Wednesday, October 20, 2021

J. A. MacCulloch's Refutation of Many Errant Interpretations of 1 Peter 3:18-19 and 1 Peter 4:6

  

(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)