The Bodily Assumption on Trial: Examining Irenaeus, Hippolytus, and Paul

[00:00:01]There is a new series of arguments circulating claiming that we can actually look at the tremendous Saint Hippolytus of Rome and the great Saint Irenaeus, doctor of the church, and that we can definitively show that they would have denied the bodily assumption of Mother Mary.

[00:00:24]So, there you go. You've got a tremendous church father in Saint Hippolytus of Rome.

[00:00:30]And then you've got a titan in the doctor of the church and Bishop Leone, Saint Irenaeus, where if it really is true that they pretty much categorically denied the bodily assumption of Mary, there's a problem.

[00:00:45]And the crucially Irenaean passage is in Against Heresies 5.31.2. We've provided the extant Latin for you.

[00:00:52]A literal English rendering is, "The souls will go away to an invisible place appointed to them by God.

[00:01:00]There they will remain until the resurrection awaiting it.

[00:01:04]Afterwards, receiving their bodies and rising perfectly, that is bodily, thus they will come to the presence of God."

[00:01:13]And the Standard Roberts Rumbold version renders the heart of the statement as, "Go away into the invisible place allotted them by God and there remain until the resurrection."

[00:01:27]So, it really does seem pretty clear, right? A clear and ultimate denial that Mother Mary could be an exception to those that were bodily glorified before the end.

[00:01:40]Or is it really that uh clear-cut of a refutation that has been levied against Catholics in recent days?

[00:01:51]Faithful, we're about to dive in and we're going to look at the crucial Irenaean text. We're going to look at the the text from Hippolytus of Rome and we're also going to look at another argument that has been levied that apparently in 1 Corinthians 15 there is a clear denial and refutation of the bodily assumption of St. Mary our Immaculate Mother Mary there as well and faithful we begin diving in now.

[00:02:28]>> [music] [music and singing] [music] [singing] [music] [music] [music] >> My soul magnifies the Lord.

[00:03:09]And my spirit rejoices in God my savior.

[00:03:11][music] >> [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] >> There really are two main passages usually cited for the claim that the righteous dead remain in Hades until the resurrection. And you find it in a Saint Irenaeus Against Heresies and in Saint Hippolytus of Rome in On the Cause of the Universe or On Hades.

[00:05:08]Now, it's an important point to stop and to understand.

[00:05:12]Okay, is [snorts] this really from Saint Hippolytus of Rome? Now, ultimately at the end of the day, we really just can't know.

[00:05:23]It really, honestly, that seems like scholars are, you know, divided in this particular point. Now, it has been attributed to Saint Irenaeus, but one thing that forgive me, Saint Hippolytus of Rome.

[00:05:39]Um but we need to be very clear here.

[00:05:43]Um there are slight differences in manuscript history here.

[00:05:48]And really on um ultimately we're uncertain as to the pedigree of this text, but we're going to assume that this is from Hippolytus at the get-go and we're going to dive in.

[00:05:59]Read in context, both fathers they do teach a general rule.

[00:06:04]The ordinary dead do not receive their final bodily glorification before the bodily resurrection. And the righteous dead wait in an intermediate state rather than passing immediately into a fully consummated heavenly state.

[00:06:20]Saint Irenaeus states that the disciples souls go to an invisible place appointed by God until the bodily resurrection.

[00:06:28]And Saint Hippolytus says that the souls of all are detained in Hades until the appointed time of resurrection. Now in both cases the target is anti-bodily or anti-resurrection polemic.

[00:06:42]Saint Irenaeus is arguing against people who expect immediate super-celestial ascent of the inner man. And Saint Hippolytus is rebutting Greek ideas about the soul and postmortem destiny.

[00:06:55]But neither father is Here's the important point.

[00:07:00]Neither father is a useful witness for the stronger claim that absolutely every righteous person without exception must remain in Hades until the second coming.

[00:07:12]And we're going to see that momentarily.

[00:07:15]Now we want to also remind you Saint Irenaeus is not writing an abstract treatise on every conceivable exception.

[00:07:24]He's rebutting people who say that the inner man leaves the body and immediately ascends above the heavens.

[00:07:31]Now his argument is this, Christ himself observed the law of the dead.

[00:07:36]He descended to the lower parts of the earth and he rose bodily on the third day and only then ascended.

[00:07:43]Therefore, the disciple is not above the master and the disciple, too, must await the bodily resurrection rather than despising the flesh.

[00:07:52]The anti-Gnostic and anti-disembodiment polemical context is explicit in the surrounding lines.

[00:08:01]That makes the passage very strong evidence for an intermediate state and for Irenaeus' refusal of a Gnosticizing instant heavenly ascent of the soul model.

[00:08:13]Now, it is much weaker evidence for an exceptionalist universalization because the very same book explicitly preserves bodily exceptions. That's correct. You're right about that. In Against Heresies 5.5.1, Saint Irenaeus says, and we have provided the Latin for you, a literal rendering it rendering is for Enoch pleasing God was translated in the very body in which he pleased God prefiguring the translation of the just and Elijah being still in the substance of the foreign body was assumed.

[00:08:48]Now check it out again.

[00:08:51]In the Roberts-Rombaut translation, it compresses the same point as Enoch was translated in the same body and Elijah was caught up.

[00:09:02]So, this is important really important because Saint Irenaeus then goes further.

[00:09:08]He reports the tradition of the elders who were disciples of the apostles that those who were translated were taken to paradise and that there shall they who have been translated remain until the consummation as a prelude to immortality.

[00:09:27]In other words, within the very same argumentative sequence, Saint Irenaeus distinguishes the ordinary postmortem destiny of disciples from the extraordinary bodily removal of Enoch and Elijah. You have exceptions right there.

[00:09:44]That distinction alone is fatal to the thesis that Saint Irenaeus means every righteous dead person, whatever, without exception, remains in Hades. This argument is DOA, dead on arrival. There are exceptions already.

[00:10:00]So, the claim that Saint Irenaeus says all of the disciples are going to remain in an intermediate state, thus excluding Holy Mother Mary, simply doesn't work because he shows that there are exceptions.

[00:10:15]Enoch and Elijah, for him, are clear exceptions.

[00:10:21]So, what exactly does Saint Irenaeus assert? Now, he asserts that ordinary departed disciples await resurrection in an invisible place.

[00:10:31]And do not leap immediately into final consummation. Now, he does not assert that God never grants anticipatory bodily exceptions. To the contrary, he explicitly says that Enoch and Elijah were bodily removed, and they were placed in paradise until the consummation.

[00:10:52]So, the most precise formula is this: Saint Irenaeus teaches an ordinary rule while allowing extraordinary bodily translations by divine prerogative.

[00:11:11]We now get to Saint Hippolytus of Rome, which as we have also decided to snag.

[00:11:19]When relevant, we get the critical edition text, and here we've gotten the Greek for you, so that those that may be wondering, okay, what exactly is spelled out here in the Greek? What exactly is laid out here? And our goal is to go incredibly in depth faithful to show you the rock solid evidence of our faith.

[00:11:37]Saint Hippolytus of Rome The text actually says, "Concerning Hades, in which the souls of both the righteous and the unrighteous are held, it is necessary to speak."

[00:11:52]This is the account concerning Hades in which the souls of all are kept until the time that God has determined when he will make the resurrection of all.

[00:12:04]Now, the public translation for McMahon renders the core claim as "The souls of all are detained until the time which God has determined." Okay.

[00:12:15]When we encounter Saint Hippolytus of Rome, the other claim coming from the anti-assumptionist camp is that Saint Hippolytus of Rome is very clear. The souls of all will be kept in Hades until the end.

[00:12:34]But for Saint Hippolytus, the evidence is bifurcated.

[00:12:39]The text commonly called against Plato on the cause of the universe or on Hades is cataloged and the CPG 1898 and commonly assigned to Hippolytus, but its exact relationship to the lost De Universo is text critically hesitant.

[00:12:57]And the transmission is complicated.

[00:12:59]Roger Pearse's survey, drawing on manuscript catalogs and older editions, note that the notes that the text appears in the Patrologia Graeca 10 collection 796 to 801 and has a modern edition in Cohl in his German fragment edition and survives in manuscripts like the Oxford Baroccianus from the 9th [snorts] century. And the BNF Coislin 14th century and the Vatican Greek document Alice Wheeler's study as summarized in the same discussion also cautions that the identification with a lost De unitate ecclesiae is not straightforward.

[00:13:42]By contrast, even if we grant I want to just pause for a moment and grant it, even if you want to say that this is really from Saint Hippolytus, we can show that he teaches certain exceptions.

[00:13:55]And by contrast, on hip in Hippolytus On Christ and the Antichrist, which is much firmer ground for the exception side of the question, Andrew Jacobs notes that Saint Jerome lists De Antichristo among Saint Hippolytus' works and that modern historians commonly treat it as an early 3rd-century Hippolytan composition.

[00:14:17]The Greek textual tradition summarized in the Greek Patristic edition used by Greek downloads lists four principal manuscripts and a series of editions from Goodius to Menia to Achilles.

[00:14:37]For Hippolytus' own exceptions, the decisive witness is a much firmer text.

[00:14:43]On his Christ and Antichrist, in the Greek public text, Saint Hippolytus says right here.

[00:14:51]The two prophets, Enoch and Elijah, will receive a half the week, for they will preach 1,260 days draped in sackcloth.

[00:15:02]Hippolytus Saint Hippolytus then adds that Elias the Tishbite and the other witness will come before the end and will perform signs.

[00:15:13]Whatever one thinks about the precise mechanics, that is plainly not the language of two ordinary dead souls. So, even if you want to say that the work that is commonly relied upon for Saint Hippolytus, even if we grant it our interlocutors that it is an authentic work, by the way, it is a contested work.

[00:15:35]But, just for the sake of this dialogue, even if we grant it is an authentic work, in Saint Hippolytus, he shows there are exceptions.

[00:15:46]Whatever one thinks about the precise mechanics, that is plainly not the language of two ordinary dead souls resting anonymously in Hades, showing you even in Saint Hippolytus, there are exceptions. And it really does presuppose that Enoch and Elijah are preserved in a way that allows future embodied public ministry.

[00:16:11]I want to repeat that.

[00:16:13]It presupposes that Enoch and Elijah are preserved in a way that allows future embodied public ministry.

[00:16:22]Saint Hippolytus, therefore, cannot be marshaled for the proposition that there are no bodily exceptions.

[00:16:30]His Hades text describes the common condition of the dead.

[00:16:34]His Antichrist text assumes that at least Enoch and Elijah stand outside that common condition.

[00:16:46]The lexical evidence supports that distinction.

[00:16:50]In [snorts] Irenaeus, that invisible location, that underworld location, belonged to the ordinary dead.

[00:16:59]Paradise is the locale of the translated just. And in even in his text, there are exceptional verbs.

[00:17:08]That's where it comes in handy, going to the critical editions. And even in his surviving text, there are the exceptional verbs in Saint Hippolytus, Hades, Hades is the intermediate realm of the dead.

[00:17:24]And when we talk about the abode of Abraham, Abraham's bosom, it is a righteous compartment within it.

[00:17:32]And signaling temporary detention.

[00:17:35]While the Enoch and Elijah tradition belongs not to the vocabulary of dead souls, but to living prophetic witness sent before the end.

[00:17:46]A near contemporary Latin witness confirms this distinction was not unique to Saint Irenaeus.

[00:17:53]The tremendous church writer Tertullian says in De Anima that translatus est Enoch et Elias, nec mors eorum reperta est dilata ciletchet.

[00:18:06]Enoch and Elijah were translated and their death was not found. That is, it was postponed.

[00:18:13]In the public English version, he says, "Enoch was translated and so was Elijah.

[00:18:19]They're reserved for the suffering of death."

[00:18:23]Whatever one makes of Tertullian's further speculation about their future martyrdom, the key point is the same.

[00:18:30]Early Christian writers who strongly affirm an intermediate state for ordinary dead persons also preserve bodily exceptions for Enoch and Elijah.

[00:18:44]In sum, the primary patristic evidence supports this.

[00:18:50]Enoch was taken by God, Elijah was taken up in a whirlwind. There's a narrower and a more historically sound conclusion. Saint Irenaeus and Saint Hippolytus of Rome, Saint Irenaeus of Lyon, Saint Hippolytus of Rome, teach that the ordinary dead await the resurrection.

[00:19:07]But neither father excludes extraordinary bodily assumptions. and both in fact preserve them for Enoch and Elijah.

[00:19:21]And really that is enough to block the anti-assumption inference.

[00:19:28]That's important.

[00:19:30]And once the distinction between ordinary interim destiny and extraordinary divine assumption is maintained then the Catholic doctrine is neither contradicted nor even directly targeted by these early texts.

[00:19:48]Now, we now move on to 1 Corinthians 15.

[00:19:52]Our next attack against Holy Mother Mary from our interlocutors arrives at 1 Corinthians 15. And yes, you're going to hear it brought up very often every now and then with a different wrinkle perhaps.

[00:20:08]Perhaps every now and then our interlocutors will have a different wrinkle.

[00:20:12]A different argument. And each time we will be ready to respond to the particular arguments that they really are laying forth.

[00:20:22]And the claim in the real question.

[00:20:25]Many critics argue that 1 Corinthians 15 teaches that only Christ has a glorified body before the final resurrection.

[00:20:34]Therefore, Mother Mary cannot be bodily assumed.

[00:20:39]Now, at first glance this may sound convincing.

[00:20:44]But notice what must be proven.

[00:20:46]The critic must show that in 1 Corinthians 15 St. Paul is teaching there are no exceptions that can ever exist. But St. Paul explicitly teaches that God cannot assume Well, let me bring up the text.

[00:21:03]Because Paul does not teach that.

[00:21:04]Forgive me. St. Paul does not teach that there are no exceptions. We need to be very clear about that, but let's begin right at the verses that are brought up, and it's in 1 Corinthians.

[00:21:18]Right here, we're going to create this for you.

[00:21:21]1 Corinthians 15.

[00:21:24]We want to put it on the screen for you.

[00:21:26]This will be helpful for you, the audience, to understand what we're referring to here. Here it is.

[00:21:32]1 Corinthians 15. But now Christ is risen from the dead and has become the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as since by man came death, by man also comes came the resurrection of the dead.

[00:21:46]For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. But each in his own order, Christ the first fruits, afterward those who are Christ's at his coming.

[00:21:58]Now, the critic must show Saint Paul teaches no exceptions can exist or that Saint Paul explicitly teaches God cannot assume anyone before the final resurrection.

[00:22:10]But Saint Paul explicitly teaches that Christ is the only person Well, they have to claim and prove that Saint Paul also teaches that Christ is the only person in heaven bodily before the end of time. So, the critic must show all those things.

[00:22:27]The problem Well, the problem is 1 Corinthians 15 never says any of those things. Saint Paul's purpose is not to discuss possible exceptions.

[00:22:40]His purpose is to defend the reality of the bodily resurrection against those denying it altogether.

[00:22:50]What is Saint Paul actually arguing in 1 Corinthians 15?

[00:22:54]The Corinthian problem was simple.

[00:22:56]How can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?

[00:23:00]Saint Paul is not discussing Mother Mary. St. Paul is not discussing Enoch.

[00:23:05]It's also not discussing Elijah.

[00:23:08]He's also not discussing special privileges. St. Paul is defending the doctrine that believers will rise. His argument is Christ rose, therefore resurrection is real.

[00:23:21]Therefore, believers will rise. That is the whole flow of the chapter.

[00:23:25]And the chapter is not designed to answer can God make an exception? Now, that question is nowhere being discussed here.

[00:23:35]The meaning of each in his own order.

[00:23:38]Now, St. Paul writes, "Christ the first fruits, then it is coming those who belong to Christ."

[00:23:45]1 Corinthians 15:23.

[00:23:48]Now, the critical often claim, "You see, nobody can be glorified before Christ returns."

[00:23:53]But St. Paul is discussing the resurrection of the whole the human race as a whole.

[00:23:59]The Greek word for order is tagma, meaning a military rank or arrangement.

[00:24:05]St. Paul is giving the general order of resurrection history.

[00:24:09]Christ and the faithful at his return.

[00:24:13]He's not listing every exceptional event that God may perform.

[00:24:20]Otherwise, St. Paul would also be denying Enoch being bodily translated, Elijah, and Moses appearing bodily at the transfiguration.

[00:24:30]And nobody believes he's denying any of those. A general order does not eliminate special divine acts.

[00:24:40]We now come to one of the strongest biblical passages that we're going to encounter.

[00:24:45]>> [snorts] >> At the end of Revelation 11, we read, "Then God's temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant was seen."

[00:24:53]In Revelation 11:19, St. John immediately continues, "And a great sign appeared to heaven, a woman clothed with sun."

[00:25:01]Revelation 12:1.

[00:25:04]Now, remember the chapter divisions were added much later.

[00:25:08]The ark appears, then the woman appears, and the transition really is seamless.

[00:25:13]The new ark, the new covenant ark, is not a golden box.

[00:25:17]The new covenant ark is Mother Mary.

[00:25:20]Now, why does that matter?

[00:25:22]Why does it matter? Well, it matters because she carried the true bread from heaven.

[00:25:28]The eternal high priest, the Ad ca hedeos, the word made flesh, and everything the old ark foreshadowed is fulfilled in her.

[00:25:36]She's the woman in heaven. Notice carefully where St. John sees the woman.

[00:25:41]Not on earth, not in a tomb, not in a grave.

[00:25:49]He sees her in heaven.

[00:25:52]She is clothed with the sun, crowned with 12 stars, glorified, and the woman certainly symbolizes the new Israel, the church.

[00:26:01]But, she's also an individual mother.

[00:26:04]Because that woman gives birth to the male child that will rule all the nations with a rod of iron.

[00:26:14]Now, we know who the identity of that figure.

[00:26:17]That child is Jesus Christ. Therefore, the woman is also Mary. St. John sees the mother of the Messiah glorified in heaven.

[00:26:26]That's Mother Mary bodily assumed in heaven.

[00:26:30]And Mother Mary can indeed is not independent of Christ. The bodily assumption is entirely dependent upon Christ. She receives early what the church will receive later.

[00:26:42]Think of it this way.

[00:26:44]Christ is, without a doubt, nobody would argue against it. Christ is the source.

[00:26:50]Mother Mary is the first redeemed member to receive fully what Christ won.

[00:26:55]And the church fathers frequently viewed her as the new Eve, the new ark, the first disciple, and the bodily assumption is therefore not a rival resurrection.

[00:27:06]It is a participation in Christ's resurrection.

[00:27:10]That is why early on you can find tremendous dormition and assumption fathers that taught that Holy Mother Mary had a holy fall asleep and a wonderful and a glorious bodily assumption into heaven.

[00:27:25]You can find that teaching in some of the greatest church fathers, the tremendous deacon, the great doctor of the church Saint Ephrem the Syrian, the titan Saint Epiphanius of Salamis, and the master himself, the legendary Saint John of Damascus, all taught that Mother Mary at the end of her earthly life was taken bodily, body and soul, into heaven.

[00:27:51]Faithful, we hope you enjoyed this deep dive and this refutation on a claim that may become more common.

[00:28:00]Now, why why would it become more common? Because, faithful, the bodily resurrection of Mother Mary is biblical and ancient and it has become very difficult for people to truly refute this, so they will try anything. But we are ready to to defend our Immaculate Mother Mary at every turn.

[00:28:18]Faithful, we hope you loved this. God bless you and God keep you.

[00:28:23]See you again soon.

[00:28:25]>> Magnificat anima mea Domino.

[00:28:34]>> [music] >> Et exultavit spiritus meus in Deo salutari [music] meo.

[00:28:49]>> Quia [music] >> [music] [music] [music] >> My soul magnifies the Lord.

[00:29:16]And my spirit rejoices [music] in God my savior.

[00:29:22]>> [music] [music] [music] [singing] [singing] [music] [music] [music] [singing] [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Into the light. my hands.

[00:30:45]>> [music] >> I commit my spirit.