7. The primitive view, so far as it can be collected from Hernias and Ignatius, seems to be correctly expounded by Loofs.§ Christians, since the Re- demption wrought by their INIaster, were not sub- ject to the bondage of Hades after death ; from the power of death they had been freed once for all. And what Christ did for the patriarchs in Hades was to place them in a like position to those who had been favoured by His presence on earth. Those who welcomed Him there were delivered from thrall, as all His disciples had already been delivered. This was not held by Tertullian || or by Irena?us,1I but it is definitely stated by Origen ** : iav diraWayw/xev yevd/xevoi Kokol Kal dyadol . . , ov KaT€\ev(T6/J.eda els Tr]v X'^po-" Stou irepUixevov tov "KpuFrbv ol irpb TT]S Trapovcrias avrov KOLfiw/jLevoi.
This may have been the significance of the preaching in Hades, mentioned in 1 P S'** 4* ; but it remains obscure why it is limited (at least in the lirst passage) to the antediluvian sinners, for there is no hint that tliey are to be taken as typical of all men who lived before Clirist's Advent.
8. The Descent into Hades is the topic in several of the recently discovered Odes of Solomon, which (late from the 2nd century.
These remarkable hymns were first published from the Syriac by Rendel Harris in 1909, and several editiotis have appeared since in German, Frencli, and Eny^lish. Opinion is divided as to their date and doctrinal standpoint; but it is not doubtful that the passai^es here cited are Christian. They may be dated, provisionally, between a.d. 150 and 180.
In Ode xxxi. 1 ff, we have a Song of the Victory of Christ in the under world : ' The abysses were dissolved before the Lord : and darkness was de- stroyed by His appearance : error went astray and perished at His liand : and folly found no path to walk in . . . He opened His mouth and spake grace and joy . . . His face was justified, for thus His holy Father had given to Him. Come forth, ye that have been afflicted and receive joy, and possess your souls by His grace, and take to you immortal life.' And in xlii. 15 fl". : 'Sheol saw me, and was made miserable : Death cast me up and many along with me ... I made a congregation of living men amongst his dead men, and I spake with them by living lips . . . and those who had died . . . said, Son of God, have pity on us . . . and bring us out from the bonds of darkness ; and open to us the door by which we shall come out to thee.'
Here we have the redemption of souls in Hades, and also a preaching by Christ there after His Passion. In these Odes there is the earliest appear- ance of the detailed doctrine of the Descensus which is found in the Gospel of Nicodemus, and was afterwards universally prevalent in Christian circles. The Odes do not appeal directly to Scrip- ture ; and the manner in which they allude to the
* Strom ii. 9. t ib. vi. 6.
X Horn, in 1 Sam. SSS-!S (Lommatzsch, xi. 326).
I ERE iv. 661. II de Anima, 68.
IT adv. Hcer. v. xxxi. 2.
** Horn, in 1 Sam. SS^-is (Lommatzsch, xi. 332).
fact and the purpose of the Descensus shows that it must have been a familiar Christian idea at the date of their composition.
9. The apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus tells (ii. 10) that John Baptist announced to the patriarchs in Hades that he had baptized the Christ, who would soon come to bring them deliverance. We have already (§ 6) found in Origen the conception of John as the precursor of Christ in the under world ; but we have now to notice the remarkable similarity between the language used about the Descensus and that used about baptism. Four points in particular may be noted :
[a) The Descent was a going down into ' the abyss ' (Ro 10'). A text of the OT quoted by Cyril of Jerusalem * as pre-figuring this is Jon 2®- ', which is in the LXX :
&l3v(rcros (KUKKwaiv fie iax^Tri,
i8v i] KecpaKrj fxov eh cr;;^tcr/xds ipiuiv,
KaTi^7]v els yfjv ^s ol fxox^ol avrrjs Kdroxoi aliivioi. Now in baptism we are ' buried with him ' and ' united with him by the likeness of his death ' (Ro 6^- ^). The Fathers, e.g. Basil,t speak explicitly of our baptism as a reflexion or imitation of Christ's Descensus ; as a Western Council J has it, ' in aquis mersio, quasi in infernura descensio est.'
(6) When Christ descended, the keepers of the gates of Hades were scared (cf. Job 38" Trv\wpol di (}8ov l86vTes ae ^irTTj^av), and the Gospel of Nicodemus (ii. 8) speaks of tiie brazen gates and iron bars being broken (cf. Ps 107'^ Is 45^). The powers of the under world were terrified. Now the Epistle of Barnabas (§11) quotes as predictive of baptism Is 45^ ' I will crush gates of brass and break in pieces bolts of iron ' ; and the same text is alluded to in Odes of Solomon, xvii. 9, where again the re- ference is to baptism. Further, all the Eastern baptismal rites bring in the idea of the waters (the mysterious region where evil spirits dwell) being terrified at the coming of Christ for baptism, quoting Ps 77'® 114'* 29* as forecasting this. We have the same thing in Odes of Solomon, xxiv. 1 and xxxi. 1 f. In some pictorial representations of tlie Baptism of Christ, Jordan is depicted allegoric- ally as starting away in astonished fear. That is, the terror of the powers of evil is described in the same language, whether the Descent to Hades or Christian baptism is the topic. §