Question about Sheol

[kenwilsker]

Can someone tell me if Sheol is Purgatory? Isnt the place where old testament saints were kept in the bosom of Abraham until the gates of heaven were opened with Christs passion, death, and resurrection? And can you give me more resources to research?
Thanks.

 

[Alfie]

kenwilsker:

Can someone tell me if Sheol is Purgatory? Isnt the place where old testament saints were kept in the bosom of Abraham until the gates of heaven were opened with Christs passion, death, and resurrection? And can you give me more resources to research?
Thanks.

In Isaiah 14:12-15 God says that Lucifer will be brought down to Sheol to the lowest depths of the pit. I guess a Catholic might believe Sheol is purgatory but how would they explain Lucifer being there?

 

[Church_Militant]

Always an interesting topic…
Consider this:

Q: Why did Christ visit hell after his death?

A: He didn’t, if you mean by hell the place of the damned. There would have been no purpose in his going there.

The Apostles’ Creed contains this line in Latin: descendit ad inferos. In older English translations the word inferos was rendered as “hell,” but it was understood not to mean the place of the damned. The term actually refers to “those below”—that is, to the dead. It thus signified that he descended to visit the just who died in pre-Christian times and were waiting for heaven to be opened to them. This place is commonly called the limbo of the Fathers.

Jesus referred to this place when he said, “As Jonah was in the whale’s belly for three days and three nights, so shall the Son of Man be in the heart of the Earth three days and three nights” (Matt. 12:40).

The expression “heart of the Earth” doesn’t mean the grave, but the underworld, what the Jews called sheol, which was thought to be located at the center of the Earth. Sheol wasn’t a place of the damned but a place of departed souls both good and bad. It appears from the parable of Lazarus and the rich man (Luke 16:19–31) that there was a place within sheol where the wicked were punished and another place where the righteous awaiting heaven were comforted. Jesus went to the latter.

Found Here.

Q: I was told that people who died prior to Jesus (including even those who were trying to live for God) all went to hell regardless. Is this true?

A: By his passion, death, and resurrection, Jesus opened heaven (CCC 1026). Prior to that time, the just went to a place referred to as the “bosom of Abraham,” where they would be comforted. But not all went to the bosom of Abraham. In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19–31), both Lazarus and the rich man died, but Lazarus was comforted in the bosom of Abraham while the rich man was in a place of torment. A great chasm separated the two.

The Catechism explains:

Scripture calls the abode of the dead, to which the dead Christ went down, "hell"—Sheol in Hebrew or Hades in Greek—because those who are there are deprived of the vision of God. Such is the case for all the dead, whether evil or righteous, while they await the redeemer: which does not mean that their lot is identical, as Jesus shows through the parable of the poor man Lazarus who was received into "Abraham’s bosom": "It is precisely these holy souls, who awaited their Savior in Abraham’s bosom, whom Christ the Lord delivered when he descended into hell." Jesus did not descend into hell to deliver the damned, nor to destroy the hell of damnation, but to free the just who had gone before him (CCC 633; cf. Roman Catechism I, 6, 3).

Found Here.
I also suggest this article called The Afterlife which looks good as well.
Pax tecum,

 

[SFH]

kenwilsker:

Can someone tell me if Sheol is Purgatory? Isnt the place where old testament saints were kept in the bosom of Abraham until the gates of heaven were opened with Christs passion, death, and resurrection? And can you give me more resources to research?
Thanks.

Sheol is not Purgatory. Sheol (called “hell” in Old English) is another name for Limbo. Historically, it referred to the abode of the dead and the Greek equivalent was Hades. In Catholic Tradition, however, Sheol refers to Limbo. In the Creed, when we say Christ descended into hell, we mean he descended into Limbo to set the Old Testament saints free and bring them to Paradise.

In Dante’s Divine Comedy, Virgil comes from Limbo or Sheol to visit Dante and take him through hell, purgatory, and finally, heaven.

Purgatory is a place/state of purification where souls who have died in a state of sanctifying grace but haven’t fully atoned for their sins go.

 

[kenwilsker]

We know that the gates of heaven were opened after Christ. So after Christ is it possible that sheol is now what we call purgatory? Anyone else out there to venture what the Church says about this or is this up for speculation?

 

[Church_Militant]

kenwilsker:

We know that the gates of heaven were opened after Christ. So after Christ is it possible that sheol is now what we call purgatory? Anyone else out there to venture what the Church says about this or is this up for speculation?

I suggest that you have a careful look at post 5. There’s no speculation in that, and it states the Catholic teaching on this.

 

[kenwilsker]

Thanks for the explanation. I will read the article and see if I have any further questions.

 

[levi86]

Don’t the Orthodox believe that the righteous still go to “sheol” until judgment day? Why is the opinion of the RCC any more valid than theirs, after all both faiths come from the apostles.

 

[copland]

Sheol is the Aramaic word for the Greek word Hades. And it is not “Hell” as far as being the final place for the lost, though it has been translated as ‘hell’ by some in the past, but it is the holding place for the souls of the lost until Christ comes again and raises their bodies and cast them into the Lake of Fire or Gehenna where their body and soul will be punished for eternity. Gehenna is the final place that we consider to be ETERNAL Hell, but Sheol/Hades is the place of punishment for the souls of the lost only, which is not Purgatory which is for the saved only.

Sheol/Hades was the place that all souls went to after death, it is mentioned in Luke 16:19-31. Back before Christ rose from the dead and took the saints to Heaven, there was a ‘great chasm’ in Sheol that separated the saints from the lost, that chasm (Greek-xasma) is mentioned in Luke 16:26. But when Christ ascended back to Heaven he took those in Sheol who were saved to Heaven with Him, St. Paul mentions it in Ephesians 4:8-10. The place of the saints in Sheol was called ‘paradise.’ That is why Jesus told the repentant man on the cross that he would be with Him in paradise that very day (Luke 23:43).

Hope this helps.