We Catholics recite the Nicene Creed at each Sunday liturgy. We learn the Apostles Creed as we prepare for sacraments. In that Creed, we profess "I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. He was crucified under Pontius Pilate, he suffered, died and was buried. He descended into Hell. On the third day he rose again from the dead, and now sits at the right hand of the Father." In more modern translations, we say that Jesus 'descended among the Dead'. This article of the Creed is found first in the so-called fourth century Creed of Aquileia. The Fourth Lateran (1215) and the Second Council of Lyons profess this article among the articles of the faith. What does the Church mean by the creedal statement "He descended among the dead"? This belief says that after he had died for our sins, Christ went down into the place of the dead, Hades or Sheol, to await his resurrection. Firstly, the Creed assures us that Christ was buried. Luke timothy Johnson, in his book, “The Creed; what Christians believe and why it matters.” Writes “The burial symbolizes Jesus’ descent into the realm that in ancient cosmology, was most removed from heaven, or the place of God’s dwelling.” (p 174) But for us modern Christians, this episode does not form a part of our image of the Passion. My experience is that most Catholics scarcely spare a thought for that strange interlude between death and resurrection. David Scott writes on the biblical mentions of the descent into hell. "Jesus went among the dead to offer salvation to those who died before Jesus came into the world. He preached the gospel to the souls in the prison of death, Peter said. According to Paul he descended into the abode of the dead to lead the dead out. Jesus himself had foretold an hour when the dead would hear the voice of the Son of God and would live." (David Scott; The Catholic Passion, 2005.) The Catechism of the Catholic Church (No. 634).tells us that the descent among the dead was "the last phase of Jesus' messianic mission, a phase which is condensed in time but vast in its real significance: the spread of Christ's redemptive work to all men of all times and all places, for all who are saved have been made sharers in the redemption" The catechism tells us that the constant reference to being 'raised from the dead presupposed for the fathers, that Christ had first descended among the dead. 632 The frequent New Testament affirmations that Jesus was "raised from the dead" presuppose that the crucified one sojourned in the realm of the dead prior to his resurrection. This was the first meaning given in the apostolic preaching to Christ's descent into hell: that Jesus, like all men, experienced death and in his soul joined the others in the realm of the dead. But he descended there as Savior, proclaiming the Good News to the spirits imprisoned there. Pope John Paul II, speaking in January 1989 stated that this article of the Creed was supported by the reference in the First Letter of Peter. "The Apostle adds however: "In spirit (Christ) went and preached to the spirits in prison" (1 Pt 3:19). This seems to indicate metaphorically the extension of Christ's salvation to the just men and women who had died before him. Obscure as it is, the Petrine text confirms the others concerning the concept of the "descent into hell" as the complete fulfillment of the gospel message of salvation. It is Christ - laid in the tomb as regards the body, but glorified in his soul admitted to the fullness of the beatific vision of God- who communicates his state of beatitude to all the just whose state of death he shares in regard to the body.” Why does Jesus go down into the Abyss? There have been many explanations and we need to know them to form a proper picture on this matter of doctrine. 1. To defeat Satan In this woodcut by Albrecht Durer, Christ searches in the ruins of Sheol for the wounded humans. He pulls them from under the rubble and disaster of the Fall. He has already rescued Adam and Eve, who are standing behind him. Monsters growl and snarl at Christ. The crafty wiles of the Evil One had trapped Adam and Eve into sinning. He had dominated their lives, and he kept them under his control in Sheol. Christ descends into the realm where Satan had reigned and he defeats him, bringing out the souls of those who had been trapped in Satan's kingdom into the light of the kingdom of God. In later medieval interpretations of this episode, Satan is portrayed as having a certain right to the sold of the 2. To show solidarity with those in darkness His total humiliation is achieved in this action. Not only is Jesus betrayed and tortured, crucified and killed, but he also has to endure the pain of separation from the Father. In his Incarnation, Christ becomes one of us. In his life he shares our life. In his death, he shares the tragedy of our inheritance from Adam. But, in this moment, the Son of God humbles himself so basely that he waits in the darkness for the will of the Father to be fulfilled. In this action, he becomes flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone. This tradition of interpretation found its most famous adherent in Hans Urs von Balthasaar, the favorite theologian of Pope John Paul II. Von Balthasaar wrote extensively about the symbolic value of this descent into the abyss. Christ does not descend in order to humiliate Satan, nor to rescue Adam. He comes among the shadows of Sheol, and he rises from there, so that humanity can also leave that dark place and rise. But Christ's descent is also to show solidarity with suffering, unredeemed humanity. Christ joins us in our darkness, our abandonment and our hopeless battle with sin. By becoming one with us in that battle, he makes us able to rise From sin and death. By Christ's presence in the abandonment and hopelessness of human nature, that nature is strengthened against the power of those forces for the future. Jesus was truly dead, because he really became a man as we are, a son of Adam, and therefore, despite what one can sometimes read in certain theological works, he did not use the so-called "brief' time of his death for all manner of "activities" in the world beyond. In the same way that, upon earth, he was in solidarity with the living, so, in the tomb, he is in solidarity with the dead...Each human being lies in his own tomb. And with this condition Jesus is in complete solidarity. Christ's descent among the dead is often portrayed in Christian literature and art as a mission of rescue. He comes among the hopeless to bring out those who have no hope of salvation. He rescues Adam and Eve from their exile and he restores them to their place before the Father. That is why Orthodox and Byzantine icons of the Resurrection show Christ holding the hands of an ancient man and woman, drawing them up with himself. In the liturgy of the Hours for Holy Saturday, we read from an ancient author or homilist who tells us that Christ went down on a mission of rescue. Some scholars attribute this homily to Epiphanius. "He has gone to search for our first parent, as for a lost sheep. Greatly desiring to visit those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, He goes to free the prisoner Adam and his fellow prisoner Eve from their pains, He who is God as well as the Son of Adam. Then the Lord goes in holding his victorious weapon, the cross. When Adam beholds him, He strikes his breast in terror and cries out to everyone; "My Lord be with you all.” And Christ says to him in reply; "I am your God, Who for your sake have become your Son....I order you, awake! A sleeper, Rise from the dead, for Christ shall give you light. " Christ then upbraids Adam for his sin, reminding him of the terrible price that had to be paid for his ransom.
In the woodcut on the left by Albrecht Durer, Christ searches in the ruins of Sheol for the wounded humans. He pulls them from under the rubble and disaster of the Fall. He has already rescued Adam and Eve, who are standing behind him. Monsters growl and snarl at Christ.
just. They have been sold to him at a fair price because Eve sold her children into slavery. God does not wish to redeem humanity by doing injustice to Satan. So Christ, the Son of God, takes human flesh. Satan mistakes him for a holy man, a prophet, but never suspects that he is the Son of God. By conspiring with Judas and the leaders of the Jews against God's only Son, Satan does a huge injustice to God. He loses his right to control humanity as slaves to his son and death. God ransoms his people through the death and the resurrection of his Son. When that Son arrives in the place of darkness- Sheol, Satan suddenly realizes the magnitude of his crime. He weeps and wails - knowing well, that his greed and his hatred has lost him the great prize, the control over all the children of Adam and Eve. Christ comes down, takes Adam and Eve by the hand, and leads them out with him when he rises. Satan is undone by his own evil.
In the medieval manuscript miniature above, Christ has struck Satan, and he is pinning him to the ground with the Cross.
3. To rescue Adam and Eve
"Rise up, work of my hands! You who were created in my image. . . . For your sake 1, your God, became your son. - . For the sake of you who left a garden, 1 was betrayed. . . in a garden. See on my face the spit I received in order to restore to you the life once breathed into you. See there the marks of the blows I received in order to refashion your warped nature in my image. On my back see the marks of the scourging 1 endured to remove the burden of sin that weighs upon your back. See my hands, nailed to a tree, for you who once wickedly stretched out your hand to a tree.. . . I slept on a cross and a sword pierced my side for you who slept in paradise and brought forth Eve from your side. .. Rise, let us leave this place. 'The enemy led you out of the earthly paradise. I will not restore you to that paradise but I will enthrone you in heaven.. . . The bridal chamber is adorned, the banquet is ready, the eternal dwelling places... The kingdom of heaven has been prepared for you from all eternity. "