![]() Christ suffered visibly before men, but also invisibly before God. Calvin, in his Institutes of the Christian Religion, interprets the descent into hell as part of Christ’s suffering. John Calvin, writing after Luther but before the Formula of Concord, takes a different approach. Luther, having studied both Lombard and Biel, would have been familiar with these medieval discussions. Christ did not descend to limbo or to the deepest hell (the place of the damned), since these souls will never be freed. While there, Christ freed these souls from hell. In light of this, and with medieval ideas of four levels of hell, Biel agrees that Christ descended to the “upper” two levels of hell: purgatory and the place where saints who had been cleansed in purgatory awaited their redemption. What hell did Christ descend to? Biel reports an ancient idea that Christ descended into hell to release the faithful who had died before Christ. Gabriel Biel, in his Commentary on Lombard’s Sentences, besides commenting on what part of Christ descended into hell, raises a different question. Since the body of Christ lay in the tomb during the descent, Lombard argues that Christ descended into hell according to his divinity and his soul while his body remained in the tomb. Lombard focuses on what part of Christ descended. Peter Lombard writes of the descent into hell in his Sentences, the standard medieval textbook of theology. ![]() Article IX of the Formula, following a sermon of Luther’s, advises that one stick with a simple explanation, taking comfort that Christ has destroyed hell for believers. Which part of Christ descended? To which hell? What did he do there? Is this part of his suffering? This post will briefly consider a few interpretations of the descent into hell-from Peter Lombard, Gabriel Biel, and John Calvin-to better contextualize the Formula of Concord’s brief treatment of the article. ![]() The passage is based on Scripture, but these scriptural passages (e.g., 1 Peter 3) lend themselves to multiple interpretations about what the descent into hell was, leading to centuries of debate on this article. Arguably the most opaque passage of the Creed is that Christ descended into hell. ![]()
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