INTO HADES : A STUDY IN COMPARATIVE RELIGION. 217 



This section of the Descent story thus holds two distinct 

 conceptions, one metaphorical, the conquest through the Cross ; 

 the other, with its source partially in myth, of the future 

 destruction of Satan. From these, perhaps when apocalyptic 

 ideas were seen to be mistaken, and from hints drawn from the 

 Marduk and Tiamat class of myths, the ideas of the battle in 

 Hades and the conquest of Death and Satan, and the destruction 

 of Hades were drawn. But the foundation of the whole is 

 Scriptural, for such fathers as Origen base the doctrine on the 

 saying about the strong man. Metaphor becomes reality through 

 the power of imagination and the influence of mythic concep- 

 tions. Perhaps also it owed something to the Gnostic idea of 

 the conquest of the Archons either in the heavens or on earth 

 (the lower world), the latter described so beautifully in the 

 Hymn of the Pearl and in a prayer in the Acts of Thomas.^ 



(4) The release of souls. — This popular doctrine occurs in 

 different forms, and there were different opinions regarding 

 those released. Ignatius, followed by many others, thought that 

 only the righteous of the Old Testament were transferred to a 

 better region, and " numbered in the gospel of our common 

 hope."t This was also Marcion's opinion, though in an in- 

 verse sense. The disobedient of the Old Testament, who had 

 really obeyed a higher God, were rescued, the righteous were 

 left behind.t But another tradition, followed by Hippolytus, 

 Clement, Origen, in Apocryphal writings, and elsewhere, included 

 all, pagans as well as righteous Jews, in this rescue. § Hades 

 was emptied, as in the Gospel of Nicoclemtts. As St. Clement 

 puts it, " There took place a universal movement and translation 

 through the economy of the Saviour." The result of this 

 doctrine was a sharp division as to the future abode of the 

 faithful. Some held that all would now go direct to Paradise, 

 not to Hades, an opinion combated by Irenaeus and by 

 TertuUian, who held that only martyrs went to Paradise at 

 death.ll 



* In the former a king's son is sent to Egypt (the world) to obtain a 

 pearl guarded by a dragon (the evil world principle) ; in the latter the 

 Divine Mother watches from afar " the combats of the noble combatant. 

 Cf. Iren. i, 24, 2, 5. 



t Ad Magnes, 9 ; ad Philad.^ 5. 



X Iren., i, 27, 3. 



§ Hippol. in Theod., Dial.^ 2 ; Clem., Strom., vi, 6 ; Origen, Comm. in 

 Rom., vi, 10 ; in Matt., xx, 18 ; Hom. 2 on I Kings ; Euseb., H. E., i, 13, 

 20. 



II Iren., i, 31, 2 ; Tert., de Anima, 55 ; de Res. Carnis, 43. 



p 2 



