216 RBY. CANON MACCULLOCH^ B.D., ON THE DESCENT 



conquest with the Passion, the liberation of the captives being 

 rather freedom from Satan's power on earth than release from 

 Hades.* Origen connects it with the descent alone, and adds 

 that Christ broke asunder the prison-house.f Here once more 

 this idea, ascribed to pagan myths, lias its primary sources in 

 Jewish belief and in the New Testament, though it was wrongly 

 connected with the descent. The older and truer tradition 

 traces the victory to the Cross. Before the Crucifixion Christ 

 says, " Now is the Prince of this world judged," " Now shall the 

 Prince of this world be cast out," " the Prince of this world 

 Cometh and hath nothing in Me."t Undoubtedly, too, the 

 passages about the binding of the strong man and spoiling his 

 goods§ refer to the victory of the Cross, as Irenaeus believed, 

 though they lent themselves to the idea of an assault on Satan 

 in Hades. To St. Paul, Christ's work was a deliverance from 

 Satan, through the Cross, and Christ spoiled principalities and 

 powers and made a show of them openly, triumphing over them 

 in the Cross, the triumphal car in which the conqueror exhibited 

 the vanquished powers.|| 



St. John writes that the Son of God was manifested that He 

 might destroy the works of the devil, but the deliverance is 

 still ideal, though at present effective to the faithful.1T Hence 

 being ideal, the binding and conquest could be referred to the 

 future, to the beginning of the millennial period, followed by 

 the complete subjection of Satan at its close (Eev. xx, 2, 10). 

 An angel effects this, probably taking the place of the Messiah, 

 child of the woman clothed with the Sun and persecuted by the 

 dragon. This idea is probably borrowed from the Jewish 

 conception of the final binding of Beliar by Messiah,** but it 

 also echoes the " international myth " of the destruction of an 

 evil, chaotic power by the divine Son of a goddess to whom 

 that power is hostile. 



* Hippol. in Theod., Dial, 2 ; Iren., i, 20, 2 ; iii, 18, 6, 7 ; iii, 23, 1, 2, 

 7 ; V, 21, 1, 3 ; Clem. Alex., Frotrep., 11 ; Faed,, ii, 8. 



t De Frincip., ii, 6, 2 ; /?^ Rom., v, 1 ; vi, 10. The destruction of 

 Hades is also found in Firm. Maternus, de Errore Prof. Rel., 23, 24. 



\ St. John xii, 31 ; xiv, 30 ; xvi, 11. 



§ St. Matt, xii, 29. 



II Acts xxvi, 18 ; Col. i, 13 ; ii, 15. 



IT Cf. 1 St. John V, 18; Hermas, Mand., xii, 4, "Fear not the devil, for he 

 has no power over you " ; Acts of Faul mid Thecla, 25, " Give me the seal 

 in Christ and temptation shall not touch me." 



Test, of Twelve Fatriarchs, Levi, xviii, 12 ; Judah xxxv, 3. Cf, 

 Isaiah xxiv, 22-3; Assumption of Moses, c. 10. 



