5. The idea that Chxist preached in Hades to the souls who were in bondage there has a somewhat dilierent history. It is found in Ignatius JJ : 'even the prophets, being His disciples in the spirit, were
* Quoted from Weber by Bigg on 1 P 3i9 {ICC, 1901, p. 163). t So Origen interprets Mt 27^-' as a fulfilment of Ps 68^8 (Lommatzsch, vi. 344).
«♦ Lommatzsch, vi. 344. § adv. Beer. v. xxi. &
ib. I. xx\ ii. «i Tryph. 72.
•* adv. Ilcer. iv. xxvil. 2. ft Strom, ij, 9.
\X ad Maijn. ix.
expecting Him as their teacher, and for this cause, He, whom they rightly awaited, when He came, raised them from the dead.' More explicit is an oracle quoted both by Justin* and by Irena^iisf as from Isaiah or Jeremiah, although it is not in the OT, and its source has not been traced : ' The Lord God remembered His dead people of Israel who lay in the graves, and descended to preach to them His own salvation.' J In like manner, the apocryphal Gospel of Peter (2nd cent.) tells of a voice from heaven which said, 'Thou didst preach to'them that sleep' (iKripv^asTo?s KOLfuofxivoLs), This, according to Clement of Alexandria, who does not countenance the legendary developments of the idea of liberation, was the sole purpose of Christ's Descent into Hades, viz. that He should preach the gospel there.§
Of Christ's preaching in Hades there is no foreshadowing in the OT, although Clement of Alexandria II will have it that Job 28-^ predicts it. But it is plainlj' stated in 1 P 3^^ 4^ and the etibrts to explain these passages of a preaching of the pre- existent Christ to the patriarchs, or of His mission to the spiritually dead, can only be regarded as after-thoughts of Christology, although they have the authority of Augustine and Aquinas. The words are explicit ; rols iv <pvXaKfj Trvev/xacriv wopevOeis (KTjpv^ev . . . veKpols evrjyyeXiadr]. It is noteworthy, however, that early Christian belief on this point was not founded on these texts. They are not cited in connexion with the Descensus by the earliest writers, such as Ignatius, Justin, or IrenjEus. Cyprian U quotes 1 P 4", but he otiers no comment upon it ; and Clement of Alexandria ** is the first to use 1 P 3^^ to illustrate the jDroclama- tion of the gospel in Hades. Nothing is said in either passage as to the ejfect of the jireaching ; there is no suggestion of that triumphant deliver- ance of souls from Hades, on which the next age loved to dwell. Indeed, 1 P 3^^ does not speak of a preaching to all the spirits of the departed, but only to those of the antediluvian patriarchs ; and this limitation, whatever be its precise significance, needs to be kept in mind. It was, perhaps, because of this limitation that the passage was not quoted by the early Christian writers when debating the meaning of the Descensus ; the doctrine was de- veloping itself in quite a different way.
6. A curious passage in the Shepherd of Hermas {Sim. ix. 16) throws some light on the primitive Christian conception of the under world. A parable is told of the building of a tower which represents the Church at rest. All the stones which are built into the tower are taken from ' a certain deep place' (^k jSvdod tiv6s), i.e. the under world. The first tier represents the first genera- tion of men, i.e. from Adam to Abraham ; the second, those from Abraham to Moses ; the third, the prophets and ministers (sc. of the Old Cove- nant) ; while the fourth tier represents the apostles and teachers of the New Covenant. All alike had ' to rise up through water ' that they might be made alive, so that the seal of baptism is needed for all. Now the ' apostles and teachers ' dillered from the rest in that they had been baptized Ijefore they passed into the under world ; but when there, ' after they had fallen asleep in the power and faith of the Son of God, they preached also to them that had fallen asleep before them, and them- selves gave unto them the seal of the preaching,' sc. bixptism. Thus Hermas does not speak of a Descent of Christ into Hades, but he finds a mission
* Tryph. 72. t adv. Ilcer. iii. xx. 4.
t In other passages of Irenseus where this oracle is quoted (IV. xxxiii. 12, V. xxxi. 1) it ends, 'descended to rescue and deliicr them,' no mention being made of the preaching of Christ in Hades.
§ Strom, vi. 6. II ib.
t Test. ii. 27. *• Strom, vi. 6.
DESCENT INTO HADES
DESCENT INTO HADES
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there for the apostles and teachers of the Christian dispensation, viz. that they might evangelize and baptize the pre-Christian saints, so that they too might become members of tlie Church. Clement of Alexandria* quotes this passage from Hernias, and addst that the apostles preached in Hades, following the Lord. Probably neither writer had formulated a quite consistent scheme of Christ's mission to the under world. As Clement held that the apostles were followers of Christ in Hades, so Origen taught tliat Christ had forerunners there. He held that as the propliets, both those of the OT and John Baptist, were His heralds on earth, 80 they were His heralds in the under world : J 'l7](TOV% els ^oov yeyove, Kal ol irpo<prjTaL irpo avTov, Kol TrpoK7]p6a(Toi/ai rod Xpiarov t7]v iirLOrifxla.v.