The Descent and the Harrowing

Christ’s descent into Hades — His going down, in the three days of the tomb, to the realm of the dead, to break its gates and raise the righteous of the Old Covenant — is the confessed mystery within which the Church sings of John as the Forerunner there as on earth. This file sets out the scriptural ground of the descent (1 Pet. 3:18–20; 4:6; Eph. 4:9; Acts 2:24–31; Ps. 16:10), the Harrowing of Hell as proclaimed in the Anastasis icon and the Paschal homily and the hymns of Holy Saturday, and shows how John’s hymnographic “forerunning in Hades” is held within that mystery — distinguishing the confessed doctrine of the descent from the theologoumenon of the Forerunner’s role within it.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Forerunner)

The Scriptural Ground of the Descent

That Christ, in dying, went down into the realm of the dead is not an inference but a confession the Church draws directly from Scripture. The locus classicus is the First Epistle of Peter: Christ, “being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit,” in that spirit “went and preached to the spirits in prison, who formerly did not obey” (1 Pet. 3:18–20). The same epistle adds that “the gospel was preached even to the dead, that though judged in the flesh like men, they might live in the spirit like God” (1 Pet. 4:6). St. Paul reasons that the words “he ascended” imply “that he had also descended into the lower parts of the earth” (Eph. 4:9), and asks who shall “descend into the abyss” — “that is, to bring Christ up from the dead” (Rom. 10:7).

The Apostolic preaching of Pentecost rests the descent on the Psalter. Peter declares that God raised Christ, “having loosed the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it” (Acts 2:24), and applies to Him the words of David, “thou wilt not abandon my soul to Hades, nor let thy Holy One see corruption” (Acts 2:27, 31, citing Ps. 16:10 [LXX 15:10]). The Lord Himself had given the sign: “as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so will the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Matt. 12:40). From these texts the Church confesses that the soul of Christ, united to His divinity, truly entered Hades — not as one held by it, but as its conqueror.

This is no marginal opinion but an article of the faith. It stands in the baptismal and conciliar confession of the Church — “He descended into Hades,” in the language of the wider tradition — and it is woven through the dogmatic hymnody of Holy Saturday and Pascha. The descent belongs, that is, to the confessed doctrine of Christ’s person and saving work (on which see Christology).

The Harrowing of Hell

What Christ accomplished in His descent the Church calls the Harrowing of Hell: not a passive sojourn among the dead but the despoiling of death’s domain. He entered Hades as light enters darkness, and death could not hold the Author of life. The hymnography of Great and Holy Saturday makes this the heart of the day’s mystery — the King sleeps in the tomb in the flesh while in His soul He descends to plunder Hades; “Thou didst descend into the lowest parts of the earth, and didst shatter the everlasting bars that held the captives” (canon and stichera of Holy Saturday; the Triodion). The grave is not a defeat but the field of victory: He goes down precisely to break the gates from within.

The classic proclamation of this conquest is the Paschal Homily attributed to St. John Chrysostom, read at the Paschal liturgy. It cries that the Savior’s death has set the dead free: “Let no one fear death, for the death of the Savior has set us free… He that was taken by death has annihilated death.” In its most famous strophe it personifies the underworld undone by the descent: “Hell was embittered when it encountered Thee below. It was embittered, for it was abolished. It was embittered, for it was mocked. It was embittered, for it was slain… It took a body and discovered God” (“The Paschal Homily,” attributed to John Chrysostom; in the Paschal services of the Pentecostarion). Hades, reaching to swallow one more mortal, seizes instead the incarnate God and is destroyed in the grasping. The same triumph is sung in the Paschal troparion — “trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestowing life” — which makes the descent and the rising one indivisible act.

The Anastasis Icon

The Orthodox image of the Resurrection is not the empty tomb at dawn but the Anastasis: the icon of the Harrowing of Hell. It depicts Christ in radiant glory, standing upon the shattered gates of Hades laid crosswise over the abyss, amid scattered locks, bars, and broken bolts. He bends and grasps Adam by the wrist — not Adam reaching for Christ, but Christ seizing Adam — drawing the first man and, beside him, Eve up out of their tombs. Around them stand the righteous of the Old Covenant whom He has come to raise: the patriarchs and prophets, the kings David and Solomon, often Abel, Moses, and the rest of those who died awaiting Him. The icon is the visual confession of everything the descent texts say: that Christ went down to the dead and brought up the captives (on the theology and reading of icons, Icons and Iconoclasm).

Within this company the Forerunner is frequently depicted among the raised righteous, often near Christ and recognizable by his prophetic mantle. His presence in the Anastasis is the iconographic counterpart of the hymnographic theme treated in the companion file: the Forerunner stands among the Old-Covenant just whom Christ delivers, the last of the prophets there as he was last in time, and — in the Church’s contemplation — the herald who had gone before to announce the Deliverer’s approach. The icon does not narrate John preaching in Hades; it shows him present at the raising, and the hymns supply the reading of why he is there.

How John’s Role Is Held Within the Mystery

Here the two levels must be carefully distinguished, in keeping with the discipline of this collection (METHODOLOGY §4). The descent of Christ into Hades is dogma. It is grounded in Scripture (1 Pet. 3:18–20; Eph. 4:9; Acts 2:24–31), confessed in the Creed’s “He descended into Hades,” and proclaimed in the festal hymnography of Holy Saturday and Pascha. It is not negotiable theological color but the very substance of the Lord’s victory over death, inseparable from the Resurrection it makes possible. The Church does not merely admire this teaching; she believes it.

John’s forerunning within that descent is a theologoumenon — a theological opinion, beautifully fitting and venerable, sung by the Church in the offices of the Beheading and the Synaxis, but not a defined article of the faith (see The Forerunner in Hades). It is an elaboration the Church draws from John’s whole identity as the one who goes before, applied to the confessed mystery of the descent: since Christ went down to the dead, and since John’s office is to precede Him, the Church contemplates John as preceding Him there too. The theologoumenon presupposes the dogma and is unintelligible without it; remove the descent of Christ and the forerunning has nothing to run before.

The relation, then, is one of foundation and ornament — though “ornament” must not be heard as “ornamental.” The forerunning of John is true theology in the mode in which the Church sings it; it is not idle invention but a faithful reading of his person in the light of the Paschal mystery. But it is held within the descent, dependent on it, ranked below it. The model for handling such gradations of certainty in this repository is precisely this: to confess the dogma firmly, to honor the theologoumenon as the Church’s praise, and never to let the second be mistaken for the first or the first be reduced to the second (cf. METHODOLOGY §4). So the Forerunner stands in the Anastasis — among the raised, near the Lord, the herald faithful even past death — within the one great act by which Christ, trampling down death by death, emptied Hades and raised the dead.

References

Holy Scripture: Psalm 16:10 (LXX 15:10); Matthew 12:40; Acts 2:24, 2:27, 2:31; Romans 10:7; Ephesians 4:9; 1 Peter 3:18–20; 4:6. Revised Standard Version (LXX numbering noted for the Psalm).
“The Paschal Homily” (the Catechetical Homily) attributed to St. John Chrysostom. Read at the Paschal Liturgy; in the Pentecostarion / Paschal services. (“Let no one fear death…”; “Hell was embittered when it encountered Thee below… It took a body and discovered God.”)
The Lenten Triodion. Trans. Mother Mary and Archimandrite Kallistos Ware. London: Faber & Faber, 1978. (The services of Great and Holy Saturday; the descent and the shattering of the gates of Hades.)
The Pentecostarion. (The Paschal services; the Paschal troparion, “trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestowing life.”)
On the Anastasis icon and the descent: the iconography of the Harrowing of Hell as the Orthodox image of the Resurrection, depicting Christ on the broken gates raising Adam and Eve and the Old-Covenant righteous, with the Forerunner often among them.