On this day in 33 A.D...

A very strange passage in 1 Peter 3 says, " For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit,  in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison,  because they formerly did not obey, when God's patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him."

The pseudepigraphical Gospel of Nicodemus says that Jesus entered hell in order to liberate Adam and Eve and the patriarchs, a problematic interpretation not only because it would be surprising for people like Noah and Abraham to have gone to hell in the first place but because in the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus Jesus has Abraham himself speak of a vast gulf between heaven and hell that cannot be crossed. 

Seems a stretch. I very, very big stretch.

The Apostle's Creed mentions Christ's descent "into hell-¨or ¨to the dead,¨ since the Greek word "hades," like the Hebrew ¨sheol,´ can simply mean the realm of the dead. Some Reformed theologians understand the phrase to be a poetic reference to His intense suffering. Lutherans, however, point out that Jesus called out ¨It is finished!¨ or ¨It is accomplished!¨ from the cross, and are inclined to see the reference being to a victorious descent into the realm of Old Nick to proclaim His victory on the Enemy´s home turf, much in the manner of a conqueror entering the capital of a defeated enemy in triumph.

Anyway, the picture above of the Harrowing of Hell is from a Thirteenth or Fourteenth Century diptych from the region of Palermo in Italy. It has Jesus literally walking all over Old Scratch.