Maclear and Williams on Article III: Of the going down of Christ into Hell

i. Connection. The third Article carries on the sub- ject treated of in the second, and assures us that as Christ died and was buried, so also it is to be believed that He went down into the place of departed spirits. This, how- ever, is an event in the economy of redemption, which so far differs from the above mentioned events, as it lies out of the range of human experience, and is, therefore, rather a deduction from them than an historical event coordinate with them.

ii. Language and History. As it stands at present, the Article consists only of a single sentence stating simply the fact of our Lord’s descent into Hades. Herein it differs very considerably from the draft of 1553. Then the Article consisted of two clauses of the which the latter ran as follows : — ” For the bodie laye in the sepulchre, untill the resurrection ; but his Ghoste departing from hym, was with the ghostes that were in prison or in Helle, and didde preach to the same as the place of S. Peter dothe

testifie1.” In the revision of the Articles in 1563 these words were omitted.

iii. Object. The object of the Article was to vindi- cate the Catholic doctrine of our Lord’s descent into the realm of spirits, and to calm the controversies on the sub- ject2, which at the time agitated the country. But their continued violence, in spite of the effort thus made, led to the omission of the clause containing the allusion to the well- known language of S. Peter on the subject (1 Pet. iii. 19), when the Elizabethan revision was carried out in 1563. There does not seem to have been the least desire to deny that the passage in S. Peter applied to the descent of our Lord into the place of departed spirits, but simply a wish to avoid any theorising on this mysterious subject, which might only rouse still further disputation.

iv. The descent into Hell is not an Article which is found in the oldest Creeds of the Church. The Nicene Creed after dealing with the fact of our Lord’s death pro- ceeds to speak of His Resurrection. The Apostles’ Creed and the Quicunque Vult, as also our present Article, follow- ing their example, declare what happened to His human spirit after death. The actual expression ” Descendit ad inferna ” or ” ad inferos ” occurs first in the Arian Creed of

2 Particularly in the Diocese of Pater, quare me dereliquisti? i.e., Exeter. See the quotation from the ” Father, why hast Thou forsaken Papers of Alley, Bishop of Exeter, in me?” Finally others preach that this 1563- ” There have been,” he writes, Article is not contained in other sym- ” in my Diocese great invectives be- bols, neither in the symbol of Cyprian, tween the preachers, one against the or rather Rufine. And all these say- other, and also partakers with them ; ings they ground upon Erasmus and some holding that the going down of the Germans, and especially upon Christ His Son to hell was nothing the authority of Mr Calvin and Mr else but the virtue and strength of Bullinger.” Strype’s Annals, i. Pt i. Christ His death, to be made mani- p. 348.

the Council of Ariminum about the middle of the fourth century1, and in the Creed of the Church of Aquileia about A.D. 4002. It had then no place in the Roman Creed, but it is found in the Creed commented on by Venantius Fortunatus towards the end of the sixth century, and thenceforth is of frequent occurrence3.

v. The word Hell, as used in the Article and in our English Version of the Creeds, is not to be confounded with ” the place of torment4,” or ” the bottomless pit5.” It is the same as the Hebrew Sheol and the Greek Hades6, which denote “the covered place,” “the invisible under- world.” This was represented by the Jews under a three- fold phrase : — (i) ” The Garden of Eden ” or ” Paradise’ ” ; (ii) “Under the throne of glory6”; (iii) “In Abraham’s bosom9.”

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• Heurt ley’s History of the Earlier Formularies of Faith, p. 33.

4 Yitvva, Matt. v. 30 ; xxiii. 33 ; Mark ix. 43 — 47 ; Luke xii. 5.

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” The English word Hell is derived

from the A. S. kelan = to hide, cover, or conceal. Compare Myrc’s Instruc- tions for Parish Priests, 10=13, 1506. ” Hast thou i-founde any )>ynge And held it at askynge? Tell me, sone, now all smerte For alle )>at bou helest now fro me.” Early English Text Society, pp. 32, 46. Compare also Wiclifs Lollard Doc- trines, ” Be it made unto him a clobe bat he is hclid wib, and a belt bat he is gib wib. ”

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9 Comp. Luke xvi. 22, where it is said of Lazarus that after death he was borne virb t&v ayyi\wv els rdv KiXirov toO ‘Appa&ti.

vi. The Fact of our Lord’s descent into Hades is proved most clearly from Scripture : —

(a) By His own words to the repentant malefactor on the Cross, This day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise (Luke xxiii. 43)1;

(/3) By the words of S. Peter on the day of Pente- cost, when, applying the prophetic language of the sixteenth Psalm, he distinctly states re- specting our Lord that His soul was not left in Hades, neither did His flesh see corruption (Acts ii. 31).

(7) By the words of S. Paul, when he says of Christ that He, Who ascended, is the same that descended into the lower parts of the earth (Eph. iv. o,)2 ;

(8) By the words of S. Peter in his first Epistle, when he affirms that Christ was put to death in His flesh, but was quickened in His spirit3, and that in His spirit He went* and preached* to the spirits in prison*, who aforetime were dis- obedient, when the longsujfering of God waited”1

1 Where it is clear that if His soul was not UJt in Hades, He must Him- self have been there.

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4 HopevOtis. The word must refer to a local transference, just as in 1 Pet. iii. 22 we have iropevdeh elt ovpavbv.

5 ‘Em)pu{eF=He proclaimed as a herald. The word is nearly equiva- lent to ei/7;7-ye\iVaT0, as in other places

of the New Testament. ” The word had been familiar to the Apostle’s ear during his Lord’s ministry on earth. It had become familiar to the Church through the oral or written narratives of the Gospel history.” Dean Plump- tre in toe.

6 $v(Mnj from <pv\d<x(T€iv denotes (i) A watch of the night (Matt. xiv. 25 ; Luke xii. 38) ; (ii) a place of safe keep- ings prison (Mark vi. 17, 27 ; John iii. 24 ; Acts v. 19; xii. 4; xvi. 27, &c). Here it denotes the place of waiting appointed by God as the habitation of disembodied souls, be- tween death and the resurrection. See Bishop Horsley’s Sermon on the text.

7 ‘A7re£e5^x""o. For the word com- pare Rom. viii. 19, 23; 1 Cor. i. 7; Gal. v. 5. Observe the imperfect

in the days of Noah1, while the ark zvas pre- paring (i Pet. iii. 18 — 20).

vii. As to the practical Lessons which our Lord’s descent teaches, we learn : —

(a) That as perfect Man He condescended to endure to the full all the limitations which pertain to man ;

(/;) That He hallowed every condition of human existence;

(c) That death has no mystery which He has not fathomed ;

(d) That there is nothing in the fact of death, nothing in the consequences of death, which He has not endured for us.

viii. The completeness of His mediatorial work re- quired that He should fully experience and thereby fully overcome the power of death2. The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews speaks of our beholding Jesus made a little lower than the angels… that by the grace of God He should taste death3 for every man (Heb. ii. 9). By the term “taste” the writer means that our Lord really experienced all that death means on our behalf, as only a perfectly Holy Being

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period of their disobedience, i.e. 120 dum exspectaret Deus, dum area

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the full time during which the waiting esset, et poena ingrueret, credere cce-

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The prominence given to the siiterit. ” Bengel in loc. history of Noah in our Lord’s eschato- ’ Comp. Tertull. dt Anima, c. 55,

logical teaching comes out in S. Matt. ” Hie quoque legi satisfecit, forma hu-

xxiv. 37, 38; Luke xvii. 26, 27. That manse mortis apud inferos functus”;

His words made a great impression S. Hilar. Tract, in Psalm. liii./‘Quam

on S. Peter’s mind and recollection descensionem Dominus ad consumma-

may be inferred both from the present tionem veri hominis non recusavit.” passage and from 2 Pet. ii. 5 ; iii. 6. 3 For the expression yda-qTai 6avd-

1 ” Eo probabilius est nonnullos tov comp. Matt. xvi. 28; John viii.

ex tanta multitudine, veniente pluvia, 52, and Westcoit’s note in he.

was able to do1. Such an experience would naturally involve the descent into Hades, for only thus could He become acquainted with death and all that follows death. Moreover the descent into Hades was essential to His conquest of death2. In the vision of Himself in His glorified humanity to S. John He reassures the terrified Apostle with the words, / am the First and the Last and the Living Otze ; and L became dead, and behold, I am alive for evermore and I have the keys of death and of Hades (Apoc. i. 17, 18)3. Now He could not have had the keys of Hades unless He had Himself been in Hades, and His possession of the keys of Hades proved His conquest of death, and that He had led captivity captive* (Eph. iv. 8).

ix. The Issues of the Descent. What was the exact purport and issue of His activity in the abode of departed spirits we are not told, but only that invested

1 ” Man, as he is, cannot feel the full significance of death, the conse- quence of sin, though he is subject to the fear of it ; but Christ, in His sin- lessness, perfectly realised its awful- rtess. In this fact lies the immeasur- able difference between the death of Christ, simply as death, and that of the holiest martyr.” Westcott on Heb. ii. 9.

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key of Hades on the Cross when He admitted the soul of the Penitent into Paradise (Luke xxiii. 43), and He will use it at the Great Day, when He will unlock the gates of Hades, and will call forth the spirits of all men, and reunite every soul to its own body, which He will raise from the grave (Joh. v. 28).” Bp Words- worth in he.

4 SravpovTai, diwreTai, Kartpxerai els to. Karax9bvia ev Bebr-qTi Kal iv rpvxjj’ […] alav. S. Epiph. adv. Hcer. i. 40. Captivity in the abstract is put for the concrete; whether the concrete be active, “him who makes captive,” or passive, “those who are made cap- tive,” is immaterial to the final result, for if Christ led captive the conqueror, He thereby freed the conquered; if He led captive “the conquered,” He must first have ” led captive the con- queror.” There is no reference here to the Holy Spirit. There is simply

M,

with His human spirit1 He went and preached to the spirits in prison (i Pet. iii. 19), and we gather from a passage in the succeeding chapter of S. Peter’s Epistle that He preached to them “a Gospel” (1 Pet. iv. 6), and so the power of His Passion was felt in the unseen world, even before His Resurrection2. The Catholic doctors of the early Church fully acknowledged that the Advent of the Lord in the spiritual world must have been a source of blessedness to the holy souls in Abraham’s bosom. Hades without Him, and Hades with Him as the possessor of its keys, must have been two different places. But the question whether His visit made any difference in their subsequent condition was more open to dispute. Some held that it made none. Others held that He delivered some souls from Hades3, and carried them to a better place, even to His kingdom of glory. On this point, however, Scripture preserves an impressive and significant silence. We may surely acquiesce in the opinion of S. Augustine that we ” cannot believe Christ went down to Hades in vain4,” and leave the results under the shadow of His throne, Who by His descent into the unseen world

the antithesis between the lower and higher parts of Christ’s human nature, between His flesh and His spirit.

2 “So also His dead Body, in the world of sense, gave signs of what was to come. The blood and water which issued from the wound of the spear was not a sign of death. The separation of the blood and the water, or serum, which takes place in such a rupture of the heart as our Lord is thought by some to have died of, would be the beginning of decomposition and corruption ; and the sinless flesh of Jesus, though subject to death, was not subject to corruption (Acts ii. 31).

We ought, therefore, rather to see in the outpouring of the blood and water, a sign that the dead body of Christ was being prepared for the coming Resurrection.” Ibid. p. 213.

4 S. August. Epist. ad Euodium

has proved that ” no powers of nature, no limits of space or time, could hinder Him from finding His way to souls1.”

patriarch or king or prophet or saint with perfect joy; but how and when we know not, and, as far as appears, we have no faculty for knowing.” Westcott’s Historic Faith, p. 77.

Notes

• The following sentence is added fest and known to them that were in one MS. : ” At suo ad inferos dead before. Others say that descendit descensu nullos a carceribus aut ad inferna is nothing else but that tormentis liberavit Christus Domi- Christ did sustain upon the Cross the nus.” Hardwick, p. 292, n. infernal pains of hell when He called,
• That is after the spread of the Apollinarian heresy, which it may have been mainly intended to coun- teract. See Dean Luckock’s Inter- mediate State, p. 128. When the Apollinarians denied our Lord’s pos- session of a rational human soul, S. Athanasius asked them how they ex- plained the Descent into Hell. Did He indeed divide His outer man into two parts, and thus manifest Himself at once in the tomb and in Hades ? And the question was fatal to the position which they assumed. Mijri ye di\V /ifp’cas rbv l^wffev, ko.1 iv rd0if) eKeddKVVTO Kai iv “AtSy ; S. Athan. De Incarn. Christi contra ApoIL, p. 491 c.
• From the Greek word irapaSeicror, originally a Persian word, denoting the park of a king rich in fruits and flowers. The word occurs in (i) Luke xxiii. 43; (ii) 2 Cor. xii. 4 ; (iii) Apoc. ii. 7. See Edersheim’s Life of Jesus of Nazareth, ii. p. 599 ; Trench’s Epp. to the Seven Churches, pp. 93, 94.
• KaT^/3?7 ets rd KarwTepa p.lpr) ttjs yrjs. The most ancient writers, Iren. adv. Har. v. 31 ; Origen on Matt. 31, understood this to refer to the descent into Hades, and an almost identical phrase KareXBovra els to. Karurara was used in the Greek translation of the Aquileian Creed as the equivalent of the Latin descendit ad inferos.
• ” By His descent into Hades, Christ revealed Himself as the Re- deemer of all souls. The descent into the realm of the dead gave expression to the truth, that the distinctions Here and There — the limits of place — are of no significance regarding Christ, and do not concern His kingdom.” Martensen’s Christian Dogmatics, p.
• Mason’s Faith of the Gospel, p.
• ” The Gospel of Nicodemus dealt very fully with the delivery of souls from Hades, and ‘the Harrowing of Hell,’ as it was technically called in England, became a favourite subject of religious art in the fourteenth and the fifteenth centuries, as may be seen in the works of Taddeo Gaddi and Simone Memmi, in the chapter-house of Santa Maria Novella at Florence. Bp Forbes on the Articles, p. 53.
• See Martensen’s Christian Dog- matics, p. 316. “We are sure that the fruits of Christ’s work are made available for every man; we are sure that He crowned every act of faith in