Augustine of Hippo

How did they see him go? In the flesh which they touched, which they felt, the scars of which they even probed by touching; in that body in which he went in and out with them for forty days, manifesting himself to them in truth, not in any falsity; not as an apparition, not as a shadow, not as a spirit, but as he himself said, not deceiving, “Handle and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see me to have.” Now, indeed, that body is worthy of a heavenly dwelling place, not subject to death, not changeable through ages. For as he had grown to that age from infancy, so he does not decline to old age from the age which was young adulthood. He remains as he ascended. He is going to come to those to whom, before he comes, he wanted his word to be preached. So, therefore, he will come in a human form. The ungodly, too, will see this. Those placed to the right will see it too; those separated to the left will see it too, as it was written, “They shall see him whom they have pierced.” If they will see him whom they have pierced, they will see the same body which they thrust through with a spear; [for] the Word is not struck by a spear. Therefore, the ungodly will be able to see this very one whom they were also able to wound. They will not see the God lying hidden in the body; after the judgment he will be seen by those who will be on the right. This, therefore, is why he said, “The Father judges no one but has given all judgment to the Son,” because the Son will come, clearly visible, to the judgment, appearing in human body to human beings, saying to those on the right, “Come, blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom”; saying to those on the left, “Go into everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels.”

He reproved them by saying, “Are there not twelve hours in the day? If any man walks in the day, he does not stumble.” Follow me, if you do not wish to stumble: do not give counsel to me, from whom you ought to receive it. To what, then, refer the words “Are there not twelve hours in the day”? So as to point himself out as the day, he chose twelve disciples. If I am the day, he says, and you the hours, is it for the hours to give counsel to the day? The day is followed by the hours, not the hours by the day. If these, then, were the hours, what in such a reckoning was Judas? Was he also among the twelve hours? If he was an hour, he had light; and if he had light, how was the Day betrayed by him to death? But the Lord, in so speaking, foresaw not Judas himself but his successor. For Judas, when he fell, was succeeded by Matthias, and the twelvefold number preserved. It was not, then, without a purpose that the Lord chose twelve disciples, but to indicate that he himself is the spiritual Day. Let the hours then attend upon the Day, let them preach the Day, be made known and illuminated by the Day, and by the preaching of the hours may the world believe in the Day. And so in a summary way it was just this that he said, “Follow me, if you do not wish to stumble.”

But I am surprised that you think it possible for the sound of that voice which said, “You are my Son,” to be produced by the divine will acting on physical nature without the agency of a living being, and you do not think it possible for the physical appearance of any living creature and of movement like that of life to be produced by the divine will in the same way without the agency of any animal life-principle. If created nature obeys God without the actions of a vivifying soul, so that sounds are uttered such as are usually uttered by a living body and the form of articulate speech is brought to the ears, why should it not obey him so that without the agency of a vivifying soul the form and movement of a bird should be presented to the sight by the same power of the Creator?… Therefore, there is no need to inquire how the corporeal appearance of the dove was produced, just as we do not inquire how the words of an articulate body produce their sound. For, if it were possible for a soul not to be the medium by which a voice is said to have been made audible and not as a voice usually is, how much more possible was it when the dove was spoken of that this word should signify merely a physical appearance presented to the eyes without the actual nature of a living creature! These words, also, were said in that sense, “And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a mighty wind coming, and there appeared to them parted tongues as it were of fire,” where a certain phenomenon is said to be “as of a wind” and “as it were” a visible fire, like the natural fire with its customary nature, but it does not seem to mean that natural fire of the customary kind was produced.

Now, amid this admirable correspondence, there is at least this very considerable difference in the cases, in that the people in the earlier instance were deterred by a horrible dread from approaching the place where the law was given; whereas in the other case the Holy Spirit came upon them who were gathered together in expectation of his promised gift. There it was on tables of stone that the finger of God operated; here it was on the hearts of people. There the law was given outwardly, so that the unrighteous might be terrified; here it was given inwardly, so that they might be justified. For this, “Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment”—such, of course, as was written on those tables—“it is briefly comprehended,” says he, “in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Love works no ill to his neighbor: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.” Now this was not written on the tables of stone but “is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who is given to us.” God’s law, therefore, is love. “To it the carnal mind is not subject, neither indeed can be;” but when the works of love are written on tables to alarm the carnal mind, there arises the law of works and “the letter which kills” the transgressor; but when love itself is shed abroad in the hearts of believers, then we have the law of faith and the Spirit which gives life to one who loves.

For the Lord has transacted even this explicit imparting of the Holy Spirit not once but twice. For later when he arose from the dead, breathing on them, he said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” Then because he gave him at that time, did he therefore not also later send him whom he promised? Or is this not the same Holy Spirit who was both breathed by him then and later sent by him from heaven? Therefore, why his giving, which clearly was done, was done twice is another question. Perhaps this double giving of him was done in manifestation of the two commandments of love, that is of neighbor and of God, in order that love might be shown to belong to the Holy Spirit. And if another reason must be sought, this discourse must not now by an inquiry into it be expanded to greater length than it ought, yet let it be established that without the Holy Spirit we cannot love Christ and keep his commandments. We can and do keep his commandments less as we receive him less, but so much the more as we receive him more.Accordingly, not only to one who does not have him but also to one who does, he is not promised to no purpose: to the one not having, that he may be had, but to the one having, that he may be had more. For if he were not had less by the one, more by the other, the holy Elisha would not say to the holy Elijah, “May the spirit who is in you be in me in double measure.”

After having said that "Christ was put to death in the flesh, and quickened in the spirit," the apostle immediately went on to say: "in which also He went and preached unto the spirits in prison; which sometime were unbelieving, when once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water;" thereafter he added the words: "which baptism also now by a like figure has saved you." [1 Peter 3:18-21] This, therefore, is felt by me to be difficult. If the Lord when He died preached in hell to spirits in prison, why were those who continued unbelieving while the ark was a preparing the only ones counted worthy of this favour, namely, the Lord's descending into hell? For in the ages between the time of Noah and the passion of Christ, there died many thousands of so many nations whom He might have found in hell. I do not, of course, speak here of those who in that period of time had believed in God, as, e.g. the prophets and patriarchs of Abraham's line, or, going farther back, Noah himself and his house, who had been saved by water (excepting perhaps the one son, who afterwards was rejected), and, in addition to these, all others outside of the posterity of Jacob who were believers in God, such as Job, the citizens of Nineveh, and any others, whether mentioned in Scripture or existing unknown to us in the vast human family at any time. I speak only of those many thousands of men who, ignorant of God and devoted to the worship of devils or of idols, had passed out of this life from the time of Noah to the passion of Christ. How was it that Christ, finding these in hell, did not preach to them, but preached only to those who were unbelieving in the days of Noah when the ark was a preparing? Or if he preached to all, why has Peter mentioned only these, and passed over the innumerable multitude of others?

It is established beyond question that the Lord, after He had been put to death in the flesh, "descended into hell;" for it is impossible to gainsay either that utterance of prophecy, "You will not leave my soul in hell," — an utterance which Peter himself expounds in the Acts of the Apostles, lest any one should venture to put upon it another interpretation — or the words of the same apostle, in which he affirms that the Lord "loosed the pains of hell, in which it was not possible for Him to be holden." Who, therefore, except an infidel, will deny that Christ was in hell? As to the difficulty which is found in reconciling the statement that the pains of hell were loosed by Him, with the fact that He had never begun to be in these pains as in bonds, and did not so loose them as if He had broken off chains by which He had been bound, this is easily removed when we understand that they were loosed in the same way as the snares of huntsmen may be loosed to prevent their holding, not because they have taken hold. It may also be understood as teaching us to believe Him to have loosed those pains which could not possibly hold Him, but which were holding those to whom He had resolved to grant deliverance...

As to the first man, the father of mankind, it is agreed by almost the entire Church that the Lord loosed him from that prison; a tenet which must be believed to have been accepted not without reason, — from whatever source it was handed down to the Church — although the authority of the canonical Scriptures cannot be brought forward as speaking expressly in its support, though this seems to be the opinion which is more than any other borne out by these words in the book of Wisdom. [Wisdom 10:1-2] Some add to this [tradition] that the same favour was bestowed on the holy men of antiquity — on Abel, Seth, Noah and his house, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the other patriarchs and prophets, they also being loosed from those pains at the time when the Lord descended into hell...

But seeing that plain scriptural testimonies make mention of hell and its pains, no reason can be alleged for believing that He who is the Saviour went there, except that He might save from its pains; but whether He did save all whom He found held in them, or some whom He judged worthy of that favour, I still ask: that He was, however, in hell, and that He conferred this benefit on persons subjected to these pains, I do not doubt...

You perceive, therefore, how intricate is the question why Peter chose to mention, as persons to whom, when shut up in prison, the gospel was preached, those only who were unbelieving in the days of Noah when the ark was a preparing — and also the difficulties which prevent me from pronouncing any definite opinion on the subject.

I know it seems to some that the death of the Lord brought to certain just souls the same resurrection that is promised to us at the end of time, since it is written that by the earthquake that occurred at his passion the rocks were rent and the graves opened and many bodies of the saints arose and were seen with him in the holy city after his resurrection. But, if these did not resume their sleep by the reburial of their bodies, and if so many preceded him in that resurrection, we must certainly examine and find out how Christ is the “firstborn from the dead.” The answer to this might be that it was said by anticipation, but it meant that the tombs were opened by the earthquake, while Christ hung on the cross, while the bodies of the just did not rise then, but later, after he had first risen, although it was added to that sentence by anticipation, as I said, so that we should unhesitatingly believe that Christ was the firstborn from the dead, and that it was then granted to the just to rise to eternal incorruption and immortality following his leadership. In that case, there still remains this difficulty, how Peter could say—and he said it with absolute truth, since he asserted that Christ, not David, was foretold by that prophecy—that his flesh did not see corruption, but he added that the tomb of David was still with them. And this would certainly not be a convincing argument, if David’s body were no longer there, because, if he had risen at the time of Christ’s death, his flesh would not have seen corruption, but his tomb would still be there. It seems hard that David should not have been in that resurrection of the just, when Christ was of his seed, as is so often, so distinctly and so honorably repeated to his praise. Those words also would be made ineffective that were said to the Hebrews concerning the just people of old: that they provided better things for us “that they should not be perfected without us,” which would happen if they were established in that incorrupt resurrection that is promised for our perfection at the end of the world.

We know that Christ took his seat at the right hand of the Father after his resurrection from the dead and his ascension into heaven. It is already accomplished. We do not see it, yet we believe it. We have read it in the sacred Books, we have heard it preached, we hold it by faith. And by the very fact that he was the son of David, he has become David's Lord. That which was born of David's seed is so honored that he is also David's Lord. You wonder at this as if such things did not happen in human affairs. For if it should happen that someone became king, though his father was a commoner, would he not be the lord of his father? It is wonderful that it can happen: not only does the son of a commoner become king and thus the lord of his father, but the son of a layman becomes a bishop and thus the father of his father. Therefore, by the very fact that Christ took on flesh, that in the flesh he died, that in the same flesh he rose again, and in the same flesh he ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of the Father, and in the same flesh now so honored and glorified, transformed into a heavenly condition, he is still the son of David and also the Lord of David.