,
example, suffering, and triumph, as the resultant of all the
combined acts of his incarnate drama. Run over the relevant
writings of Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Lactantius,
Cyril, Ambrose, Augustine himself, Jerome, Chrysostom, and the
rest of the prominent authors of the first ten centuries, and you
cannot fail to be struck with the fact that they invariably speak
of redemption, not in connection with Christ's death alone, but
emphatically in connection with the group of ideas, his
incarnation, death, descent, resurrection, and ascension! For the
most part, they received it by tradition as a fact, without much
philosophizing, that, in consequence of the sin of Adam, all men
were doomed to die, that is, to leave their bodies and descend
into the shadowy realm of death. They also accepted it as a fact,
without much attempt at theoretical explanation, that when Christ,
the sinless and resistless Son of God, died and went thither,
before his immaculate Divinity the walls fell, the devils fled,
the prisoners' chains snapped, and the power of Satan was broken.
They received it as a fact that through the mediation of Christ
the original boon forfeited by Adam was to be restored, and that
men, instead of undergoing death and banishment to Hades, should
be translated to heaven. So far as they had a theory about the
cause, it turned on two simple points: first, the free grace and
love of God; second, the self sacrifice and sufficient power of

8 Hagenbach, Dogmengeschichte, sect. 68.

Christ. In the progressive course of dogmatic controversy,
metaphysical speculation, and desire for system, explanations have
been devised in a hundred different forms, from that of Aquinas to
that of Calvin; from that of Anselm to that of Grotius; from that
of Socinus to that of Bushnell. Tertullian describes the profound
abyss beneath the grave, in the bowels of the earth, where, he
says, all the dead are detained unto the day of judgment, and
where Christ in his descent made the patriarchs and prophets his
companions.9 Augustine says that nearly the whole Church agreed in
believing that Christ delivered Adam from the under world when he
rose thence himself.10 One must be very ignorant on the subject to
doubt that the Fathers attributed unrivalled importance to the
literal descent of Christ into the abode of the departed.11

Thirdly, after the advent of Christ, what were the conditions
proposed for the actual attainment of pers