ABSTRACT
There was much discussion in the early church over whether there was an intermediate stage between death in this life and the resurrection life or whether this transition from one to the other was immediate. In scripture passages dealing with the repentant thief at Luke 23, the way-stations at John 14 and the Rich Man and Lazarus at Luke 16, on the one hand, suggest an intermediate space between death and resurrection life, while those dealing with the apostle’s desire ‘to depart and be with Christ’ at Philippians 1.23 and to ‘be away from the body and at home with the Lord’ at 2 Corinthians 5.8, on the other, suggest an immediate transition from death to resurrection life. Among the early Christian writers considered in this book, Athenagoras, Irenaeus, Tertullian and Origen all clearly support the idea of an intermediate stage where the dead await their movement to the resurrection life, while the author of the Letter to Rheginos is equally clear that the transition from this life to the resurrection life is immediate and effectively seamless.
