The gates lay shattered at His feet. Below Him was nothing but the darkening abyss. But He is all light. On the left and right sit open graves. Out of them come a very old man—the oldest soul in the universe—and his wife. He is clutching their wrists. But they do not grab hold: no one can pull themselves out of this place.
Such is the harrowing of hell as depicted on icons. It’s what Christianity has traditionally understood as one of Christ’s chief objectives during his sojourn in the land of the dead: the rescue of Adam, Eve, and others like Abraham and David who had died in a state of grace but before His coming, ending up on the shores of hell, or the Limbo of the Fathers.
The scene is surely one of the most dramatic in salvation history. But was it necessary?
In other words, once Christ had achieved His work of redemption on the cross, why did Christ have to personally pull Adam, Eve, and the other righteous dead out of hell? Hadn’t the gates of heaven been opened to them? Hadn’t death lost the power to hold them captive?
The answer, it turns out, is the same reason why sacraments like baptism are also necessary for the salvation of those who were born after the coming of Christ. Scripture itself hints at the reason. As Ephesians 4:8-10 beautifully puts it:
Ascending on high, he led captivity captive; he gave gifts to men. Now that he ascended, what is it, but because he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same also that ascended above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.
St. Paul here seems to suggest that the work of the descent and ascension are related somehow. His emphasis is on the fullness of Christ—a theme that is richly open to interpretation. In the Summa Theologica, St. Thomas Aquinas elaborates on just one way the two movements of Christ are connected in his question dealing with Christ’s descent. For Aquinas, his action in the land of the dead can be explained by reference to the sacraments:
Christ’s Passion was a kind of universal cause of men’ salvation, both of the living and of the dead. But a general cause is applied to particular effects by means of something special. Hence, as the power of the Passion is applied to the living through the sacraments which make us like unto Christ’s Passion, so likewise it is applied to the dead through His descent into hell. On which account it is written (Zechariah 9:11) that “He sent forth prisoners out of the pit, in the blood of His testament,” that is, by the power of His Passion.
Put another way, Christ heals and saves through a personal touch. Indeed, this was a common characteristic of his miraculous healings before the Cross.
Consider the story of the blind man in Mark 8. The story begins with a striking statement in context of what has been said above: “When they arrived at Bethsaida, they brought to him a blind man and begged him to touch him” (v. 22). Notice what is requested of Jesus here. He is not explicitly asked to actually heal the blind man. Instead, they begged him to touch the blind man.
Christ does this and more: “He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village.” It is there, outside the village where—presumably because of his blindness the man had lived a confined, if not captive life—that Jesus heals him. Again this is done through direct physical contact. Jesus rubs spit on his eyes and asks if the man can see. He can but only partially. Further application of the spittle is required before the fullness of vision is restored in the man. The ending emphasizes this element: “Then he laid hands on his eyes a second time and he saw clearly; his sight was restored and he could see everything distinctly” v. 26).
No doubt, Christ had the power to heal this man’s blindness by simply waving his hands over his eyes. But He chose to reach out and extend His healing touch to the man. Again, Christ did not merely touch the tip of his finger to the man’s face and instantly restore sight. The act of healing was involved: Christ first led the blind man out of the city by hand and the healing itself involved repeated application of spit to his eyes. Could we, perhaps, see an analogy here with the sacraments, which entail a lifetime of repeated encounters with Christ before those who persevere are granted the full vision of God?
And the story of the blind man has its echoes elsewhere in the gospels. More than an exception it points to a pattern. Most memorable is the story of the hemorrhaging woman. Like the blind man, her healing came through direct contact with the person of Christ—in the fullness of His humanity and divinity. As Luke recounts the story:
And a woman afflicted with hemorrhages for twelve years, who … was unable to be cured by anyone, came up behind him and touched the tassel on his cloak. Immediately her bleeding stopped. Jesus then asked, “Who touched me?” While all were denying it, Peter said, “Master, the crowds are pushing and pressing in upon you.” But Jesus said, “Someone has touched me; for I know that power has gone out from me” (Luke 8:43-46).
To paraphrase Aquinas, the descent to hell suggests Christ continues to save and heal through a personal touch. Just as He led the blind man out of the village and opened his eyes, so also he led Adam and Eve by hand out of hell into the beatific vision. Likewise, it is through the sacraments that we rescued from hell and healed from sin and its effects so that one day we too, who are faithful to the end, may have that fullness of vision.
image: OPIS Zagreb / Shutterstock.com
