Anf-01 ix.vi.xxviii Pg 11
[1 Pet. iii. 19, 20.]
Now all those believed in Him who had hope towards Him, that is, those who proclaimed His advent, and submitted to His dispensations, the righteous men, the prophets, and the patriarchs, to whom He remitted sins in the same way as He did to us, which sins we should not lay to their charge, if we would not despise the grace of God. For as these men did not impute unto us (the Gentiles) our transgressions, which we wrought before Christ was manifested among us, so also it is not right that we should lay blame upon those who sinned before Christ’s coming. For “all men come short of the glory of God,”4183 4183
Anf-02 vi.iv.vi.vi Pg 22.1
Anf-02 vi.iv.vi.vi Pg 10.1
Anf-03 iv.xi.lv Pg 6
1 Pet. iii. 19.
(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.1803 1803 See Irenæus, adv. Hæres. v. [Vol. I. p. 566, this Series.]
These persons, who are “servants above their Lord, and disciples above their Master,”1804 1804
Anf-03 v.iv.v.xlv Pg 31
A caricature may sometimes illustrate characteristic features more powerfully than a true portrait. The French call the highest gallery in theatres, paradis; and I have sometimes explained it by the fact that the modern drama originated in the monkish Mysteries, revived so profanely in our own day. To reconcile the poor to a bad place they gave it the name of Paradise, thus illustrating their Mediæval conceptions; for trickling down from Tertullian his vivid notions seem to have suffused all Western theology on this subject. Thus, then, one vast receptacle receives all the dead. The pit, as we very appropriately call it in English, answers to the place of lost spirits, where the rich man was in torments. Above, are ranged the family of Abraham reclining, as it were, in their father’s bosom, by turns. Far above, under skylights, (for the old Mysteries were celebrated in the day-time) is the Paradise, where the Martyrs see God, and are represented as “under the altar” of heaven itself. Now, abandoning our grotesque illustration, but using it for its topography, let us conceive of our own globe, as having a world-wide concavity such as they imagined, from literalizing the under-world of Sheol. In its depths is the Phylace (1 Peter iii. 19.) of “spirits in prison.” In a higher region repose the blessed spirits in “Abraham’s bosom.” Yet nearer to the ethereal vaults, are the martyrs in Paradise, looking out into heavenly worlds. The immensity of the scale does not interfere with the vision of spirits, nor with such communications as Abraham holds with his lost son in the history of Dives and Lazarus. Here indeed Science comes to our aid, for if the telephone permits such conversations while we are in the flesh, we may at least imagine that the subtile spirit can act in like manner, apart from such contrivances. Now, so far as Tertullian is consistent with himself, I think these explanations may clarify his words and references. The Eastern Theology is less inconsistent and bears the marks alike of Plato and of Origen. But of this hereafter. Of a place, such as the Mediæval Purgatory, affirmed as de fide by the Trent creed, the Fathers knew nothing at all. See Vol. II. p. 490, also 522, this Series.
Treasury of Scriptural Knowledge, Chapter 3
VERSE (20) - Ge 6:3,5,13
