ter). So also Dr. Bethune : " Christ, in Noah, by his Spirit, preaclied to them before the Flood, just as m his ministers he preaches to us by his Spirit now" {Lectures on the Heidelberg Catechism, i, 406). Alford {Comment. ad loc.) gives a copious account (chiefly translated from Meyer) of the views of various commentators, ancient and modem, on the passage, and subjoins his o^m view, as follows : '• I understand these words to say that our Lord, in Ms oisembodied state, did go to the place of detention of departed spirits, and did there announce liis work of redemption, preach salvation, in fact, to the dis- embodied spirits of those who refused to obey the voice of God when the judgment of the Flood was hanging over them. Why these rather than others are men- tioned— whether merely as a sample of the Uke gracious work on others, or for some special reason unimaginable by us — we cannot say. It is ours to deal vath the plain words of Scripture, and to accept its revelations so far as vouchsafed to us. And they are vouchsafed to us to the utmost limit of legitimate inference from revealed facts. That inference every intelligent reader will draw from the fact here announced ; it is not purgatory, it is not universal restitution, but it is one which throws blessed light on one of the darkest enigmas of the divine justice — the cases where the final doom seems infinitely out of proportion to the lapse which has incurred it ; and as Ave cannot say to what other cases this /c^/pyy/frt may have applied, so it woidd be presumption in us to limit its occurrence or its efiicacy. The reason of men- tioning here these sinners above other sinners appears to be their connection with the type of baptism which follows. If so, who shall say that the blessed act was confined to them?" {Comm. on N. T. vol. iv, pt. i, p. 368). 2. The Fathers. — In several of the Ante-Nicene fa- thers we find the doctrine that " Christ descended into Hades to announce to the souls of the patriarchs and others there the accomplishment of the work of redemp- tion, and to conduct them to his kingdom of glory." So Justin JMartAT (f 167 ?), Dial, cum Ti-yp)h. § 72, cites a passage from Jeremiah (cut out, he says, by the Jews) as follows : '■ The Lord God remembered his dead peo- ple of Israel who lay in the graves ; and he descended to preach to them his own salvation." Irenajus (t200?), A dv. Hmr. iv, 27, 2 : " The Lord descended into the re- gions beneath the earth, preaching his advent there also, and declaring the remission of sins received by those who believe on him" (see also v, 31, 2). Clement of Alexantb-ia (f 220) devotes chap, vi of book vi of the Stromata to the '• preaching of the Gospel to Jews and Gentiles in Hades." See also TertuUian, De A nima. vii, Iv; Origen, Cont. Cels. ii, 43. The Gnostics generally denied the descensus ad inferos ; but Marcion (2d cen- tury) regarded it as intended to benefit the heathen -who were in need of redemption. The later fathers ivere still more distinct in their utterances; see Cjn^l, Catech. iv, 11 ; xiv, 19 ; Ambrose, De Incarn. 37, 42; Augustine, Epist. cLxiv et al. ; Jerome, Epist. xxii et al. "The later fathers generaUy adopted the notion that, till Christ's death, the patriarchs and prophets were in Ha- des, but afterwards (from the time that Christ said to the thief on the cross that he shoidd be with him in Paradise) they passed into Paradise, Avhich, therefore, they distinguished from Hades. Hades, indeed, the}' looked on as a place of rest to the just, but Paradise as far better. Here, of course, Ave begin to perceive the germ of the doctrine of the Limbus Patrum. Yet the notion entertained by the fathers Avas A-astly different from that of the mediaeA'al Church. Another opinion, however, grcAv up also in the early ages, namelj^, that Christ not only translated the pious from Hades to more joyous abodes, but that even some of those Avho in old times had been disobedient, yet, on hearing Christ's preaching, beUevcd, and so were saved and deUvered from torment and hell. This appears to have been the opinion of Augustine. He Avas CA'idently puzzled as to the meaning of the Avord Hades, and doubted Avhether it cA'er meant a place of rest and happmess (although at
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times he appears to liave admitted that it did); and, thinking it a place of torment, he thought Clirist went thither to save some soiUs, which were in torment, from tlience. Some, indeed, went so fai- as to think tliat hell was cleared of all souls that were there in torment, and that all were taken up with Christ when he rose from the dead and ascended into heaven ; but this was reck- oned as a heresy. . . . One principal reason why the fa- thers laid great stress on tlie belief in Christ's descent to Hades was this. The Arians and Apollinarians de- nied the existence of a natural human soul in Jesus Christ. Now tlie true doctrine of oiu- Lord's humanity, namely, that ' he was perfect man, of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting,' was mcJt strongly main- tained by asserting the article of his descent to Hades. I'or whereas his body was laid in the grave, and his soul went down to Hades, he must have had both body and soul. Accordingly, the fathers with one consent maintain the descent of Christ's soul to hell" (Browne, 0:i tlie Thirtii-nine Articles, p. 93). Nevertheless, it was wit ojiposition to Apollinarism that originally led to the adoption of the clause into the Creed ; the Gnostics, long bel'ore, had denied the descensus ad inferos, but Apolli- naris did not deny it (Neander, Ch. Hist., Torrey, ii, 433).