Boultbee on Article III: Of the going down of Christ into Hell

The present Article consists of the first clause only of the original Article of 1552. In that formula these words followed : * For the body lay in the sepulchre until the resurrection ; but His Ghost, departing from Him {ab illo emissus\ was with the ghosts that were in prison or in hell {in carcere sive in inferno)^ and did preach to the same, as the place of St. Peter doth testify.’ It must be confessed that we are happily freed from the obligation of maintaining such a comment on that passage.

It appears that controversy had been very busy with this Article. Hence the necessity was felt for stating it in more general terms. Foreign controversies in the time of Edward VI. are spoken of in a letter of Micronius to Bullinger, 1550.^ * The CJhurches of Bremen and the rest are strengthening them- selves; but . • . they are disputing about the descent of Christ into hell, and about the allowance or prohibition of things indifferent. Marvellous is the subtlety of antichrist in weakening the Churches of Christ I ’ The diocese of Exeter also was harassed with controversy on this subject, as appears from a paper presented to Convocation in 1562 by the bishop

’ * Original Letters,’ p. 561 : Parker Society.

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of that diocese : ^ ’ There have been in my diocese great in- vectives between the preachers, one against the other, and also partakers with them ; some holding that the going down of Christ His soul to hell was nothing else but the virtue and strength of Christ His death, to bo made manifest and known to them that were dead before. Others say . • . Thus your wisdoms may perceive what tragedies and dissensions may arise from consenting to or dissenting from this Article.’ That this was not limited to the West, or soon appeased, is gathered also from a letter of Secretary Cecil to Archbishop Parker, 1567 :’ * It may please your grace to receive my humble thanks for your care taken in the discreet advice given to me con- cerning the appeasing of the unprofitable rash controversy newly raised upon the Article of the Descent of Christ into Hell.’

Observations on Article HI.

If the space or object of this work allowed the discussion, it is manifest from what has been so far said that there is abundant scope for investigation into some of the darker passages of Scripture, and for statements of conflicting opinions. But we may well dismiss the greater part of these with the verdict above quoted from the great Cecil, * unprofit- able and rash.’ We shall be content, as before, to give an account of Bishop Pearson’s discussion of this Article of the Creed.

Three passages, says Pearson, are usually quoted as the basis of this doctrine. First, Eph. iv. 9. There are such conflicting interpretations of the expression in that text, * the lower parts of the earth ’ (ja Karwrepa fiiprj TrJQ yijo), that it cannot be relied upon as a proof.

2, 1 Pet. iii. 19, has been interpreted of a local descent of the soul of Christ to preach to the souls in hell. Pearson rejects this, as encompassed with difl!iculties. He takes the meaning to be that Christ by His Spirit h;7oke to the dis- obedient in Noah’s days, as in all other times of the world.

• Stigrpes’ * Annals/ ch. xxxi. * Strypcs’ * Parker,* hook iii. ch. xviii.

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3. It remains that Acts ii. 26, 27, be accepted as the basis of this Article. For if His soul was not left in hell (Hades), and was not there before His death, it must have descended there after His death. The question, therefore, resolves itself into the interpretation of this passage. We shall have to ask what that hell (Hades) was, and how He descended thither.

Pearson then proceeds to give some account of the principal varieties of opinion which have been advanced on this subject, and which may be thus condensed : —

1. Durandus (an early schoolman) held that it was not a local descent, but one of efficacy and influence.

2. Calvin, Beza, and others maintained that Christ actually suflfered the torments of the damned to save men from them. This is denied on the sufficient ground that remorse, despair, alienation from God, were far from Him.

3. Some have taken it as an expression simply equivalent to buried.

4. Others have varied the last by making it signify a con- tinuance in the state of the dead.

5. The usual opinion is, that this Article means that the body having been buried, the soul (as distinguished from the body) was carried into those parts where the souls of men before departed were. In this opinion nearly all the fathers agree. They therefore used this Article of the Creed against the Apollinarians, urging that as the Deity did not descend into hell, Christ must have had a human soul capable of such a descent.

As to the purpose of Christ’s descent, the fathers widely differed. But the leading varieties of their opinions may be displayed thus : —

1. He descended to the faithful dead, and removed them to a better place.

2. He descended to them, but did not so remove them.

3. lie descended to hell in its proper sense, and preached the gospel to the souls detained there. It was generally thought heretical to believe (as some did) that He delivered them all. But it was widely held that He delivered some.

Finally, in the middle ages the first of these three prevailed,

und was stated as an article of faith by tbe sclioolmen with most marvellous elaboration of locality and other particulars. The solid earth was described as the bars of the infernal dun- geon ; volcanoes, its vent, and their roarings the cries of the damned.

Keeping aloof from profitless speculation about that which has been (not without Divine purpose) concealed from us, we may thus state the end of the descent. Christ bore the condition of a dead man, as He had done that of a living one^ His body was laid in the grave. His soul was conveyed to the same receptacles as the souls of other men. He has thus assured His people of His power and presence in death as well as in life.

Finally, we may thus represent the usual simple mode of presenting this subject. We may combine the words of our Lord to the dying thief with the quotation of St. Peter from the Psalms. If the thief was to be with Him that day in Paradise, and yet He descended into Hades, that part of Hades to which He descended must be the place where the souls of the just await the resurrection.

The Eoman Doctrine on the Descent into Hell.

That audacity of assertion which is so marked a character of Roman theology, and which is one of the chief weapons with which it maintains its ground, is well exemplified in its treatment of this doctrine. The Catechism of the Council of Trent (P. I. c. 6) contains the authorised doctrine on this sub- ject.

Q. 2 defines Hell as ‘those hidden abodes in which are detained the souls that have not obtained heavenly bliss.’

Q. 3 states that this region contains three different recep- tacles : 1st. ’ the most loathsome and dark prison, in which the souls of the damned, together with the unclean spirits, are tortured in eternal and inextinguishable fire ; ’ 2nd. ’ the fire of purgatory, in which the souls of the just are purified by punishment for a stated time ; ’ 3rd. the ’ receptacle (com- monly called Limhus patrum) in which were received the souIji

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of the saints who died before the coming of Christ our Lord; and where, without any sense of pain, sustained by the blessed hope of redemption, they enjoyed a tranquil abode. The souls, then, of those pious men who, in theubosom of Abra- ham, were expecting the Saviour, Christ the Lord liberated, descending into hell.’

Q. 5, scarcely in consistency with the preceding, asserts that Christ * liberated from the miserable wearisomeness of that captivity the holy and the just.’

Q. 6 further dilates upon the same subject, * Christ de- scended into hell in order that, having seized the spoils of the devil. He might conduct into heaven those holy others, and the other just souls liberated from prison… . His august presence at once brought a glorious lustre upon the captives, and filled their souls with boundless joy and gladness. Unto them He also imparted that supreme happiness which consists in the vision of God.’