in reproducing the Hebrew NAN
8971. If Hades had been intended,
it is strange that Paul did not select one or other of the more familiar and quite unambiguous phrases which are used elsewhere, e.g., ἕως ἅδου (Matt. χι. 23), eis ἅδου (Acts ii. 27), or such a formula as εἰς τὴν καρδίαν τῆς γῆς (Matt. xii. 40), εἰς τὴν ἄβυσσον (Rom. x. 7). It is also to be considered that, granting it is
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the Ascension and not merely the Resur- rection of Christ that is expressed by the ἀνέβη, it was not from Hades, but from earth that He did ascend. Further, the point immediately in view is not any work that Christ did in the world and its several parts, but the identity of the Per- son who descended, and ascended, and gave gifts. This is made sufficiently clear by the repeated αὐτός (vv. 10, 11), and the idea of a Hades-visit or a Hades- ministry has no obvious relation to that. The great paragraph in Phil. ii. 5-10, which is in some sense a parallel, has also to be taken into account. There again the whole statement turns upon the two great ideas of the incarnation with the humiliation involved in it and the exaltation, and nothing is said about any visit of Christ to the underworld. Here, too, the whole idea of a descent to Hades appears to be foreign to the thought. It is not suggested by the passage in the Psalm; for there is not a word about Sheol in it. Neither is there any indication of it in the context in the Epistle. For there the bestowal of gifts is referred not to Christ’s descent, but to His ascension, and no hint is given of any work done by Him in Hades with a view to that bestowal, or of any relation in which the world of the dead stands to His prerogative of giving. For these reasons we conclude that the phrase τὰ κατώτερα μέρη τῆς γῆς means the earth as a scene of existence, lower than His native heavens, to which Christ descended.
Ver. το, ὃ καταβάς, αὐτός ἐστι καὶ 6 ἀναβάς : he that descended, he it is that also ascended (or, he himself also ascended). It was the first thought of every Christian mind that Christ had come down from heaven to live and work among men on earth for their salvation. Founding on this Paul declares that He who descended, whom all knew to be Christ, He and no other was also the Person who ascended. So he reminds his readers of the source of all the gifts in operation in the Church or enjoyed by individual Christians— the ascended Christ. A peculiar force is claimed by some (Von Soden, Abb., Bruston) for the καί in kal κατέβη. It is argued that it represents the descent as subsequent to the ascent, and contem- poraneous with the giving of the gifts. So the point is taken to be this—that the ascent would have been without a purpose unless it had been followed by a descent. This, it is thought, is the reason why Paul pauses to say that the ascending implied also a descending and that the Person in
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