224 EEY. CANON MACCULLOCH, D.D.^ ON THE DESCENT 



one of these little ones should perish " (St. Matt, xviii, 14).* 

 This was also suggested by the remarkable passages in St. John 

 V, 24, 28 : " The hour is coming and now is, when the dead shall 

 hear the voice of the son of God, and they that hear shall live 

 . . . the hour is coming in the which all that are in the 

 graves shall hear His Voice." If these passages were taken as 

 prophesying the Preaching in Hades, they also suggest that this 

 Preaching would bear fruit, as, according to one old tradition, it 

 did. But that the dead should hear and live might easily, with 

 minds accustomed to the traditional teaching of a rescue of 

 sinners from Hades, form itself into a doctrine of the Spoiling of 

 Hades and of the transference of souls from a lower to a higher 

 state, aided perhaps by the miracles of raising from the dead, 

 recounted in the Gospels. But this would necessarily imply a 

 conquest of the powers of Hades, and the passages already 

 considered regarding the spoiling of the strong man gave a 'point 

 cVappui for this belief. 



We see, then, how naturally and easily the belief in the 

 Descent and its consequences could arise. On the other hand 

 did the doctrine owe anything to some direct teaching of our 

 Lord's after His resurrection ? In trying to answer this 

 question we must bear two facts in mind : (1) our Lord's con- 

 stant reticence both with regard to the other world and with 

 regard to Himself, and (2) the whole nature of the Descent 

 doctrine with its notions of a local under- world, and preaching 

 to souls imprisoned there, and the rescue of souls from this 

 prison. We are therefore led to suppose that if our Lord spoke of 

 His experiences in Hades He gave no more than a hint, and that 

 this hint was, in all probability, not given in terms of actuality, 

 but much more likely and by all analogy in terms of cui-rent 

 belief, as in the parable of Dives and Lazarus. It was in terms 

 of that current belief that the whole doctrine took shape. But 

 whether our Lord spoke simply of a presence with the souls of 

 the dead, or of a Descent, of a preaching, or of a removal of 

 souls to a better state, the last signifying probably no more 

 than an acceptance of the good news, it is impossible to say. 

 What is certain is that whatever our Lord hinted at was soon 

 enlarged, expressed in terms of current beliefs, while the more 



In Tatian's Diatessaron, § 26, v. 7, this passage is still more remark- 

 able : " So your Father which is in heaven willeth not that one of these 

 little ones that have strayed should perish, but seeketh for them 

 repentance.'" 



