Ibid.—'And again after darkness I hope for light.' 48. The saints, immediately after death, are given heavenly rewards.—For light is hoped for after darkness, because either after the night of the present life eternal light is received, or in this life adversity and prosperity alternate so that they cease not to succeed one another in turn. Whence it comes to pass that both in the light the night is held in suspicion, and in the night the light in presumption, as it is written: 'In the day of good things be not unmindful of evils, and in the day of evils be not unmindful of good things' (Eccl. xi. 27).
But behold, because we have been redeemed by the grace of our Author, we now have this of the heavenly gift, that when we are withdrawn from the habitation of our flesh, we are at once led to heavenly rewards; for since our Creator and Redeemer, penetrating the bars of hell, led forth thence the souls of the elect, He suffers us not to go thither whence He has already, by descending, freed others. But those who came into this world before His advent, however great a virtue of righteousness they had, could in no way, once led forth from their bodies, be at once received into the bosom of the heavenly fatherland, because He had not yet come who by His own descent should loose the bars of hell, and should place the souls of the just now in an everlasting seat.