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THIRD DISPUTATION. Whether all who perished in the Flood were also damned to the eternal punishments of hell.1
TERTIA DISPUTATIO. Utrum omnes qui diluvio perierunt, aeternis quoque inferni suppliciis damnati fuerint.
Sed est postremo loco (quae claudat hunc librum) gravis illa, nec iniucunda cognitu, certe huc ad locum maxime pertinens tractanda quaestio: Utrum omnes illi qui diluvii aquis demersi corporalem vitam perdiderunt, etiam spiritalem et aeternam perdiderint. Namque aliquos eorum qui diluvio perierunt damnationem inferni evasisse gravis auctor significat Hieronymus in Traditionibus Hebraicis in Genesim, tractans illa verba Domini quae sunt apud Mosen capite sexto Geneseos secundum lectionem Hebraicam: In Hebraeo, inquit, scriptum est, Non iudicabit Spiritus meus homines istos in sempiternum quoniam carnes sunt. Hoc est: Quia fragilis est in homine conditio, non eos ad aeternos servabo cruciatus, sed hic illis restituam quod merentur. Ergo non severitatem, ut in nostris codicibus legitur, sed clementiam Dei sonat, dum peccator hic pro suo scelere visitatur. Haec Hieronymus. Sed idem pluribus et apertioribus verbis idipsum confirmat in primum caput prophetae Nahum, super illa verba, Quid cogitatis contra Dominum, hoc modo scribens: Si vobis videtur crudelis, rigidus et cruentus, quod in diluvio genus delevit humanum, super Sodoma et Gomorrham ignem et sulphur pluit, et Aegyptios demersit fluctibus, Israelitarum cadavera prostravit in eremo: scitote eum ideo ad praesens reddidisse supplicia, ne in aeternum puniret. Certe aut vera sunt quae propheta loquuntur aut falsa: si vera sunt quae de severitate eius videntur dicere, ipsi dixerunt, Non iudicabit Dominus bis in idipsum in tribulatione; sin autem falsa sunt, et falsum est hoc quod dicitur, Non consurget duplex tribulatio, falsa est ergo et crudelitas quae in lege descripta est. Quod si verum est, ut negare non poterunt, dicente Propheta, Non iudicabit Dominus etc., ergo qui puniti sunt postea non punientur; si autem illi postea punientur, scriptura mentitur, quod dicere nefas est. Receperunt ergo et qui in diluvio perierunt, et Sodomitae, et Aegyptii, et Israelitae in solitudine, mala sua in vita sua. Sic ex B. Hieronymo. Si igitur Deus propterea illos homines temporali supplicio Diluvii punire voluit, ne sempiternis post hanc vitam eos puniret suppliciis, hinc fit credibile multos eorum hominum aeterna supplicia evasisse.
But there remains, in the last place (to close this book), that grave question — not unpleasant to learn, and certainly most pertinent to this passage — to be treated: Whether all those who, drowned by the waters of the Flood, lost their bodily life, also lost their spiritual and eternal life. For that some of those who perished in the Flood escaped the damnation of hell, a weighty author signifies — Jerome, in the Hebrew Traditions on Genesis, treating those words of the Lord which are in Moses, the sixth chapter of Genesis, according to the Hebrew reading: ‘In the Hebrew,’ he says, ‘it is written, My Spirit shall not judge these men for ever, because they are flesh. That is: Because the condition of man is frail, I will not keep them for eternal torments, but here will render to them what they deserve. Therefore it sounds not of severity, as it is read in our codices, but of God’s clemency, while the sinner is here visited for his crime.’ Thus Jerome. But the same writer confirms this same thing, in more and plainer words, on the first chapter of the prophet Nahum, on those words ‘What do you devise against the Lord?’, writing thus: ‘If he seems to you cruel, rigid, and bloody, because in the Flood he destroyed the human race, rained fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah, drowned the Egyptians in the waves, laid low the corpses of the Israelites in the desert — know that he therefore rendered punishments for the present, that he might not punish for ever. Surely, what the prophets say is either true or false: if the things they seem to say about his severity are true, they themselves said, The Lord will not judge twice for the same thing in tribulation; but if they are false, and this is false which is said, A double tribulation shall not arise, then false too is the cruelty which is described in the law. But if it is true — as they will not be able to deny, the Prophet saying, The Lord will not judge etc. — then those who have been punished will not afterward be punished; but if they will afterward be punished, Scripture lies, which it is impious to say. They received, therefore — both those who perished in the Flood, and the Sodomites, and the Egyptians, and the Israelites in the wilderness — their evils in their [own] life.’ Thus from the blessed Jerome. If, therefore, God for this reason willed to punish those men with the temporal punishment of the Flood, that he might not punish them with everlasting punishments after this life, hence it becomes credible that many of those men escaped the eternal punishments.2
Verum apertissime hoc ipsum sentit et tradit Rupertus libro quarto Commentariorum in Genesim capite 16, his verbis scribens: Sciendum est triforme unius Trinitatis esse iudicium: primum videlicet quo diabolus de caelo deiectus est; et ultimum quo idem diabolus cum suis angelis et malis hominibus in ignem aeternum est mittendus; praeterea medium hoc quo diluvium mundo inducitur — et hoc quidem ut tempore vel ordine, sic et qualitate medium est. Etenim primo et ultimo iudicio soli reprobi feriuntur, et soli electi servantur; isto autem medio nec soli electi conservantur, nec soli reprobi suffocantur. Credendum quippe est aliquos hoc diluvio periisse quorum, eodem periculo mortis, peccatum deletum sit, iuxta quod scriptum est, Non vindicabit Deus bis in idipsum; plerosque tamen ex eis, utpote impios, ab illo temporali aquarum diluvio ad aeternum transisse incendium, iuxta quod scriptum est, Ignis succensus est in furore meo, et ardebit usque ad inferni novissima. De his autem qui superfuerunt, tam magna Dei gratia reservati, cum tres tantum filii Noë fuerint, unus reprobus extitit; et ex omnibus illis tribus maxima reproborum sylva succrevit. Sic Rupertus.
But Rupert holds and teaches this very thing most openly, in the fourth book of the Commentaries on Genesis, ch. 16, writing in these words: ‘It must be known that the judgment of the one Trinity is threefold: the first, namely, by which the devil was cast down from heaven; and the last, by which the same devil, with his angels and with evil men, is to be sent into the eternal fire; and besides, this middle one, by which the Flood is brought upon the world — and this is middle in quality as well as in time or order. For in the first and last judgment the reprobate alone are struck and the elect alone saved; but in this middle one neither are the elect alone preserved, nor the reprobate alone drowned. For it is to be believed that some perished in this Flood whose sin, by that same peril of death, was blotted out, according to what is written, God will not avenge twice for the same thing; yet that most of them, as impious, passed from that temporal flood of waters to the eternal burning, according to what is written, A fire is kindled in my fury, and shall burn even to the lowest hell. And of those who survived, reserved by so great a grace of God — although there were only three sons of Noah — one turned out reprobate; and from all those three a vast forest of the reprobate grew up.’ Thus Rupert.3
Licet etiam hoc argumentari ex tribus propositionibus, quibus probatis videtur concludi quod intenditur ab istis. Prima Propositio: Christus post mortem suam, secundum animam descendens ad inferos, iis qui inibi erant praedicavit Evangelium. Non videtur haec propositio magna indigere probatione, cum eam perspicue tradat sanctus Petrus prioris Epistolae cap. tertio illis verbis: In quo et his qui in carcere erant spiritibus veniens praedicavit, qui increduli fuerant aliquando, quando expectabant Dei patientiam in diebus Noë, cum fabricaretur arca. Et cap. quarto eiusdem Epistolae: Propter hoc, inquit, et mortuis evangelizatum est. Atque ea verba Petri plurimi et gravissimi Patres de vero descensu animae Christi ad inferos eiusque praedicatione in eo loco interpretati sunt: sicut Athanasius in libro De incarnatione Verbi, et in Tractatu adversus Apollinarium, et in Sermone adversus omnes haereses, et in Epistola ad Epictetum (cuius ex ea Epistola commemorat verba Epiphanius in Haeresi 77); eadem fuit sententia Hilarii in Psal. 118 super illis verbis, Quando consolaberis me? et in Psal. 141 in Commentario eius loci, Educ de custodia animam meam; et Nazianzeni in Oratione de Pascha; Epiphanii in Haeresi 45; Hieronymi super illis verbis Zachariae capite 9, Tu quoque in sanguine testamenti tui etc., et super illud Oseae cap. 13, Morsus tuus ero, inferne; Cyrilli in libro De Recta fide ad Theodosium, et in libro 12 in Ioan. cap. 36; Damasceni libro tertio De Fide Orthodoxa c. 29, et in Sermone Quod vita defuncti et sacris operationibus et vivorum beneficiis iuvetur; ut alios quamplurimos his recentiores in praesentia omittam.
This may also be argued from three propositions, which once proved, what those men intend seems to be concluded. First Proposition: Christ, after his death, descending to hell according to his soul, preached the Gospel to those who were there. This proposition does not seem to need much proof, since St. Peter sets it forth plainly in the third chapter of his first Epistle, in those words: ‘In which also coming he preached to those spirits that were in prison, who had once been incredulous, when they waited for the patience of God in the days of Noah, when the ark was being built.’ And in the fourth chapter of the same Epistle: ‘For this cause,’ he says, ‘was the Gospel preached also to the dead.’ And those words of Peter very many and most weighty Fathers interpreted of a true descent of Christ’s soul to hell and his preaching there: as Athanasius in the book On the Incarnation of the Word, and in the Tract against Apollinaris, and in the Sermon against all heresies, and in the Epistle to Epictetus (from which Epistle Epiphanius records his words in Heresy 77); the same was the opinion of Hilary on Ps. 118, on those words, ‘When wilt thou comfort me?’, and on Ps. 141, in the commentary on that passage, ‘Bring my soul out of prison’; and of Nazianzen in the Oration on Easter; of Epiphanius in Heresy 45; of Jerome on those words of Zachariah, ch. 9, ‘Thou also, by the blood of thy testament,’ etc., and on that of Hosea, ch. 13, ‘O hell, I will be thy bite’; of Cyril in the book On the Right Faith to Theodosius, and in book 12 on John, ch. 36; of the Damascene in the third book On the Orthodox Faith, ch. 29, and in the Sermon ‘That the dead are aided both by sacred works and by the benefits of the living’ — to omit for the present very many others more recent than these.4
Altera Propositio: Praedicatio Christi apud inferos fructuosa fuit, et profuit iis qui eam audierunt, si non omnibus, multis; profuit, inquam, ad liberationem eorum ex inferno. Sententiam huius propositionis Beda in commentario illius loci Petri attribuit Hilario; nam etsi nomen eius tacet, verba tamen quae inibi memo-...
Second Proposition: Christ’s preaching in hell was fruitful, and profited those who heard it — if not all, yet many; profited, I say, unto their liberation from hell. The opinion of this proposition Bede, in his commentary on that passage of Peter, attributes to Hilary; for although he is silent as to his name, yet the words which he there re-…5
...memorat, Hilarii sunt super Psalmum 118. Epiphanius certe non videtur id abnuere in haeresi 46, ita scribens: Venit Christus in mundum et descendit in infernum, ut iis quidem qui olim ipsum cognoverunt et ab ipsius Deitate non aberraverunt, verum propter errores in inferno detenti sunt, indulgentiam largiretur — his quidem qui in mundo sunt, per paenitentiam; his vero qui in inferno, per misericordiam. Nec ab ea sententia videtur abhorruisse auctor Commentariorum in Epistolas Pauli qui vulgo nominatur et putatur Ambrosius. Nam in 10 caput Epistolae ad Romanos, super illa verba, Quis descendet in abyssum? Omnis, inquit, quicumque, viso Salvatore apud inferos, speravit de illo salutem, liberatus est, Petro id testante cum dixit, Propter quod et mortuis evangelizatum est. Similia idem auctor scribit explanans illa Pauli verba quae sunt in Epistola eius ad Ephesios capite quarto, Quod autem ascendit, quid est nisi quia et descendit etc.: Triumphato, inquit, diabolo, descendit Christus in cor terrae, ut ostensio eius praedicatio esset mortuorum, et quotquot eius cupidi essent liberarentur.
…records there are Hilary’s, on Psalm 118. Epiphanius certainly does not seem to deny it, in Heresy 46, writing thus: ‘Christ came into the world and descended into hell, that to those who had once known him and had not erred from his Deity, but were detained in hell on account of errors, he might bestow pardon — to those, indeed, who are in the world, through penance; but to those who are in hell, through mercy.’ Nor does the author of the Commentaries on Paul’s Epistles, who is commonly named and thought to be Ambrose, seem to shrink from that opinion. For on the tenth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, on those words ‘Who shall descend into the abyss?’: ‘Everyone,’ he says, ‘whosoever, having seen the Savior in hell, hoped for salvation from him, was freed — Peter testifying this when he said, For this cause was the Gospel preached also to the dead.’ Similar things the same author writes, explaining those words of Paul in his Epistle to the Ephesians, chapter four, ‘But that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended?’ etc.: ‘The devil being triumphed over,’ he says, ‘Christ descended into the heart of the earth, that his showing-forth might be a preaching to the dead, and that as many as desired him might be freed.’6
B. Augustinus, ex eo quod Petrus dixit Actorum secundo Christum solutis doloribus inferni suscitatum esse a Deo, argumentatur Christum, cum eius anima descendit ad inferos, nonnullos eorum qui cruciatibus inferni torquebantur liberasse. Verba Augustini in libro 12 De Genesi ad litteram capite 33 haec sunt: Christi animam venisse usque ad ea loca in quibus peccatores cruciantur, ut eos solveret a tormentis quos esse solvendos occulta sua iustitia iudicabat, non immerito creditur. Quomodo enim aliter accipiendum sit quod dictum est, Quem Deus suscitavit a mortuis solutis doloribus inferorum, non video, nisi ut quorundam dolores apud inferos eum solvisse accipiamus ea potestate qua dominus est, et cui omne genu flectitur, caelestium, terrestrium et inferorum, per quam potestatem etiam illis doloribus quos solvit teneri non potuit. Sic Augustinus. Peccatores autem qui cruciantur in inferno non alios intelligere licet quam poenis inferni damnatos; et horum tamen nonnullos putat Augustinus a Christo esse liberatos.
The blessed Augustine, from the fact that Peter said in Acts 2 that Christ was raised up by God ‘the sorrows of hell being loosed,’ argues that Christ, when his soul descended to hell, freed some of those who were tormented by the torments of hell. Augustine’s words, in book 12 of On Genesis according to the Letter, ch. 33, are these: ‘That Christ’s soul came as far as those places in which sinners are tormented, to loose from torments those whom by his hidden justice he judged were to be loosed, is believed not without reason. For how otherwise is to be taken what was said, “Whom God raised up from the dead, the sorrows of hell being loosed,” I do not see, unless we take it that he loosed the sorrows of certain ones in hell, by that power by which he is Lord and to whom every knee bows, of things heavenly, earthly, and infernal — by which power he could not even be held by those sorrows which he loosed.’ Thus Augustine. And the ‘sinners who are tormented in hell’ one may understand to be none other than those damned to the punishments of hell; and yet some of these Augustine thinks were freed by Christ.7
Tertia Propositio: Praedicatio Christi apud inferos cum aliis profuit, tum praecipue multis eorum qui Noëtico diluvio interierunt. Haec propositio fidem capit ex confirmatione superiorum. Nam si praedicatio Christi apud inferos profuit his qui eam audierunt, ea vero praedicatio praecipue facta est ad eos qui perierunt diluvio (siquidem hos tantum nominatim memorat Petrus quibus apud inferos Christus praedicavit), hinc efficitur praedicationem Christi multis eorum qui diluvii aquis demersi sunt profuisse. Lyrano certe fit admodum probabile nonnullos eorum hominum, qui prius non crediderunt Noë venturum diluvium praenuncianti, postea, ingruente atque incipiente diluvio, credidisse et paenitentiam egisse, eoque dignos fuisse ut, Christo ad inferos descendente, inde liberarentur — non quidem ex inferno damnatorum (quippe qui instante morte paenitentiam egerant), sed ex limbo patrum. Si quis obiiciat...
Third Proposition: Christ’s preaching in hell profited others, but especially many of those who perished in Noah’s Flood. This proposition gains credit from the confirmation of the foregoing. For if Christ’s preaching in hell profited those who heard it, and that preaching was made especially to those who perished in the Flood (since Peter names by name only these, to whom Christ preached in hell), hence it follows that Christ’s preaching profited many of those who were drowned by the waters of the Flood. To Lyra, certainly, it seems quite probable that some of those men, who at first did not believe Noah foretelling that the Flood would come, afterward, when the Flood was rushing on and beginning, believed and did penance, and so were worthy that, when Christ descended to hell, they should be freed from there — not indeed from the hell of the damned (since they had done penance at the approach of death), but from the limbo of the fathers. If someone object…8
...diluvium repente et ex improviso advenisse — nam, ut dixit Dominus Luc. 17, Quando edebant et bibebant, venit diluvium et perdidit omnes — respondet ad hoc Lyranus principium Diluvii fuisse repentinum et improvisum, et subito occupasse valles et plana terrae, non tamen montes; quocirca qui in excelsis locis habitabant, non eos statim obruit diluvium, quippe incrementum eius, ut narrat scriptura, quadraginta dies et quadraginta noctes duravit.
…that the Flood came suddenly and unexpectedly — for, as the Lord said in Luke 17, ‘While they were eating and drinking, the Flood came and destroyed them all’ — Lyra answers to this that the beginning of the Flood was sudden and unexpected, and suddenly occupied the valleys and the plains of the earth, but not the mountains; wherefore those who dwelt in high places the Flood did not at once overwhelm, since its rising, as Scripture relates, lasted forty days and forty nights.9
Caietanus denique magna asseveratione idem prodidit, verba illa Petri in suis Commentariis exponens: Ex eo, inquit Caietanus, quod tantum meminit Petrus eorum qui increduli fuerunt tempore Noë, significatur ipsum non esse locutum de praedicatione Christi qua is manifestavit apud inferos se ipsum esse Messiam et convicit tam Daemones quam incredulos homines (huiusmodi enim praedicatio communis fuit omnibus apud inferos); hac autem, de qua loquitur Petrus, peculiaris describitur his qui fuerunt tempore Noë, unde insinuatur eam praedicationem fuisse fructuosam. Et ad hoc faciunt verba illa, Quando expectabatur Dei longanimitas, ut hinc intelligamus illos non fuisse incredulos simpliciter, id est sine vera Dei fide, sed fuisse incredulos Noë dicenti diluvium imminere; cum hac autem incredulitate expectasse Dei longanimitatem, hoc est, confisos Dei longanimitate putasse non venturum universale diluvium. Haec Caietanus. Atque haec fere sunt quibus fides astrui possit eorum opinioni qui putant non omnes qui periere diluvio inferni poenis damnatos esse, sed nonnullos eorum, incipiente diluvio, conversos esse ad Deum et suorum scelerum paenitentes, ea per illud Diluvii supplicium patienter ab ipsis susceptum expiasse; aut, si omnes illi decesserunt impaenitentes, postea tamen, Christo in infernum descendenti et praedicanti credentes, inde per infinitam Christi potentiam et misericordiam esse liberatos.
Cajetan, finally, set forth the same with great asseveration, expounding those words of Peter in his Commentaries: ‘From the fact,’ says Cajetan, ‘that Peter mentions only those who were unbelieving in the time of Noah, it is signified that he was not speaking of that preaching of Christ by which he manifested in hell that he himself was the Messiah and convicted both demons and unbelieving men (for such a preaching was common to all in hell); but this one, of which Peter speaks, is described as peculiar to those who lived in Noah’s time, whence it is intimated that this preaching was fruitful. And to this make those words, “When the long-suffering of God was awaited,” that we may hence understand that they were not unbelievers simply — that is, without true faith in God — but were unbelievers toward Noah saying that the Flood was imminent; and that, with this unbelief, they awaited the long-suffering of God — that is, trusting in God’s long-suffering, they thought the universal Flood would not come.’ Thus Cajetan. And these are about the things by which credit can be built up for the opinion of those who hold that not all who perished in the Flood were damned to the punishments of hell, but that some of them, when the Flood was beginning, were converted to God and, repenting of their crimes, expiated them by that punishment of the Flood patiently undergone by them; or that, if they all died impenitent, yet afterward, believing in Christ descending to hell and preaching, they were freed thence by the infinite power and mercy of Christ.10
At enim vero perparum haec sententia, meo iudicio, probabilitatis habet. Etenim tribus modis fingi potest multos eorum qui diluvio interierunt non esse suppliciis inferni damnatos: aut quia, licet plerique eorum ac fere omnes improbi essent, nonnulli tamen viri erant probi ac iusti — sed quia hi erant paucissimi, sceleratorum autem hominum innumerabilis erat turba, idcirco divina scriptura more suo generaliter locuta est, dicens omnes illius temporis homines nequissimos ac sceleratissimos fuisse; aut dici posset, licet prius omnes fuerint improbi, ad extremum tamen, ingruente diluvio, horribili eius aspectu commotos esse ad paenitentiam, et tum propter paenitentiam ab illis rite actam, tum propter patientiam qua illam calamitatem ut flagitiis suis meritam debitamque susceperunt ac pertulerunt, aeternae mortis damnationem evasisse; aut denique illud quoque fingere licet: etsi omnes illi in diluvio infecti peccatis et obnoxii aeternae damnationi sint mortui, postea tamen, Christo ad inferos descendente ac praedicante, praedicationem ac fidem eius amplexatos aeternae salutis fuisse participes. His igitur tribus modis fingi potest aliquos eorum qui diluvio perierunt secundum animam salvos...
But in truth this opinion, in my judgment, has very little probability. For in three ways it can be feigned that many of those who perished in the Flood were not damned to the punishments of hell: either because, though most of them and nearly all were wicked, yet some men were upright and just — but, because these were very few and the throng of wicked men was innumerable, divine Scripture spoke after its manner generally, saying that all the men of that time were most worthless and most wicked; or it could be said that, though at first all were wicked, yet at the end, when the Flood was rushing on, they were moved by its horrible aspect to penance, and, both on account of the penance duly done by them and on account of the patience with which they undertook and bore that calamity as deserved and due to their crimes, escaped the damnation of eternal death; or, finally, this too may be feigned: that, although all those died infected with sins and liable to eternal damnation, yet afterward, when Christ descended to hell and preached, embracing his preaching and faith, they became partakers of eternal salvation. In these three ways, then, it can be feigned that some of those who perished in the Flood were, as to the soul, saved…11
...fuisse. Sed nihil horum trium aut verum est, aut etiam verisimile; ergo opinio illa, ut plane improbabilis, abiicienda est. Ac primo quidem cum venit diluvium non fuisse in terris praeter Noë et familiam eius alios viros iustos, tripliciter confirmatur. Sed praemonendus est lector removeri ab hac disputatione infantes, nec ad praesens nisi de adultis qui ratione iam et libero arbitrio fungebantur disputari. Nam si quid fuit etiam ante diluvium simile quodammodo Christiani baptismi aut Iudaicae circumcisionis, per cuius ad infantes applicationem (sive per fidem ea re adumbratam atque testatam) mundarentur infantes a peccato originali (quod iam pridem in Theologorum scholis receptum et probatum video), simillimum vero est multos de infantibus qui periere diluvio (ut qui liberati essent a peccato originali) fuisse salvos. Plurimi enim erant filii posterorum Seth, qui etsi a maiorum suorum probitate ac pietate multum degeneraverant eoque diluvii exitio comprehensi sunt, antiquata tamen ratione rituque purgandi infantes a peccato originali, a maioribus suis religiose custodita, eos in suis purificandis infantibus esse usos minime dubitandum est. De solis igitur adultis haec suscepta est disputatio.
…saved. But none of these three is either true or even probable; therefore that opinion, as plainly improbable, is to be cast away. And first, that when the Flood came there were on earth no other just men except Noah and his family, is confirmed in three ways. But the reader must be forewarned that infants are removed from this disputation, and that for the present we dispute only of adults who already exercised reason and free will. For if there was even before the Flood something in a manner like Christian baptism or Jewish circumcision, by whose application to infants (or by the faith adumbrated and attested by that thing) infants were cleansed from original sin (which I see has long since been received and approved in the schools of the theologians), then it is most likely that many of the infants who perished in the Flood (as having been freed from original sin) were saved. For very many were the sons of the descendants of Seth, who, although they had much degenerated from the probity and piety of their forefathers, and were therefore caught in that destruction of the Flood, nevertheless — the ancient method and rite of purging infants from original sin, religiously kept by their forefathers — it is by no means to be doubted that they used in purifying their own infants. Of adults alone, therefore, has this disputation been undertaken.12
Quod autem praeter Noë et alios qui in Arca servati sunt non fuerint eo tempore innocentes ac iusti, satis aperte ostendit scriptura capite sexto libri Geneseos, narrans fuisse communem omnium eius seculi hominum malitiam solumque Noë inventum fuisse iustum; generaliter enim ait tunc cunctam cogitationem humani cordis intentam fuisse ad malum omni tempore, et quod omnis caro corruperat viam suam, et hanc unam causam reddit cur universum genus hominum Deus voluerit delere diluvio, quod omnes nequissimi et scelestissimi essent. Generales vero huiusmodi sententias scripturae, adhibitis exceptionibus, restringere et coarctare non licet, nisi cum eiusmodi exceptiones ex aliis scripturae locis elici possunt, aut cum ratio docet opus esse talibus exceptionibus, quod sine illis generales scripturae sententiae, si omnino generaliter acciperentur, aliquid manifeste falsum vel absurdum consequeretur.
And that besides Noah and the others who were saved in the Ark there were at that time no innocent and just men, Scripture shows plainly enough in the sixth chapter of Genesis, relating that the malice of all the men of that age was common, and that Noah alone was found just; for it says generally that then all the thought of the human heart was bent upon evil at all times, and that all flesh had corrupted its way, and gives this one cause why God willed to destroy the whole race of men by the Flood — namely, that all were most worthless and most wicked. But such general statements of Scripture it is not lawful to restrict and narrow by introducing exceptions, unless such exceptions can be drawn from other passages of Scripture, or unless reason teaches that such exceptions are needed — namely, when, without them, the general statements of Scripture, if taken altogether generally, would entail something manifestly false or absurd.13
Deinde, si alii fuissent homines iusti, illi quoque similiter ut Noë servati essent a diluvio; hanc enim scriptura reddit causam cur Deus alios omnes homines perdiderit, Noë autem servaverit, quod illi essent improbi, hic vero iustus. Et vero consentaneum rationi est quod Abraham dixit Deo, Non est hoc tuum, Domine, qui iudicas omnem terram, ut occidas iustum cum impio, fiatque iustus sicut impius. Denique hoc etiam firmatur auctoritate B. Augustini, qui in libro 15 de Civitate Dei cap. 24 scribit singulari consilio et providentia Dei factum esse ut, quo tempore diluvium evenit, eo tempore nullus superesset praeter Noe vir iustus quique non esset dignus diluvii supplicio puniri. Nec frustra, inquit Augustinus, creditur sic factum esse diluvium, iam non inventis in terra qui non erant digni tali morte defungi qua in impios vindicatum est.
Next, if there had been other just men, they too would similarly, like Noah, have been saved from the Flood; for Scripture gives this as the cause why God destroyed all other men but saved Noah — that they were wicked, but he just. And indeed it is consonant with reason, what Abraham said to God: ‘This is not thy way, O Lord, who judgest all the earth, to slay the just with the wicked, and that the just should be as the wicked.’ Finally, this too is confirmed by the authority of the blessed Augustine, who in book 15 of The City of God, ch. 24, writes that it was brought about by the singular counsel and providence of God that, at the time the Flood came, there should remain none save Noah, a just man, and none who was not worthy to be punished by the punishment of the Flood. ‘Nor is it idly,’ says Augustine, ‘believed that the Flood was so made, there being now found on earth none who were not worthy to be carried off by such a death as was inflicted on the impious.’14
Alter vero modus supradictam opinionem defendendi mihi quidem certe perquam infirmus videtur. Dicunt isti omnes illius seculi homines prius quidem fuisse improbos, sed ad extremum (scilicet incipiente iam diluvio) se ad Deum convertisse et paenitentiam egisse, eaque ratione salvos esse factos. At enim si hoc isti vel aliquo scripturae testimonio vel nobilium Doctorum auctoritate vel firmis rationibus aut coniecturis probarent, haberent sane fidem, nec reclamantibus nobis diceretur; cum autem nihil horum afferant isti ad id probandum, quis non videt gratis et temere id ab ipsis dici et plane figmentum esse? Omnino, cum quaestio incidit (ut aiunt) de facto — id est cum quaeritur utrum aliquid factum sit necne — non satis est demonstrare id fieri potuisse; multa enim fieri possunt quae nunquam facta sunt, et multa certo aliquo tempore et loco et a certis personis facta sunt quae non alio quolibet tempore et loco nec a quibuslibet aliis personis facta esse ostendi potest. Oportet igitur ut quod aliquo tempore vel loco factum esse dicitur, id eo tempore et loco factum esse gravibus testimoniis aut probabilibus argumentis confirmetur. Nam si lubet isto modo fingere, simili ratione fingere licebit multos de Sodomitis caelesti igne consumptis esse salvos, quod illi, dum igni pluere cernerent iamque incendio corriperentur ipsi, resipuerint et paenitentiam egerint. Idem quoque finget aliquis de Aegyptiis mari Rubro demersis, necnon et de iis quos una cum Dathan et Abiron dehiscens terra vivos absorbuit. Scite dixit Aristoteles indecorum esse Philosopho quicquam in Philosophia sine ratione opinari, nedum affirmare. Et ego indignum esse Theologo et gravi sacrarum literarum tractatore dixerim opiniones quae nihil per se habent probabilitatis adamare et suo patrocinio defendendas suscipere. Quamquam ego pium animi sensum eorum qui aliquos de iis qui perierunt diluvio salvos fuisse putant minime damno; sed quod magis rationi et doctrinae sacrarum literarum sit consentaneum, id nunc inquiro et perpendo.
But the second way of defending the aforesaid opinion seems to me certainly very weak. These men say that all the men of that age were at first wicked, but at the end (namely, when the Flood was already beginning) turned to God and did penance, and so were saved. But if they proved this by some testimony of Scripture, or by the authority of noble Doctors, or by firm reasons or conjectures, they would surely deserve belief, nor would we contradict them; but since they bring forward none of these to prove it, who does not see that it is said by them gratuitously and rashly, and is plainly a fiction? In general, when a question arises (as they say) ‘of fact’ — that is, when it is asked whether something was done or not — it is not enough to demonstrate that it could have been done; for many things can be done that never were done, and many things were done at a certain time and place and by certain persons which cannot be shown to have been done at any other time and place, nor by any other persons. It is necessary, therefore, that what is said to have been done at some time or place be confirmed, as having been done at that time and place, by weighty testimonies or probable arguments. For if one is allowed to feign in that way, by a like reasoning it will be allowed to feign that many of the Sodomites consumed by the heavenly fire were saved, because they, while they saw fire raining down and were themselves being seized by the conflagration, came to their senses and did penance. The same too someone will feign about the Egyptians drowned in the Red Sea, and about those whom the gaping earth swallowed alive together with Dathan and Abiron. Aristotle aptly said that it is unseemly for a philosopher to opine anything in philosophy without reason, much less to affirm it. And I would say it unworthy of a theologian and a weighty handler of the sacred letters to dote on opinions which have in themselves no probability, and to undertake to defend them by his patronage. Although I by no means condemn the pious sentiment of those who think that some of those who perished in the Flood were saved; but what is more consonant with reason and the doctrine of the sacred letters, that I now inquire into and weigh.15
Restat tertius modus eandem sententiam exponendi atque propugnandi, qui, quoniam perplexior est quam superiores, longiorem in eo tractando et refutando ponere orationem necesse est. Aiunt igitur quidam omnes qui diluvio interierunt fuisse improbos et in flagitiis suis ad extremum usque spiritum permansisse, eoque inferni suppliciis fuisse addictos, sed postea tamen Christo apud inferos praedicanti credidisse et per eius misericordiam atque indulgentiam participes aeternae salutis esse factos. Hanc ego sententiam quo fortius oppugnem ac demoliar et plane falsam esse pervincam, faciundum mihi esse duxi ut generatim doceam et gravissimis testimoniis validisque rationibus probem per Christi ad inferos descensum, ex iis qui tartareis poenis damnati erant, nullum fuisse liberatum.
There remains the third way of expounding and defending the same opinion, which, since it is more involved than the foregoing, requires a longer discourse in treating and refuting it. Some, then, say that all who perished in the Flood were wicked and persisted in their crimes to their last breath, and were therefore consigned to the punishments of hell, but that afterward they believed Christ preaching in hell, and through his mercy and indulgence were made partakers of eternal salvation. This opinion, that I may the more strongly assail and demolish it and convince it of being plainly false, I have judged it necessary to teach in general, and to prove by the weightiest testimonies and valid reasons, that through Christ’s descent to hell none of those who had been damned to the punishments of Tartarus was freed.16
Hoc nempe B. Gregorius et Venerabilis Beda tanquam certum Ecclesiae et disciplinae Catholicae dogma tradiderunt. Scribens enim...
This indeed the blessed Gregory and the Venerable Bede handed down as a certain dogma of the Church and of Catholic discipline. For writing…17
...B. Gregorius ad Georgium presbyterum et Theodorum diaconum Ecclesiae Constantinopolitanae (est autem Epistola haec Gregorii in libro sexto Epistolarum num. 179) sic ait: Post discessum vestrum, dilectissimis filiis meis diaconibus narrantibus, agnovi quod dilectio vestra dixisset omnipotentem dominum Salvatorem nostrum Iesum Christum ad inferos descendentem omnes qui illic confiterentur eum Deum solvisse atque a poenis debitis liberasse. De qua re volo ut fraternitas vestra longe aliter sentiat. Descendens quippe ad inferos, solos per suam gratiam liberavit qui eum et venturum esse crediderant et praecepta eius vivendo tenuerant. Constat autem quia post incarnationem Domini nullus ex his etiam salvari potest qui fidem illius tenent et vitam fidei non habent; quia scriptum est, Confitentur se nosse Deum, factis autem negant; et Ioannes ait, Qui dicit quia novit eum et mandata eius non custodit, mendax est; Iacobus quoque, frater Domini, scribit dicens, Fides sine operibus mortua est. Si ergo fideles nunc sine operibus bonis non salvantur, et infideles ac reprobi sine bona actione, Domino ad inferos descendente, salvati sunt, melior illorum sors fuit qui incarnationem Domini minime viderunt quam horum qui post incarnationis eius mysterium nati sunt. Quod quantae fatuitatis sit dicere, ipse Dominus testatur discipulis dicens, Multi reges et Prophetae voluerunt videre quae vos videtis et non viderunt. Sed ne dilectionem vestram in mea disputatione immorer, quid de hac haeresi Philaster in libro quem de Haeresibus scripsit dixerit, cognoscat. Cuius haec verba sunt: Sunt haeretici qui dicunt Dominum in infernum descendisse et omnibus post mortem etiam ibidem enuntiasse, ut confitentes ibidem salvarentur, cum hoc sit contrarium dicenti propheta David, In inferno autem quis confitebitur tibi? et Apostolus, Quotquot sine lege peccaverunt sine lege peribunt. Cuius verbis beatus quoque Augustinus in eo libro concordat quem de Haeresibus scripsit. Haec itaque omnia pertractantes, nihil aliud teneatis nisi quod vera fides per catholicam Ecclesiam docet: quia descendens ad inferos Dominus illos solummodo ab inferni claustris eripuit quos viventes in carne per suam gratiam in fide et bona operatione servavit. Quod enim per Evangelium dicit, Cum exaltatus fuero a terra, omnia traham ad me ipsum — omnia videlicet electa; nam trahi ad Deum post mortem non potuit qui se a Deo male vivendo separavit. Haec Gregorius.
…the blessed Gregory, to George the priest and Theodore the deacon of the Church of Constantinople (this letter of Gregory is in the sixth book of the Epistles, no. 179), says thus: ‘After your departure, my most beloved sons the deacons relating it, I learned that your charity had said that our almighty Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, descending to hell, loosed all who there confessed him to be God and freed them from their due punishments. About which matter I wish your fraternity to think far otherwise. For descending to hell, he freed by his grace only those who had both believed him to be coming and had kept his precepts by living [them]. For it is plain that, after the incarnation of the Lord, none even of those can be saved who hold his faith and have not the life of faith; because it is written, “They confess that they know God, but in their deeds deny him”; and John says, “He who says that he knows him, and keeps not his commandments, is a liar”; James too, the brother of the Lord, writes, saying, “Faith without works is dead.” If, therefore, the faithful are now not saved without good works, and the unfaithful and reprobate without good action were saved when the Lord descended to hell, then better was the lot of those who did not see the incarnation of the Lord than of those who were born after the mystery of his incarnation. And of how great folly it is to say this, the Lord himself testifies to his disciples, saying, “Many kings and Prophets desired to see the things that you see, and saw them not.” But, not to detain your charity in my disputation, let it learn what Philaster, in the book he wrote On Heresies, said about this heresy. His words are these: “There are heretics who say that the Lord descended into hell and announced to all, even there after death, that those confessing might be saved there — whereas this is contrary to the prophet David, who says, ‘But in hell who shall confess to thee?’, and to the Apostle, ‘As many as have sinned without the law shall perish without the law.’” With whose words the blessed Augustine too agrees, in the book he wrote On Heresies. Treating all these things, therefore, hold nothing else but what the true faith teaches through the Catholic Church: that the Lord, descending to hell, rescued from the bars of hell only those whom, living in the flesh, he preserved by his grace in faith and good operation. For what he says through the Gospel, “When I shall be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all things to myself” — “all,” namely, the elect; for he could not be drawn to God after death who separated himself from God by living evilly.’ Thus Gregory.18
Beda vero in Commentariis suis super illum Petri locum, cum commemorasset sententiam cuiusdam auctoris (significat autem Hilarium, ut supra diximus) dicentis Christum apud inferos etiam incredulis praedicasse exhortationem et consolationem, subiungit haec (et haec ille dixerit): Sed Catholica fides habet quia descendens ad inferna Dominus non incredulos inde, sed fideles tantummodo suos educens ad caelestia secum regna perduxerit; neque exutis corpore animabus et inferorum carcere inclusis, sed in hac vita vel per se ipsum vel per suorum exempla sive verba fidelium quotidie viam vitae demonstret. Sic Beda.
Bede, however, in his Commentaries on that passage of Peter, when he had recalled the opinion of a certain author (he means Hilary, as we said above) who said that Christ in hell preached exhortation and consolation even to the unbelieving, subjoins this (and let him have said these things): ‘But the Catholic faith holds that the Lord, descending to hell, led out not the unbelieving thence, but only his own faithful, and brought them with himself to the heavenly kingdoms; and that he shows the way of life daily, not to souls stripped of the body and shut in the prison of hell, but in this life — either through himself, or through the examples or words of his faithful.’ Thus Bede.19
Damascenus libro tertio De Fide Orthodoxa cap. 29: Descendit, inquit, in inferna Christi anima deificata, ut quemadmodum iis qui erant in terra iustitiae sol ortus est, sic et eis qui sub terra in tenebris et in umbra mortis...
The Damascene, in the third book On the Orthodox Faith, ch. 29: ‘The deified soul of Christ,’ he says, ‘descended into hell, that, as to those who were on earth the sun of justice arose, so also to those who beneath the earth in darkness and in the shadow of death…20
...sedebant lux fulgeret; et ut quemadmodum in terra evangelizaverat pacem, captivis remissionem, caecis visum, et his qui crediderunt factus est causa salutis aeternae, incredulis autem infidelitatis improperium et redargutio, sic et his qui in inferno: ut ipsi omne genu flectatur, caelestium, terrestrium et infernorum. Quibus verbis significat Damascenus praedicationem Christi non omnibus qui in inferno erant profuisse, sed fidelibus tantum; infidelibus autem potius fuisse exprobrationem et confusionem.
…were sitting, light might shine; and that, as on earth he had evangelized peace, to captives remission, to the blind sight, and to those who believed was made the cause of eternal salvation, but to the unbelieving a reproach and refutation of their unfaith, so also to those who were in hell — that to him every knee might bow, of things heavenly, earthly, and infernal.’ By these words the Damascene signifies that Christ’s preaching profited not all who were in hell, but the faithful only; and to the unbelieving was rather a reproach and confusion.21
Oecumenius autem in Commentariis suis, explanans illum Petri locum (ex quo loco et huius disputationis tractandae capta est occasio, et eius explicandae magna ex parte difficultas existit), ait Christum apud inferos praedicasse, sed eos tantum inde eduxisse qui ante adventum eius ita iuste pieque vixerant ut sine dubio credituri fuissent Christo, si eorum tempore Christus ad ipsos venisset. Nec sane putandum est Oecumenium ita loqui de istis ut de impiis Tyriis et Sodomitis loquitur Dominus Matth. 11, dicens eos, si talia vidissent miracula qualia viderant Iudaei, credituros et paenitentiam acturos fuisse; neque enim hi fide futurae Christi incarnationis nec bonis moribus ita se praeparaverant ut idonei ac digni essent venientem Christum recipere, sed de iis qui crediderunt Christum venturum et ita vixerant ut, si eorum tempore venisset Christus, eum Messiam credituri fuerint.
Oecumenius, however, in his Commentaries, explaining that passage of Peter (from which passage both the occasion of treating this disputation was taken, and the great part of the difficulty of explaining it arises), says that Christ preached in hell, but led out thence only those who, before his coming, had lived so justly and piously that they would without doubt have believed Christ, had Christ come to them in their time. And it is by no means to be thought that Oecumenius speaks of these as the Lord speaks of the impious Tyrians and Sodomites in Matthew 11, saying that they, if they had seen such miracles as the Jews had seen, would have believed and done penance; for these had not so prepared themselves, by faith in Christ’s future incarnation and by good morals, as to be fit and worthy to receive the coming Christ — but [he speaks] of those who believed Christ would come and had so lived that, if Christ had come in their time, they would have believed him to be the Messiah.22
Et huius sententiae facit Oecumenius etiam Gregorium Nazianzenum, cuius verba in Oratione secunda de sancto Paschate secundum translationem Billii sic habent: Si in infernum Christus descendat, simul descende; ea quoque mysteria cognosce quae Christus illis designavit: quod duplicis descensus consilium, quae ratio fuerit, utrum omnes sine ulla exceptione adventu suo salvos fecerit, an illic quoque eos duntaxat qui crediderunt? Haec Nazianzenus; cuius illud extremum (qui crediderunt) pro eo accepit Oecumenius quod est (qui credidissent), id est qui sic in terris vixerant ut, si Christus eorum tempore venisset et eis praedicasset, haud dubie credituri fuissent. Nicetas autem in suo scholio super illa verba Nazianzeni ad contrariam magis sententiam Nazianzeni verba deflectit, ita scribens: Chrysostomus ipse affirmat neminem in inferno a Christo salutem accepisse nisi qui salute dignus esset cum ex hac vita decessisset. Sed fortasse, inquit, qui tunc in inferno crediderunt salute digni habiti sunt. Cuiusmodi quiddam de Ethnico Platone in Patrum historiis circumfertur, eum praedicanti Christo apud inferos ex infidelibus primum omnium credidisse; sed hoc verum sit nec ne, lectoris iudicio est relinquendum. Sic Nicetas. Ipse etiam Billius, in hanc propensus opinionem, eodem inclinat Nazianzenum. Nam in quadam nota quam post Nicetae praedictum scholium subiicit: Videtur, inquit, Nazianzenus illis verbis alludere ad id quod ait Petrus prioris Epistolae suae capite tertio, Christum his qui in carcere erant praedicasse. Ex quo loco suspicatur Nazianzenus Christum ita cum ipsis egisse ut eos qui ad ipsius adventum fidem eius amplexi sint in caelum duxerit, eos vero qui fidem ipsi habere noluerunt in poenis reliquerit. Haec Billius.
And to this opinion Oecumenius enlists Gregory Nazianzen too, whose words in the second Oration on the holy Pasch, according to Billius’s translation, run thus: ‘If Christ descend into hell, descend with him; learn also those mysteries which Christ there designed: what was the counsel of his twofold descent, what the reason — whether by his coming he saved all without any exception, or there too only those who believed?’ Thus Nazianzen; whose last phrase (‘who believed’) Oecumenius took for that which is (‘who would have believed’), that is, who had so lived on earth that, if Christ had come in their time and preached to them, they would without doubt have believed. But Nicetas, in his scholion on those words of Nazianzen, deflects Nazianzen’s words rather to the contrary opinion, writing thus: ‘Chrysostom himself affirms that no one in hell received salvation from Christ except one who was worthy of salvation when he departed from this life. But perhaps,’ he says, ‘those who then believed in hell were deemed worthy of salvation. Something of this kind is told in the histories of the Fathers about the heathen Plato — that he, of the unbelievers, was the very first of all to believe Christ preaching in hell; but whether this be true or not is to be left to the reader’s judgment.’ Thus Nicetas. Billius too, inclined to this opinion, bends Nazianzen the same way. For in a certain note which he subjoins after Nicetas’s aforesaid scholion: ‘Nazianzen,’ he says, ‘seems by those words to allude to what Peter says in the third chapter of his first Epistle, that Christ preached to those who were in prison. From which passage Nazianzen suspects that Christ so dealt with them that those who at his coming embraced his faith he led to heaven, but those who would not have faith in him he left in their punishments.’ Thus Billius.23
Sed ne hoc lector ignoret, monendus est in supradictis Nazianzeni verbis, pro eo quod Billius vertit qui (crediderunt), Graece apud Nazianzenum non esse pisteusantas, quod sonat qui crediderunt, sed esse participium praesentis temporis, pisteuontas, significans credentes, aut (quia vim habet interdum praeteriti imperfecti) eos qui credebant; nisi forte illud (credentes) vicem gerat nominis, idem significans atque fideles seu fide imbutos et praeditos; et secundum hanc interpretationem plana esset verborum Nazianzeni sententia. Cum enim apud inferos duo essent genera hominum — alterum fidelium, qui cum recta et viva fide ex hac vita migraverant; alterum infidelium — Christus in infernum descendens fideles inde liberavit, infideles autem ibi dereliquit.
But, lest the reader be ignorant of this, he must be warned that, in the aforesaid words of Nazianzen, for what Billius rendered ‘who (believed),’ in the Greek of Nazianzen it is not pisteusantas, which sounds ‘who believed,’ but is a present participle, pisteuontas, signifying ‘believing,’ or (because it sometimes has the force of the past imperfect) ‘those who were believing’ — unless perhaps that ‘believing’ stands in place of a noun, meaning the same as ‘the faithful,’ or those imbued with and endowed with faith; and according to this interpretation the sense of Nazianzen’s words would be plain. For since there were in hell two kinds of men — one of the faithful, who had departed this life with right and living faith; the other of the unfaithful — Christ, descending into hell, freed the faithful thence, but left the unfaithful there.24
Beatus porro Augustinus in Epistola 99, quam scripsit ad Evodium, hanc ipsam versans quaestionem, pervarie disputat; et licet multa in dubio relinquat, attamen illud denique sine dubitatione videtur affirmare, Christum descendisse ad inferos et doloribus inferni solutos aliquos inde liberasse, nec eos fuisse sanctissimos illos Patriarchas, Abraam, Isaac, Iacob, Mosen, Davidem (hos enim in doloribus inferni fuisse respuit animus credere). Si enim pauper ille Lazarus post mortem ab Angelis in sinum Abrahae, id est in locum quietis et iucunditatis plenissimum, deductus et receptus est, quanto verius creditu est praestantissimos illos Patriarchas ab omni dolore vacuos et in summa pace et tranquillitate fuisse constitutos? Adscribam hic verba Augustini: Sed quia, inquit, evidentia testimonia scripturae Christum ad inferos descendisse et dolores inferni solvisse commemorant, nulla causa occurrit cur illo credatur venisse Salvator nisi ut ab eius doloribus salvos faceret; sed utrum omnes quos in eis invenit, an quosdam quos illo beneficio dignos iudicavit, adhuc requiro. Fuisse tamen eum apud inferos, et in eorum doloribus constitutis hoc beneficium praestitisse, non dubito. Unde illis iustis qui in sinu Abrahae erant, cum ille in inferna descenderet, nondum quid contulisset inveni, a quibus eum secundum beatificam praesentiam suae divinitatis nunquam video recessisse. Nam in Paradiso atque sinu Abrahae etiam ante iam erat beatificante sapientia, et apud inferos iudicante potentia; ubi enim non est, nullo loco obsessa divinitas? Haec Augustinus.
The blessed Augustine, moreover, in Epistle 99, which he wrote to Evodius, turning over this very question, disputes very variously; and although he leaves much in doubt, yet he seems at last to affirm without hesitation that Christ descended to hell and freed thence some loosed from the sorrows of hell — and that these were not those most holy Patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David (for the mind refuses to believe that these were in the sorrows of hell). For if that poor Lazarus was, after death, led by the angels into Abraham’s bosom — that is, into a place of rest and most full delight — and received, how much more truly is it to be believed that those most excellent Patriarchs were free of all pain and established in the highest peace and tranquillity? I shall transcribe here the words of Augustine: ‘But because evident testimonies of Scripture record that Christ descended to hell and loosed the sorrows of hell, no cause occurs why the Savior should be believed to have come there except to make some safe from its sorrows; but whether all whom he found in them, or certain ones whom he judged worthy of that benefit, I still inquire. Yet that he was in hell, and bestowed this benefit on those established in its sorrows, I do not doubt. Whence, what he conferred, when he descended into hell, on those just men who were in Abraham’s bosom, I have not yet found — from whom, as to the beatifying presence of his divinity, I never see him to have withdrawn. For in Paradise and in Abraham’s bosom there was, even before, the beatifying wisdom, and in hell the judging power; for where is the divinity not, since it is besieged by no place?’ Thus Augustine.25
In his autem Augustini verbis duo sane videntur animadversione digna. Alterum est quod Augustinus non audet statuere qui fuerint illi qui doloribus inferni a Christo soluti sunt: negat fuisse eos qui erant in sinu Abrahae (scilicet illi ab omni dolore et cruciatu liberi erant); eos autem qui tartareis cum diabolo cruciatibus torquebantur fuisse a Christo solutos, non audet dicere Augustinus. Verum erant alii inter hos quasi interiecti et medii, quos asseveranter dicere possumus fuisse doloribus inferni a Christo exolutos — eos dico qui purgatorio igne ad tempus cruciabantur, ut, ab omni labe peccati penitus expiati ac purificati, inde ad quietas sanctorum sedes sive Abrahae sinum transirent. Alterum vero in verbis Augustini...
In these words of Augustine two things indeed seem worthy of note. The first is that Augustine dares not determine who those were who were loosed by Christ from the sorrows of hell: he denies that they were those who were in Abraham’s bosom (since those were free from all pain and torment); but that those who were tormented with the Tartarean torments together with the devil were loosed by Christ, Augustine dares not say. But there were others, as it were interposed and intermediate between these, whom we can assert to have been loosed by Christ from the sorrows of hell — those, I mean, who were for a time tormented by the purgatorial fire, that, thoroughly expiated and purified from every stain of sin, they might pass thence to the quiet seats of the saints, or Abraham’s bosom. But the second thing in the words of Augustine…26
...dignum observatione est, iustos qui erant in sinu Abrahae fuisse ante Christi adventum per divinitatis eius praesentiam beatificatos; quod equidem interpretor non de plena et perfecta beatitudine quae in clara Dei visione consistit (hanc enim nulli mortalium contigisse ante Christi adventum merito creditur), sed de quietissima quadam et iucundissima vita et beatitudine, tanta nempe quantam maximam homini in eo statu versanti, citra illam caelestem et divinam beatitudinem, concedi fas est.
…worthy of note is that the just who were in Abraham’s bosom were, before Christ’s coming, beatified through the presence of his divinity; which I, for my part, interpret not of the full and perfect beatitude which consists in the clear vision of God (for this is rightly believed to have befallen no mortal before Christ’s coming), but of a certain most quiet and most joyful life and beatitude — namely, as great as is permitted to be granted to a man set in that state, short of that heavenly and divine beatitude.27
Sed enim, nec his quae dixerat plane acquiescens Augustinus, eo tandem disputando delabitur ut locum illum Petri interpretandum putet non de praedicatione Christi apud inferos facta, sed de ea quam ipse vel per se ipsum (cum homo in terris visus est et cum hominibus conversatus est), aut ante suum in terras adventum, etiam ante Diluvium, per Prophetas suos verbique sui praecones (qui nulla mundi aetate nulli fuerunt) fecit fieri sive mandavit. Hanc vero interpretationem eo probabiliorem iudicavit Augustinus, quod secundum eam non cogeretur ipse fateri per Christi ad inferos descensum fuisse aliquos poenis infernalibus absolutos, quod ut crederet aegre in animum inducere poterat. Sic autem scribit Augustinus: Considera ne forte totum illud quod de conclusis in carcere spiritibus, qui in diebus Noë non crediderant, Petrus dicit, omnino ad inferos non pertineat, sed ad illa potius tempora quorum formam ad haec tempora transtulit. Illa quippe res gesta forma fuerat futurorum, ut ii qui modo non credunt Evangelio, dum in omnibus gentibus aedificatur Ecclesia, illis intelligantur esse similes qui tunc non crediderunt cum fabricaretur arca; illi autem qui crediderunt et per baptismum salvi sunt, illis comparentur qui tunc in eadem arca salvi facti sunt per aquam. Unde ait, Sic et vos simili forma baptisma salvos facit. Ad hanc igitur formae similitudinem cetera etiam de incredulis coaptemus, et non suspicemur quod apud inferos, ad faciendos fideles atque liberandos, Evangelium praedicatum sit, vel adhuc etiam praedicetur, quasi et ibi sit Ecclesia constituta. Haec Augustinus. Verum de Patrum testimoniis, quibus probandum susceperamus neminem eorum qui suppliciis inferni damnati erant fuisse per Christi ad inferos descensum inde liberatum, quae adhuc memoravimus, ea lectori satis esse possunt.
But indeed, Augustine, not fully acquiescing in what he had said, at last in disputing falls to thinking that that passage of Peter is to be interpreted not of a preaching of Christ made in hell, but of that which he himself either through himself (when he was seen as a man on earth and conversed with men), or before his coming to earth, even before the Flood, through his Prophets and the heralds of his word (who were lacking in no age of the world to none), caused to be done or commanded. And Augustine judged this interpretation the more probable for this reason: that according to it he would not be compelled to confess that through Christ’s descent to hell some were absolved from the infernal punishments, which he could hardly bring his mind to believe. And Augustine writes thus: ‘Consider whether perhaps all that which Peter says about the spirits shut in prison who in the days of Noah had not believed pertains not to hell at all, but rather to those times whose figure he transferred to these times. For that deed had been a figure of things to come, so that those who now do not believe the Gospel, while the Church is being built among all nations, may be understood to be like those who then did not believe when the ark was being built; but those who believed and are saved by baptism may be compared to those who then were saved in that same ark by water. Whence he says, “So baptism, being of the like form, now also saves you.” To this likeness of figure, then, let us fit the rest about the unbelievers too, and let us not suspect that in hell, for making the faithful and freeing them, the Gospel was preached, or is even still preached, as though there too the Church were established.’ Thus Augustine. But of the testimonies of the Fathers, by which we undertook to prove that none of those who had been damned to the punishments of hell was freed thence by Christ’s descent to hell, what we have so far recalled may suffice for the reader.28
Sequitur ut idem (quemadmodum supra secundo loco positum est) nonnullis rationibus confirmemus, quanquam argumentari quod per se satis pateat et sit evidens videri fortasse cuipiam possit supervacaneum. Omnino vehementer labefactat eorum qui contra sentiunt opinionem quod necesse sit istos dicere Christum apud inferos vel praedicasse tantum his qui fuerant increduli tempore Noë, vel praedicasse omnibus qui suppliciis inferni plectebantur. At nulla potest reddi probabilis ratio cur illis duntaxat qui fuerant tempore Noë praedicare Evangelium et salutem impertire Christus voluerit, omissis aliis innumerabilibus qui nec impietate nec improbitate illos superaverant. Sin autem praedicavit Christus Dominus...
It follows that we confirm the same (as was set down above in the second place) by some reasons — although to argue what is of itself sufficiently plain and evident might perhaps seem to someone superfluous. It greatly undermines the opinion of those who think otherwise that they are forced to say either that Christ in hell preached only to those who had been unbelieving in Noah’s time, or that he preached to all who were being punished with the punishments of hell. But no probable reason can be given why Christ should have willed to preach the Gospel and impart salvation only to those who lived in Noah’s time, leaving aside innumerable others who surpassed them neither in impiety nor in wickedness. But if Christ the Lord preached…29
...nus omnibus carcere inferni inclusis ac damnatis, aut dedit illis sufficiens auxilium quo ad Deum converti possent, aut non dedit. Si non dedit, frustra illis praedicavit et sine ullo prorsus effectu; nam sine Dei auxilio non solum illi qui in malo erant obfirmati, sed nec ii qui sunt in hac vita ad bonum atque ad malum flexibiles, adduci ad paenitentiam et salutem ullo modo possunt. Quod si dicat fuisse a Christo datum illis omnibus auxilium sufficiens ad conversionem, quomodo non omnes illi fuere ad Deum conversi? Quamobrem devolventur isti vel inviti ad haeresim quam narrant et condemnant Philaster et B. Augustinus in libro de Haeresibus numero 79, eorum qui, magnificantes Christi indulgentiam, dicebant per eius ad inferos descensum omnes qui inibi erant eductos et liberatos.
…to all who were shut up and damned in the prison of hell, either he gave them sufficient aid by which they could be converted to God, or he did not. If he did not, he preached to them in vain and with no effect at all; for without God’s aid not only those who were hardened in evil, but not even those who in this life are flexible toward good and evil, can in any way be brought to penance and salvation. But if he say that sufficient aid for conversion was given by Christ to all of them, how were not all of them converted to God? Wherefore these men will slide, even unwilling, into the heresy which Philaster and the blessed Augustine relate and condemn (in the book On Heresies, number 79) — of those who, magnifying Christ’s indulgence, said that by his descent to hell all who were there were led out and freed.30
Quod autem, si omnibus qui erant in inferno datum fuisset auxilium sufficiens, omnes credituri fuissent, hinc videtur colligi: etenim duae res concurrebant quae illos ad conversionem omnino moverent et adducerent; altera, quod tam optabilem tamque insperatam ex illis poenis emergendi occasionem sibi oblatam facultatemque a Christo datam cupidissime omnes arripuissent et amplexati essent; altera, quod, ut penitus crederent vera et certa esse Christi dicta et promissa, efficiebat et plane persuadebat inusitatus et admirandus Christi in ea loca descensus, eiusque incomparabilis maiestas in illis tartareis tenebris supra solis splendorem fulgens, potestas denique atque imperium quod Christus habere se in omnes daemones prae se ferebat.
And that, if sufficient aid had been given to all who were in hell, all would have believed, seems to be gathered from this: for two things concurred which would altogether have moved and drawn them to conversion. The one, that all would most eagerly have seized and embraced so desirable and so unhoped-for an occasion of emerging from those punishments, offered to them, and the faculty given by Christ. The other, that — to make them thoroughly believe Christ’s words and promises to be true and certain — there worked and plainly persuaded the unwonted and wonderful descent of Christ into those places, and his incomparable majesty shining in those Tartarean shadows above the splendor of the sun, and, finally, the power and dominion which Christ showed himself to have over all the demons.31
Deinde, si liberavit ab inferno aliquos homines, cur non etiam aliquos daemones? par enim utrorumque conditio et causa est, siquidem ambo aeque in malitia et odio Dei sunt obdurati, ambo aeternis inferni suppliciis damnati et mancipati sunt. Quin immo id magis declarasset potentiam Christi et efficaciam passionis eius, si daemonum etiam, non tantum hominum, redemptor fuisset; atque ea ratione manifestum fuisset latius patuisse uberioremque atque efficaciorem fuisse Christi gratiam quam peccatum Adae — hoc enim homines tantum perdidit, illa vero et homines et Angelos perditos servasset atque liberasset. Si haec autem videntur, ut sunt, plane incredibilia et absurda, illud quoque iudicari debet absurdum quod caput et fons est huius absurditatis: per Christi ad inferos descensum aliquos reproborum inferni suppliciis esse absolutos. Nec ad huius rei confirmationem id non facit, quod in libro Ecclesiastici capite 24 praedictum est de Sapientia divina, id est de Christo ad inferos descensuro, et eos tantum qui inibi sperabant in ipsum illuminaturo: Penetrabo, inquit, omnes inferiores partes terrae, et inspiciam omnes dormientes, et illuminabo omnes sperantes in Domino.
Next, if he freed some men from hell, why not some demons too? for the condition and case of both is equal, since both are alike hardened in malice and hatred of God, both damned and consigned to the eternal punishments of hell. Indeed, this would the more have declared the power of Christ and the efficacy of his passion, if he had been the redeemer of demons too, and not only of men; and in this way it would have been manifest that the grace of Christ was wider and more abundant and more efficacious than the sin of Adam — for this destroyed only men, but that would have saved and freed both men and angels who were lost. But if these things seem, as they are, plainly incredible and absurd, then that too must be judged absurd which is the head and fount of this absurdity: that through Christ’s descent to hell some of the reprobate were absolved from the punishments of hell. Nor does it fail to make for the confirmation of this matter, that in the book of Ecclesiasticus, chapter 24, it was foretold of the divine Wisdom — that is, of Christ who would descend to hell, and would enlighten only those who there hoped in him: ‘I will penetrate all the lower parts of the earth, and will behold all that sleep, and will enlighten all that hope in the Lord.’32
Ceterum quatuor huic nostrae opinioni sacrarum litterarum sententiae videntur contradicere; quare perficiendum recta earum interpretatione est ut nullo modo adversari nobis videantur. Prima sententia est apud Nahum Prophetam capite primo, quae iuxta trans-...
But four sentences of the sacred writings seem to contradict this our opinion; wherefore it must be brought about, by their right interpretation, that they in no way seem to oppose us. The first sentence is in the Prophet Nahum, chapter one, which according to the trans-…33
...lationem Septuaginta interpretum sic habet: Non vindicabit bis in idipsum in tribulatione; pro quo vertit Symmachus, Non sustinebunt impetum secundae angustiae; Theodotio habet sicut nostra versio, Non consurget duplex tribulatio; Pagninus reddidit, Non consurget bis angustia. Si Deus, inquiunt, non punit bis idem peccatum, ergo peccatorem pro peccato suo in hac vita punitum non iterum Deus post mortem puniet; quapropter quorum peccata Deus diluvii exitio vindicavit, ea post mortem aeternis inferni poenis nequaquam puniuit.
…lation of the Septuagint translators it has thus: ‘He will not avenge twice for the same thing in tribulation’; for which Symmachus rendered, ‘They shall not bear the onset of a second distress’; Theodotion has as our version, ‘A double tribulation shall not arise’; Pagninus rendered, ‘Distress shall not arise twice.’ ‘If God,’ they say, ‘does not punish the same sin twice, then a sinner punished for his sin in this life God will not punish again after death; wherefore those whose sins God avenged by the destruction of the Flood, those sins he by no means punished after death with the eternal pains of hell.’34
Sed hoc testimonium nihil plane opinioni nostrae officere duplici responsione ostendemus. Ac primo quidem respondemus illius sententiae Nahum longe diversum quam isti volunt esse intellectum: loquitur ibi Propheta Ninivitis, adversus quos praecipue illud edidit vaticinium, et minatur eis extremum supplicium, dicens Deum uno et extremo supplicio eos puniturum, ita ut non sit opus futurum alio supplicio ad eos puniendos, quia semel puniti omnino perdentur, consumentur ac delebuntur. Talis enim est futura eorum vindicta ut altera non sit opus. Hanc intelligentiam et verba ipsa clarissime reddunt, et contextus ipse antecedentium et consequentium verborum eandem confirmat.
But that this testimony in no way harms our opinion we shall show by a twofold reply. And first, indeed, we answer that the meaning of that sentence of Nahum is far different from what these men would have it: the Prophet there speaks to the Ninivites, against whom he chiefly uttered that prophecy, and threatens them with the utmost punishment, saying that God will punish them with one and final punishment, so that there will be no need of another punishment to punish them, because, once punished, they will be utterly destroyed, consumed, and blotted out. For their vengeance will be such that another is not needed. This understanding both the words themselves render most clearly, and the very context of the preceding and following words confirms it.35
Accedit auctoritas Theodoreti et Theophylacti ad eundem modum verba illa explanantium. Theodoretus quidem in Commentariis eius Prophetae super ea ipsa verba: Adeo, inquit, acerbum et exaggeratum de vobis Deus capiet supplicium ut non opus sit in vos secundam plagam inferri. Theophylactus autem super eundem locum ita scribit: Talis est, inquit, potentia Dei ut, si aliquem punire pro meritis velit, hoc ipsum simul cumulate una plaga perficiat, nec altera vindicta opus habeat, semel omnino ipsum conficiens atque consumens. Vides, lector, illam Nahum sententiam, si ut oportet intelligatur, id est prout a nobis exposita est, nihil contra nos facere?
There is added the authority of Theodoret and Theophylact, who explain those words in the same manner. Theodoret, indeed, in his Commentaries on that Prophet, on those very words: ‘So bitter and heaped-up a punishment,’ he says, ‘will God take of you, that there will be no need to inflict a second blow upon you.’ And Theophylact, on the same passage, writes thus: ‘Such is the power of God that, if he will punish someone according to his deserts, he accomplishes this very thing fully at one blow, and needs no second vengeance, finishing and consuming him entirely at once.’ You see, reader, that that sentence of Nahum, if it be understood as it ought — that is, as it has been expounded by us — makes nothing against us?36
Sed fac illorum verborum Prophetae eam quam isti volunt esse sententiam: sane nihilo magis illa nobis adversabitur. Esto, significetur illis verbis peccatorem propter idem peccatum non puniri bis a Deo, hoc est tam in hac vita quam post mortem. Sed quaeramus ex istis utrum id velint intelligi de peccatore suorum peccatorum vere paenitenti, an de eo qui prorsus impaenitens ex hac vita decedit. Si dicant intelligendum esse de peccatore paenitenti, equidem assentior ipsis: namque peccatori suorum scelerum, ut oportet, paenitenti, aeterna supplicia peccatis eius merita et debita remittuntur, et commutantur cum poenis temporalibus, vel in hac vita vel post mortem persolvendis. Verum hoc nihil iuvat causam eorum qui diluvio interierunt, illos enim mortuos esse impaenitentes, tanquam similius vero, supra ostendimus. Sin autem isti contendant illud Prophetae dictum etiam de impaenitente peccatore intelligi posse, non solum illis non assentior, sed vehementer repugno. Cum enim peccatum mortale per se ac secundum legem divinae iustitiae mereatur aeternam poenam, quo modo id, si solo temporali supplicio puniatur, erit, ut oportet,...
But grant that those words of the Prophet have the sense these men would have: assuredly that will oppose us no more. Be it so — that by those words it is signified that a sinner is not punished twice by God for the same sin, that is, both in this life and after death. But let us ask of these men whether they would have this understood of a sinner truly repentant of his sins, or of one who departs this life wholly impenitent. If they say it is to be understood of a repentant sinner, I for my part agree with them: for to a sinner duly repentant of his crimes, the eternal punishments deserved and due for his sins are remitted, and commuted into temporal punishments, to be paid either in this life or after death. But this in no way helps the cause of those who perished in the Flood, for that they died impenitent we showed above as the more likely. But if these men contend that the Prophet’s saying can be understood even of an impenitent sinner, not only do I not agree with them, but I vehemently resist. For since mortal sin, of itself and according to the law of divine justice, merits eternal punishment, how will it — if it be punished with a temporal punishment only — be (as it ought,…37
...et ut postulat Dei iustitia) punitum? Quare fateri necesse esse, praeter supplicium temporale peccatoris impaenitentis, manere ipsum aeternam poenam per se respondentem et debitam merito peccatorum eius. Nam si solo temporali supplicio peccatum mortale, pro eo ac debet, punitum esset, nulli profecto mortali peccato aeterna poena deberetur; quocirca delaberemur in absurdam et iam pridem ab Ecclesia Catholica explosam atque damnatam opinionem Origenis, arbitrantis omnes reprobos qui tartareis suppliciis torquentur, etiam ipsum Diabolum, aliquando tandem absolutum et liberatum iri; cui tamen apertissime divina Scriptura contradicit, clamans ignem inferni et combustionem eius esse inextinguibilem et aeternam, et, quemadmodum bonorum praemia, ita reproborum supplicia fore sempiterna.
…and as the justice of God requires) punished? Wherefore it is necessary to confess that, besides the temporal punishment of the impenitent sinner, there remains for him the eternal punishment corresponding of itself and due to the desert of his sins. For if mortal sin were punished, as it ought, by a temporal punishment alone, then surely to no mortal sin would eternal punishment be due; wherefore we should slide into the absurd opinion of Origen — long since exploded and condemned by the Catholic Church — who thought that all the reprobate who are tormented with the Tartarean punishments, even the Devil himself, would at some time at last be absolved and freed; whom, however, divine Scripture most openly contradicts, crying that the fire of hell and its burning are inextinguishable and eternal, and that, as the rewards of the good, so the punishments of the reprobate will be everlasting.38
Lubet hanc nostram interpretationem illius sententiae Nahum confirmare Ruperti auctoritate, qui ad eundem modum illam sententiam exponit in libro tertio Commentariorum in Genesim capite septimo, ita scribens: Volunt quidam peccatum Cain morte corporis fuisse deletum, pro eo quod scriptum est, Non vindicabit Deus bis in idipsum; sed haec ratio quam infirma sit et ipsa Fides scit, et ipsa Patrum sententia diligentior evidenter adstruit. Hoc enim dictum de illis accipi convenit quorum vel ante poenam vel in ipsa poena confessionem Deus accipit, et idcirco postea, dempta poena temporali, non illis aeternam superadiicit; ut, verbi gratia, latroni qui in cruce confessus est non iniuste Dominus aperuit Paradisum, quia non vindicabit Deus bis in idipsum. Nam alter latro de temporali ad aeternum transvectus est supplicium; de quo etiam recte dicas quia nec in illo vindicabit Deus bis in idipsum, nam esse una vindicta bene dicitur quae, hic incepta, perficitur in sempiternum. Haec Rupertus.
I am pleased to confirm this our interpretation of that sentence of Nahum by the authority of Rupert, who expounds that sentence in the same manner in the third book of the Commentaries on Genesis, ch. 7, writing thus: ‘Some would have it that the sin of Cain was blotted out by the death of the body, on the ground of what is written, God will not avenge twice for the same thing; but how weak this reasoning is, both Faith itself knows, and the more careful opinion of the Fathers evidently establishes. For this saying is fittingly taken of those whose confession God accepts either before the punishment or in the very punishment, and therefore afterward, the temporal punishment being taken away, does not add for them the eternal — as, for example, to the thief who confessed on the cross the Lord not unjustly opened Paradise, because God will not avenge twice for the same thing. For the other thief was carried over from a temporal to an eternal punishment; of whom too you may rightly say that not even in him will God avenge twice for the same thing, for that is well called one vengeance which, begun here, is completed unto everlasting.’ Thus Rupert.39
Altera sententia est B. Petri, quam refert Lucas in Actis Apostolorum capite 2. Dixit Petrus Christum fuisse a mortuis suscitatum solutis doloribus inferni; quibus verbis significatur eos qui doloribus inferni tenebantur fuisse illis per Christum absolutos atque liberatos. Et hos B. Augustinus libro 12 de Genesi ad litteram cap. 33 dicit fuisse peccatores qui cruciatibus inferni torquebantur. Verum illam Petri sententiam quatuor modis commodissime licet ita explicare ut nihil istis prodesse aut nobis obesse videatur. Et primo quidem illud Petri dictum referri potest ad Christum dominum, qui propterea dicatur solvisse dolores inferni, quod illuc descendens non potuit more ceterorum illis doloribus tangi, nedum teneri, quippe qui erat inter mortuos liber; et cum hoc intellectu mirifice congruit quod proxime subiungit Petrus, Iuxta quod impossibile erat teneri eum ab eo. Et hanc interpretationem commendat Augustinus in Epistola 99. Solvit igitur Christus dolores inferni, non quod illis fuerit aliquando captus et vinctus, sed quod sua potentia fecerit ut ab illis teneri et capi nullo modo posset. Deinde illa Petri sententia aptissime potest accommodari ad eos qui in purgatorio igne versabantur; nam et locus ille pars in-...
The second sentence is that of the blessed Peter, which Luke reports in the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 2. Peter said that Christ was raised from the dead, ‘the sorrows of hell being loosed’; by which words it is signified that those who were held by the sorrows of hell were by Christ absolved from them and freed. And these the blessed Augustine, in book 12 of On Genesis according to the Letter, ch. 33, says were sinners who were tormented by the torments of hell. But that sentence of Peter may most conveniently be explained in four ways, so that it seems neither to profit these men nor to harm us. And first, indeed, that saying of Peter can be referred to Christ the Lord, who is said to have loosed the sorrows of hell because, descending thither, he could not, like the rest, be touched — much less held — by those sorrows, since he was ‘free among the dead’; and with this understanding wonderfully agrees what Peter next subjoins, ‘inasmuch as it was impossible that he should be held by it.’ And this interpretation Augustine commends in Epistle 99. Christ, then, loosed the sorrows of hell, not because he was at any time caught and bound by them, but because by his power he brought it about that he could in no way be held and caught by them. Next, that sentence of Peter can most aptly be accommodated to those who were in the purgatorial fire; for that place too is a part of hell…40
...ferni est, et qui in eo sunt ad tempus cruciantur, et eos, vel omnes vel plurimos, Christum, cum ad infernum descendit, illis doloribus liberasse creditur.
…and those who are in it are tormented for a time, and Christ, when he descended to hell, is believed to have freed them — all or most — from those sorrows.41
Tertio modo: quia pro vocabulo illo inferni, quod habet eo loco Latinus interpres (videtur enim ipse legisse Graece hadou, quae vox infernum significat; Graeci codices habent thanatou, id est mortis), facile erit intelligere quomodo Christus descendens ad inferos solverit dolores mortis, id est quibus afficitur animus hominis post mortem. Hi autem dolores etiam in iustis et sanctis hominibus, ut minimum, duo sunt: alter, manere animum seiugatum et seiunctum a corpore, quod est contra naturalem animi appetitum; alter, ante Christi adventum nulli patere aditum in caelum, sed omnes in inferno detineri. Hos dolores Christus solvit, et liber exiens ab inferno caelosque conscendens, et triduo quam mortuus fuerat anima iterum copulata corpori, ad vitam rediens immortalem.
In a third way: because, for that word ‘of hell’ which the Latin translator has in that place (for he seems to have read in Greek hadou, which word means ‘hell’; but the Greek codices have thanatou, that is ‘of death’), it will be easy to understand how Christ, descending to hell, loosed the ‘sorrows of death’ — that is, those with which the soul of man is affected after death. And these sorrows, even in just and holy men, are at the least two: the one, that the soul remains separated and sundered from the body, which is against the natural appetite of the soul; the other, that before Christ’s coming entrance into heaven lay open to none, but all were detained in hell. These sorrows Christ loosed, both going out free from hell and ascending to the heavens, and — three days after he had died, the soul again joined to the body — returning to immortal life.42
Quarto modo dictum illud belle accommodari potest etiam ad sanctos patres qui erant in limbo sive in sinu Abrahae. Nam etsi nullis illi propter sua peccata dolorum cruciatibus eo loco afficiebantur, non poterant tamen sine omni dolore animi esse, propter ardentissimum desiderium quo flagrabant adventus Messiae et videndi faciem Dei; cuius desiderii et spei tam longa dilatio sine ulla afflictione animi esse non poterat. Verum enim est illud Salomonis verbum, Spes quae differtur affligit animam. Et hanc illorum verborum Petri explanationem approbat et sequitur B. Thomas Tertia parte quaest. 52 art. 2, in Responsione ad secundum declarans illa verba Petri: Ad secundum, inquit, dicendum quod duplex est dolor: unus de passione poenae quam patiuntur homines pro peccato actuali, secundum illud Psalmi, Dolores inferni circumdederunt me; alius autem dolor est de dilatione speratae gloriae, secundum illud Proverb. 7, Spes quae differtur affligit animam, quem quidem dolorem patiebantur sancti patres in inferno (ad quod signandum Augustinus in sermone De Passione dicit quod lacrymabili obsecratione Christum orabant). Utrosque autem dolores Christus solvit ad inferos descendens, aliter tamen et aliter: nam dolores poenarum solvit praeservando ab eis, sicut medicus dicitur solvere morbum a quo praeservat per medicinam; dolores autem causatos ex dilatione gloriae actualiter solvit praebendo eis gloriam. Haec S. Thomas.
In a fourth way, that saying can be nicely accommodated also to the holy fathers who were in limbo, or in Abraham’s bosom. For although they were afflicted in that place by no torments of sorrow on account of their sins, yet they could not be without all sorrow of mind, on account of the most ardent desire with which they burned for the coming of the Messiah and for seeing the face of God; and so long a deferral of that desire and hope could not be without some affliction of mind. For true is that saying of Solomon, ‘Hope that is deferred afflicts the soul.’ And this explanation of those words of Peter the blessed Thomas approves and follows, in the Third Part, q. 52, a. 2, in the Reply to the second objection, expounding those words of Peter: ‘To the second,’ he says, ‘it must be said that sorrow is twofold: one from the suffering of the punishment which men endure for actual sin, according to that of the Psalm, “The sorrows of hell surrounded me”; the other sorrow is from the deferral of the hoped-for glory, according to that of Proverbs 7, “Hope that is deferred afflicts the soul” — which sorrow indeed the holy fathers suffered in hell (to signify which, Augustine in the sermon On the Passion says that with tearful entreaty they prayed to Christ). And both sorrows Christ loosed by descending to hell, yet in one way and another: for the sorrows of the punishments he loosed by preserving from them, as a physician is said to loose a disease from which he preserves by medicine; but the sorrows caused by the deferral of glory he loosed actually, by bestowing glory on them.’ Thus St. Thomas.43
Quod autem huic interpretationi opponit sanctus Augustinus Epistola 99 et libro 12 De Genesi ad litteram cap. 33, nusquam legi in sacra scriptura vocabulum Inferni aut Inferorum in bono positum, sed in malam partem semper accipi, quamobrem sinum Abrahae et locum in quo sancti Patres erant — valde commendatum in sacris litteris tanquam quietis et iucunditatis plenissimum — non fuisse partem aliquam inferni (praesertim autem cum in illa parabola Evangelica de Lazaro et Epulone inducatur Abraham dicens Epuloni, Magnum chaos firmatum est inter nos et vos): haec, inquam, obiectio Augustini haud magnam vim habere videtur. Quamquam enim aperte et expresse divina scriptura non tradat Limbum Patrum fuisse intra terram, id tamen elicitur ex his quae traduntur in ea...
But what St. Augustine objects to this interpretation (in Epistle 99 and in book 12 of On Genesis according to the Letter, ch. 33) — that nowhere in sacred Scripture is the word ‘hell’ (Infernum or Inferi) placed in a good sense, but is always taken in a bad sense, and that therefore Abraham’s bosom and the place in which the holy Fathers were (highly commended in the sacred writings as most full of rest and delight) was not any part of hell, especially since in that Gospel parable of Lazarus and the rich man, Abraham is introduced saying to the rich man, ‘A great chasm is fixed between us and you’ — this objection of Augustine, I say, seems to have no great force. For although divine Scripture does not openly and expressly hand down that the Limbo of the Fathers was within the earth, yet this is drawn out from the things that are handed down in it…44
...Etenim in libro Geneseos capite 37 Iacob inquit: Lugens descendam in infernum ad filium meum Ioseph; non putabat autem Iacob filium suum Ioseph, sanctissimum nempe atque innocentissimum puerum, esse in inferno damnatorum, nec iturum se putabat in eum locum. Neque vero existimari potest ibi vocabulum inferni positum esse pro sepulchro: Iacob enim, credens suis filiis narrantibus sibi Ioseph fuisse devoratum a feris, non putavit eum sive corpus eius sepulchro esse conditum. Huc illud quoque spectat quod supra ex capite 24 libri Ecclesiastici commemoravimus de divina Sapientia, id est de Christo in infernum descensuro: Penetrabo, inquit, inferiores partes terrae, et inspiciam omnes dormientes, et illuminabo omnes sperantes in Domino. Ergo intra inferiores partes terrae detinebantur sperantes in Domino, id est sancti patres expectantes sui ex inferno liberationem per Christi in ea loca descensum. B. Hieronymus super illa verba Oseae capite 13, Ero mors tua o mors, morsus tuus ero inferne: Infernus, inquit, est locus in quo recluduntur animae, sive in refrigerio sive in poenis, pro qualitate scilicet meritorum.
…For in the book of Genesis, chapter 37, Jacob says: ‘Mourning, I will go down to hell to my son Joseph’; but Jacob did not think that his son Joseph — that most holy and most innocent boy — was in the hell of the damned, nor did he think that he himself would go to that place. Nor indeed can it be supposed that there the word ‘hell’ is put for ‘the grave’: for Jacob, believing his sons who told him that Joseph had been devoured by beasts, did not think that he, or his body, had been laid in a grave. To this also looks what we recalled above from chapter 24 of the book of Ecclesiasticus, about the divine Wisdom — that is, about Christ who would descend to hell: ‘I will penetrate the lower parts of the earth, and behold all that sleep, and enlighten all that hope in the Lord.’ Therefore within the lower parts of the earth were detained ‘those who hope in the Lord’ — that is, the holy fathers, awaiting their liberation from hell through Christ’s descent into those places. The blessed Jerome, on those words of Hosea, chapter 13, ‘O death, I will be thy death; O hell, I will be thy bite’: ‘Hell,’ he says, ‘is a place in which souls are shut up, either in refreshment or in punishments, namely according to the quality of their merits.’45
Quid plura? nec ipse Augustinus videtur ab hac sententia abhorrere debuisse: is enim Epistola 99 sine dubitatione affirmat inter alios quos Christus, descendens ad inferos solvensque dolores inferni, ex illis locis eduxit, fuisse Adamum parentem generis humani. At unde, quaeso, sive ex quo inferno Adamum eduxit Christus? non sane ex loco reproborum et damnatorum (ut patet), nec ex purgatorio igne, cuius ad tempus cruciatu purificantur iusti; namque incredibile est ex quo tempore Adam mortuus fuerat usque ad id temporis quo Christus post mortem descendit in infernum, id est annorum amplius tria millia, fuisse Adamum in purgatoriis cruciatibus. Eductus igitur est Adamus ex limbo Patrum. Quapropter et is locus pars inferni erat, et ad Patres qui inibi erant recte applicatur, etiam secundum Augustinum, illa Petri sententia de doloribus inferni a Christo solutis.
What more? Not even Augustine himself ought to have shrunk from this opinion: for he, in Epistle 99, affirms without hesitation that among the others whom Christ, descending to hell and loosing the sorrows of hell, led out from those places, was Adam, the parent of the human race. But from where, I ask — or out of what hell — did Christ lead Adam? not, surely, from the place of the reprobate and damned (as is plain), nor from the purgatorial fire, by whose temporary torment the just are purified; for it is incredible that, from the time when Adam had died until the time when Christ after death descended into hell — that is, more than three thousand years — Adam was in purgatorial torments. Adam, then, was led out from the limbo of the Fathers. Wherefore that place too was a part of hell, and to the Fathers who were there is rightly applied — even according to Augustine — that sentence of Peter about the sorrows of hell loosed by Christ.46
Tertia est illa Petri sententia in capite quarto prioris Epistolae: Propter hoc et mortuis evangelizatum est, ut iudicentur quidem secundum homines in carne, vivant autem secundum Deum in spiritu. Si enim Christus praedicavit Evangelium mortuis, id est iis quorum animae tenebantur apud inferos, nec est credibile frustra eum nulloque effectu et fructu ibi praedicasse, credendum igitur est per Christi praedicationem aliquos esse conversos ad Deum et poenis inferni liberatos. Sed verba illa sancti Petri varias habent interpretationes, quas breviter exponam, quo planum sit quorum sententiam oppugnamus nihil illis verbis eorum causam adiuvari. Prima interpretatio est Oecumenii interpretantis Christum, cum descendit ad inferos, praedicasse omnibus ibi commorantibus Evangelium: ut qui in hoc mundo carnaliter vixe-...
The third is that sentence of Peter in the fourth chapter of his first Epistle: ‘For this cause the Gospel was preached also to the dead, that they might be judged indeed according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit.’ For if Christ preached the Gospel to the dead — that is, to those whose souls were held in hell — and it is not credible that he preached there in vain and with no effect and fruit, then it must be believed that through Christ’s preaching some were converted to God and freed from the punishments of hell. But those words of St. Peter have various interpretations, which I shall briefly set forth, that it may be plain that the cause of those whose opinion we assail is in no way helped by those words. The first interpretation is that of Oecumenius, who interprets that Christ, when he descended to hell, preached the Gospel to all who dwelt there: so that those who in this world had lived carnal-…47
...rant sint a Christo iudicati, id est condemnati; simul et ab ipso vivificati, id est aeterna salute et vita mortali ac beata donati, qui secundum Deum spiritualiter vixerant. Supplet enim Oecumenius in duobus illis locis, Secundum homines in carne et Secundum Deum in spiritu, totum illud, qui vixerunt, vel qui vixerant in hoc mundo; et item verba illa, iudicentur et vivant, quae sunt futuri temporis, posita esse ait pro verbis praeteriti temporis, Iudicati sive condemnati sint, et vixerint.
…ly were judged by Christ, that is condemned; and at the same time were vivified by him — that is, endowed with eternal salvation and with a deathless and blessed life — those who according to God had lived spiritually. For Oecumenius supplies, in those two places, ‘according to men in the flesh’ and ‘according to God in the spirit,’ the whole phrase, ‘who lived,’ or ‘who had lived in this world’; and likewise he says that those words ‘that they may be judged’ and ‘may live,’ which are of the future tense, are put for verbs of the past tense, ‘were judged or condemned, and lived.’48
Non absimilis est interpretatio eorundem Petri verborum apud Caietanum in Commentario eius Epistolae: Est, inquit, sensus: ut iudicentur quidem ratione carnis in qua vixerunt secundum homines, hoc est secundum concupiscentias humanas; vivant autem ratione spiritus quem habuerunt secundum Deum, hoc est conformem divinae voluntati. Ad hoc itaque evangelizavit Christus, manifestando se apud inferos omnium esse iudicem, ut agnoscerent impii se iudicandos sive condemnandos esse ab eo, quia humanam et carnalem vitam egerunt; simulque iusti agnoscerent percepturos se vitam aeternam, quod secundum spiritum et Deum vixerint. Itaque Petrus revelavit nobis causam cur apud inferos evangelizare Christus voluerit: videlicet ut huiusmodi evangelizatio pararet Christo iudicium mortuorum. Nam iudicium vivorum, post primum eius adventum, parat ei evangelizatio quae fit in mundo per Apostolos et successores, ut omnes habeant notitiam unde iudicandi sint. Sic Caietanus.
Not unlike is the interpretation of the same words of Peter in Cajetan, in the Commentary on that Epistle: ‘The sense is,’ he says, ‘that they may be judged indeed by reason of the flesh in which they lived according to men, that is according to human concupiscences; but may live by reason of the spirit which they had according to God, that is conformable to the divine will. To this end, then, Christ evangelized — manifesting himself in hell to be the judge of all — that the impious might recognize that they were to be judged or condemned by him, because they led a human and carnal life; and at the same time the just might recognize that they would receive eternal life, because they lived according to the spirit and God. And so Peter revealed to us the cause why Christ willed to evangelize in hell: namely, that such an evangelization might prepare for Christ the judgment of the dead. For the judgment of the living, after his first coming, the evangelization which is made in the world through the Apostles and their successors prepares for him, that all may have knowledge whence they are to be judged.’ Thus Cajetan.49
Secunda interpretatio est apud Augustinum in Epistola 99, qui per mortuos intelligit mortuos peccatis secundum animam sive infideles, quemadmodum cuidam Dominus dixit, Dimitte mortuos ut sepeliant mortuos suos; et Paulus ad Timotheum scribens, Vidua, inquit, in deliciis vivens mortua est. Sensus igitur illorum verborum Petri secundum Augustinum hic est: praedicatum esse Evangelium impiis peccatoribus, ut cum crediderint, iudicentur quidem secundum homines in carne, hoc est variis tribulationibus secundum carnem vexentur et condemnentur ab hominibus eorum conversionem et fidem odio habentibus atque insectantibus; vivant autem secundum Deum in spiritu, quia per eiusmodi tribulationes et vitam gloriamque spiritus consequuntur. Tertia interpretatio sic habet: Cognoscimus Christum fore iudicem mortuorum, quod Evangelium praedicatum sit etiam iis qui iam mortui sunt ante Christi iudicium, ut, etsi humana opinione morte carnis condemnati sint priusquam Dominus advenerit, virtute tamen Evangelii quod in hac vita per fidem receperunt vivant spiritu apud Deum, iterum sumpturi carnem suam cum Christus ad iudicandum venerit. Sic Paulus primae ad Corinth. 15 probat resurrectionem mortuorum: Si mortui, inquit, non resurgunt, ergo qui dormierunt in Christo perierunt.
The second interpretation is in Augustine, in Epistle 99, who by ‘the dead’ understands those dead in sins as to the soul, or the unfaithful — just as the Lord said to a certain man, ‘Let the dead bury their dead’; and Paul, writing to Timothy, ‘A widow living in pleasures is dead.’ The sense, then, of those words of Peter according to Augustine is this: that the Gospel was preached to impious sinners, that, when they have believed, they may be ‘judged indeed according to men in the flesh’ — that is, vexed by various tribulations according to the flesh, and condemned by men who hate and persecute their conversion and faith — ‘but live according to God in the spirit,’ because through such tribulations they attain the life and glory of the spirit. The third interpretation runs thus: We know that Christ will be the judge of the dead, because the Gospel is preached even to those who are already dead before Christ’s judgment, so that, although by human opinion they are condemned by the death of the flesh before the Lord comes, yet by the power of the Gospel which in this life they received through faith they may live in the spirit with God, about to take up their flesh again when Christ comes to judge. So Paul, in 1 Corinthians 15, proves the resurrection of the dead: ‘If the dead,’ he says, ‘rise not again, then they who have slept in Christ have perished.’50
Quartam interpretationem minime posthabendam superioribus tribus censeo. Vocabulum illud mortuus nonnunquam in sacris litteris significat eum qui proximus est morti, vel ex morbo aliove casu secundum leges morti adiudicatus. Sic apud Matthaeum capite nono...
A fourth interpretation I judge by no means to be set below the three above. That word ‘dead’ sometimes in the sacred writings signifies one who is near to death, or, by disease or some other chance, adjudged to death by the laws. So in Matthew, chapter nine…51
...Iairus dixit filiam suam esse defunctam, quam Marcus capite quinto narrat fuisse in extremis, et Lucas scribit quod iam moriebatur. Paulus item secundae ad Corinth. 11 ait se in mortibus fuisse frequenter, et primae ad Corinth. 15, Quotidie, inquit, morior (quod mox declarans), Periclitamur, inquit, omni hora. Petrus igitur Christum iudicaturum mortuos eo probat argumento, quod Evangelium quotidie praedicetur etiam his qui humano iudicio condemnati sunt morte; eo videlicet consilio ut, licet secundum carnem moriantur, vivant tamen apud Deum in anima propter fidem suique conversionem ad Christum quam in extremo habuerunt; nisi enim Christus curam gereret animorum, nequaquam praedicaretur Evangelium hominibus iam iam morituris. Similiter Paulus primae ad Corinth. 15 ex morientium Baptismo argumentatur futuram resurrectionem mortuorum: Alioqui, ait, quid facient qui baptizantur pro mortuis, si mortui non resurgunt? ut quid enim baptizantur pro illis? Quem locum tractans Epiphanius in Haeresi 28: Recte, inquit, hoc Pauli dictum interpretantes dicunt vicinos morti, si fuerint in pietatis doctrina instructi, ob hanc spem ante obitum sacro lavacro dignos fieri, ostendentes eum qui mortuus est resurrecturum aliquando, ideoque in praesenti vita indigere remissione peccatorum. Sic Epiphanius.
…Jairus said that his daughter was deceased, whom Mark in chapter five relates to have been at the point of death, and Luke writes that she was already dying. Paul too, in 2 Corinthians 11, says that he was ‘often in deaths,’ and in 1 Corinthians 15, ‘Daily,’ he says, ‘I die’ (which he soon explains), ‘We are in peril,’ he says, ‘every hour.’ Peter, then, proves that Christ will judge the dead by this argument: that the Gospel is daily preached even to those who by human judgment are condemned to death; with this purpose, namely, that, although they die according to the flesh, they may yet live with God in the soul, on account of the faith and conversion to Christ which they had at the last; for unless Christ had care of souls, the Gospel would by no means be preached to men just about to die. Similarly Paul, in 1 Corinthians 15, argues from the baptism of the dying to the future resurrection of the dead: ‘Otherwise,’ he says, ‘what shall they do who are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not again? Why then are they baptized for them?’ Treating which passage, Epiphanius in Heresy 28: ‘Rightly,’ he says, ‘those interpreting this saying of Paul say that those near death, if they have been instructed in the doctrine of piety, are for this hope made worthy of the sacred laver before their decease — showing that he who is dead will one day rise again, and therefore in the present life needs the remission of sins.’ Thus Epiphanius.52
Quarta denique illa est sententia eiusdem Petri prioris Epistolae capite tertio, in qua nimirum tota propemodum huius disputationis moles consistit: in quo et his qui in carcere erant spiritibus veniens praedicavit, qui increduli fuerant aliquando, quando expectabant Dei patientiam in diebus Noe. Indicat Petrus his verbis Christum praedicasse apud inferos his qui tempore Noë fuerant increduli et perierant diluvio; eam vero praedicationem Christi vel temere ab eo susceptam esse, vel prorsus inutiliter esse factam, cogitare, nedum credere, fas non est. Non eo inficias locum hunc Petri esse obscurissimum, quin etiam sua ipsum obscuritate fuisse omni tempore apud Patres apprime nobilitatum ac celebratum; sed eum tamen locum nec adversari nobis nec iis auxiliari qui contra nos sentiunt, ex duplici eius interpretatione quam hoc loco subiiciam manifestum erit. Prior interpretatio est sancti Augustini, quam is fuse tractat in Epistola 99. Existimat Augustinus Petrum non loqui de Christi descensu ad inferos, nec de praedicatione eius apud inferos facta, sed figurata locutione utentem docere tempus illud Noë quo diluvium est factum illustrem praetulisse similitudinem atque imaginem temporis adventus Christi et praedicationis legis Evangelicae. Namque illo tempore Christus spiritu venit praedicans illis hominibus, id est per spirituales inspirationes et revelationes veniens in mente servorum suorum, ut Noë et aliorum, per illos praedicavit hominibus illius temporis; in hoc autem tempore ipsemet Christus in terris visus et cum hominibus conversatus praedicavit mundo et per se et per suos discipulos. Tunc praedicabatur venturum diluvium ad delendos omnes homines; post-...
The fourth, finally, is that sentence of the same Peter in the third chapter of his first Epistle, in which indeed almost the whole weight of this disputation consists: ‘in which also coming he preached to those spirits that were in prison, who had once been incredulous, when they waited for the patience of God in the days of Noah.’ Peter indicates by these words that Christ preached in hell to those who in Noah’s time had been incredulous and had perished in the Flood; and to think — much less to believe — that this preaching of Christ was either undertaken by him rashly or done altogether uselessly, is not lawful. I do not deny that this passage of Peter is most obscure — indeed, that by its very obscurity it has at all times been especially ennobled and celebrated among the Fathers; but that the passage neither opposes us nor aids those who think against us will be manifest from the twofold interpretation of it which I shall here subjoin. The first interpretation is that of St. Augustine, which he treats at length in Epistle 99. Augustine thinks that Peter does not speak of Christ’s descent to hell, nor of a preaching made by him in hell, but, using figurative speech, teaches that that time of Noah, in which the Flood was made, bore an illustrious likeness and image of the time of Christ’s coming and of the preaching of the Gospel law. For at that time Christ came ‘in spirit,’ preaching to those men — that is, coming by spiritual inspirations and revelations into the mind of his servants, such as Noah and others, through them he preached to the men of that time; but in this time Christ himself, seen on earth and conversing with men, preached to the world both through himself and through his disciples. Then it was preached that the Flood would come to destroy all men; after-…53
...adventum Christi praedicari coeptum est supremum mundi incendium extremumque iudicium, in quo omnes reprobi sempiternis mancipandi sunt suppliciis. Tunc plurimi fuere increduli, ideoque diluvio mersi et obruti interierunt, pauci autem per arcam servati sunt; post adventum autem Christi minor pars hominum credit Evangelio, et per baptismum et fidem servatur. Postremum, illo tempore praedicabatur hominibus paenitentia dum fabricabatur arca usque ad diluvii adventum; hoc autem tempore praedicatur omnibus Evangelium, quo Christi Ecclesia aedificatur in cunctis gentibus usque ad consummationem seculi.
…after Christ’s coming, there began to be preached the final conflagration of the world and the last judgment, in which all the reprobate are to be consigned to everlasting punishments. Then very many were incredulous, and so were drowned and overwhelmed and perished in the Flood, but a few were saved through the ark; but after Christ’s coming the lesser part of men believe the Gospel, and are saved through baptism and faith. Lastly, at that time penance was preached to men while the ark was being built, up to the coming of the Flood; but at this time the Gospel is preached to all, by which Christ’s Church is built up among all nations up to the consummation of the age.54
Nec insolens videri debet vocabulum carceris hoc loco positum a Petro vel pro corpore, quo animus velut carcere inclusus tenetur, iuxta illud Psalmi 141, Educ de carcere animam meam (quin Beda pro carcere legit carne, quanquam et nostrae lectionis meminit), vel pro errorum et vitiorum miseria qua vincti et velut captivi tenebantur infideles. Isaias enim capite 42 et 49, vocationem Gentium enarrans et statum in quo versabantur Gentes ante fidem acceptam describit, infideles tanquam vinculis astrictos, obtenebratos, vectibus ferreis et portis aereis conclusos, ac teterrimo carcere coarctatos: Dedi te, inquit, cap. 42, in foedus populi et in lucem Gentium, ut aperires oculos caecorum et educeres de conclusione vinctum et de domo carceris sedentes in tenebris. Idem capite 49: Dedi te in foedus populi, ut suscitares terram et possideres hereditates dissipatas, ut diceres his qui vincti sunt, Exite, et iis qui in tenebris, Revelamini.
Nor ought the word ‘prison,’ here put by Peter, to seem unusual — taken either for the body, in which the soul is held as if shut in a prison, according to that of Psalm 141, ‘Bring my soul out of prison’ (indeed Bede reads, for ‘prison,’ ‘flesh,’ although he mentions our reading too); or for the misery of errors and vices by which the unbelieving were held bound and as it were captive. For Isaiah, in chapters 42 and 49, narrating the calling of the Gentiles and describing the state in which the Gentiles were before receiving the faith, depicts the unbelieving as bound with chains, darkened, shut in with iron bars and gates of bronze, and confined in a most foul prison: ‘I gave thee,’ he says, ch. 42, ‘for a covenant of the people and for a light of the Gentiles, that thou mightest open the eyes of the blind and bring forth the prisoner from confinement and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house.’ The same in chapter 49: ‘I gave thee for a covenant of the people, that thou mightest raise up the earth and possess the inheritances that were destroyed, that thou mightest say to them that are bound, Come forth, and to them that are in darkness, Show yourselves.’55
Nec adeo durum et inusitatum est in sacris litteris (ut putavit Catharinus) hominem appellari spiritum, cum nonnunquam divina Scriptura per Synecdochen, ut nomen carnis et animae, ita nomen spiritus usurpet pro toto homine, velut in Psalmo 77, Recordatus est quia caro sunt, spiritus vadens et non rediens. Quo genere locutionis etiam vulgus utitur, homines macie confectos appellans spiritus; et de homine elegantis ingenii vulgari sermone dici solet, è un gentil spirito. Hactenus fere ex Augustino. Cuius interpretatio non admodum videtur probabilis, tum quod figurata potius et mystica sit quam inhaerens sententiae verborum Petri et (ut vocant) litteralis, tum quod excludat descensum Christi ad inferos, cuius doctrinam et fidem hoc ex loco Petri plerique Patres praecipue colligere et probare solent.
Nor is it so harsh and unusual in the sacred writings (as Catharinus thought) for a man to be called ‘spirit,’ since sometimes divine Scripture uses, by synecdoche — as the name ‘flesh’ and ‘soul,’ so the name ‘spirit’ — for the whole man, as in Psalm 77, ‘He remembered that they are flesh, a spirit that goeth and returneth not.’ By which manner of speech the common people too use it, calling men worn out with leanness ‘spirits’; and of a man of elegant talent it is wont to be said in common speech, ‘he is a gentle spirit’ (è un gentil spirito). Thus far, roughly, from Augustine. Whose interpretation does not seem very probable: both because it is figurative and mystical rather than inhering in the sense of Peter’s words and (as they call it) literal, and because it excludes Christ’s descent to hell — whose doctrine and belief most of the Fathers are wont to gather and prove especially from this passage of Peter.56
Alteram interpretationem, quod ea melius ad verborum B. Petri sententiam quadret simulque amplectatur doctrinam Patrum qui ex hoc loco descensum Christi in infernum confirmarunt, potiorem ceteris ac probabiliorem censeo. Secundum hanc igitur interpretationem distincte per partes illam sancti Petri sententiam explanabimus. In quo: Cyrillus libro De recta fide ad Theodosium sic exponit: Divina virtute ac potestate utens, etiam spiritibus qui erant in inferno apparuit; refert enim hoc In quo ad illud paulo superius, Vivificatus autem spiritu, id est potentia divinitatis. Oecumenius autem illud...
The other interpretation, because it fits better the sense of the blessed Peter’s words and at the same time embraces the doctrine of the Fathers who from this passage confirmed Christ’s descent into hell, I judge preferable to the rest and more probable. According to this interpretation, then, we shall explain that sentence of St. Peter distinctly, part by part. ‘In which’: Cyril, in the book On the Right Faith to Theodosius, expounds thus: ‘Using his divine virtue and power, he appeared also to the spirits that were in hell’; for he refers this ‘in which’ to that a little above, ‘But being vivified in the spirit,’ that is, by the power of the divinity. But Oecumenius [takes] that…57
...illud In quo vult idem valere atque Propter quod, et esse causale, ut haec oratio connectatur cum praecedente ad hunc modum: Quia Christus pro iniustis mortuus est, non solum pro iis qui post adventum eius fuerunt, sed pro his etiam qui adventum ipsius praecesserunt, ideo descendit in infernum, etc. Posset item illud In quo referri ad spiritum seu animam rationalem Christi, secundum quam ipse descendit in infernum, deposito interim corpore in sepulchro; qua significatione etiam illud quod praecesserat, Vivificatus spiritu, potest accipi, ut sit hic sensus: Christus in sua passione mortuus est secundum carnem, secundum spiritum vero, id est animam, vivus et immortalis permansit. Namque in sacris litteris vivificare non semper significat ex mortuo vivum facere, sed interdum idem valet atque conservare in vita vel servare a morte, sicut in 1 Regum 27 scriptum est de David: Virum et mulierem non vivificabat, id est Neminem relinquebat vivum. Et hac significatione persaepe usurpatur in Psalmis.
…‘in which’ to mean the same as ‘for which,’ and to be causal, so that this clause is connected with the preceding in this manner: Because Christ died for the unjust — not only for those who lived after his coming, but for these too who preceded his coming — therefore he descended into hell, etc. That ‘in which’ could also be referred to the spirit, or rational soul, of Christ, according to which he descended into hell, his body being meanwhile laid in the tomb; in which signification that which had preceded, ‘being vivified in the spirit,’ can also be taken, so that the sense is: Christ in his passion died according to the flesh, but according to the spirit — that is, the soul — remained living and immortal. For in the sacred writings ‘to vivify’ does not always mean to make a living thing out of a dead one, but sometimes means the same as to preserve in life or to keep from death, as in 1 Kings 27 it is written of David: ‘He saved alive neither man nor woman,’ that is, he left none alive. And in this signification it is very often used in the Psalms.58
Et his qui in carcere erant: vocabulo carceris appositissime describitur locus inferni; non semel autem in parabolis Evangelicis similitudine et vocabulo carceris locus inferni designatur. Spiritus veniens praedicavit: Spiritus appellat animas quae in inferno detinebantur, sive bonorum sive malorum. Alii legunt (Spiritu veniens) id est secundum animam tantum descendens in infernum. Licet Augustinus Epistola 99 hoc (Spiritu veniens) interpretetur, Per spirituales revelationes et inspirationes veniens in mentes servorum suorum, qui ante adventum ipsius secundum carnem omni aetate verbi sui praecones et voluntatis interpretes fuerunt. Nimirum Augustinus haec Petri verba non de Christi ad inferos descensu interpretatus est, sed ea ratione quam paulo supra exposui.
‘And to those who were in prison’: by the word ‘prison’ the place of hell is most aptly described; and more than once in the Gospel parables the place of hell is designated by the likeness and word of ‘prison.’ ‘The Spirit, coming, preached’: by ‘spirits’ he calls the souls which were detained in hell, whether of the good or of the evil. Others read ‘coming in spirit,’ that is, descending into hell according to the soul only. Although Augustine, in Epistle 99, interprets this ‘coming in spirit’ as ‘coming by spiritual revelations and inspirations into the minds of his servants, who before his coming in the flesh were, in every age, the heralds of his word and the interpreters of his will.’ For Augustine interpreted these words of Peter not of Christ’s descent to hell, but in the manner I expounded a little above.59
Illud verbum Praedicavit non significat praedicationem Evangelii ad conversionem eorum qui in inferno erant a Christo factam, sed manifestationem sui apud inferos, quod ipse esset expectatus ille Messias et Salvator mundi futurusque omnium iudex, cuique pro meritis eius aeterna vel praemia vel supplicia redditurus; unde fidelibus et sanctis incredibilis consolatio et laetitia, infidelibus autem atque improbis maeror et confusio accidit. Qui increduli fuerant aliquando: Quidam hoc referunt ad iustos quos ex inferno Christus eduxit, eos autem incredulos dici quoniam aliquando fuerant increduli nec obedientes Deo, vel quia omnes saltem in Adamo increduli et peccatores fuerant. Id quod Athanasius innuit in libro De incarnatione Verbi, et Hieronymus super illis verbis Zachariae capite nono, Tu quoque in sanguine testamenti tui etc., ait Christum ex inferno eduxisse eos qui peccatis Adae et inoliti erroris vinculis tenebantur.
That word ‘preached’ does not signify a preaching of the Gospel made by Christ for the conversion of those who were in hell, but a manifestation of himself in hell — that he was that awaited Messiah and Savior of the world, and the future judge of all, who would render to each according to his deserts either eternal rewards or punishments; whence to the faithful and holy came an incredible consolation and joy, but to the unfaithful and wicked grief and confusion. ‘Who had once been incredulous’: some refer this to the just whom Christ led out of hell, and say that they are called ‘incredulous’ because they had once been incredulous and disobedient to God, or because all, at least in Adam, had been incredulous and sinners. Which Athanasius hints in the book On the Incarnation of the Word; and Jerome, on those words of Zachariah, chapter nine, ‘Thou also, by the blood of thy testament,’ etc., says that Christ led out of hell those who were held by the sins of Adam and by the chains of ingrained error.60
Oecumenius vero sic interpretatur: Christum praedicasse omnibus qui erant in inferno spiritibus, plurimis quidem qui increduli olim fuerant in damnatione relictis, paucis autem ad salutem animae — eorum videlicet qui in hac vita crediderant et bene vixerant —...
But Oecumenius interprets thus: that Christ preached to all the spirits who were in hell, the very many who had once been incredulous being left in damnation, but a few [being brought] to the salvation of the soul — namely, those who in this life had believed and lived well —…61
...quemadmodum, exempli causa, in diebus Noë evenit, quo tempore innumeris diluvio pereuntibus quia increduli fuerant, pauci credentes per arcam servati sunt ex diluvio. Itaque illud de incredulis in diebus Noë dictum est a B. Petro tanquam exempli causa; nam licet potuisset idem de aliis quamplurimis dici, illorum tamen praecipue meminit Petrus, quod illi propemodum innumerabiles et in ipsa mundi origine fuerint, et quia tam illorum exitium quod eis accidit ex diluvio quam paucorum illorum hominum per arcam conservatio res fuit maxime memorabilis et admirabilis atque illustris quaedam imago eorum quae post Christi adventum evenerunt. Patet igitur illud de incredulis tempore Noë nec otiose dictum esse a Petro, nec tamen favere opinioni eorum qui putarunt eos per Christi descensum ad inferos fuisse inferni poenis liberatos.
…just as, for example, it happened in the days of Noah, at which time, innumerable men perishing in the Flood because they had been incredulous, a few believers were saved from the Flood through the ark. And so that [saying] about the incredulous in the days of Noah was uttered by the blessed Peter as it were by way of example; for although the same could have been said of very many others, Peter mentions these especially, because they were well-nigh innumerable and were at the very origin of the world, and because both their destruction, which befell them by the Flood, and the preservation of those few men through the ark, was a thing most memorable and admirable, and a certain illustrious image of the things that came to pass after Christ’s coming. It is plain, therefore, that that [saying] about the incredulous in Noah’s time was neither idly spoken by Peter, nor yet favors the opinion of those who thought that they were freed from the punishments of hell by Christ’s descent to hell.62
Quando expectabant Dei patientiam. Sic est nunc in libris Latinis. Beda tamen hoc loco, et Hieronymus atque Augustinus locis supra propositis, hoc modo legerunt, Quando expectabat Dei patientia, scilicet illos peccatores ad paenitentiam per centum annos dum fabricaretur arca. Verbum Graecum apexedecheto utramque lectionem admittit, quia commune est et tam passive quam active legi potest, id est expectabat et expectabatur; et hoc posterius recidit in nostram lectionem, secundum quam haec verba referuntur ad incredulos qui fuerunt tempore Noë, qui propterea non credebant ei denuncianti venturum diluvium, quia expectabant Dei patientiam, hoc est Dei clementia et benignitate confisi putabant Deum patienter et clementer acturum cum peccatoribus, nec passurum unquam ut universum hominum genus diluvio periret. Ecce igitur vera est et germana illius sententiae B. Petri interpretatio, ex qua tamen liquido cernitur hunc Petri locum nihil his suffragari quorum in hac disputatione sententiam oppugnavimus.
‘When they waited for the patience of God.’ So it now stands in the Latin books. But Bede in this place, and Jerome and Augustine in the passages set forth above, read in this manner, ‘When the patience of God waited [for] those sinners unto penance, through a hundred years while the ark was being built.’ The Greek verb apexedecheto admits both readings, because it is common (deponent in form) and can be read both passively and actively — that is, ‘was waiting’ and ‘was being waited for’; and this latter falls back into our reading, according to which these words are referred to the incredulous who lived in Noah’s time, who therefore did not believe him announcing that the Flood would come, because they ‘waited for the patience of God’ — that is, trusting in God’s clemency and kindness, they thought God would deal patiently and clemently with sinners, and would never suffer the whole race of men to perish by the Flood. Behold, then, the true and genuine interpretation of that sentence of the blessed Peter, from which, however, it is clearly seen that this passage of Peter in no way supports those whose opinion we have assailed in this disputation.63
Verum facere non possum ut tacitum praeteream quod Caietanus, haec Petri verba explanans, scriptum reliquit. Ait enim (quod etiam supra sub initium huius disputationis commemoravimus) illos qui perierunt diluvio non fuisse simpliciter incredulos, sed fuisse tantum incredulos Noë, non autem Deo; quippe cum patientiam expectarent, credentes Deum pro infinita clementia sua nunquam perditurum omne genus hominum, quamobrem propter huius fiduciae meritum putat eos placuisse Deo et idoneos fuisse iudicatos qui per Christi praesentiam et praedicationem ad aeternam salutem adducerentur.
But I cannot pass over in silence what Cajetan, explaining these words of Peter, left written. For he says (which we recalled above too, at the beginning of this disputation) that those who perished in the Flood were not unbelievers simply, but were unbelievers only toward Noah, not toward God; since, while they waited for [God’s] patience, believing that God in his infinite clemency would never destroy the whole race of men, he therefore thinks that, by the merit of this trust, they pleased God and were judged fit to be brought, through Christ’s presence and preaching, to eternal salvation.64
Sed quis non miretur tantum Caietani ingenium non vidisse quam hoc esset absurdum? Cum enim Noë Dei propheta esset, et nomine Dei voluntatem et mandata eius hominibus sui temporis enunciaret, quomodo illi non erant increduli Deo, si Noë prophetae Dei mandata eius exponenti non credebant? Nam quod Dominus discipulis suis dixit, Qui vos audit me audit, et qui vos spernit me spernit, etiam...
But who would not marvel that so great a genius as Cajetan did not see how absurd this was? For since Noah was a prophet of God, and in God’s name announced his will and commands to the men of his time, how were they not unbelievers toward God, if they did not believe Noah, the prophet of God, expounding his commands? For what the Lord said to his disciples, ‘He who hears you hears me, and he who despises you despises me,’ also…65
...etiam in Prophetas atque omnes qui Dei nomine loquebantur verissime dici potest. Et verum est illud quod Iudaeis dixit rex Iosaphat: Credite in Domino Deo vestro et securi eritis; credite prophetis eius et cuncta evenient prospera. Et in libro Exodi scriptum est Iudaeos, visis tot tantisque in Aegypto per Mosen a Deo factis miraculis, credidisse Deo et Mosi servo eius. Fiducia porro divinae longanimitatis, si non, a peccatis hominem revocans, inducat eum ad agendam paenitentiam, inanis est, Deoque displicet, nec ad condonationem vel excusationem peccati valet, sed magis ad condemnationem hominis proficit. Verum huius disputationis cursum, quasi iam suam perductum ad metam, hoc loco terminemus.
…[that saying] may most truly be applied to the Prophets too, and to all who spoke in God’s name. And that is true which King Jehoshaphat said to the Jews: ‘Believe in the Lord your God, and you shall be secure; believe his prophets, and all things shall turn out prosperously.’ And in the book of Exodus it is written that the Jews, having seen so many and so great miracles done by God in Egypt through Moses, believed God and Moses his servant. And trust in the divine long-suffering, if it does not — recalling a man from his sins — lead him to do penance, is vain, and displeasing to God, and avails nothing for the pardon or excuse of sin, but rather makes for the man’s condemnation. But let us here end the course of this disputation, as now brought to its goal.66
Translator’s notes
- Heading of the Third Disputation of Book IX. ↩
- §53: the question; Jerome (Hebrew Traditions; on Nahum 1) suggests some who perished escaped eternal punishment — God punished them temporally so as not to punish them for ever. Margins: Jerome; Gen. 19; Exod. 14; Num. 26. ↩
- §54: Rupert says the same — the Flood is the ‘middle’ judgment, in which neither only the elect are saved nor only the reprobate drowned. Margins: Rupert; Deut. 32. ↩
- §55: the case may be argued from three propositions. First: after his death Christ’s soul descended to hell and preached the Gospel to those there (1 Pet. 3 & 4) — confirmed by a long roster of Fathers. Margins: Athanasius; Epiphanius; Hilary; Gregory Nazianzen; Jerome; Cyril; Damascene. ↩
- §56 (continues on p. 166): Second proposition — Christ’s preaching to hell profited those who heard it, at least many, unto their liberation; Bede ascribes this view to Hilary. Margins: ‘Christ’s preaching to hell was useful’; Bede, from Hilary, Epiphanius. ↩
- §56 (continued from p. 165): the witness of Epiphanius (Heresy 46) and pseudo-Ambrose (on Rom. 10 and Eph. 4). Margins: Ambrose; 1 Pet. 4. ↩
- §57: Augustine (On Genesis literally 12.33) argues from Acts 2 that Christ freed some who were tormented in hell. Margins: Augustine; Phil. 2. ↩
- §58 (continues on p. 167): Third proposition — Christ’s preaching profited especially many who perished in the Flood (whom Peter names); Lyra’s view of last-minute converts. Margins: ‘Christ’s preaching to hell profited especially those who perished in Noah’s Flood’; Lyra. ↩
- §58 (continued from p. 166): Lyra’s reply to the objection that the Flood came suddenly (Luke 17). Margins: Luke 17; Gen. 7. ↩
- §60: Cajetan — Peter’s naming only those of Noah’s time signals a special, fruitful preaching; they were not unbelievers ‘simply,’ but disbelieved Noah’s warning. Margins: Cajetan; 1 Pet. 3. ↩
- §61 (continues on p. 168): Pererius rejects the view — three ways it might be feigned that many who perished were not damned; the first (a few were just). Margin: ‘That all who perished in the Flood are to be reckoned guilty of eternal damnation.’ ↩
- §62: none of the three is true or probable; infants set aside (likely many were saved, freed from original sin by a rite); only adults discussed. ↩
- §63: Scripture plainly shows no just adults remained but Noah and his family — and general scriptural statements are not to be narrowed by exceptions without warrant. Margin: ‘That at the time of the Flood there were no just men except those saved in the Ark.’ ↩
- §64: if others had been just, they too would have been saved; Abraham’s plea (Gen. 18) and Augustine (City of God 15.24). Margins: Gen. 18; Augustine. ↩
- §65: the second way (last-minute conversion) is groundless — mere assertion; one might as well claim Sodomites or Egyptians repented; Aristotle on not opining without reason. Margins: ‘Without cause are many said to have been converted to God at the very end of life’; Exod. 14; Num. 16; Aristotle, Physics bk. 8. ↩
- §66: the third way (liberation by Christ’s descent) is more involved; Pererius will prove from Fathers and reasons that no one damned to hell’s punishments was freed by the descent. ↩
- §67 (continues on p. 170): Gregory and Bede taught this as certain Catholic doctrine; Gregory’s letter begins. Margin: ‘That none of those damned to the punishment of hell was freed by Christ’s descent to hell.’ ↩
- §67 (continued from p. 169): Gregory’s letter (Epistles bk. 6, no. 179) — Christ freed only those who had believed and kept his precepts; Philaster and Augustine on the heresy. Margins: Tit. 2; 1 John 2; James 2; Matt. 13; Philaster; Ps. 6; Rom. 2; Augustine, On Heresies, no. 79; John 12. ↩
- §68: Bede — the Catholic faith holds that Christ led out from hell only his faithful, not the unbelieving. Margin: Bede. ↩
- §69 (continues on p. 171): the Damascene — Christ’s soul descended that, as a sun of justice to those on earth, so light might shine on those below. Margin: Damascene. ↩
- §69 (continued from p. 170): the Damascene — the preaching profited only the faithful, but was reproach to the unbelieving. Margins: Heb. 5; Phil. 2. ↩
- §70: Oecumenius — Christ led out only those who had lived so justly that they would surely have believed had he come in their day. ↩
- §71: Oecumenius enlists Nazianzen too; Nicetas’s scholion (Chrysostom: none in hell received salvation but the worthy; the legend of Plato); Billius’s note. Margins: Chrysostom; Nicetas; Billius the translator of Nazianzen. ↩
- Pererius’s philological note: Nazianzen’s Greek has the present participle ‘believing’ (= the faithful), not ‘who believed’; on this reading his sense is plain — Christ freed the faithful, left the unfaithful. ↩
- §72: Augustine (Epistle 99 to Evodius) — though leaving much in doubt, affirms Christ freed some loosed from hell’s sorrows, but not the patriarchs in Abraham’s bosom (who were free of all pain). Margins: Augustine; Luke 16. ↩
- §73 (continues on p. 173): two things to note — Augustine dares not say who were loosed; Pererius suggests the souls in purgatory; and the second point. ↩
- §74: the just in Abraham’s bosom were beatified before Christ’s coming — not the full beatitude of the vision of God, but a most quiet and joyful state. ↩
- §75: Augustine, not fully satisfied, ends by reading the Petrine passage not of a preaching in hell, but of Christ’s working through Noah and the prophets — the Flood as a figure of baptism. Margin: Baruch 3. ↩
- §76 (continues on p. 174): now to confirm the same by reasons; the opposing view forces an arbitrary singling-out of Noah’s contemporaries. Margin: ‘It is proved by reasons that none of those damned to hell’s punishments was freed by Christ when he descended to hell.’ ↩
- §76 (continued from p. 173): the dilemma — either Christ gave the damned sufficient grace (then why were not all converted?), or he did not (then he preached in vain); the view collapses into the condemned heresy (Philaster; Augustine, On Heresies 79). ↩
- §77: indeed, if all in hell had been given sufficient aid, all would have believed — two causes would have moved them: the longed-for chance of escape, and Christ’s overwhelming majesty in the darkness. ↩
- §78: if he freed some men, why not some demons? The view makes Christ the redeemer of demons too — plainly absurd; Ecclus 24 (‘I will enlighten all that hope in the Lord’). Margins: Rom. 5; Ecclus. 24. ↩
- §79 (continues on p. 175): four scriptural objections; the first, Nahum 1 (‘he will not judge twice’). ↩
- §79 (continued from p. 174): the various renderings of Nahum 1; the objectors’ inference (God does not punish the same sin twice). Margin: Nahum, ch. 1. ↩
- §80: first reply — the Nahum text means God will so utterly destroy the Ninivites at one stroke that no second punishment will be needed. Margin: ‘The passage of Nahum explained.’ ↩
- §81: Theodoret and Theophylact read it the same way. Margins: Theodoret; Theophylact. ↩
- §82 (continues on p. 176): second reply — even granting the objectors’ sense, it applies only to the repentant sinner; for the impenitent, mortal sin still merits eternal punishment. ↩
- §82 (continued from p. 175): otherwise one falls into Origen’s condemned error that even the devil will at last be freed. Margins: ‘The error of Origen’; Matt. 25. ↩
- §83: Rupert reads Nahum the same way (the good and bad thief). Margins: Rupert; Luke 23. ↩
- §84 (continues on p. 177): second objection — Peter (Acts 2): Christ raised ‘the sorrows of hell being loosed’ (Augustine reads them as the tormented). Four replies; the first (Christ himself could not be held); then purgatory. Margins: Acts 2; Augustine; Ps. 87. ↩
- §84 (continued from p. 176): Christ is believed to have freed those in purgatory from their sorrows. ↩
- §85: third reply — the Greek reads ‘sorrows of death,’ not ‘of hell’; the two pains of the just souls after death, which Christ loosed. Margin: ‘Two pains of the just souls after death, which Christ loosed by his descent to hell.’ ↩
- §86: fourth reply — accommodated to the holy fathers in limbo, who suffered the pain of deferred hope (Aquinas, ST III, q. 52, a. 2). Margins: Prov. 7; St. Thomas; Ps. 114. ↩
- §87 (continues on p. 178): Augustine’s objection (the word ‘hell’ is never used in a good sense; Lazarus and the ‘great chasm’) carries little force. Margins: ‘Whether it can be gathered from Scripture that Abraham’s bosom / the limbo of the holy fathers was some part of hell’; Luke 16. ↩
- §87 (continued from p. 177): Jacob ‘I will go down to hell to my son Joseph’ (Gen. 37); Ecclus 24; Jerome on Hosea 13. Margin: Jerome. ↩
- §88: indeed Augustine himself says Christ led Adam out of hell — and Adam can only have been in the limbo of the fathers. Margins: Augustine; ‘Christ led Adam out of the Limbo of the Fathers.’ ↩
- §89 (continues on p. 179): third objection — 1 Peter 4 (‘the Gospel preached to the dead’); the readings; Oecumenius. Margins: 1 Pet. 4; Oecumenius. ↩
- §89 (continued from p. 178): Oecumenius supplies the ellipses and reads the future verbs as past. ↩
- §90: Cajetan’s similar reading — the Gospel preached in hell prepared Christ’s judgment of the dead. Margin: Cajetan. ↩
- §91: Augustine’s reading (Epist. 99) — ‘the dead’ = those dead in sin (the unbelieving); and a third reading (the Gospel preached to those soon to die). Margins: Matt. 8; 1 Tim. 5. ↩
- §92 (continues on p. 180): a fourth reading — ‘the dead’ = those near death; Pererius judges it not inferior. Margin: Matthew 9. ↩
- §92 (continued from p. 179): examples (Jairus’s daughter; Paul ‘I die daily’); the Gospel preached to the dying proves Christ’s care of souls; 1 Cor. 15 on baptism for the dead (Epiphanius). Margins: Luke 8; 1 Cor. 15; Epiphanius. ↩
- §93 (continues on p. 181): the fourth and chief objection — 1 Pet. 3:19 (‘the spirits in prison’); Augustine’s figural reading (the Flood era as an image of the time of the Gospel). Margins: ‘The passage of 1 Peter 3 treated at length’; Augustine; Baruch 3. ↩
- §93 (continued from p. 180): the figural parallel completed (the few saved in the ark / the few saved by baptism). ↩
- §94: ‘prison’ may mean the body, or the misery of error in which the unbelieving were held captive (Isa. 42, 49). Margins: Bede; Isa. 42, 49. ↩
- §95: nor is it strange that a man be called ‘spirit’ (synecdoche); Augustine’s whole reading is rejected as figurative, not literal, and as excluding the descent. Margins: Catharinus; Ps. 77. ↩
- §96 (continues on p. 182): the second, preferred (literal) interpretation; parsing ‘in which’ (Cyril; Oecumenius). Margins: Cyril; Oecumenius. ↩
- §96 (continued from p. 181): Oecumenius reads ‘in which’ as causal; ‘in which’ may also refer to Christ’s soul; on ‘vivified.’ Margin: (1 Kings 27). ↩
- Parsing the rest: ‘to the spirits in prison’ (= hell), ‘coming he preached’; the variant ‘coming in spirit’; Augustine’s figurative reading noted again. Margin: Augustine. ↩
- §97: ‘preached’ = his self-manifestation as Messiah and judge (joy to the faithful, dismay to the rest); ‘who had once been incredulous.’ Margins: Athanasius; Jerome. ↩
- §(Oecumenius, continues on p. 183): Christ preached to all the spirits, leaving the many unbelievers in damnation, freeing the few faithful — as in Noah’s day. Margin: Oecumenius. ↩
- §(Oecumenius, continued from p. 182): the Noah example given by Peter as an instance — memorable and an image of what followed Christ’s coming. Margin: Bede. ↩
- §98: ‘when they waited for the patience of God’ — the active vs. passive reading of the Greek; the true sense. Margins: Jerome; Augustine; Bede. ↩
- §99: a remark against Cajetan — that those who perished were unbelievers toward Noah but not toward God, and so found favor. Margin: ‘A remark against Cajetan.’ ↩
- §100 (continues on p. 184): Pererius marvels at Cajetan — to disbelieve Noah, God’s prophet, was to disbelieve God; cut off (Luke 10, ‘he who hears you hears me’). Margin: Luke 10. ↩
- §100 (continued from p. 183): to disbelieve the prophets is to disbelieve God; trust in God’s long-suffering that does not lead to repentance is vain — the close of the Third Disputation and of Book IX. Margins: 2 Paralipomenon (Chronicles) 20 [Jehoshaphat]; Exod. 14. ↩