The Descent Into Hell

The name hell stands for an evil of penalty, as well as foran evil of guilt. At the time of our Lord, the souls who were heldfromheaven (since heaven was still closed to mankind) for the penalty due to original sin, and, in some cases at least,for penalty for their own sins which were not so grave asto demand eternal punishment, were in a place and state that is called hell. This was not the hell of the souls who had willfully rejected God by mortal sin and were suffering everlastingpenalty. This was a place and state of those who were waiting forthe redemption; this place and state is called, in scripturallanguage, by the name of hell; to this hell, the soul of our Lord went or “descended” when it departed from the body upon the cross.

Therefore, our Lord did not descend locally into the hell of lost souls and demons. But he spread his power there to put the reprobates to shame for their belief and wickedness. And to the hell which we rather call limbo, he brought the hope and promise of glory. On those souls in Limbo who were detained there solely for original sin, he shed the glory of his Godhead.

Since, during the hours of our Lord’s being dead,neither his soul nor his body was separated from the divine Person of the Son, we must say that wherever his soul or his body was,there was the whole Christ.

It seems that our Lord’s soul was in limbo (or hell, as it is called) from the moment of his death on the cross tothe moment of the Resurrection.

Christ descended into limbo, and released from its penalty the adult persons whose only reason for being detained was original sin. These he glorified by his Godhead. Thus the holy fathers were delivered from hell.

Christ’s descent into the hell of limbo means no deliverance of any soul from the hell of the lost. For the souls inthe hell of the lost either had no faith in Christ, or, if they had faith, they had no conformity of charity in his Passion. The lost are confirmed in evil, unchangeably unrepentant; there is no cleansing them from sin, for their will is fixed in sin.

The infants held in limbo by reason of original sin were not released by our Lord’s descent, for they had not the use of reason and could not be united to Christ’s Passion by faith and charity. The infants were not, of course, in any distress or pain.

Christ’s descent into limbo did not liberate souls from purgatory, except, perhaps, in such cases as could have,through the descent, a personal application to them of satisfaction for their personal faults. The descent itself was not to make satisfaction, but to bring release “to them that weresanctified,” that is, the holy fathers whoweresanctified by faith and charity, and were detained only by original sin, and not their personal sins.