And he said, My son shall not go down with you; for his brother is dead, and he is left alone: if mischief befall him by the way in the which ye go, then shall ye bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave.
Ver. 38. Then shall ye bring down my gray hairs, &c.] To the state of the dead; not to hell, or Limbus Patrum. Many of the ancients erroneously held that men's souls were not judged till the last day; nor rewarded or punished, but reserved in some secret receptacles unto the general judgment. Bellarmine would hence prove Purgatory. a Luther also seems to approve of that figment of the fathers; for in his notes upon this text, he will have "Sheol" here translated "the grave," to be an underground receptacle of all souls, where they rest and sleep till the coming of Christ. But gray hairs descend not farther than the grave. And Luther somewhere entreats his readers, that if they find anything in his books that smelleth of the old cask, they should consider he was not only a man, but some time had been a poor monk, &c.
a Bell., De Purg., lib. i.