'Where the souls of the righteous inhabit': Bishop Bull on the Paradise of the Penitent Thief

In his sermon 'The Middle State of Happiness or Misery', Bishop Bull addressed the Lord's promise to the penitent thief: "Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise". Of particular significance is Bull's obvious reverence for the Jewish context in which the words were spoken and heard, and his quite beautiful description of Jewish piety regarding the relationship between the paradise of the post-mortem state and "the blessed garden". Paradise, that blessed garden: here is the abode of the souls of the righteous after death and before the general resurrection on the last day. That, in Saint Luke's account of the Passion, Our Lord took up the words of Jewish belief and piety regarding the abode of the righteous after death, establishes - as Bull declares - Christian doctrine on the post-mortem state, affirmed also in the Creed's declaration of the Lord's ascension into heaven at the end of the forty days:

let us consider, that the person to whom our Saviour spake these words was a Jew, and that our blessed Lord, speaking in kindness to him, intended to be understood by him. We are therefore to inquire, what the notion of the ancient Jews was concerning paradise, and the persons inhabiting there.

Paradise among the Jews primarily signified Eden, "the garden of Eden," that blessed garden, wherein Adam in his state of innocence dwelt. By which, because it was a most pleasant and delightful place, they were wont symbolically to represent the place and state of good souls separated from their bodies, and waiting for the resurrection; whom they believed to be in a state of happiness, far exceeding all the felicities of this life, but yet inferior to that consummate bliss which follows the resurrection ...

Hence it was the solemn good wish of the Jews (as the learned tell us from the Talmudists) concerning their dead friend, “Let his soul be in the garden of Eden," or, "Let his soul be gathered into the garden of Eden. " And in their prayers for a dying person, they used to say, "Let him have his portion in paradise, and also in the world to come." In which form, "paradise" and "the world to come" are plainly distinguished. According to which notion, the meaning of our Saviour in this promise to the penitent thief, is evidently this: that he should presently after his death enter with Him into that place of bliss and happiness, where the souls of the righteous, separated from their bodies, inhabit, and where they wait in a joyful expectation of the resurrection, and the consummation of their bliss in the highest heaven. For that our Saviour here did not promise the thief an immediate entrance into that heaven, the ancients gathered from hence, that He Himself, as man, did not ascend thither till after His resurrection, as our very creed informs us.