek), the Greek term ᾅδης (Hades) is used to translate the Hebrew term שאול (Sheol) in almost all instances, only three of them are not matched with Hades: Job 24:19 (γῆ, "earth, land"[2]), Proverbs 23:14 (θάνατος, "death")[3] and Ezekiel 32:21 (βόθρου[4] or λάκκος,[5] "pit".

"[13] Tertullian (c. 160 – c. 225), making an exception only for the Christian martyrs, argued that the souls of the dead go down beneath the earth, and will go up to the sky (heaven) only at the end of the world: 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 … How, indeed, shall the soul mount up to heaven, where Christ is already sitting at the Father's right hand, when as yet the archangel's trumpet has not been heard by the command of God, when as yet those whom the coming of the Lord is to find on the earth, have not been caught up into the air to meet Him at His coming, in company with the dead in Christ, who shall be the first to arise?

[14]The variously titled fragment "Against Plato" or "De Universo", attributed to Hippolytus of Rome (c. 170 – c. 236), has the following: And this is the passage regarding demons.

This locality has been destined to be as it were a guard-house for souls, at which the angels are stationed as guards, distributing according to each one's deeds the temporary punishments for characters.

And in this locality there is a certain place set apart by itself, a lake of unquenchable fire, into which we suppose no one has ever yet been cast; for it is prepared against the day determined by God, in which one sentence of righteous judgment shall be justly applied to all.

The Authorship of the Fragment De Universo", C. E. Hill argues that the depiction of the intermediate state of the righteous expounded in this text is radically opposed to that found in the authentic works of Hippolytus and must have been written by Tertullian.

[15] In the Coptic Gospel of the Egyptians, an early Gnostic work, the angel Eleleth, with the intent to let something rule over Chaos and Hades, speaks and creates Sophia as a result.

Greek, on the other hand, has kept the original meaning of "ᾅδης" (Hades) and uses the word "κόλασις" (kólasis – literally, "punishment"; cf.

[citation needed] The teaching of the Eastern Orthodox Church is that after the body decays, the soul – now considered a shade, is given a span of 40 Days after death to wander the earth,[17] during which it is given the opportunity to overcome its attachments and enter Heaven as a saint, where one may intercede for others in various ways among the angels.

"[24] The Lutheran Churches teach the existence of an intermediate state after the departure of the soul from the body, until the time of the Last Judgment.

So that the spirit, after its departure from the body, after hearing its doom, and upon the execution of the sentence, enters immediately into Hades, either to a state and place of suffering or of enjoyment.

—1921 Garden City Confession of Faith (Mennonite Anabaptist)[26]The Anglican Catechist states that "there is an intermediate state between death and the resurrection, in which the soul does not sleep in unconsciousness, but exists in happiness or misery till the resurrection, when it shall be reunited to the body and receive its final reward.

[32] In the Methodist Church, "hades denotes the intermediate state of souls between death and the general resurrection," which is divided into Paradise (for the righteous) and Gehenna (for the wicked).

"[35][36] The dead will remain in Hades "until the Day of Judgment when we will all be bodily resurrected and stand before Christ as our Judge.

They base this idea in other biblical cases such as the "eternal fire" that was sent as punishment to the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, that later extinguished.

Some, such as N. T. Wright have proposed a view of the grave which considers Hades to be a place where the dead sleep, and E. W. Bullinger argued for the cessation of the soul between death and resurrection.

[41] Proponents of the mortality of the soul argue that the story of the rich man and Lazarus is a parable using the framework of Jewish views of the Bosom of Abraham, and is metaphorical, and is not definitive teaching on the intermediate state for several reasons.

[citation needed] After being emptied of the dead, Hades and death are thrown into the lake of fire in Revelation 20:13–14.