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Good morning Father Angelo,

an evangelical told me that in their church they emphasize the difference between Hades and Hell, referring to the rich man and lazarus. According to them, at the moment no one is in Hell but those who are deemed worthy of divine punishment live in Hades (a sort of temporary Hell). Only after the coming of Jesus on Earth and after the judgment of the living and the dead, will they go to Hell.

The terminological difference between Hades, Sheol and Hell is actually present in the Bible, although Catholicism has never analyzed this question.

What can you tell me about it? Is there really a difference between Hades and Hell? Will the “real” Hell be populated only at a later time with the coming of Christ?

Thank you

Answer from the priest

Dear friend,

1. It can be seen immediately how certain interpretations are completely arbitrary and force the Sacred Scripture toward a pre-made judice (erroneously).

Obviously the word ‘hell’ does not simply refer to the location of the damned.

Hell, Underworld, Hades, Sheol, as mentioned in the Jerusalem Bible, are synonyms.

“Hell or Hades designate, as in Rev 1:18, the abode of the dead from which one can no longer return” (Jerusalem Bible, note to Wis 2:1).

2. Secondly, the doctrine of the afterlife and above all the concept of retribution has an evolution in the Old Testament.

Initially the Jews thought that only our shadows survived there, it was the same thing for all. The concept of retribution was not yet present.

For this reason we read in a psalm: “For in death there is no remembrance of you.

Who praises you in Sheol?” (Ps 6:6).

3. “Sheol”, a word of unknown origin, literally designates the depths of the Earth, where the dead descend and where the good and the bad are mingled together in a sort of dark survival, where God is not praised.

However, the power of the living God is also exercised in this desolate situation.

The doctrine of the rewards and punishments of the afterlife is that of the resurrection, prepared by the hope of the psalmists, which appears clearly only at the end of the Old Testament, in connection with the belief in immortality” (Jerusalem Bible, note to Nm 16, 33).

4. Just because the Jews had this idea it does not mean that it was true.

Of course, one could not enter heaven because it had not yet been reopened by the resurrection of Christ, but the unrepentant wicked went to hell.

Just as the righteous who lived in communion with God went directly to limbo, also called the bosom of Abraham, a place of natural happiness while awaiting redemption.

No text of Holy Scripture offers a basis for saying that only at the time of Christ’s coming would unrepentant sinners go to hell. They went there even before.

5. When the Lord speaks of the rich man and says that he suffered terribly in that flame 

(Lk 16:24) he does not surprise his hearers and equally it is not surprising when he speaks of the irreversibility of that punishment: “Moreover, between us and you a great chasm is established to prevent anyone from crossing who might wish to go from our side to yours or from your side to ours” (Lk 16:26).

The underworld that the Lord refers to is that reality that we call hell. “from the netherworld, where he was in torment” (Lk 16:23): it is not a neutral place where the righteous and the wicked end up in the same way, but of what we call hell.

Only upon his return in glory, that is, the end of the world, will they also be in hell with the body.

6. As you can see, in the Catholic Church this reality has been studied very clearly without leading the evangelicals into confusion and errors; their fundamentalism precludes them from the path of any in-depth study, saying nonsense after nonsense, extremely confident to be in the truth.

I bless you, I remember you in prayer and I wish you well.

Father Angelo