Friday, July 7, 2023

Jean Daniélou on Baptism for the Dead in the Shepherd of Hermas

  

The Ninth Similitude [of the Shepherd of Hermas] speaks of stones which ‘did . . . come up from the deep though they had already received the seal (σφραγις)’. Hermas explains their meaning thus:

 

These, the apostles and the teachers who preached the name of the Son of God, after they had fallen asleep in the power and faith of the Son of God, preached also . . . to them that had fallen asleep before them (προκεκοιμημενοις), and themselves gave unto them the seal (σφραγις) of the preaching. Therefore they went down with them into the water, and came up again . . . So by their means they were quickened into life, and came to the full knowledge of the name of the Son of god. (IX, 16:5-7)

 

The symbolism of this passage is beyond doubt. The water represents the infernal regions, the lower waters, in which the dead abide. From what has already been said, it is clear that those who ‘had fallen asleep before’ must be the men of the various generations of the Old Testament, who died before the coming of Christ. The most curious point, however, is the last: it is not Christ who goes down to them but ‘the Apostles and the teachers’. They, after their death go down to the infernal regions, and this descent has a twofold purpose; they proclaim (εκηρυξαν) salvation, but above all they procure the salvation which they proclaim by giving the seal (σφραγις), that is, by baptism; after this both parties rise from the waters, that is, they are restored to life.

 

Once again this is a reflection on the salvation of the saints of the Old Testament. The context is still strictly Jewish Christian, but a new problem is raised. Baptism is absolutely necessary for salvation, but the saints of the Old Testament were not baptised; hence they have to receive baptism. This is clearly stated in the previous passage:

 

It was necessary for them to rise up through the water, that they might be made alive; for otherwise they could not enter into the Kingdom of God, except they had put aside the deadness of their former life. So these likeness that had fallen asleep received the seal (σφραγις) of the Son of God and entered into the Kingdom of God. For before a man, saith he, has borne the name of (the Son of) God, he is dead; but when he has received the seal (σφραγις), he layeth aside his deadness, and resumeth life (IX, 16:2-3).

 

At this stage the descent of the Apostles to Hell intervenes. It was to the Apostles that the mission of giving baptism had been entrusted, and if baptism was necessary to every soul, then their mission must take them to every soul. Now the souls of the saints of the Old Testament were in Hell; and so to Hell the Apostles must go. This strange conception, the naive solution in Clement of Alexandria, who refers to this passage from the Shepherd, but enlarges the conception by extending baptism to the Gentile righteous who have been pleasing to God, whether after the Law or before it, and among whom he mentions Abel and Noah (Strom. II, 43:5; cf. also Strom. VI, 45:4). (Jean Daniélou, The Theology of Jewish Christianity: The Development of Christian Doctrine Before the Council of Nicaea [trans. John A. Baker; London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1964], 237-38)

 

The descent of the Apostles to Hell in order to baptize the saints of the Old Testament is one of the most curious features in the Shepherd; but this baptism in Hell is found elsewhere attributed to Christ himself. This is so, for example, in the Epistle of the Apostles:

 

I willed to give their reward to those whom I had caused to set their hope upon it. Therefore I descended, and spake with Abraham, Isac and Jacob, and with your fathers the Prophets, and proclaimed to them in Hell that rest in Heaven to which they are to come. With my right hand I gave them the baptism of life, pardon and remission of all evil, as I did for you (26-27). (Ibid., 239)