True Christian Religion (Chadwick) n. 769

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769. On the condition of souls after death the general and detailed beliefs are these. Human souls after death are spirits (pneumata), about which they entertain the idea that they are like a puff of wind. Being in this form, they are stored until judgment-day either in the centre of the earth, where they have their pu*, or in the limbo described by the early Fathers. But there are divergent views about these matters. Some hold that they are ethereal or airy shapes, thus resembling ghosts and spectres, some of which live in the air, some in the woods, and some in waters. Others hold that the souls of the departed are transported to other planets or stars, and are there given dwellings. Some hold that after thousands of years they come back into bodies. But most people believe that they are kept until the time when the whole universe together with the globe with its lands and seas will perish. This will be by fire, which will either burst out from the centre of the earth, or fall from the sky like an all-embracing thunderbolt. Then the graves will be opened, and the stored souls will be clothed again with their own bodies, and be transported to the holy city of Jerusalem. Thus they will live together on another earth in resplendent bodies, some lower down, some higher up; for the height of the city will be twelve thousand stades, the same as its breadth and length** (Rev. 21:16).

* Pu is the Greek word for 'Where?', which is at once explained by the Latin translation. ** A correction for 'height'.


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