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

That Christ descended into Hell is not ex- pressly asserted by any of the Evangelists ; but they all relate that he expired upon the cross, and that after three days he again appeared alive ; and therefore it may be inferred that in the inter- mediate time his soul went into the common receptacle for departed souls (a). But a more direct proof of this proposition may be found in St. Peter’s Sermon, aft«r the effusion of the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost (b)^ in which he applies to the resurrection of our Saviour the passage in the Psahns : ” Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine

Holy

(a) There is no single word in our language which has this signification ; but we are told that this was formerly the sense of the Saxon word Hell, though it now always means the place of the punishment of the wicked, after the general judgment, as opposed to heaven, the place of the reward of the righteous.

(b) Acts, c. a. V. 27.

156 Exposition of the [part iir.

Holy One to see corruption (c)” Christ’s soul must have been in hell, since God is here re- presented as not finally leaving it here, but as re-uniting it to the body of Christ, after a cer- tain interval; and, therefore, as christ died

FOR us AND WAS BURIED J SO ALSO IS IT

INTO HELL. It is to be observed that the word rendered ” Hell” in the above passage, both in the Septuagint translation of the Psahns, and in the Acts is ‘AJii^, Hades. Dr. Campbell has shewn that this word, which occurs eleven times in the New Testament, and is very fire- quentiy used in the Septuagint translation of the Old, never signifies in Scripture the place of torment, to which the wicked are to be c(hi- signed after the day of judgment, but always the place appropriated for the common reception of departed souls in the intermediate time between death and the general resurrection (d).

Though there is this unquestionable authority for the doctrine oi this article, Christ’s descent into Hell, or Hades, is not mentioned in the abstracts of

Christian

(c) Ps. 16. V. 10.

(d) Homer, Hesiod, Plato, and other antient Greek writers, distinguish *Ahn from T( which was the place of punishment for the Wicked. Vide Dr. Nicbolls’s exposition of this article.

AET. III.] Thirty-mne Articles. 157

Christian faith, which the early fieUhers have left us ; nor is it in any of those numerous creeds which were composed by the councils of the fourth century^ except that which was agreed to at Arimini in the year 359. The word there used is Karap^Ooyia, and it is plain irom the context that this word cannot mean, as some have supposed, merely that Christ was buried,

[…]

beginning of the fifth century the church at Aquileia, as we learn firom Ruffin, used the cor- responding expression, descendit ad infema ; but at the same time he informs us, that there was no similar articles in the creeds then used, either at Rome, or in the eastern churches (e). In the sixth century this article was admitted into many creeds, and it was confirmed by the fourth council of Toledo, a. d. 633. The word *Afn^ was first used in the Athanasian creed, which, as will hereafter appear, was not composed till many years after the death of Athanasius.

It seems probable that this doctrine of Christ’s descent into hell was first introduced into creeds

for

(e) In ecclesise Roman® symbolo non habetur ad- ditum, Descendit ad infema ; sed neque in orientis tccl«sia habetur hie sermo. RuiF. Exp. Symb.

158 Reposition of the [part hi.

for the purpose of declaring the actual separa- tion of Christ’s soul and body, in opposition to those heretics who asserted, that the crucifixion produced only a trance or deliquium and that Christ did not really suffer death.

ART. IV.] Thrrty-nine Articles. 159