(1) S.
Augustine thought that the Petrine passages had no reference to Hades, and in
this he was followed by later commentators, e.g. Aquinas and Pearson. He
supposed that the word, ‘in which . . . He preached . . . in the days of Noah,’
meant that the pre-existent Christ came in the Spirit, as He often did to
comfort or rebuke, speaking by suitable manifestations of Himself. In the
Spirit He came and preached to the disobedient therefore the Flood. The spirits
are said to be ‘in prison’ because they were in the darkness of ignorance while
yet in the bodies of men. Christ’s Spirit was ‘quickened’ because, by the
operation of the Spirit, in which He was wont to come and preach in bygone days,
His flesh was quickened and rose again from the dead. (Aug. Ep. clxiv.
15 f.; Aquinas, Summa, iii. 52.2)
This interpretation
rests on the meaning of ‘quickened in spirit’ in the previous clause. If it
meant ‘quickened by the Holy Spirit,’ the article and a preposition would be
present. None of the best texts reads τω, and this translation is thus not permissible.
This appears from the opposition of the two clauses—θανατωθεις μεν σαρκι and ζωοποιηθεις δε πνυματι. Nothing
can be more obvious than that a statement is made regarding Christ’s Body and
Spirit. The Body was dead: the Spirit was still quick or living. (cf. 1 Tim. Iii.
16, εφανερωθη εν σαρκι, εδικαιωθη εν πνευματι, and S. Luke xxiii. 46, ‘Into Thy hands I commend My spirit [πνευμα μου]’) In that
disembodied Spirit, still alive Christ went (πορευθεις, cf.
ver. 22, πορευθεις εις ουρανον—a local progression, cf. Eph. iv. 9, 10, ‘descended,’ ‘ascended’), and
preached to the spirits in prison. His Spirit went to these spirits, or, in the
words of Hippolytus, He entered Hades, ‘as Soul among souls.’
It is significant
that the Syriac version reads ‘Scheiûl’ (Sheol or Hades) for ‘prison,’ and this
interpretation is given by some of the Fathers. The word φυλακη, a prison or place
of security, is used of the lowest part of the Underworld; the prison of Satan,
in Rev. xx. 7. (cf. 2 S. Pet. ii. 4 and S. Jude 6 for the shutting up of the
fallen angels in Tartarus, and 2 Enoch xi. 12—the prisoners in the lowest hell
expecting the Judgement) Here it is equivalent to Hades or Sheol, the place
where souls are guarded, as in 2 Bar. xxiii. 4; ‘a place prepared where . . .
the dead might be guarded’; or 2 Esd. vii. 85, 95: the ‘dwelling-places’ or ‘chambers’
of righteous souls, guarded by angels (cf. 1 Enoch c. 5; 2 Enoch xlii. 1) Hence
such Old Testament passages as Isa. xlii. 7, xliv. 9, lxi. 1, which spoke of a
release of captives or the opening of prison (referring to the end of the
Exile), were explained by the Fathers as prophecies of the release of souls
from the prison of Hades. Though πνευματα is used of angelic
beings in Jewish literature and in Acts xxiii. 8, 9, here it means spirits of
the dead, as in Heb. xii. 23, ‘spirits of just men made perfect.’ The same
meaning is found in Enoch xx. 3 ff.: there are hollow places created in
Sheol that ‘the spirits of the souls of the dead should assemble therein,’ and ‘I
saw the spirits of the children of men who were dead’; and in ciii. 36: ‘the
spirits of those who have died in righteousness.’
(2) Akin to this
interpretation in that which takes the ‘spirits in prison’ to be spirits of
Jews and Gentiles still living on earth, to whom the apostles, inspired by the
Spirit, preach in vain. They are disobedient, like those of Noah’s day. (cf.
Luther, Works, li. 458 f.) What has been said of the previous
interpretation applies equally to this, which is even more strained.
(3) Another
interpretation makes the preaching that of the pre-existent Christ to the
fallen angels of whom Jewish tradition, resting on Gen. vi. 2, spoke so much
and who were shut up in ward against the Day of Judgment (2 S. Pet. ii. 4; Jude
6; Book of Enoch). This is rather fanciful. Enoch is said to have been
sent to proclaim God’s destroying judgment to these angels (chapter xii.)
Jewish tradition, therefore, regarded their lot as hopeless. Hence it is not
obvious why, if Christ preached to them their condemnation, the word used
should be that which is often used for preaching salvation (εκηρυξεν). The preaching is
rather to disembodied spirits of men (cf. iv. 6 νεκροις, and Heb. xii. 23 πνευμασι δικαιων) by the disembodied
Spirits of Christ (πνευμασι, πνευματι). This is made practically
certain by the reference to the salvation of few, that is eight souls, at the
Flood. These are mentioned in contrast to the disobedient who were not saved
from it.
Dr.
Randel Harris maintains that the passage was a reference to Enoch’s preaching,
but that his name, through similarity to εν ω και, has dropped out as the subject to εκηρυξεν. But through Enoch’s
condemnatory message to the imprisoned angels is referred to in the Book of
Enoch (xii. 4 f.), there is no Jewish tradition of his preaching to spirits
in prison, nor is it clear why such a tradition, granting its existence, should
be suddenly inserted in the passage.
(4) Modern Roman
Catholics, since the established of the Preaching in Hades confines it to the
Limbus Patrum, the forecourt of Hell, treat this passage as meaning that the effect
of Christ’s preaching extended to the lost, without His having actually
descended to them. This certainly strains the plain meaning of ‘went and
preached.’
(5) The
interpretation which makes εκηρυξεν mean an announcement of condemnation is
negatived by the fact that κηρυσσειν never was this meaning in the New
Testament. It almost invariably refers to a preaching of the Kingdom of God, of
the Gospel of the Kingdom, of the Gospel, of repentance, of Christ, of the
Word. Even if the preaching of the Kingdom implies the eschatological thought
of Judgment, this is only part of the message: the stress is more on good news.
In the only passage where κηρυσσειν is connected with an announcement of a
future Judgement by Christ, it is separated from this by the use of ‘testify’
for the latter—‘to preach to the people and to testify that this is He which his
ordained to judge the quick and dead’ (Acts x. 42). (J. A. MacCulloch, The
Harrowing of Hell: A Comparative Study of an Early Christian Doctrine
[Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1930], 50-54)
