2. TTi'teiuaTa in the NT generally means 'angels,' and it lias heun held that the fallen angels are iiidicateil by to. TveOfiara iv <pv\aK^. This would agree with the language of Jude* and 2 P '2^, the latter passage (as in 1 P 3") going on to speak of Noah and the Flood. 80 in Eth. Knovh, x. 12, the sons of God who had taken wives of the daughters of men (CJu (>-) are represented as hound fast under the hills until the Day of Judgment ; cf. also Etk. Enoch, .\xi. 10, and ,'ilav. Knuch, vii. 1, where the fallen angels in the second heaven are described as ' the prisoners suspended, reserved for the eternal judgement.' So also Apoc. Bnnicli, Ivi. 12 f. : 'Some of them descended, and mingied with women. And then those who did so were tormented in chains. . . . And those who dwelt on the earth perished . . . through the waters of the deluge.' IJut in this literature tliere is no trace of a preach- ing by Christ to the fallen angels ; although in Eth. Enoch, xii. 4, xiii. S, the ' watchers of the heaven' who have fallen from their high estate are reproved and condemned by Enoch. Again, the ' spirits in prison ' of 1 P 3" must be included among the fcKpoi of I P 4* to whom the gospel was preaclied, and these cannot be angels. Augustine, indeed, was forced by the exigencies of his theory to explain vcKpol of the spiritually dead, but the contrast between ' the quick and the dead ' in the preceding verse (1 P 4') proves that the physically dead are in view.
The objection of Loots (ERE iv. 659) that cra/>«; in 1 P 48 proves that the cewpoi must be alive in the ttesh is not convin- cinf,'.' When they were judged, they were in the tiesli ; but ' tlie ditJerence in tense in icpi^uxn, ^Cutl nialvcs tlie former verb ante- cedent in time to the latter, and the sense is the same as if St. Peter had written iVa KpiOevrt:^ <J)<rt ' (Bigg, ICC, in loc,).
3. We have, then, to interpret Trrei'/Mara of the disembodied spirits of men (as in He 12^; cf. Lk 24"- "'■'), and (puKaK-q of Sheolor Hades, in which after death they are imprisoned, according to Jewish belief. Thus in Apoc. Bnriic/i, xxiii. 4, we read of '.a place prejiared where the living might dwell and the dead might be guarded'; cf. 2 Es 7*'*-"' and Is 42' 49'' 61' for phrases out of which the idea of Slieol as a prison might have grown (see, further, DESCENT INTO H.\UKS, § 3). The idea was t.aken over by the early Christian Church. E.f)., Hippolytus(p. Grmcos, ed. P. A. de Lagarde, Leipzig, 1S,')8, p. 6S) writes ; 7-oih-o t-J x"/'^"" (sc. 'Wdtjs) us (ppoi'piov a.iriv^ti.T)di) ^vxa.ts, and describes liades as divided into two compartments, for the good and the evil, both guarded by angels, the unrighteous being haled to their own ])hice as prisoners (lis Siufuoi e\K6iJ.evoi). And Tertullian (de Animn, 58) exphiins the ^uXokt) of Mt .")-■'' as the Hades of discipline for the soul. Indeed, the Peshitta Syriac of roh iv <f>v\aK-n Trixvuaini' (1 P 3'°) is equivalent to ' animabns illis qu;e detinebantur in iuferis,' which leaves no doubt as to the sense which the Syriac translators attached to the phrase under consideration.
4. The ' spirits in prison ' of 1 P 3" are, therefore, human souls in Hades or the abode of the departed, to whom Christ 'preached' after His Passion, a further allusion to the same mysterious ministry being found in 1 P 4". This has already been dis- cussed under DuscENT into Hades, where it has been shown that various opinions were held by the
earl J' Christian theologians as to the scope of Christ's mission to the under world, some conliniiig it to Jews, some to (Jentiles, and sume admitling all the departed, righteous or unrighlecms, to a share in its benediction. Hut in 1 1' 3", where alone in the NT the phrase 'spirits in pri.son ' is found, it is immeiliately followed by the words 'which aforetime were disobedient, when the long- sulVering of Cod waited in the days of Noah,' etc. — an apparent restriction of its content which is not easy to uiider>tand.
An explanation which has much to recommend it is that tlie Noachian patriarchs are here particu- larly specihed, because the Plood was the great typical judgment of the ancient world, and thus tlie 'disobedient in the days of Noah 'are repre- sentative of the disobedient in every age (see an excellent discussion of this by F. II. Clia.se in IWI} iii. 7!>5). There is, however, no suggestion in 1 P 3-" that the Noachiansare mentioned as repre- sentative of all tho.se who dieil in sin. The emphasis is on the fact of Christ preaching in Hades after His death, and not upon the persons to whom He lueachcd. Great stress was laid in the next age upon this ministry as the direct issue of the Passion. Irenanis actually says (Ihr.r. iv. .S3) that the linal cause of Christ's sulferings was that, having died, He might thus visit and deliver the dead. And Origen {in Ps 3°), arguing that Christ ett'ected by the separation of His soul from His body much more for the salvation of mankind than would otherwise have been accomplished, quotes 1 P 3" in [iroof. Thus the words OafarwBeis fiiv a-apKl, fwoTTon/Ctis Si Trfcufian lead directly to the recital of the Descent into Hades. If any of those to whom Christ preached were to be specitied, the argnment would, indeed, require mention of SSnoi, as it is the suH'ering of the just for the unjust that is in question ; but to proceed to specify any in- dividuals at tills point is a digression. It must be remembered, however, that the two topics — Hades and the Flood — were closely associated in Jewish thought, althoujih to the modern mind they are quite distinct. For the Flood was caused Iirimarily by the breaking forth of the fountains of the great deep (Cn 7"), upon which the earth rested, and which was tin; mysterious abode of diead mcmsters and evil things (Gn I", Is 51-'). These abysmal waters were waters of destruction ; and the 'abyss' (Lk 8^') was the home of devils, from which the Ueast of the Apocalypse came forth (Rev 11' 17«). Now Slieol or Hades, tlio place of de])arted souls, was conceived as beneat h these abysmal waters under the solid earth. ' They that are deceased tremble beneath the waters and the inhabitants thereof (Job 21)'). And it was into this 'abyss ' that Christ descended after His Passion (Ko 10').