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

In order to prove yet more fully that Christ’s death was not merely a trance, but a real separation of soul and body, this article asserts, in the words of the Creed, that he ’ went ‘down into Hell.’ The doctrine is not indeed built upon any express declaration of the Evangelists ; but it follows immediately from St. Peter’s application to Christ of the words of David, Thou wilt not leave my soul in Hell, Now unless his soul had been in Hell, God could not be repre- sented as not leaving it there. Compare Psal. xvi. 8. Acts

2. What different meanings are attached to the word Hell; and in what light has our Lord’s descent into hell heen consequently viewed ?

16 QUBSTIONS AND ATX%WEBS QK

ffell is an old Saxon term, signifying wlyit is untan or concealed and applied by the Translators of the Bible both to the plaoe or state of departed souls, and to the place of torment. In the former sense it corresponds exacUy with the original word, itiQ (=a£(is), employed by St Peter in the Acts; but because it is also, thougn rarely, used in the latter, as the representatiye of the yery different word yievttt it has been sometimes thought that our Lord was aetained, between his death and resurrection in the recep- tacle of condemned sinners.

3. What is the opinion “generally received by English divines on this subject?

This article, in the reig^ of Edward YI, stood thus : — * The body of Christ lay in the graye until his resurrection ; but his Spirit, which he gaye up, was with the spirits which were detained in prisoner in hell, and preached to them, as St. Peter testified.’ See 1 Pet. iii. 19, 20. The interpretation of the passage, upon which this sense is grounded^ is now very generally rejected ; and though our Church, with her usual moderation, leaves the question imdecided, her most learned divines understand by Christ’s descent into Hell, that his death was attended by all the circumstances of mortality. His body was laid in the grave, and his soul went to Fades.

4. Is the doctrine thus received sanctioned by the testimony of the early Fathers I

Irenseus obseryes (Haer. v. 31.) that our Lord was in the middle of the shadow qf deathy where the sotUs qf the dead were: TertuUian says {de Anima, C. 5&.), that he went through the form of human death amongst those who are in the invinMe world- : and Cyprian {adv, Jud, ii. 14.), that he was not to be overcome by death, nor remain in Hades.

UtTICLB IV.