In what may be called the mythology of Christen- dom, the " descent into hell" has always plaj^ed an im- portant part. The apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus con- tains a vivid description of it, very highly colored. A voice like thimder is heard crying, " Lift up your gates, and be ye Uft up," etc. But the gates were made fast, but on a repetition of the call were opened, ''and the King of glory entered, in fonn as a man, and all the dark places of Hades were lighted up." " ^Vnd straightway Ilades cried out (ch. xxii) , ' We are conquered. Woe unto us ! But who art thou, that hast such power and privilege ? And what art thou, that comest hither with- out sin, small in seeming but excellent in power, the humble and the great, slave at once and master, soldier and king, wielding power over the dead and the living, nailed to the cross, and the destroyer of our power ? Truly thou art the Jesus of whom the archsatrap Satan spake to us, that by thy cross and death thou shoiddest purchase the universe !' Then the King of Glory, hold- ing Satan by the head, delivered him to the angels, and said, ' Bind his hands and feet, and neck and mouth, with irons.' And givmg him o^■er to Hades, he said, ' Keceive and hold him siurelj' until my second advent' (ch. xxiv). Then the King of (ilory stretched out his right hand, and took the forefather Adam, and raised him 11)1, and turning to the rest also, he said, ' Come with me, all of 3'ou, as many as have died by the wood which this man ate of; for lo ! I upraise ye all by the wood of the cross!' After these things he brought them all forth. And the forefather Adam, filled with exceeding joy, said, ' I render thee thanks, O Lord, that thou hast brought me up from the depths of Hades.' Thus, too, said all the prophets and saints : ' We thank thee, O Christ, Sa-^aour of the world, that thou hast redeemed our life from corruption.' And while they were saying these things, the Saviour blessed Adam in the forehead with the sign of the cross, and did the like to the patri- archs and the prophets, and the martjTS and forefathers, and taking them with him, he rose up out of Hades. And as he journeyed, the holy fathers, accompanying him, sang, ' Praised be he who hath come in the name of the Lord. HaUelujah !' " (Thilo, Cod. Apoc7-?/ph. i, 667 sq. ; Forbes, On the Thirty^ine Articles, i, 52 sq.) A dra- matic representation of the " descent into hell," in imi- tation of the above picture in Nicodemus, is given in the discoinse De Adventu et annundatione Joannis Bupt.ap. Inferos, commonly ascribed to Eusebius of Emesa (fc.
i60) ; see Augusti's edition of Eusebius of Emesa, p. 1 sq. (Hagenbach, Hist, of Doctrines, § 134).
3. Middle Age. — These images took possession of the popular mind, and were even held as true pictures by many of the clergy. In the medieval mysteries, the ** harrowmg of hell" was one of the most popular repre-
sentations. Death and hell ^vere pictured as dismayed at the loss of their victims, as Christ was to set all the captives free. So the Vision of Piers Plowman declares that Clnrist
"Would come as a Kynge, Crouued with aungels, And have out of helle Alle menues soules."
The subject was also a favorite one in the rehgious art of the 14th and 15th centuries.
The scholastic divines divided Hell into three differ- ent apartments : " 1. Hell, properly so called, where the devQs and the damned are confined ; 2. Those subterra- nean regions which may be regarded as the intermedi- ate states between heaven and hell, and be again subdi- vided into («.) Purgatory, which lies nearest to hell; (I).) The limbus infcmtum {puerorum), where all those children remain who die mibaptized; (c.) The limhus jmtiitm, the abode of the Old Testament saints, the place to which Christ vrcnt to preach redemption to the souls in prison. The limbus last mentioned was also cabled Abraham's bosom ; different opinions obtained concern- ing its relation to heaven and heU" (Hagenbach, Hist, of Doctrines, § 208). Aquinas taught that Christ res- cued the soids of the pious of the old dispensation from the limhus patrum (Smnma Siippl. qu. 69, art. 5).
4. Modern.— {l.) The Greeh Church holds that the de- scensus was a voluntary going down into Hades of the human soul of Christ united to his divinity; that he re- mained there during the period between his death and his resurrection, and devoted himself to the ■work he had performed on earth : i. e. that he offered redemption and preached the Gospel to those who were subject to Sa- tan's power in consequence of original sin, releasing all believers, and all who died in piety under the O. T. dis- pensation, from Hades (Coif. Orthod. i, 49, ed. Kimmel, 1840, p. 118).
(2.) The Roman Church rests its doctrine in tradition alone. It teaches that Christ, in his entire personality, including his divme and human natures, descended vol- untarily, for the sake of the saints of Israel, into the ?/«i- hus pati-um, or into the ignus jnnrjatoiius (fire of purga- tory), and there demonstrated himself Son of God by conquermg the disemons, and by granting to the souls of the ancients who dwelt in Hades their freedom from the limhus, and admission to felicity in heaven. " His soul also really and substantially descended into hell, accord- ing to David's testimony : ' Thou wilt not leave my soul in heir . . . (Psa. xv, 10). He descended in order that, clothed with the spoils of the arch-enemy, he might con- duct into heaven those holy fathers and the other just souls whose liberation from prison he had purchased," etc. (Cut. Concil. Trid. art.v).