Harrowing of Hell
The Harrowing of Hell is the traditional English name in Christian theology for an event affirmed in the Apostles' Creed, which says Jesus "descended into Hell" (or Hades).
In the creeds
Sometimes this is translated as "descended to the dead." The original Latin wording is descendit ad inferos, and in Greek it is κατελθοντα εις τα κατωτατα, ("katelthonta eis ta katôtata"). The Greek κατωτατα and the Latin inferos might best be translated in English as underworld or netherworld. The "harrowing" in this context first appears in English in homilies of Aelfric, ca. AD 1000 but the concept developed earlier. The term "Harrowing of Hell" usually refers not merely to the idea that Christ descended into Hell, as in the Creed, but the rich mythology that developed later, asserting that he triumphed over inferos, releasing Hell's captives, particularly Adam, Eve, and the righteous men and women whose stories are recorded in the Septuagint. For Marchese Lodovico Gonzaga, Andrea Mantegna painted a small panel in June of 1468 which shows the moment when Christ appears to the souls ad inferos; his studio repeated the composition several times (illustration, right).
Biblical sources
Among Christians, descendit ad inferos is perhaps the most controversial part of the Apostles Creed; some believers are disturbed by the doctrine's assertion that when he died, Jesus went to Hell. The Catholic Church explains that "Hell" refers to "Sheol" (Hebrew) or "Hades" (Greek) -- the only "realm of the dead" before Heaven was opened. According to them, Sheol consists of different areas, or levels:
- Infernus: the place of torment for the unrighteous damned and the demons. This is the place one most often thinks of when one hears the word "Hell.";
- Purgatory: where the saved souls go to be purged of the temporal effects of their sins;
- the Limbo of the Infants (Limbus Infantium): a place of perfect, natural subjective happiness to which those who died before Baptism (and so are denied the Beatific Vision) but who have not committed personal sins (so don't warrant punishment) go. The existence of the Limbo of the Infants is not a matter of dogma, but a theological conclusion that derives from and preserves understanding of both the justice and mercy of God;
- the Limbo of the Patriarchs (Limbus Patrum): where the righteous who lived before Jesus came to earth went. It is this part of "Hell" that Christ descended into. It no longer exists.
In the New Testament, two passages of 1 Peter alone affirm the doctrine, which is otherwise unparalleled: 1 Peter 3:19-20 says that Jesus "went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah..." (New Revised Standard Version NRSV). (In the original Greek: "εν ω και τοις εν φυλακη πνευμασιν πορευθεις εκηρυξεν απειθησασιν ποτε οτε απεξεδεχετο η του θεου μακροθυμια εν ημεραις Nωε. . . ") Similarly 1 Peter 4:6 says that the gospel was "proclaimed even to the dead..." (NRSV). ("εις τουτο γαρ και νεκροις ευηγγελισθη. . . ") A symptom of how few clear parallels can be found, 2 Corinthians 2:14 has been interpreted to include the harrowing of Hell: "But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads in every place the fragrance that comes from knowing him" (NRSV). ("τω δε θεω χαρις τω παντοτε θριαμβευοντι ημας εν τω Xριστω και την οσμην της γνωσεως αυτου φανερουντι δι ημων εν παντι τοπω.") By insisting that "every place" would have to include Hell, a parallel is affirmed.
| Events in the |
| Life of Jesus according to the canonical gospels |
|---|
 |
Portals:  Christianity  Bible |
The Harrowing of Hell has also been seen in the Epistle to the Ephesians 4:8-10, which says:
- Therefore it says, "When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men." (In saying, "He ascended," what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.) (ESV)
- διο λεγει αναβας εις υψος ηχμαλωτευσεν αιχμαλωσιαν και εδωκεν δοματα τοις ανθρωποις: το δε ανεβη τι εστιν ει μη οτι και κατεβη εις τα κατωτερα μερη της γης; O καταβας αυτος εστιν και ο αναβας υπερανω παντων των ουρανων ινα πληρωση τα παντα.
The Revised Standard Version renders 4:8 "Wherefore he saith, When he ascended on high, he led captivity captive, And gave gifts unto men." This is a truncated paraphrase of Psalm 68:18, with a changed point of view. ("When you ascended on high, you led captives in your train; you received gifts from men, even from the rebellious—that you, O LORD God, might dwell there." [NIV]) The parenthetical verses 9–10 are widely read as an exegetical gloss that has found its way into the text. The word for "lower parts" (the comparative form: τα κατωτερα) is similar to the word used for "hell" in the Greek version of the Apostles Creed (the superlative form: τα κατωτατα, English: "lowest [places]"). There are three views of this passage from Ephesians: 1) it refers to Jesus' burial, 2) it refers to his descent into the underworld or hell, and 3) it refers to his Incarnation as an act of deep humility.
The verses' reference to captives has been presented as a reflection of Yahweh's captives of the enemy in Psalm 68:18–19: "18. God's chariots were myriad, thousands upon thousands; from Sinai the Lord entered the holy place. 19 You went up to its lofty height; you took captives, received slaves as tribute. No rebels can live in the presence of God."
Apocryphal books embellish the story
Nevertheless, the Harrowing of Hell was taught by theologians of the early church: St Melito of Sardis (died ca 180) Homily on the Passion; Tertullian (A Treatise on the Soul, 55), Hippolytus (Treatise on Christ and Anti-Christ) and Origen (Against Celsus, 2:43). and, later, St Ambrose (died 397) all wrote of the Harrowing of Hell, and yet, significantly, no mention of Christ's descending into Hell was incorporated into the Nicene Creed in 325. The phrase descendit ad inferos from the Apostles' Creed was omitted.
The Gospel of Matthew relates that immediately after Christ died, the earth shook, the veil in the Temple was torn in two, and many people rose from the dead and walked about in Jerusalem testifying. According to the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus, the Harrowing of Hell was foreshadowed by Christ's raising of Lazarus from the dead less than a week before his own crucifixion. The hymns proper to the weekend suggest that John the Baptist prepared the way for Jesus in Hell by prophesying to those held there that Christ would soon release them, just as he prepared the way for Jesus on earth.
In the Acts of Pilate— usually incorporated with the widely-read medieval Gospel of Nicodemus—texts built around an original that might have been as old as the 3rd century A.D. with many improvements and embroidered interpolations, chapters 17 to 27 are called the Decensus Christi ad Inferos. They contain a dramatic dialogue between Hades and prince Satan, and the entry of the King of Glory, imagined as from within Tartarus (see link below). The richest, most circumstantial accounts of the Harrowing of Hell are found in medieval dramatic literature, such as Dante's Inferno, or the four great cycles of English mystery plays which each devote a separate scene to depict it. The subject is found also in the Cornish mystery plays. These medieval versions of the story do not derive from the bare suggestion made in the Epistle ascribed to Peter, but come from the Gospel of Nicodemus.
Conceptions of the afterlife
What was the early 2nd-century conception of the afterlife, when 1 Peter was likely composed, that Jesus of Nazareth should be said to descend into the Underworld and return? The Jewish view differed from the Hellenistic Greek view. The Old Testament affirms that Job and other righteous men went to Sheol when they died, as did David and the other psalmists. No Hebrew figure ever descended into Sheol and returned, although an apparition of the recently deceased Samuel briefly appeared to Saul when summoned by the witch of Endor. Parts of the New Testament can be read as drawing a distinction between Sheol, the common destination of the dead in Judaism, and Gehenna, the lake of eternal fire where the evil dead are tormented; English accounts are not always mindful of this distinction, and the two destinations may both be rendered Hell.
The Hellenistic views of heroic descent into the Underworld and successful return follow traditions that are far older than the mystery religions popular at the time of Christ. What little we know of the worship in mystery religions such as the Eleusinian Mysteries and Mithraism suggests that a ritual death and rebirth of the initiate was an important part of their liturgy. The ancient homily on The Lord's Descent into Hell may mirror these traditions by referring to baptism as a symbolic death and rebirth. (Cf. Colossians 2:9-15) Or, these traditions of mithraism may be drawn from early Christian homilies.
Interpretations of the doctrine
Roman Catholic
The doctrine of the Harrowing of Hell, as it was developed by the Roman Catholic Church, explained how those righteous people who lived before the Crucifixion were redeemed. Ambrose explains that the argument that holds that Christ could not have suffered in Hell also implies that Christ could not have suffered on the Cross. For St John Chrysostom, the harrowing of Hell was a paradox that was an essential part of the Christian mystery of faith: "Hell took a body, and discovered God; it took earth, and encountered Heaven. It took what it saw, and was overcome by what it did not see." (from John Chrysostom's Paschal homily) Much later, St Thomas Aquinas explained the doctrine, saying that "when Christ descended into hell, by the power of his Passion he delivered the saints from this penalty whereby they were excluded from the life of glory...."
There is an ancient homily on the subject, of unknown authorship, usually entitled The Lord's Descent into Hell that is the second reading at Matins on Holy Saturday in the Roman Catholic Church.
The Catholic theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar, in his innovative book Mysterium Paschale (especially pp. 148-188 in 1990 English edition), explores the theological meaning of Holy Saturday, where the Son Jesus Christ dies and descends to the dead, to be resurrected by God the Father, thus revealing that God can endure and conquer godlessness, abandonment, and death. God, in Jesus Christ, goes as far from God as one can go (Hell), and still is God, the Son Himself -- even there -- living utterly for the Father.
Eastern Orthodox
The typical Eastern Orthodox icon of the Resurrection of Jesus shows Jesus standing on the broken and flattened gates of Hell (also called the Doors of Death, which have fallen to form the pattern of a cross), holding the hands of Adam and Eve and pulling them up out of Hell, and surrounded by various righteous figures from the Old Testament (Abraham, David, etc.); the bottom of the icon shows Hell as a place of darkness and death, often with various bones strewn about, and one figure still tied up in chains who is generally identified as Death or the Devil.
John Chrysostom's homily also addresses the Harrowing of Hell, and is typically read as the chief homily at Pascha, the Eastern Orthodox celebration of Easter. In the Orthodox liturgical practice, the chief "liturgical color" goes from purple on Good Friday to white on Holy Saturday in celebration of the harrowing of Hell then taking place, and in anticipation of Christ's imminent resurrection.
Protestant
Theological objections are sometimes based on the grounds that for Christ to have descended into Hell, he would have to have borne God's curse. John Calvin, replying to this objection, observed that those who hold this objection "have never earnestly considered what it is or means that we have been redeemed from God's judgment. Yet this is our wisdom: duly to feel how much our salvation cost the Son of God." The theologian's conclusion therefore is that Christ's descent into Hell was necessary for Christians' atonement, because Christ did in fact endure the penalty for the sins of the redeemed.
Latter-day Saints (Mormon)
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon church) teaches that after his death on the cross, Jesus Christ visited the spirits in Paradise to organize the faithful dead to carry the message of the gospel to prison to those who had not had the opportunity to receive it while alive.
In Mormon theology, Spirit Prison, hell, and outer darkness are three separate concepts that may be implied by scriptural use of the word hell. Spirit prison properly refers to the world where the souls of those who have died without embracing the gospel of Christ await the resurrection and the final judgment.
Mormons believe that after His death, the Savior visited the righteous dead and organized them to preach the Gospel to the wicked and to the ignorant, the vast multitudes who had never heard the Gospel. Thus Christ's mission to the spirit world prepared the way for the deceased from all history and throughout the world to accept Christ's teachings and be baptized into his church. Mormon doctrine teaches that from that day forward, the righteous dead have continued to preach the gospel to the spirits in spirit prison, thus affording an opportunity to all who have died throughout history to choose to accept the gospel. A vision of the event of Christ's gospel and the nature of the work done in the Spirit world is recorded in Section 138 of the Doctrine and Covenants.
Additionally, Mormons perform vicarious baptism for the dead in temples where the living receive baptism on behalf of the deceased, which practice allows the dead also to receive baptism. For those with loved ones who have died unbaptized, this belief removes the perceived injustice and relieves the grief associated with the doctrine that those who are not baptized cannot be saved in the Celestial Kingdom of God.
Latter-day Saint theology, therefore, does not suggest a one-time event in which Christ decends to souls in limbo and binds Satan. He instead visited Paradise to organize an ongoing process that will continue until everyone in Spirit Prison has had the opportunity to either accept or reject Christ and his atonement.
In literature
- In Stephen Lawhead's novel Byzantium, a young Irish monk is asked to explain Jesus' life to a group of Vikings, who are particularly impressed with Jesus' "raid" on Hell.
- In I.L. Peretz's short story Neilah in Gehenna, a Jewish hazzan descends to Hell and uses his unique voice to bring about the repentance and liberation of the souls imprisoned there.
- In Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, by Hayao Miyazaki, the heroine, while having a Near-Death Experience, is attacked by the ghost of her great enemy Miralupa. Nausicaa extends love, compassion and forgiveness to him and brings him out of the darkness of evil into the light of peace.
External links
- The Lord's Descent into Hell
- Gospel of Nicodemus: Descensus Christ ad inferos (English)
- The Savior's Visit to the Spirit World, by Elder Spencer J. Condie
- Le Harrowing of Hell dans les Cycles de York, Towneley et Chester, by Alexandra Costache-Babcinschi (E-Book, French)
- Doctrines and Covenants of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Covenant 138) Vision of Christ's ministry to the dead.