Christ's Descent into Hell

Article 2: Christ’s Descent into Hell

The Oriental and the ancient Roman versions of the so-called Apostles’ Creed do not mention Christ’s Descent into hell. But the doctrine is contained in the Spanish, Gallic, and Aquilean recensions and in the symbol “Quicunque,” wrongly attributed to St. Athanasius. Hence the descensus ad inferos is commonly regarded as an article of faith. The Fourth Lateran Council (A.D. 1215) teaches somewhat more explicitly: “He descended into hell, … but He descended in soul and arose in flesh, and ascended equally in both.”¹

Durandus contended that the soul of Christ descended into hell dynamically but not substantially. This opinion was censured as heretical by Suarez.² And justly so; for it can be effectively refuted from Sacred Scripture. The same is true of Calvin’s absurd notion³ that Christ before and after His agonizing death suffered the tortures of the damned.

The nature of the place into which our Lord descended has never been dogmatically defined, but it is theologically certain that it was the so-called limbus patrum (sinus Abrahae).

1. Proof of the Dogma from Sacred Scripture and Tradition

The dogma of Christ’s Descent into hell is clearly contained both in Sacred Scripture and Tradition.

a) Ps. XV, 10: “Non derelinques animam meam in inferno,⁴ nec dabis Sanctum tuum videre corruptionem—Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, nor wilt thou give thy holy one to see corruption.” This text contains a convincing argument for our dogma, because St. Peter directly applies it to Christ: “Providens [David] locutus est de resurrectione Christi, quia neque derelictus est in inferno neque caro eius vidit corruptionem—Foreseeing this, he [David] spoke of the resurrection of Christ. For neither was he left in hell, neither did his flesh see corruption.”⁵ The Greek term which the Vulgate renders by infernum is ᾅδης. It cannot mean grave, as Beza contended, because the soul of Christ was not buried; nor can it mean death (which is Calvin’s interpretation), because the soul of Christ did not die. It must refer to a locality where the soul of our Lord sojourned until it was reunited with His “uncorrupted flesh” at the Resurrection.⁶

This interpretation is confirmed by the teaching of St. Paul in his Epistle to the Ephesians: “Now that he ascended, what is it, but because he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth?⁷ He that descended is the same also that ascended above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.”⁸ Christ’s ascension here can only mean His return to Heaven. Consequently, the word descend, in contradistinction to ascend, must here be understood in a local sense. This is rendered all the more probable by the fact that the phrase inferiores partes terrae cannot be applied to Christ’s burial, and still less metaphorically to the Incarnation. For the rest, St. Peter (in a somewhat obscure passage, it is true),⁹ explicitly observes that the soul of Christ “preached¹⁰ to those spirits that were in prison,“—hence it must have been substantially present in a particular place, i.e., the limbo.

b) The Tradition in support of our dogma is as ancient as it is positive.

St. Irenaeus says: “For three days He dwelt in the place where the dead were.”¹¹ Tertullian mentions Christ’s Descent into hell in several passages of his works. We shall quote but one. “Nor did He ascend into the heights of heaven before descending into the lower parts of the earth, that He might there make the patriarchs and prophets partakers of Himself.”¹² St. Augustine speaks with the authority of both Scripture and Tradition when he says: “Who but an unbeliever would deny that Christ was in the nether world?“¹³

2. Meaning of the Term “Hell”

Infernum (ᾅδης, שְׁאוֹל) may designate either (a) hell in the strict sense of the term, i.e., the abode of the reprobates (gehenna); or (b) a place of purification after death, commonly called purgatory (purgatorium); or (c) the hiding place of children who have died unbaptized (limbus infantium); or (d) the abode of the just men who lived before the coming of Christ (limbus patrum). To which of these four places did Christ descend?

a) The soul of our Lord did not descend to the abode of the damned.

Calvin’s blasphemous assertion that the soul of Christ, from the beginning of His sacred Passion in the Garden of Gethsemane to the Resurrection, dwelled in the abode of the damned, and there suffered the poena damni, is based on an untenable exaggeration of the notion of vicarious atonement.¹⁴ It is not true, as Calvin held, that Christ’s Descent into hell constituted the climax of the atonement. The atonement culminated on the Cross. (“Consummatum est.”) Nor can we conceive of any reasonable motive why our Lord should have descended into the gehenna of the damned. The human beings confined in that awful dungeon were absolutely irredeemable, even as the demons themselves.¹⁵ Moreover, a personal sojourn in hell would have been repugnant to the dignity of the Godman. St. Augustine does not hesitate to stigmatize as heretical the proposition that “When Christ descended into hell, the unbelieving believed and all were set free.”¹⁶ The “triumph over hell” which the Church celebrates in her Easter hymns did not require the substantial presence there of our Lord’s soul; it was accomplished by His virtual or dynamic presence, i.e., the exercise of His divine power.

Certain ancient ecclesiastical writers¹⁷ held that on the occasion of His Descent Christ rescued from eternal torture the souls of certain pious heathens, e.g., Socrates and Plato. This theory does not contradict the dogma that the pains of hell are eternal, as Suarez contends; but it must nevertheless be rejected as unfounded; first, because without positive proof to the contrary we are not permitted to assume an exception, and secondly, because there is no ground whatever for the assumption that these pious heathens were condemned to hell rather than relegated to the limbus patrum.

b) There is another opinion, held by several reputable theologians, viz.: that the soul of Christ appeared personally in purgatory to console the poor souls and to admit them to the beatific vision.

We may let this pass as a “pious opinion,” provided its defenders refrain from denying that Christ also descended into the limbus patrum. But even with this limitation we can hardly admit that the theory is based on sufficient evidence. Two weighty arguments speak against it. It is a fundamental law of divine justice that whoever neglects to render satisfaction in this life must inevitably suffer in the next (satispassio), and Sacred Scripture affords no warrant for assuming that an exception was made in this instance, say after the manner of a plenary indulgence in commemoration of the Redemption. On the other hand it is highly improbable that all the inmates of purgatory should have finished the process of purification at exactly the same moment. In view of these considerations St. Thomas holds that the (merely virtual) presence of our Lord in purgatory resulted in nothing more than giving to the poor souls temporarily imprisoned there “the hope of an early beatitude.”¹⁸ The only exception the Angelic Doctor is disposed to make is in favor of those “who were already sufficiently purged, or who during their lifetime had by faith and devotion to the death of Christ merited the favor of being released from the temporal sufferings of purgatory on the occasion of His descent.”¹⁹

c) Was it perhaps the limbus puerorum, i.e., the abode of children who die in the state of original sin, into which our Saviour descended? It is difficult to see for what reason He should have gone there.

He could not benefit the souls of these children, because they have once for all arrived at their destination. Nor can He have desired to triumph over them, because the fact that they are deprived of the beatific vision is not due to any malice on their part, but simply and solely to original sin contracted by their descent from Adam. As these infants are absolutely irredeemable in virtue of Christ’s voluntas salvifica consequens,²⁰ we cannot even assume the existence of a special privilege in their favor. That which is impossible cannot be made the subject-matter of a privilege, not even at so solemn a juncture as the death of our Saviour.²¹ Their fate does not involve cruelty nor injustice on the part of God, because, though deprived of the beatific vision, they enjoy a certain measure of natural happiness.²²

d) Consequently, the only place to which the soul of Christ can have descended during the triduum intervening between His death and the Resurrection, is the limbus patrum, sometimes also called “bosom of Abraham.”

The limbus patrum was the place in which the patriarchs and just men of the Old Testament, together with those heathens who had died in the state of grace, after having been cleansed from all stain of sin in purgatory, dwelled in the expectation of the beatific vision. That such a place existed we conclude from Heb. IX, 8: “The way into the holies [i.e., Heaven]²³ was not yet made manifest, whilst the former tabernacle [i.e., the Old Testament] was yet standing.” We may also infer the (former) existence of such a place from the fact that Holy Scripture adverts to a state of imprisonment as an intermediary stage on the way to Heaven.

3. Speculations Regarding the Location of the Limbo

The word limbo, which is derived from limbus, properly signifies edge or border. It owes its use as a technical term in theology to the ancient belief that the abode of the patriarchs was situated on the confines of hell, somewhere near the surface of the earth. Dante and Milton place the limbo at the outermost circle of hell.²⁴ Since the geocentric has been supplanted by the Copernican world-view, we know that the ancient notions of “above” and “below” are purely relative. Hence the traditional view with regard to the site of hell and the limbo does not appertain to the substance of dogma. The meagre data furnished by Revelation do not enable us to draw up a topographical map of the nether world. We know no more about the whereabouts of hell than we know about the location of what was once the limbo of the Fathers. The theological arguments of certain Scholastic writers, based on the geocentric conception of the universe, can claim no probability, much less certitude.²⁵

4. The Soteriological Significance of Christ’s Descent into Hell

Christologically our Lord’s Descent into hell must be conceived as an intermediary stage between glorification and abasement. It partook of abasement in respect of the external circumstance of place, but it did not entail upon His human nature any substantial or intrinsic alteration.²⁶ From the soteriological point of view the question as to the meaning of Christ’s Descent into hell resolves itself into another, namely, What was its object or purpose?

What can have been our Saviour’s purpose in visiting the patriarchs? We may safely assume that His descent stood in some sort of relation to the redemption of the human race which He had just accomplished. It must have aimed at their beatification, for the limbo contained no reprobates. St. Paul applies the text Ps. LXVII, 19: “Ascendens in altum captivam duxit captivitatem” to the inmates of the limbo,—as if he wished to say: Ascending into Heaven Christ leads away with Him those who had been imprisoned in the limbo.²⁷

We are informed of the object of our Lord’s Descent into the limbo by St. Peter, who says in his first Epistle:²⁸ “[Christ was] put to death indeed in the flesh, but enlivened in the spirit, in which also coming he preached to those spirits that were in prison:²⁹ which had been some time incredulous,³⁰ when they waited for the patience of God in the days of Noe, when the ark was a-building.” This text is admittedly difficult of interpretation;³¹ but despite a certain obscurity, its general drift is discernable. The Apostle evidently means to say that Christ personally approached³² the spirits or souls of those who were imprisoned in the limbo and preached³³ to them. What and why did he preach to them? To assume that He tried to convert the damned would contradict the revealed truth that there is no salvation for those condemned to hell. Can it have been His purpose to assure them of their damnation? This hypothesis is equally untenable, because a little further down in his text St. Peter expressly describes Christ’s preaching (κήρυγμα) as a “gospel,” which means a message of joy. “νεκροῖς εὐηγγελίσθη,” these are his words—“the gospel was preached to the dead.”³⁴ The “gospel” which our Lord preached to the inmates of limbo must have been the glad tidings that their imprisonment was at an end.

But whom does St. Peter mean when he speaks of “those spirits … which had been some time incredulous, when they waited for the patience of God in the days of Noe”? This is a difficult question to answer. But no matter how we may choose to interpret the subsidiary clause, the main sentence is plain enough. Among the just imprisoned in the limbo there were also (καί) some who had abused God’s patience before the Deluge by remaining incredulous till the flood overtook them.³⁵ The “gospel” or joyful message which Christ brought to the inmates of limbo cannot have consisted in anything more than the preliminary announcement that they were soon to be freed; for their formal admission into the heavenly abode of the Blessed did not take place till the day of His Ascension.³⁶ Nevertheless, in view of our Lord’s remark to the penitent thief: “This day thou shalt be with me in paradise,” we must hold that the patriarchs were forthwith admitted to the beatific vision of God.³⁷