And if the latter is the case, in what aspect and with what particular signifi- cance is His visit to the world of the dead resented ? On these questions there as been and there continues to be great diversity of opinion. Both interpretations have large support. That the “ lower parts of the earth" mean simply earth itself in distinction from heaven is the view of Calv., Grot., Mich., Winer, Harl., Thom., Reiche, de Wette, Hofm., Bey- schlag, Schweitzer, Weiss, Pfleid., Bis- ping, Abb., Haupt and others. That they mean Hades is the view favoured by the Copt. and Eth. Versions, and by such interpreters as Iren., Tertull., hey Erasm.,, Estius, Eb Riick., Olsh., Del., Bleek, Mey., Alf., Ell. (on the whole), etc. Those who adopt this latter view, however, are not wholly at one, The eat majority indeed, especially among atristic and Lutheran exegetes, under- stand Paul to affirm that Christ after His death made a manifestation of Himself in epee to the world of the departed, and fulfilled a certain ministry there. That ministry is understood by some, especially among the Fathers, to have been concerned with the release of the souls of OT saints from the Limbus Pat- rim ; by others, especially among certain classes of modern commentators, to have been a new proclamation of grace to the whole world of the departed or to certain sections of the dead; cf. Pearson on the Creed, sub Art. v.; Salmond’s Christian Doctrine of Immortality, p. 421, etc. But there are those, especially Calvinistic theologians, who take the writer to mean nothing more, if he refers to Hades at all, than that like other men Christ passed at death into the world of the departed and had experience there of the power of death for a time. Some (e.g., Chrys., Theod., Oec.) are of opinion that the phrase points to the death or the burial of Christ, but do not press it beyond that. On the other hand, there are those (e.g., Von Soden, Abb.) who take the descent to be to earth and not to Hades, but instead of identifying it with the incarna- tion regard it as subsequent to the ascen- sion. What then is the most reasonable interpretation ?
It must be said in the first place that neither grammar nor textual criticism gives a decisive answer. The τῆς γῆς may be taken equally well as the appos. gen., = “the lower parts which are or make the earth”; the poss. gen., = “ the lower parts belonging to earth,” Hades being conceived to be part of the earth, but its lower part; or the comp, gen., =
g—Io.
‘the parts lower than the earth”. But the comparative idea is not more pertinent to the one main line of interpretation than to the other. The κατώτερα may mean the parts lower than the earth itself, 2.6., Hades ; but it may also mean the parts lower than heaven, i.e., the earth. Nor does the variety in reading affect the sense, though much has been made of it. The word μέρη is inserted after κατώτερα by BSQCD°KLP, Syr.-P., Boh., Vulg., Arm., Chrys., etc. It is omitted by D*G, Goth., Eth., Iren., etc. It must be held, therefore, to belong to the text, but it is not inconsistent with either inter- pretation. The main arguments in favour of Hades being in view are these; that if earth were meant, it is difficult to under- stand why some simpler form such as eis τὴν γῆν or εἰς THY γῆν κάτω (Acts ii. 10) was not chosen; that the use of so singular a phrase as τὰ κατώτερα, which recalls the LXX rendering for PUNT NANA, one of the OT expressions for the under- world, suggests at once that something lower than earth itself, a yet deeper depth, was intended (Mey.); that the accompany- ing phrases ὑπεράνω πάντων τῶν οὐρανῶν and ἵνα πληρώσῃ τὰ πάντα, being ex- pressions of largest extension, make it reasonable to give the widest possible sense also to the κατώτερα; and that justice is done to the peculiarity and the amplitude of the various expressions only by taking Paul’s idea to be that as Christ rose in order to fill the whole world, He -had first to pass in His victorious power through all the great divisions of the universe—heaven above, earth beneath, and even the subterranean world, in the assertion of His universal sovereignty. But there is much to be said on the other side. The superlative formula τὰ κατώ- tata would have been more in point if the idea to be expressed had been that of a depth than which there was none deeper (Abb.), or that of a descent embracing all the several parts of the universe. In point of fact, too, it is not Ta κατώτερα, but τὰ κατώτατα, that the LXX employs