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the grave, renewing the resurrection: I will teach Hades that it must expect the resurrection to succeed it. For in me both death ceaseth, and immortality is planted." So saith St. Cyril of Alexandria: "Christ" was raised up for us; for he could not be detained by the gates of Hades, nor taken at all by the bonds of death." And therefore Cyril of Jerusalem having said that our Saviour did descend into Hades, doth presently add as an explanation thereof, “ κατῆλθε γὰρ εἰς τὸν θάνατον. for he did descend into death." He "descended into death as a man:" saith Athanasius. The "divines nature," saith Ruffinus, meaning the divine person, by his flesh descended into death; not that according to the law of mortal men he should be detained of death, but that rising again by himself he might open the gates of death." "Whent thou didst descend into death, O immortal life," say the Grecians in their liturgy," thou didst then mortify Hades or hell, with the brightness of thy divinity."

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And thus, if my memory do not fail me, (for at this present I have not the book which I used) is the article expressed in the Hebrew creed, which is printed with Potken's Ethiopian Syllabary", "phys 7, He descended into the shadow of death." Where the Hebrew interpreter doth render Hades by "the shadow of death:

לצלמות

δοχον περιμένειν ἀνάστασιν· ἐν ἐμοὶ γὰρ καὶ θάνατος παύεται, καὶ ἀθαναoia purεveral. Basil. Seleuc. in illud: Ecce ascendimus Hierosolym. pag.

167.

• Εγήγερται ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν ὁ Χριστός· οὐ γὰρ γέγονε κάτοχος ταῖς ᾅδου πύλαις, οὔτε μὲν εἰς ἅπαν ἠλωτοῖς (leg. ἥλω τοῖς) τοῦ θανάτου δεσμοῖς. Cyrill. Alexand. Glaphyr. in Genes. lib. 5. op. tom. 1. pag. 148.

Cyrill. Hierosol. Cateches. 14. op. pag. 214.

· Ως ἄνθρωπος εἰς τὸν θάνατον καταβὰς. Athan. de Incarnat, verbi, contra Gentes.

• Divina natura in mortem per carnem descendit; non ut lege mortalium detineretur a morte, sed ut per se resurrecturus januas mortis aperiret. Ruffin. in exposit. symbol.

ι Οτε κατῆλθες πρὸς θάνατον, ἡ ζωὴ ἡ ἀθάνατος, τότε τὴν ᾅδην ἐνέkpwσas Tŷ dorpaný τñs deórητoç. Octoech. Anastasim. Græc. et liturg. Chrysostom. Latin. a Leone Thusco edit.

"Syllabar. Æthiopic. quod habetur in quibusdam exemplaribus Psalterii, edit. Hebraic. Græc. Latin. et Æthiopic. in fol.

as the Greek interpreters, in that text (which by the fathers is applied to our Saviour's descent into hell) Job, chap. 38. ver. 17. do render the shadow of death by Hades. For where the Hebrew hath "ny ny, The gates of the shadow of death," they read, " Iluλwpoì adov ἰδόντες σε ἔπτηξαν, The keepers of the gates of hades seeing thee, shrunk for fear." The "resurrection from the dead" therefore being the end of our Saviour's suffering, as Eusebius noteth, and so the beginning of his glorifying, the first degree of his exaltation would thus very aptly answer unto the last degree of his humiliation; that as his resurrection is an arising from the dead, so his descending unto Hades or ad inferos, should be no other thing but "a going to the dead." For further confirmation whereof, let it be considered, that St. Hierome in the vulgar Latin translation of the Bible, hath "ad inferos deducentur," where the Hebrew and Greek read, "to the dead :” and in like manner, he hath ad inferos again, where ' is in the Hebrew; which being a word that sometimes signifieth the dead, and sometimes giants, the Septuagint do join both together and read, “ παρὰ τῷ ᾅδῃ μετα τῶν γηγε vwv, In Hades with the giants." So in the Sybilline verses cited by Lactantius",

· ἵνα φθινομένοισι λαλήση,

"That he may speak unto the dead;" is in Prosper translated, "Ut inferis loquatur:" and those other verses touching our Saviour's resurrection.

Athanas. orat. 3. contra Arian. tom. 1. pag. 603. serm. in passion. et cruc. Dom. tom. 2. pag. 100. quæst. ad Antioch. tom. 2. pag. 321. Euseb. lib. 5. Demonstrat. Evangelic. pag. 247. et lib. 10. pag. 502. Cæsarius. dialog. 3. pag. 1132. edit. Basil. See before, pag. 311.

• Τέλος δὲ τοῦ πάθους ἡ ἐκ νεκρῶν ἀνάστασις ἦν. Eusebius, Demonstrat. Evangelic. lib. 10. pag. 493.

Ecclesiastes, chap. 9. ver. 3.

b Lactant. institut. lib. 4. cap. 18.

a Proverbs, chap. 2. ver. 18.

c Prosper. de promiss. et prædict. part. 3. cap. 20.

Καὶ τότ' ἀπὸ φθιμένων ἀνακύψας εἰς φάος ἥξει
Πρῶτος ἀναστάσεως κλητοῖς ἀρχὴν ὑποδείξας.

“Then coming forth from the dead, &c." are thus turned into Latin in Prosper: "Tunc ab inferis regressus, ad lucem veniet primus resurrectionis principio revocatis ostenso. Then returning from hell, he shall come unto the light, first shewing the beginning of the resurrection unto those whom he shall call back from thence;" for "Christ' returning back a conqueror from Hades unto life," as Basil of Seleucia writeth, "the dead were taught the reviving again unto life." His "risings from the dead, was the loosing of us from Hades:" saith Gregory Nazianzen. "He was raised from Hades (or from the dead,) and raised me being dead with him:" saith Nectarius, his successor in the see of Constantinople. Therefore is he called "The first begotten of the dead, because he was the first that rose from Hades, as we also shall rise at his second coming:" saith the author of the treatise of Definitions, among the works of Athanasius.

To lay down all the places of the fathers, wherein our Lord's "rising again from the dead," is termed his "rising again from Hades, inferi or hell," would be a needless labour; for this we need go no further than to the canon of the Mass itself, where in the prayer that followeth next after the consecration, there being a commemoration made of "Christ's passion, resurrection, and ascension;" the second is set out by the title "ab inferis resurrectionis," of the "resurrection from hell." For as the liturgies of the eastern churches do here make mention, “ τῆς ἐκ νεκρῶν ἀναστάσεως, of the resurrection from

d Lactant. instit. lib. 4. cap. 19.

e Prosp. de prom. et præd. part. 3. cap. 29. · Δι' ἧς (σαρκὸς) οἱ νεκροὶ τὴν εἰς βίον ἀναβίωσιν ἐδιδάχθησαν, δι' ἧς ἐξ ᾅδου νικηφόρος πρὸς ζωὴν ἀνελήλυθε. Basil. Seleuc. in Jonam, orat. 2. 5 ἡ δὲ (leg. δ' ἐκ) νεκρῶν ἔγερσις, ἐξ ᾅδου λύσις. Gregor. Nazian. in Definitionib. Iambic. 15. op. tom. 2. pag. 201.

h Excitatus est ab inferis, meque mortuum simul excitavit. Nectar. orat. in Theodor. martyr. a Perionio convers.

i Πρωτότοκος γενόμενος ἐκ τῶν νεκρῶν· διότι ἀνέστη πρῶτος ἐκ τοῦ ᾅδου, καθὼς καὶ ἡμεῖς μέλλομεν ἀνίστασθαι ἐν τῇ δευτέρᾳ παρουσίᾳ· Tract. de Definit. oper. Athanas. tom. 2. pag. 249.

k Liturg. Jacobi, Marci, Clementis, Basilii, et Gregorii Theologi.

the dead;" so those of the west' retain that other title of the resurrection ab inferis, that is, Tñç Ek Toυ adov ¿yépσEwC, (as it is in the liturgy that goeth under the name of St. Peter) or τῆς ἐκ τοῦ ᾅδου αναστάσεως, as it is in the Gregorian office, translated into Greek by Codinus. If then the "resurrection from the dead" be the same with the "resurrection from Hades, inferi or hell:" why may not the "going unto Hades, inferi or hell," be interpreted by the same reason, to be the " going unto the dead?" whereby no more is understood, than what is intimated in that phrase which the Latins use of one that hath left this world; Abiit ad plures: or in that of the Hebrews, so frequent in the word of God: he "went" or was gathered unto his people, he went or was gathered unto his fathers;" which being applied unto a whole generation", as well as in other places unto particular persons, must of necessity denote the common condition of men departed out of this life.

Now, although death and Hades, dying and going to the dead, be of near affinity one with the other, yet be they not the same thing properly, but the one a consequent of the other, as it appeareth plainly by the vision, where Hades is directly brought in as a follower of death. Death' itself, as wise men do define it, "is nothing else but the separation of the soul from the body;" which is done in an instant: but Hades is the continuation of the body and soul in this state of separation, which lasteth all that space of time which is betwixt the day of death and the day of the resurrection. For as the state of "life" is

Ambros. de Sacrament. lib. 4. cap. 6. offic. Ambrosian. tom. 1. liturgic. Pamelii, pag. 302. sacramentar. Gregorian. tom. 2. pag. 181.

m Genes. chap. 25. ver. 8. compared with chap. 15. ver. 15. Numb. chap. 20. ver. 24. and chap. 27. ver. 13. &c.

n Judges, chap. 2. ver. 10.

• Revel. chap. 6. ver. 8.

P Mortem nihil aliud esse definiunt sapientes, nisi separationem animæ a corpore. Origen. tractat. 35. in Matth. cap. 27. Vid. Tertullian. de anima, cap. 27. et 51. et Aug. de Civit. Dei, lib. 13. cap. 6.

4 Τῆς ζωῆς ἡμὼν δύο πέρασιν ἑκατέρωθεν διειλημμένης, τὸ κατὰ τὴν ȧe̟xýv onμì, kai rò Téλog. Gregor. Nyssen. orat. Catechetic. cap. 27. op. tom. 3. pag. 86.

comprehended betwixt two extremes, to wit, the beginning thereof and the ending;" and there be "two motions in nature answerable thereunto, the one whereby the soul concurreth to the body," which we calls generation, "the other whereby the body is severed from the soul," which we call death; so the state of death, in like manner, is contained betwixt two bounds, the beginning, which is the very same with the ending of the other; and the last end, the motion whereunto is called the resurrection, whereby the body and soul formerly separated are joined together again. Thus there be three terms here, as it were in a kind of a continued proportion, the middlemost whereof hath relation to either of the extremes, and by the motion to the first a man may be said to be natus, to the second denatus, to the third renatus. The first and the third have a like opposition unto the middle, and therefore are like betwixt themselves; the one being a generation, the other a regeneration. For that our Lord doth call "thet last resurrection the regeneration." St. Augustine" supposeth that no man doubteth. Neither would our Lord himself have been stiled " ον πρωτότοκος EK TWV VEKOV, the first born from the dead," unless the resurrection were accounted to be a kind of a new nativity, whereof he himself was in the first place to be made partaker, "that" among all or in all things he might have the preeminence;" the rest of "the sons of God being to be children of the resurrection" also, but in their due time, and in the order of Post-nati.

The middle distance betwixt the first and second term, that is to say, the space of life which we lead in this world

• Τὸν δὲ θεὸν φαμὲν ἐν ἑκατέρᾳ γεγενῆθαι τῇ τῆς φύσεως ἡμῶν κινήσει, δι' ἧς ἥτε ψυχὴ πρὸς τὸ σῶμα συντρέχει, τό τε σῶμα τῆς ψυχῆς διακρί Gregor. Nyssen. orat. Catechetic. cap. 16. op. tom. 3. pag. 72.

νεται.

* Η πρώτη κίνησις, ἣν γένεσιν ὀνομάζομεν. Ibid.

Matth. chap. 19. ver. 28.

"Regenerationem quippe hoc loco, ambigente nullo, novissimam resurrectionem vocat. Aug. contra duas epist. Pelagian. lib. 3. cap. 3.

▾ Revel. chap. 1. ver. 5.

* Ος ἐστιν ἀρχὴ, πρωτότοκος ἐκ τῶν νεκρῶν· ἵνα γένηται ἐν πᾶσιν αὐ TÒS πрWTεUWV. Coloss. cap. 1. ver. 18.

Luke, chap. 20. ver. 36.

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