Hilary of Poitiers (on Ps llOS^) speaks of the souls of the faith- ful as knowing, on the witness of the Apostle Peter, that when
they rightly aw.aited, when He c
dead.'
Justin M.iiM .'I hi. /..„/..,„-.■ H-
/A ■/', ' ;./... Ii :■') III .lis,. s the
JCWSOl . I 1 , ■. Ti.MII- 1
,s. ,,._.. 11- .1, II III, nil : 'The
Lordl^.l : 11:. .l.ll.l
thegniM .■ ii ii. . I.I..I i.ii.iT.v
Ireii:.., 1. . l.i.li
Jereiniiili .
Itispr.iliii . II I,, • ■ II .III ,1
ii ,..'.'-
(iv.^4-):,' II. ...
SScipi;'', . 1 1 .:.'i.', 1
pre.acliiii_ ih ..i ..' ■ ...
1 .|. : .1 . , . ,11-
receiv.l ..... 1, li
Terliill .. 1 ..... .1
the earth, that'tiiercTu- i.Mil.i
. Ill 1 h '„„,i prnphfts
sharers of HU lite.'
We may even claim the 1.. i
1 . .1 witness to this
widespread tr-idition, thou - 1
i'.iuUv^'ai'id'o^hersfmere
"•ni":ir..'i \'"
ii.-'ii may be dated possibly
fromal.i.i ■ . .
' .wing passage : 'They .see
thret 11 1.
nil, two of them supporting
theothui, .. ,,,1,1,1 „„., „ ,.,
„. ; and the head of the two
1 who was led by them over-
passed the heavens. And they he
rd a voice from the heavens
the Lord went down into Ha
11 i,nd were formerly unbelieving
eventothose«li..«.i. m i
in the days of N i i i
1 1 1 1 1 g to add that the Venerable
Bede quoted ili. . m to condemn th. n , . : i
i! naming the author, in order 1 1 iKit the Catholic faith taught
only the releas.n, im n-
It was reserved for .\u_
. I..,,,. .1 1,1 i.i nii.|.|.,.,.tation to
St. Peter's words. In In-
teaching, but confuses 11 . i
1 . 1 . ., „.ad litt.
xii. 63, he says that th. n
:..i I.I Ii. .1..^ Iliiilthe soul
of Christ descended to th.
„i.||| III. II -1, - .11-... punished.
that He might release fiui
toniunt tli.isf whom lie, m His
righteous judgment, which be loosed. In his letter to Euodius
s hidden from us, found worthy to
Bp. of Tzala, on the right inter-
pretation of 1 P 319, .^s 1
p. ll„rskv puts it. 'ho perplexes
l,ilns,;lf «ill,,|ll,.sti..lis.' «
■.. i.,i: ■■ ii: li . 1..I.-II1 iliousands
^^ll..ll,|.i,ll...| ).. t..l-|. III. .
. : . :. .1, though
l!r'Jhr'.'.ls'!'.l"'l! Uh!-,'"i '
■.'.';■ Vi.'.v'';i:;:'^ffi
lie accJ'l'.tT'th.""..|.i.'M'...
i ii.ised. He
■■. ■> I . .-. 'ii. ' mill other
patriarchs. ''.si': 1 ' i
II III. .. ..■!.... 1 . 1 . |.. ,,sks, How
could .4brah:iiii
III Were the
patriarchs w.u-- . :. :: n \
1 ' .1. 1 ii.i.ill.uk.s'.' What
-hnulil be done for
II . . .1 i 1 1.. , ..|.
II Kut the idea that
: ' liken the appeal of
cleared Hell of all the souls that were then m torment.
3. Creeds and Articles of Religion. — At the end
of till' nil c'nt., Tliitiniis, commenting on the clause ' ili.sr.ii.|...l int.. lull ' in I lie Creed of liis native city ■if .\.|mlri,'i, imii'il Mini it \v, -IS not contained in the t '-iTii III thi. ( hunli 111 Kiiiiie or in Eastern Creeds. This IS true of Uaptismal Creeds, but not of others. The words had found a place in three confessions
HELL (DESCENT INTO)
HELL (DESCENT INTO) 715
of faith put forward by Arian Synods at Sirmium, Nice, and Constantinople.
Sirmium, Nice, Constantinople,
l^fiixy.
■ikr^-Mra. ■
It is interesting to compare also the recently discovered ' Faith of St. Jerome,' which contains the words 'descended into hell, trod down the sting of death.' It has been found by Doni G. Morin, O.S.B., in some four MSS, and is probably the Confession of Faith which Jerome notes in one of the letters he had ilrawn up for Cyril of Jeru- salem. This ' Faitli ' contains elements which may have been drawn from his Haptismal Creeil of Pan- nonia. In like manner it is possible that the Sir- mium Creed, quoted above, at this point quoted the Baptismal Creed of the district, since Sirmium is in the south-east corner of Pannonia. But it seems that the Creed was drawn up mainly by Mark, Bp. of Arethusa in Palestine ; and there are traces of the influence of Cyril of Jerusalem elsewhere in this document. The doctrine was one on which he felt strongly ; and, therefore, in default of further evidence as to tlie Pannonian Creed, it is safer to trace to his influence the occurrence of the words in the Creed of Sirmium, on which the Creeds of Nice and Constantinople are dependent.
As regards the interpretation jiut on the clause in the Creed of Aquileia, Pearson is incorrect when he suggests that Ruhnus merely regarded it as equivalent to 'buried,' which was omitted. The Creed certainly contained the word ' buried,' and Rufinus was at pains to show that this word in the Eastern Creeds, as in the Roman, included the idea of a descent into Hades. Swete (p. 61) sug- gests that Ilutinus had lost the clue to the inter- pretation of the clause, and that the addition was made long before his time, possibly to meet the Docetic tendency of the latter part of the 2nd century. The difficulty about this suggestion is that the Docetic apocryphal Gospel of Peter, as we have seen, distinctly teaches belief in the de- scent. The present writer would rather regard pseudo-Peter as witnessing to the common belief of the 2nd cent., and explain the addition in the Aquileian Creed as derived from the ordinary cate- chetical teaching, of which it may have been as ' necessary a dogma ' then in Aquileia as in Jeru- salem in the 4th century.