Accordingly it is written
(Ps. 23:7): "Lift up your gates, O ye princes," which the gloss thus
interprets: "that is--Ye princes of hell, take away your power,
whereby hitherto you held men fast in hell"; and so "at the name of
Jesus every knee should bow," not only "of them that are in heaven,"
but likewise "of them that are in hell," as is said in Phil. 2:10.

Reply Obj. 1: The name of hell stands for an evil of penalty, and not
for an evil of guilt. Hence it was becoming that Christ should
descend into hell, not as liable to punishment Himself, but to
deliver them who were.

Reply Obj. 2: Christ's Passion was a kind of universal cause of men's
salvation, both of the living and of the dead. But a general cause is
applied to particular effects by means of something special. Hence,
as the power of the Passion is applied to the living through the
sacraments which make us like unto Christ's Passion, so likewise it
is applied to the dead through His descent into hell. On which
account it is written (Zech. 9:11) that "He sent forth prisoners out
of the pit, in the blood of His testament," that is, by the power of
His Passion.

Reply Obj. 3: Christ's soul descended into hell not by the same kind
of motion as that whereby bodies are moved, but by that kind whereby
the angels are moved, as was said in the First Part (Q. 53, A. 1).
_______________________

SECOND ARTICLE [III, Q. 52, Art. 2]

Whether Christ Went Down into the Hell of the Lost?

Objection 1: It would seem that Christ went down into the hell of the
lost, because it is said by the mouth of Divine Wisdom (Ecclus.
24:45): "I will penetrate to all the lower parts of the earth." But
the hell of the lost is computed among the lower parts of the earth
according to Ps. 62:10: "They shall go into the lower parts of the
earth." Therefore Christ who is the Wisdom of God, went down even
into the hell of the lost.

Obj. 2: Further, Peter says (Acts 2:24) that "God hath raised up
Christ, having loosed the sorrows of hell, as it was impossible that
He should be holden by it." But there are no sorrows in the hell of
the Fathers, nor in the hell of the children, since they are not
punished with sensible pain on account of any actual sin, but only
with the pain of loss on account of original sin. Therefore Christ
went down into the hell of the lost, or else into Purgatory, where
men are tormented with sensible pain on account of actual sins.

Obj. 3: Further, it is writt