(3.) Lutherans.— Laihez himself did not speak posi- tively on this topic. He agreed at first with Jerome and Gregory in supposmg a limhus potniin whither Christ went. But whenever he mentioned the subject after 1533, he was accustomed to remark that Christ de- stroyed the power of the devil and of hell, whither he went with soul and body. The later Lutheran theology recognised the descent as a real descent into hell. Christ, the God-man, after the resurrection and the reunion of his soul with his body, immediately before his reappear- ance on earth, i. e. early on Easter morning, went, bcidy and soul, to the hell of the damned, the time wliich elapsed between his death on the cross and the resurrec- tion having been spent in Paradise. The " descent into hell" was the first act accomplished by the God-man af- ter his entrance into his divine unlimited power, and is therefore considered as the first degree of the state of exaltation. It thus constitutes also his first entering into possession of the kingdom of his power, and in the revelation of his victory over the de'vil, and the conse- quent inability of the latter to prevaO against believers, whence the " descent" is also designated as '• the triumph over the devil and his angels." His preaching in hell is designated as co^demnator^• (legalis and damnatoria,
HELL 1
Formula Concordice, art. 9). The Lutheran divines have generally maintained the doctrine as thus put forth, though not without controversy among themselves. yEpinus (Johannes Hoch, f 1533) taught that Christ's descent into hell belonged, not to his state of exaltation, but to that of humilkiiion, his soul suffering the punish- ments of hell whUe his body remained in the grave. He denied that 1 Pet. iii, 18 refers to the "descent into hell" at all.
(4.) Reformed.— In the Reformed theology in general, the " descent into hell" has been interpreted metaphor- icallv, or as meaning simply either the biu-ial of Christ or his sufferings. So Calvin : " It was necessary for Christ to contend with the powers of hell and the hor- ror of eternal death." ... He was treated as a crimi- nal himself, to sustain all the punishments which would have been inliicted on transgressors ; only with this ex- ception, that it was not possible that he should be hold- en of the pains of death. Therefore it is no wonder if he be said to have descended into hell, since he suffered that death which the A\Tath of God inflicts on trans- gressors" (Institutes, bk. ii, ch. xvi, § 10).
The Heidelberg Catechism substantially follows Cal- vin : " Quest. 44. Why is there added ' he descended into hell ?' That in my greatest temptations I may be assured, and wholly comfort myself in this, that my Lord Jesus Christ, by his inexpressible anguish, pains, terrors, and hellish agonies, in which he was plunged during all his sufferings, but especially on the cross, hath delivered me from the anguish and torments of hell." Dr. Nevin remarks on this answer that it gives the words of the Creed " a signification which is good in its own nature, but, at the same time, notoriously at war with the historical sense of the clause itself." The doc- trine is stated in the Westminster Catechism (Larger), answer to qusstion 50, as follows : " Christ's humiliation after death consisted in his being buried and continuing in the state of the dead, and under the power of death, until the third day, which has been otherwise expressed in the words 'he descended into hell.'" Beza maLi- tained that the' descent into Hades simply meant the burial of Christ ; and in this opinion he was followed hy Drusius, by Dr. Barrow, and other English divines: and so Piscator, and several of the Remonstrants (Arminius, CurcellEeus, Limborch), refer it to the state of death (status if/nomimosus') as part of the humiliation to which the Prince of Life was subjected.
Church of England. — The third article of religion runs as follows : " As Christ died for us, and was buried, so also is it to be believed that he went down into heU." In tlie first book of Edward VI it was more fidly stated as follows : " The body of Christ lay in the sepulchre un- til his resurrection ; but his ghost departing from him, was with the ghosts which were in prison, or in hell, and did preach to the same, as the place of St. Peter doth testify." And in the Creed in Jletre, given at the end of the old version of the Psalms in the Prayer-book, it is stated as follows :
" His body then was buried
As is our use and right ;
His spirit after this descent
Into the lower parts,
Of them that lons^ in darkness were,
The true li<;ht of their hearts." Pearson, after an elaborate but not always luminous examination of the clause, sums up his own view of the doctrine as follows : " I give a full and undoubting as- sent unto this as to a certain truth, that when all the sufferings of Christ were finished on tlie cross, and his soul was separated from his body, though his body were dead, yet his soul died not ; and though it died not, yet it underwent the condition of the souls of such as die ; and being he died in the similitude of a sinner, his soul went to the place where the souls of men are kept ^vho died for their sins, and so did wholly undergo the law of death : but because there was no sin in him, and he had fully satisfied for the sins of others which he took upon him, therefore, as God suffered not his Holy One