The Persons of the Godhead
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Title
Contents
Preface
Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Appendix A
Appendix B
Appendix C



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Article III

OF THE GOING DOWN OF CHRIST INTO HELL[1]

As Christ died for us, and was buried, so also it is to be believed that He went down into hell (ad inferos decendisse).

Christ died on Good Friday; His body was buried and remained in the grave until His Resurrection; but where was His soul during that period?  The Article, like the Apostles’ Creed, merely affirms that ‘He went down into hell’.  Unfortun­ately, the word ‘hell’ is often misunderstood, because it is used in the Authorized Version to translate two different Greek words – gehenna which means the place of torment, and hades which is the equivalent of the Hebrew word sheol, meaning ‘the place of departed souls’.  By the ‘descent into hell’ we mean that our Lord’s soul went on Good Friday to ‘the place of departed spirits’ where the souls of all men go at death to await the resurrection.

The fact of His descent into Hades is undisputed and is clearly taught in Acts 2:27, 31, where St. Peter interprets the words of Psalm 16:10 as being fulfilled in Christ, explaining that the Psalmist ‘foreseeing this, spake of the Resurrection of Christ, that neither was He left in Hades nor did His flesh see corruption’ (R.V.).  Thus St. Peter obviously believed that Jesus was in Hades between His death and His Resurrection.[2]

But while the fact of His descent is generally accepted) the purpose of the Descent has been the subject of controversy.  On the one hand, I Peter 3:18 and 4:6 have been interpreted as meaning that our Lord’s human spirit went to Hades to preach to the souls of the departed.  This appears to have been the general view of the Reformers.[3]  


[1]The original Article of 1553 as written by Cranmer included the words: ‘For the body lay in the sepulchre until the Resurrection; but His ghost departing from Him, was with the ghosts that were in prison, or in hell, and did preach to the same as the place of St. Peter doth testify’ (a reference to 1 Pet. 3:18, 55:6).  But this clause was omitted at the revision of the Articles in 1563.

[2]Irenaeus (Adv. Haer. V. xxxi. 1) quotes St. Matt. 12:40 and Ephes. 4:9 as evidence of the Descent; other early writers cite Matt. 12:29, 8:11; Luke 13:28 f.; Col. 2:15; Heb. 11, 12.

[3]As is evidenced by the 1553 Article and by the statement in the Catechism of 1554: ‘Then He truly died ... not only the living but the dead, were they in hell or elsewhere, they all felt the force of His death, to whom lying in prison (as Peter saith), Christ preached, though dead in body, yet re-lived in spirit.’  Note also that 1 Pet. 3:17-22 is the Epistle for Easter Eve in the Prayer Book.
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