urrection. "The
soul of this Jesus was not left in the under world, but God hath
raised him up, whereof we all are witnesses." When it is written
that his soul was not left in the subterranean abode of
disembodied spirits, of course the inference cannot be avoided
that it was supposed to have been there for a time.

In the next place, we are warranted by several considerations in
asserting that Peter believed that down there, in the gloomy realm
of shades, were gathered and detained the souls of all the dead
generations. We attribute this view to Peter from the combined
force of the following reasons: because such was, notoriously, the
belief of his ancestral and contemporary countrymen; because he
speaks of the resurrection of Jesus as if it were a wonderful
prophecy or unparalleled miracle, a signal and most significant
exception to the universal law; because he says expressly of David
that "he is not yet ascended into the heavens," and if David was
still retained below, undoubtedly all were; because the same
doctrine is plainly inculcated by other of the New Testament
writers; and, finally, because Peter himself, in another part of
this epistle, declares, in unequivocal terms, that the soul of
Christ went and preached to the souls confined in the under
world, for such is the perspicuous meaning of the famous text,
"being put to death in the body, but kept alive in the soul, in
which also he went and preached [went as a herald] to the spirits
in prison." The meaning we have attributed to this celebrated
passage is the simple and consistent explanation of the words and
the context, and is what must have been conveyed to those familiar
with the received opinions of that time. Accordingly, we find
that, with the exception of Augustine, it was so understood and
interpreted by the whole body of the Fathers.1 It is likewise so
held now by an immense majority of the most authoritative modern
commentators. Rosenmuller says, in his commentary on this text,
"That by the spirits in prison is meant souls of men separated
from their bodies and detained as in custody in the under world,
which the Greeks call Hades, the Hebrews Sheol, can hardly be
doubted," (vix dubitari posse videtur.) Such has ever been and
still is the common conclusion of nearly all the best critical
theologians, as volumes of citations might easily be made to show.
The reasons which led Augustine to give a different exposition of
the text before us are such