For great is your mercy toward me: and you have delivered my soul from the depths of sheol.
Read Chapter 86
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
16. "I will confess unto Thee, O Lord my God, in my whole heart, and I will glorify Thy name for ever" (ver. 12): "for great is Thy mercy toward me, and Thou hast delivered my soul from the nethermost hell" (ver. 13). Do not be angry, brethren, if I do not explain what I have said as though I were certain. For I am a man, and as much as is granted to me concerning the sacred Scriptures, so much I venture to speak: nothing of myself. Hades I have not yet seen, nor have you: and there will be perhaps another way for us, and not through Hades. These things are uncertain. But because Scripture, which cannot be gainsaid, says, "Thou hast delivered my soul from the nether-most hell," we understand that there are as it were two hells, an upper one and a lower one: for how can there be a lower hell, unless because there is also an upper? The one would not be called lower, except by comparison with that upper part. It appears then, my brethren, that there is some heavenly abode of Angels: there...
Hell of the damned, (Worthington) according to the Fathers: or out of captivity and dangers. (Berthier)
If it be understood of Christ, it must refer to limbo. (Bellarmine) (Menochius)
It seems equivalent to the lower pit, Psalm lxxxvii. 7. (Haydock)
The Jews admit seven regions in hell, (Genebrard) and our theologians four: 1. Of the damned; 2. of unbaptized infants; 3. of purgatory; and 4. of the saints in Abraham's bosom. St. Augustine mentions the first and last here: but he speaks clearly of purgatory in other places. (De Gen. contra Manch. ii. 17. in Psalm vi.) (Calmet)
David was rescued from the most imminent dangers, and Christ came out of limbo, (Psalm xv. 10.; Du Hamel) by his own power. (Haydock)
