The Creed: The Son

I believe in Jesus Christ his only Son, our Lord

He was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary

He suffered under Pontius Pilate

was crucified, died, and was buried

He descended to the dead

On the third day he rose again

He ascended into heaven

and is seated at the right hand of the Father

He will come again to judge the living and the dead

“I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son our Lord”

Irenaeus, Against Heresies 4.20.7

The life of man is the vision of God

The Son of the Father declares [him] from the beginning, inasmuch as he was with the Father from the beginning, the same one who also showed prophetic visions to the human race—along with diversities of gifts, his own ministrations, and the glory of the Father—in regular order and connection, at the fitting time for the benefit [of mankind]. . . . And for this reason, the Word became the dispenser of the paternal grace for the benefit of men, for whom He made such great dispensations, revealing God to men and presenting man to God.

On the one hand, this preserved the invisibility of the Father, so that man should not become a despiser of God by claiming to possess in advance what he should be advancing toward. But on the other hand, this also revealed God to men through many dispensations, lest man, failing away from God altogether, should cease to exist. For the glory of God is a living man; and the life of man consists in seeing God. For if the manifestation of God, which is made by means of the creation, affords life to all living in the earth, much more does that revelation of the Father which comes through the Word, give life to those who see God.

Origen, On First Principles 1.2

1. First we must know this: that in Christ there is one nature, his deity, because he is the only-begotten Son of the Father, and another human nature, which in very recent times he took upon him to fulfill the divine purpose. Our first task therefore is to see what the only-begotten Son of God is, seeing he is called by many different names according to the circumstances and beliefs of the different writers He is called Wisdom, as Solomon said, speaking in the person of Wisdom: The Lord created me the beginning of his ways for his works. Before he made anything, before the ages he established me. In the beginning before he made the earth, before the springs of water came forth, before the mountains were settled, before all the hills he bets me (Prov. 8:22–25) . . . .

2. Now who with reverent thoughts can suppose or believe that God the Father ever existed, even for a single moment, without begetting this wisdom? For he would either say that God could not have begotten wisdom before he did beget her, so that he brought wisdom into being when she had not existed before, or else that he could have begotten her and—what is profanity even to say about God—that he was unwilling to do so. Each of these alternatives, as everyone can see, is absurd and impious, that is, either that God should advance from being unable to being able, or that, while being able, he should act as if he were not and should delay to beget wisdom.

This is why we recognize that God was always the Father of his only-begotten Son, who was indeed born of him and draws his being from him, but is yet without any beginning—not only that kind which can distinguished by periods of time, but even that which the mind alone can contemplate in itself and to perceive, so to speak, with the bare intellect and reason. Wisdom, therefore, must be believed to have been begotten beyond the limits of any beginning to have been begotten beyond the limits of any beginning that we can speak of or understand.

Rufinus of Aquileia, Commentary on the Creed 6-8

The meaning of the word “Savior” and “Son”

6. Next there follows, “And in Christ Jesus, His Only Son, Our Lord.” Jesus is a Hebrew word meaning Savior. “Christ is derived from “Chrism,” i.e. anointing. For we read in the Books of Moses, that Osee, the son of Nun, when he was chosen to lead the people, had his name changed from Osee to Jesus, to show that this was a name proper for princes and generals, for those, namely, who should save the people who followed them. Therefore, both were called Jesus, both the one who conducted the people, who had been brought forth out of the land of Egypt, and freed from the wanderings of the wilderness, into the land of promise, and the other, who conducted the people, who had been brought forth from the darkness of ignorance, and recalled from the errors of the world, into the kingdom of heaven….

Let us now see in what follows [when the creed says] “His only Son, our Lord.” Here we are taught that this Jesus ... and this Christ … is the only Son of God and our Lord. And so that you do not think that these human names have an earthly significance, it is added that he is the only Son of God, our Lord. For he is the unique offspring of a unique Father, just as there is only one brightness of light and only one word of the understanding. Being incorporeal, his generation neither results in plurality nor involves division; he who is born not separated from his begetter…. For as the Father is said by the Apostle to be alone wise, so likewise the Son alone is called wisdom. He is then the only Son. And although he is equal to the Father in glory, eternity, virtue, dominion, and power, he does not possess these unoriginately, as the Father does, but from the Father, as a Son—though without beginning and equal to the Father. And although he is the head of all things, the Father is the head of him, as it is written, The head of Christ is God (1 Cor. 11:3).

Analogical reasoning about the Son’s birth

7. When you hear the word “Son,” you must not think of a human birth in the flesh but remember that the term is being used to speak of an incorporeal substance, simple and uncompounded. As I have already pointed out, there is nothing material in the way the understanding generates a word, or the mind generates a thought, or light brings forth brightness—in such acts of generation there is no imperfection. If this is the case, how much purer and more sacred ought to be our conception of the Creator of all these!

But perhaps you say, “The generation of which you speak is an unsubstantial generation. For light does not produce substantial brightness, nor the understanding generate a substantial word, but the Son of God, it is affirmed, was generated substantially.” To this we reply, first, that when other things examples or illustrations are used, the resemblance cannot hold in every respect but only in whatever particular point the illustration is employed. For instance, when it is said in the Gospel, The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman hid in three measures of meal (Matt. 13:33), are we to imagine that the kingdom of heaven is in all respects like leaven, so that like leaven it is palpable and perishable so as to become sour and unfit for use? Obviously, the illustration was employed simply to show how the preaching of God’s word, which seems a small thing, could imbue people’s minds with the leaven of faith. . . . From this [and other examples], it is obvious that examples and illustrations do not correspond in every particular detail with the things to which they are compared. Otherwise, if they were the same in all respects, they would no longer be called examples or illustrations but would simply be the things themselves.

8. In the second place, we must point out that it is impossible for any creature to be such as its Creator. Just as there is no exact illustration of divine substance, so there is no exact illustration of deity. In addition, I would remind you that every creature is derived from nothingness.… Hence, it is correct to describe the Son’s being as God’s only Son. Because he was born in this way, he is unique and alone. Nothing that is unique can admit of any comparison—no more can the maker of all things bear any likeness in substance to the things he has made. This then is Christ Jesus, the only Son of God, who is also our Lord. For Jesus Christ is “only” both as God’s authentic Son and as our sole Lord. All other sons of God, though designated sons, have that title by the grace of adoption, not as the result of any natural relationship. (ACW 20:38-42, alt.)

Augustine, On Faith and the Creed 3–4 

The reason that he is named the Word of the Father is that he makes the Father known. Consider an analogy: when we speak (truthfully), or intention is that that our words make known our thoughts to those who hear us—that whatever we carry in our hearts secretly may be exhibited outwardly and so understood by another person by means of signs. In the same way, this Wisdom that God the Father begot is most appropriately named his Word, inasmuch as the most hidden Father is made known to worthy minds by the same.

4. Now there is a very great difference between our mind and the words by which we try to set forth our mind. Indeed, we do not “beget” intelligible words but instead form them. And in the forming of them the body is the underlying material. Between mind and body, however, there is the greatest difference. But God, when he begot the Word, begot that which he is himself. He did not beget the Word out of nothing, nor of any material already made and founded. Instead, he begot of himself that which he is himself.

John of Damascus, On the Orthodox Faith 4.8

First-born and Only-born

He who is first begotten is called “first-born,” whether he is only-begotten or the first of a number of brothers. If then the Son of God was called “first-born, but was not also called “Only-begotten,” we could imagine that he was the first-born of creatures, as being a creature. But since he is called both “first-born” and “Only-begotten,” both senses must be preserved in his case. We say that he is first-born of all creation (Col. 1:15) since both he himself is of God and creation is of God, but as he himself is born alone and timelessly of the essence of God the Father, he may with reason be called “Only-begotten Son” and “first-born” but not “first-created.” For the creation was not brought into being out of the essence of the Father, but out of nothing by his will. And he is called first-born among many brethren (Rom. 8:29), for although being only-begotten, he was also born of a mother. Since, indeed, he participated just as we ourselves do in blood and flesh and became man, while we too through him became sons of God, being adopted through the baptism, he who is by nature Son of God became first-born among us who were made by adoption and grace sons of God, and stand to him in the relation of brothers. This is why he said, I ascend unto My Father and your Father (John 20:17). He did not say our Father, but my Father—clearly in the sense of Father by nature, and your Father, in the sense of Father by grace. And My God and your God. He did not say our God, but My God: and if you distinguish with subtle thought that which is seen from that which is thought, also your God, as Maker and Lord.

“He was conceived by the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary”

Ignatius, Letter to the Ephesians 18–19

18. Let my spirit be counted as nothing for the sake of the cross, which is a stumbling-block to those that do not believe, but to us salvation and life eternal (1 Cor. 1:18). Where is the wise man? Where the disputer? Where is the boasting of those who are styled prudent? For our God, Jesus Christ, was by the appointment of God conceived in the womb by Mary, of the seed of David, but by the Holy Ghost. He was born and baptized, that by his passion he might purify the water.

19. Now the virginity of Mary was hidden from the prince of this world, as was also her offspring, and the death of the Lord. These are three renowned mysteries, wrought in silence by God. How, then, was he manifested to the world? A star shone forth in heaven above all the other stars, the light of which was inexpressible, while its novelty struck men with astonishment. And all the rest of the stars, with the sun and moon, formed a chorus to this star, and its light was exceedingly great above them all. And there was agitation felt as to whence this new spectacle came, so unlike to everything else [in the heavens]. Hence every kind of magic was destroyed, and every bond of wickedness disappeared; ignorance was removed, and the old kingdom abolished, God himself being manifested in human form for the renewal of eternal life. And now that took a beginning that had been prepared by God. From then on, all things were in a state of tumult, because he enacted the abolition of death.

Athanasius, On the Incarnation 9, 20, 44, 54

The Purpose of the Incarnation

9. For the Word, realizing that in no other way would the corruption of human beings be undone except, simply, by dying, yet being immortal and the Son of the Father the Word was not able to die, for this reason he takes to himself a body capable of death, in order that, participating in the Word who is above all, might be sufficient for death on behalf of us all, and through the indwelling Word would remain incorruptible, and so corruption might henceforth cease from all by the grace of the resurrection. Whence, by offering to death the body he had taken to himself as an offering holy and free of all spot, he immediately abolished death from all like him, by the offering of a like. . . . And now the very corruption of death no longer holds ground against human beings because of the indwelling Word, in them through the one body. As when a great king has entered some large city and made his dwelling in one of the houses in it, such a city is certainly made worthy of high honor, and no longer does any enemy or bandit descend upon it, but it is rather reckoned worthy of all care because of the king’s having taken residence in one of its houses; so also does it happen with the King of all. Coming himself into our realm, and dwelling in a body like the others, every design of the enemy against human beings had henceforth ceased, and the corruption of death, which had prevailed against them, perished. For the race of human beings would have been utterly destroyed had not the master and Savior of all, the Son of God, come for the completion of death. (trans. Behr, 58)

Incorruptible body

20. Therefore the body, as it had the common substance of all bodies, was a human body. If it was constituted by a new miracle from a virgin only, yet being mortal it died in conformity with those like it. Yet by the coming of the Word into it, it was no longer corruptible by its own nature but because of the indwelling Word of God it became immune from corruption. And thus it happened that both things occurred together in a paradoxical manner: the death of all was completed in the lordly body, and also death and corruption were destroyed by the Word in it. (Behr, 71)

Could God have saved another way?

44. But perhaps some will say that God should have [saved humankind] by a nod only and his Word should not have touched a body, just as when he created them of old, making them out of nothing. To this objection, the following could reasonably be said: that formerly, when nothing at all exited, only a nod and an act of will was needed for the creation of the universe. But when the human being had once been made, and necessity required the healing, not for things that were not, but for things that had come to be, it followed that the healer and Savior had to come among those had already been created, to heal what existed. . . . For it was not non-existent things that needed salvation, so that a command alone would have sufficed, but the human being, already in existence, who was corrupted and perishing. (Behr, 96–7)

He was incarnate that we might be made god

54. Therefore, just as if someone wishes to see God, who is invisible by nature and not seen at all, understands and knows him from his works, so let one who does not see Christ with his mind learn of him from the works of his body, and test whether they be human or of God. And if they be human, let him mock; but if they are known to be not human, but of God, let him not laugh . . . but marvel that through such a paltry thing things divine have been manifested to us, and that through death incorruptibility has come to all, and through the incarnation of the Word the universal providence, and its giver and creator, the very Word of God, have been made known. For he was incarnate that we might be made god; and he manifested himself through a body that we might receive an idea of the invisible Father; and he endured the insults of human beings, that we might inherit incorruptibility. He himself was harmed in no way, being impassible and incorruptible and the very Word and God; but he held and preserve in his own impassibility the suffering of human beings, on whose account he endured these things. (trans. Behr, 107)

Augustine, On Faith and the Creed 4.9–10

The Incarnation confers honor on both sexes

9. Those who deny that our Lord Jesus Christ had an earthly mother, Mary, are also worthy of contempt. For that divine saving economy conferred honor on both sexes, masculine and feminine, and demonstrated that, by being clothed in the nature of a man through his birth from a woman, God’s love extends not only to what he assumed but also to the one through whom he assumed. . . .

10. We must not allow the thought of a female womb to undermine our faith, leading us to recoil from such a birth on the part of our Lord, one which the foul-minded consider unclean, for the apostle speaks with absolute truth when he says, God’s folly is wiser than human wisdom (1 Cor. 1:25) and, To the clean, all things are clean (Tim. 1:15). . . . [Consider the way that] rays [of sunlight] penetrate even to the very stench and other such repulsive places, acting according to their nature without in any way suffering contamination as a result, because by its nature visible light is closer to what is foul and what can be seen. How much less, therefore, could the Word of God, being neither corporeal nor visible, be contaminated through the body of a woman, when he assumed human flesh with soul and spirit, the means by which the majesty of the Word indwells, and in a manner hidden from the frailty of a human body! And so it becomes abundantly clear that the Word of God could not possibly suffer corruption through a human body, for not even the human soul itself is tainted by its union with the body. (WSA 163)

Rufinus of Aquileia, Commentary on the Creed 9

The human birth an accommodation, the divine birth from his essential nature

“Who was born by (de) the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary.” This birth among humanity is in the way of dispensation, whereas the former birth is of the divine substance. The one results from his condescension, the other from his essential nature. He is born by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin. Here a chaste ear and a pure mind is required. For you must understand that now a temple has been built within the secret recesses of a Virgin’s womb for him of whom earlier you learned that he was born ineffably of the Father. And just as in the sanctification of the Holy Ghost no thought of imperfection is to be admitted, so in the Virgin-birth no defilement is to be imagined. For this birth was a new birth given to this world, and rightly new. For he who is the only Son in heaven is by consequence the only Son on earth, and was uniquely born, born as no other ever was or can be.

Peter Chrysologus, Sermon 57

Where the Spirit is begetting, and a Virgin giving birth, everything carried on is divine; nothing of it is merely human. Neither is there any place for weakness where power is united to power. Adam was put into a deep sleep that a virgin might be taken from the virile half of the race; now, the Virgin was amazed that mankind was to be renewed from a virgin. What will nature be able to claim as her own from such a great birth in which, while she see her order being renewed and all her rights being changed, she perceives with wonder that her Creator has come into his own offspring? Let faithless men, if they will, think this something cheap. To believers it is a great mystery.

John of Damascus, On the Orthodox Faith 3.2

So then, after the assent of the Holy Virgin, the Holy Spirit descended on her, according to the word of the Lord which the angel spoke, purifying her, and granting her power to receive the divinity of the Word, and likewise power to bring forth. And then was she overshadowed by the enhypostatic Wisdom and Power of the most high God, the Son of God, who is of like essence with the Father as of Divine seed, and from her holy and most pure blood he formed flesh animated with the spirit of reason and thought, the first-fruits of our compound nature—not by procreation but by creation through the Holy Spirit; not developing the fashion of the body by gradual additions but perfecting it at once, he himself, the very Word of God, standing to the flesh in the relation of subsistence.

For the divine Word was not made one with flesh that had an independent pre-existence , but taking up his abode in the womb of the Holy Virgin, he unreservedly in his own subsistence took upon himself through the pure blood of the eternal Virgin a body of flesh animated with the spirit of reason and thought, thus assuming to himself the first-fruits of man’s compound nature, himself, the Word, having become a subsistence in the flesh. So that he is at once flesh, and at the same time flesh of God the Word, and likewise flesh animated, possessing both reason and thought. Wherefore we speak not of man as having become God, but of God as having become Man. For being by nature perfect God, he naturally became likewise perfect Man: and did not change his nature nor make the dispensation an empty show, but became, without confusion or change or division, one in subsistence with the flesh, which was conceived of the Holy Virgin, and animated with reason and thought, and had found existence in him, while he did not change the nature of his divinity into the essence of flesh, nor the essence of flesh into the nature of his divinity, and did not make one compound nature out of his divine nature and the human nature he had assumed. 

Cyril of Alexandria, Letter 4.3 (Second Letter to Nestorius)

Incarnation does not mean a change in the nature of the Word

In declaring that the Word was made to “be incarnate” and “made human”, we do not assert that there was any change in the nature of the Word when it became flesh, or that it was transformed into an entire human being, consisting of soul and body; but we say that the Word, in an indescribable and inconceivable manner, united personally to himself flesh endowed with a rational soul, and thus became a human being and was called the Son of man. And this was not by a mere act of will or favor, nor simply adopting a role or taking to himself a person. The natures which were brought together to form a true unity were different; but out of both is one Christ and one Son. We do not mean that the difference of the natures is annihilated by reason of this union; but rather that the divinity and humanity, by their inexpressible and inexplicable concurrence into unity, have produced for us the one Lord and Son Jesus Christ. It is in this sense that he is said to have been born also of a woman after the flesh, though he existed and was begotten from the Father before all ages . . . . It was not that an ordinary human being was first born of the holy Virgin, and that afterwards the Word descended upon him. He was united with the flesh in the womb itself, and thus is said to have undergone a birth after the flesh, inasmuch as he made his own the birth of his own flesh.

Maximus the Confessor, Ambiguum 7

Incarnation and Deification

By his gracious condescension God became man and is called man for the sake of man and by exchanging his condition for our revealed the power that elevates man to God through his love for God and brings God down to man because of his love for man. By this blessed inversion, man is made God by divinization and God is made man by hominization. For the Word of God and God wills always and in all things to accomplish the mystery of his embodiment.

 “Suffered under Pontius Pilate”

Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Smyrnaeans 2

Against Docetism

Now, he suffered all these things for our sakes, that we might be saved. And he suffered truly, even as also he truly raised up himself. He did not, as certain unbelievers maintain, only seem to suffer (as they themselves only seem to be Christians). And as they believe, so shall it happen unto them, when they shall be divested of their bodies, and be mere evil spirits. 

Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Trallians 10–11

Christ’s suffering and martyrdom

But if, as some that are without God, that is, the unbelieving, say, that he only seemed to suffer, then why am I in chains? Why do I long to be exposed to the wild beasts? Do I therefore die in vain? Am I not then guilty of falsehood against the cross of the Lord? Flee, therefore, those evil offshoots [of Satan], which produce death-bearing fruit, whereof if any one tastes, he instantly dies. For these men are not the planting of the Father. For if they were, they would appear as branches of the cross, and their fruit would be incorruptible. By it he calls you through his passion, as being his members. The head, therefore, cannot be born by itself, without its members; God, who is [the Saviour] himself, having promised their union.

Hilary of Poitiers, On the Trinity 10.23

So the Man Jesus Christ, Only-begotten God, as flesh and as Word at the same time Son of Man and Son of God, without ceasing to be Himself, that is, God, took true humanity after the likeness of our humanity. But when, in this humanity, He was struck with blows, or smitten with wounds, or bound with ropes, or lifted on high, He felt the force of suffering, but without its pain. Thus a dart passing through water, or piercing a flame, or wounding the air, inflicts all that it is its nature to do: it passes through, it pierces, it wounds; but all this is without effect on the thing it strikes; since it is against the order of nature to make a hole in water, or pierce flame, or wound the air, though it is the nature of a dart to make holes, to pierce and to wound. So our Lord Jesus Christ suffered blows, hanging, crucifixion and death: but the suffering which attacked the body of the Lord, without ceasing to be suffering, had not the natural effect of suffering. It exercised its function of punishment with all its violence; but the body of Christ by its virtue suffered the violence of the punishment, without its consciousness. True, the body of the Lord would have been capable of feeling pain like our natures, if our bodies possessed the power of treading on the waters, and walking over the waves without weighing them down by our tread or forcing them apart by the pressure of our steps, if we could pass through solid substances, and the barred doors were no obstacle to us. But, as only the body of our Lord could be borne up by the power of His soul in the waters, could walk upon the waves, and pass through walls, how can we judge of the flesh conceived of the Holy Ghost on the analogy of a human body? That flesh, that is, that Bread, is from Heaven; that humanity is from God. He had a body to suffer, and He suffered: but He had not a nature which could feel pain. For His body possessed a unique nature of its own; it was transformed into heavenly glory on the Mount, it put fevers to flight by its touch, it gave new eyesight by its spittle.

Augustine, City of God 14.9

Jesus’ experienced true emotions as part of his incarnate life

Concerning the question of mental disturbances (perturbations) . . . . According to the sacred Scriptures and sound doctrine, the citizens of the holy city of God, who live according to God in the pilgrimage of this life, both fear and desire, and grieve and rejoice. And because their love is rightly placed, all these affections of theirs are right. They fear eternal punishment, they desire eternal life; they grieve because they themselves groan within themselves, waiting for the adoption, the redemption of their body (Romans 8:23) . . . .

Even the Lord Himself, when he condescended to lead a human life in the form of a slave (Phil. 2:6–10) had no sin whatever, and yet exercised these emotions where he judged they should be exercised. For as there was in him a true human body and a true human soul, so was there also a true human emotion. So when we read in the Gospels that the hard-heartedness of the Jews moved him to sorrowful indignation (Mark 3:5), or when he said, I am glad for your sakes, to the intent you may believe (John 11:15), or when he shed tears before raising Lazarus (John 11:35), or when he said that he earnestly desired to eat the Passover with his disciples (Luke 22:15), or when, as his passion drew near, his soul was sorrowful (Matt. 26:38)—all these emotions are certainly not falsely ascribed to him. But as he became man when it pleased him, so, in the grace of his definite purpose, when it pleased him he experienced those emotions in his human soul.

But we must admit that even when these affections are well regulated and according to God’s will, they are peculiar to this life and not to that future life we look for, and that often we yield to them against our will. And thus sometimes we weep in spite of ourselves, being carried beyond ourselves, not indeed by culpable desire; but by praiseworthy charity. In us, therefore, these affections arise from human infirmity. But it was not so with the Lord Jesus, for even his infirmity was the consequence of his power. But so long as we wear the infirmity of this life, we are rather worse men than better if we have none of these emotions at all. . . . And therefore that which the Greeks call apatheia, and what the Latins would call, if their language would allow them, impassibilitas, if it be taken to mean an impassibility of spirit and not of body, or, in other words, a freedom from those emotions which are contrary to reason and disturb the mind, then it is obviously a good and most desirable quality, but it is not one which is attainable in this life. . . . When there shall be no more sin in humanity, then there will be apatheia. In the present, however, it is enough if we live without crime. And he who thinks he lives without sin does not in fact put away sin, but pardon.

If we were to call apathy a state of being in which the mind is the subject of no emotion, who would not consider this insensibility to be worse than all vices? It may be that in the state of hoped-for blessedness that we will be free from the sting of fear or sadness. But who in their right mind would say that we will experience neither love nor joy shall there? If by apathy one means a condition in which there is no fear that terrifies us nor any pain that annoys us, we must in this life renounce such a state if we would live according to God’s will, but we may hope to enjoy it in that blessedness that is promised as our eternal condition. . . .

A good life has all these affections rightly ordered, while a bad life has them wrongly ordered. In the blessed life of eternity, there will be love and joy that is not only right but also assured. But there will be no fear or grief. From this, we can begin to see how citizens of the City of God are to live in their earthly pilgrimage—they live after the spirit, not after the flesh, that is, according to God, not man. . . . The city of the wicked, however, who do not live according to God but according to man . . . are shaken with those wicked emotions as by diseases and disturbances. And if there are some who seem to restrain and, as it were, temper those passions, they become so elated with ungodly pride that their disease increases as their pain decreases. And if some . . . have become enamored with themselves because they are no longer aroused or excited by any emotion, not moved by any affection—such persons rather lose their humanity rather than obtain true tranquility. For a thing is not necessarily right because it is inflexible, nor healthy because it is insensible.

Peter Chrysologus, Sermon 57

You hear the name of the Judge that you may recognize the exact time of Christ’s Passion. You hear that he was crucified that you may acknowledge that the salvation once lost for us has been restored through exactly that, through which it has been lost; also, that you may see the Life for believers hanging there where death had hung for faithless men. You perceive that He was buried, that His death may not be deemed something merely feigned. This is a sign of divine power: when death itself dies because of a death, when the author of death is maimed by his own sword point, and the pirate is captured by his own prey, hell is deprived of the life it has already swallowed.

Cyril of Alexandria, On the creed 24

God’s word is, of course, undoubtedly impassible in his own nature, and nobody is so mad as to imagine the all-transcending nature capable of suffering. But by very reason of the fact that he has become man, making flesh from the holy virgin his own, we adhere to the principles of the divine plan and maintain that he who as God transcends suffering, suffered humanly in his flesh.

If whilst being God he has become man yet has not departed from any aspect of his being God; if he has been made part of creation and yet abides above creation; if whilst being as God the giver of law was being made under law and yet was still giver of law, and whilst being, divinely, master he put on slaves’ form, and yet retains unimpaired the dignity of mastership; if whilst being only-begotten he was been made the first-born among many brethren and yet is still only -begotten, does it tax credibility if by the same token he suffered humanly and yet is seen as divinely impassible? (trans. L. Wickham, Cyril of Alexandria: Select Letters [Oxford: Clarendon, 1983], 123).

Cyril of Alexandria, Letter 4.5 (Second Letter to Nestorius)

In the same way we say that he “suffered and rose again.” We do not mean that God the Word suffered blows or the piercing of nails or other wounds in his own nature, in that the divine is impassible because it is not physical. But the body which had become his own body suffered these things, and therefore he himself is said to have suffered them for us. The impassible was in the body which suffered (in Cyril of Alexandria, Select Letters, ed. L. R. Wickham, Oxford Early Christian Texts [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983], 6.28.)

“Was crucified, died, and was buried.”

Irenaeus, Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching 34, 37

34. And the trespass which came by the tree was undone by the tree of obedience, when, hearkening unto God, the Son of man was nailed to the tree; thereby putting away the knowledge of evil and bringing in and establishing the knowledge of good. Now evil is to disobey God, even as hearkening unto God is good. And for this cause the Word spoke by Isaiah the prophet, announcing beforehand that which was to come. For they are prophets because they proclaim what is to come. By the prophet, then, the Word spoke thus: I refuse not, nor gainsay: I gave my back to scourging, and my cheeks to smiting; and my face I turned not away from the shame of spitting.

So then by the obedience wherewith He obeyed even unto death, hanging on the tree, He put away the old disobedience which was wrought in the tree. Now seeing that He is the Word of God Almighty, who in unseen wise in our midst is universally extended in all the world, and encompasses its length and breadth and height and depth—for by the Word of God the whole universe is ordered and disposed—in it is crucified the Son of God, inscribed crosswise upon it all. For it is right that He being made visible, should set upon all things visible the sharing of His cross, that He might show His operation on visible things through a visible form. For He it is who illuminates the height, that is the heavens; and encompasses the deep which is beneath the earth; and stretches and spreads out the length from east to west; and steers across the breadth of north and south; summoning all that are scattered in every quarter to the knowledge of the Father . . . .

37. Thus then He gloriously achieved our redemption, and fulfilled the promise of the fathers, and abolished the old disobedience. The Son of God became Son of David and Son of Abraham, perfecting and summing up this in Himself so that He might make us to possess life. The Word of God was made flesh by the dispensation of the Virgin, to abolish death and make man live. For we were imprisoned by sin, being born in sinfulness and living under death.

Theophilus of Alexandria, Homily on the Crucifixion

Do you realize how great is the Father’s mercy towards us, and that of his Son, who mounted on the cross for the salvation of the entire created world? For the moment he was hung on the cross, he purified the whole of creation, the things of heaven and the things below. His divine body, then, hanging on the cross made the whole air clean and pure. With the shedding of his sacred blood, the whole earth was equally purified of its contamination. Moreover, his divinity descended into Hades, despoiled it, and released the souls shut up in darkness, setting them free. For this is what he promised us with his mouth of truth, which in all eternity has never uttered any falsehood. . . .

Ponder, then, my beloved, and reflect on God’s mercy towards the world. He who had clothed the whole of creation was despoiled of his own clothing. He was left naked on the wood of the cross. But the sun, that wise minister, covered its Lord with darkness, which endured until the eyes of those atheists were dimmed, so that they should not see the great mystery that lay on the wood of the cross, for they are not worthy of it. . . .

The cross is the completion of the sacred mystery. For when the bread and wine are sacrificed on the holy altar, they are no longer bread and wine as before, but a divine body and a sacred blood.

The cross is the consolation of those who are afflicted by their sins. The cross is the straight highway. Those who walk on it do not go astray. The cross is the lofty tower that gives shelter to those who seek refuge in it. The cross is the sacred ladder that raises humanity to the heavens. The cross is the holy garment that Christians wear. The cross is the helper of the wretched, assisting all the oppressed. The cross is that which closed the temples of the idols and opened the churches and crowns them. The cross is that which has confounded the demons and made them flee in terror. The cross is the firm constitution of ships admired for their beauty. The cross is the joy of the priests who dwell in the house of God with decorum. The cross is the immutable judge of the apostles. The cross is the golden lampstand whose holy cover gives light. The cross is the father of orphans, watching over them. The cross is the judge of widows, drying the tears of their eyes. The cross is the consolation of pilgrims. The cross is the companion of those who are in solitude. The cross is the ornament of the sacred altar. The cross is the affliction of those who are bitter. The cross is our help in our hour of bodily need. The cross is the administration of the demented. The cross is the steward of those who entrust their cares to the Lord. The cross is the purity of virgins. The cross is the solid preparation. The cross is the physician who heals all maladies.

Athanasius, On the Incarnation 10.5

By the sacrifice of his own body, he put an end to the law which was against us and made a new beginning for us by the hope of resurrection. It was because of humans that death prevailed over humanity, and because the Word of God became human that death was destroyed and life raised up again. One follower of Christ said, Since death came through humanity, through humanity came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive (1 Cor. 15:21). We no longer die in condemnation, but await the resurrection of all, which he will bring about at the right time (1 Tim. 6:15)—he being God, the one who brought it about and bestowed it upon us.

Rufinus of Aquileia, Commentary on the Creed 14, 16, 17

Why the Cross?

14. Since there are so many kinds of death by which people depart this life, why does the Apostle wish us to know why, of all of them, the Cross was chosen for the death of the Savior? We must know, mainly, that that Cross was a triumph. It was a signal trophy. A triumph is a token of victory over an enemy. Since then when Christ came he brought three kingdoms at once into subjection under his sway—which signifies when he says, That in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things on earth, and things under the earth (Phil. 2:10)—and conquered all of these by his death, a death was sought answerable to the mystery, so that being lifted up in the air, and subduing the powers of the air, he might make a display of his victory over these supernatural and celestial powers. Moreover the holy Prophet says that all the day long he stretched out his hands (Isa. 65:2) to the people on the earth, that he might both make protestation to unbelievers and invite believers: finally, by that part which is sunk under the earth, he signified his bringing into subjection to himself the kingdoms of the nether world.

Christ’s death does not diminish his divinity but is the means of defeating the devil

16. But perhaps someone is alarmed at hearing us discourse of the death of him of whom, a short while ago, we said that he is everlasting with God the Father, and that he was begotten of the Father’s substance, and is one with God the Father, in dominion, majesty, and eternity. But be not alarmed, O faithful hearer. Presently you will see him of whose death you hear once more immortal; for the death to which he submits is about to spoil death. For the object of the mystery of the Incarnation, which we expounded just now, was that the divine virtue of the Son of God, like a hook concealed beneath the form and fashion of human flesh … might lure the Prince of this world to a conflict, and in offering his flesh as bait, his divinity underneath might catch him and hold him fast with its hook, through the shedding of his immaculate blood. For he alone who knows no stain of sin has destroyed the sins of all—of those, at least, who have marked the door-posts of their faith with his blood. As, therefore, if a fish seizes a baited hook, it not only does not take the bait off the hook, but is drawn out of the water to be itself food for others, so he who had the power of death seized the body of Jesus in death, not being aware of the hook of divinity inclosed within it, but having swallowed it he was caught immediately, and the bars of hell being burst asunder, he was drawn forth as it were from the abyss to become food for others….

17. It is with no loss of his divine nature that Christ suffered in the flesh, but his divine nature through the flesh descended to death. By the infirmity of the flesh he might affect salvation. He was not detained by death according to the law of mortality, but, in his resurrection, he opened the gates of death. It is as if a king were to proceed to a prison, and to go in and open the doors, undo the fetters, break in pieces the chains, the bars, and the bolts. Bringing forth and setting at liberty the prisoners, he restored to light and life those who are sitting in darkness and in the shadow of death (Matt. 4:16, Isa. 42:7 LXX). The king, therefore, is said indeed to have been in prison, but not under the same condition as the prisoners who were detained there. They were in prison to be punished, he to free them from punishment.

“He descended into Hell.”

Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Trallians 9

He really, not merely in appearance, was crucified, and died, in the sight of beings in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth. By those in heaven I mean such as are possessed of incorporeal natures. By those on earth, the Jews and Romans, and such persons as were present at that time when the Lord was crucified. Those under the earth are the multitude that arose along with the Lord. The Scripture says, Many bodies of the saints that slept arose (Matt. 27:52), their graves being opened. He descended, indeed, into Hades alone, but He arose accompanied by a multitude. He tore apart that means of separation which had existed from the beginning of the world, and cast down its partition-wall.

Tertullian, On the Soul 55

With us the underworld is not believed to be a bare cavity or some kind of cesspool of the world open to the sky; but a vast space in a deep pit beneath the earth, a hidden depth in the earth’s very bowels; since we read that Christ spent three days ‘in the heart of the earth’, that is in the farthest inner recess which is concealed in the very earth, and hollowed out within it and superimposed on the abysses which stretch away underneath. Now Christ is God, because he both died as man according to the Scriptures and was buried according to the same Scriptures, here also he fulfilled the law of his humanity by complying with the condition of human death in the underworld; nor did he ‘ascend to the heights’ of heaven before he had ‘descended into the depths’ of the earth that he might make the prophets and patriarchs partakers of himself. You have to believe that the underworld is a subterranean region, and elbow off those who are arrogant enough to suppose that the souls of the faithful are too good for the underworld.… ‘But’, they say, ‘Christ went to the underworld just for this purpose, that we should not go there.’ Or, ‘What distinction is there between heathen and Christians, if there is the same prison for them when they are dead?’ How then shall the soul rise up to heaven, where Christ already sits at the Father’s right hand, when as yet the command of God has not been heard by means of the archangel’s trumpet, when those whom the Lord’s coming shall find on earth have not yet been ‘caught up into the air to meet him’, together with ‘the dead in Christ who shall first arise?’ Heaven is opened to no man while the earth still remains intact. I would not say it is shut [for ever]; for when the earth passes away the kingdom of heaven will be unbarred. But shall we sleep in the upper air with the perverts of Plato, or in the lower air with Arius, or around the moon with the Endymions of the Stoics? ‘Why’, you say, ‘in paradise, whither already the patriarchs and prophets have migrated from the underworld in the train of the Lord’s resurrection?’ And how then is it that John, when the region of paradise, beneath the altar, was revealed to him in the spirit, was shown no other souls there but those of the martyrs? How is it that the most valiant martyr Perpetua, just before the day of her passion, saw in the revelations of paradise only her fellow-martyrs there?… (Henry Bettenson, Early Christian Fathers, 160–161)

Clement of Alexandria, Stromates 6.6

The Lord preached the Gospel to those in Hades. Accordingly the Scripture says, “Hades says to Destruction, ‘We have not seen His form, but we have heard His voice’ (cf. Job 28:22). It is not the place that heard the voice, but those who have been put in Hades, and have abandoned themselves to destruction, as persons who have thrown themselves voluntarily from a ship into the sea. They, then, are those that hear the divine power and voice. Who in his senses can suppose the souls of the righteous and those of sinners in the same condemnation? Do not the Scriptures show that the Lord preached the Gospel to those that perished in the flood, to those kept ‘in prison’” (1 Peter 4:6)?

Christ also exerts His might because it is His work to save. He did this by drawing to salvation those who became willing, by the preaching of the Gospel, to believe on Him, wherever they were. The Lord descended to Hades to preach the Gospel to all. All who believe shall be saved, even the Gentiles, on making their profession there. God’s punishments are saving and disciplinary, leading to conversion, and choosing rather the repentance than the death of a sinner (Ezekiel 18:23, 32; 33:11). Souls, who had been darkened by passions, when released from their bodies, are able to perceive more clearly, because they are no longer obstructed by the flesh. Further, the Gospel says ‘that many bodies of those that slept arose’ (Matthew 27:52), plainly as having been translated to a better state. There took place, then, a universal movement and translation through the economy of Christ. Those who lived rightly before the Law were classed under faith (Romans 3:29-30; 10:12), and judged to be righteous. It is evident that those, who were outside of the Law, having lived rightly, though they are in Hades (1 Peter 3:19), on hearing the voice of the Lord, turned and believed. We remember that the Lord is ‘the power of God’” (1 Corinthians 1:24).

People obtained the same dispensation in Hades, so that even there, all the souls, on hearing the proclamation, might either exhibit repentance, or confess that their punishment was just, because they didn’t believe. This was not the exercise of arbitrariness. Those who had departed before the Advent of the Lord, who didn’t have the Gospel preached to them, and had no ground for believing or not, needed the opportunity to obtain either salvation or punishment. It is not right that these should be condemned without trial, and that those alone who lived after the Advent should have the advantage of the divine righteousness. But to all rational souls it was said from above, ‘Whatever you have done in ignorance, without clearly knowing God, if, on becoming conscious, he repent, all his sins will be forgiven him’ (Acts 3:17-19, 17:30). ‘Behold, I have set before your face death and life, that you may choose life’ (Deuteronomy 30:15, 19). God says that He set, not that He made, in order to offer the comparison of choice. In another Scripture He says, ‘If you listen tor Me, and are willing, you shall eat the good of the land. But if you do not listen to Me, and are not willing, the sword shall devour you; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken these things’” (Isaiah 1:19-20)

Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures 14.19

Death was panic-stricken on seeing a new visitant descending into the nether world, One not subject to the bonds of the place. Why, O you porters of hell, were you terrified on seeing Him? What unaccustomed fear seized upon you? Death fled away and his flight convicted him of cowardice. The holy prophets ran forward, and Moses the Lawgiver, and Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; David also and Samuel; Isaia and John the Baptist, who bore witness to Him when he said: “Art thou he who is to come, or shall we look for another?” All the Just, whom death had swallowed up, were ransomed; for it was fitting that the King who had been heralded should be the Redeemer of His noble heralds. Then each of the Just said: “ ‘O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?’ For the Conqueror has ransomed us.” (FC 64:44)

Hilary of Poitiers, On the Trinity 10.34.

Christ’s Divine Nature, with such power, could not be shut up within the confines of the netherworld, nor even subjected to fear of it. When He descended to Hades, He was never absent from Paradise, just as He was always in Heaven when He was preaching on earth as the Son of Man. He promised His martyr a home there, and held out to him the transports of perfect happiness. Bodily fear cannot touch Him who reaches down as far as Hades, but by the power of His nature is present in all things everywhere. The abyss of Hell and the terrors of death cannot lay hold on the nature that rules the world, boundless in the freedom of its spiritual power, confident of the raptures of Paradise. The Lord, who was to descend to Hades, was also to dwell in Paradise.

Separate, if you can, from His indivisible nature a part, which could fear punishment; send the one part of Christ to Hades to suffer pain, the other, you must leave in Paradise to reign. The thief said, ‘Remember me when You come in Your Kingdom’ (Luke 23:42). It was the groan he heard, I suppose, when the nails pierced the hands of our Lord, which provoked in him this blessed confession of faith. He learned the Kingdom of Christ from His weakened and stricken body! He begs that Christ will remember him when He comes in His Kingdom. Did Christ fear as He hung dying on the cross? The Lord promised him, ‘Today, shall you be with Me in Paradise.' The thief confessed Christ in His Kingdom as He hung on the cross, and was rewarded with Paradise from the cross. You who impute to Christ the pain of punishment and the fear of death, will fail to enter Paradise and His Kingdom.

Gaudentius of Brescia, Tractates 10.11–12.

Clearly also, the Son of God rested from all His works, which God had begun to do, when, all wonders having been completed and every work of His passion finished on the sixth day, He rested, buried, on the seventh day, that is, the Sabbath day. But because the very rest of God is productive, no rest may be profitless. For, with His body left in the grave, His divinity, descending with the soul of the man to hell, called forth from their places the souls of the saints whose bodies had risen. The evangelist Matthew testifies to this, saying: “and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep arose, and coming forth from the tombs after His resurrection they entered the holy city and appeared to many.” Not only the epistle of St. Peter, but the prophecy of the blessed David as well, testify that the soul of the Savior descended to those visiting below; David says: “Because you will not leave my soul in hell, nor will you give your holy one to see corruption.” The Son of God did not descend below with the soul of the assumed man in order to leave it there, but that He might recall many souls to the risen bodies of the saints. For this reason, He who was ever in the form of a slave, taking the form of a slave, took also the cross so that on rising on the third day He might triumph over the death He had taken upon Himself. The Lord of life was not going to permit this death to continue in any manner.

Rufinus of Aquileia, Commentary on the Creed 18, 28, 30

(Rufinus’ Commentary is the first explicit evidence of the inclusion of this phrase in a creed, and he is aware that it is not in the creeds of other churches. It also appeared earlier, in a credal formulae at the Council of Sirmium in 357.)

Prophetic testimony to Christ’s descent

18. But it should be known that the clause, “He descended into Hell,” is not added in the Creed of the Roman Church, neither is it in that of the Oriental Churches. It seems to be implied, however, when it is said that “He was buried.”

28. “That Christ descended into hell is also foretold in the Psalms, ‘You have brought Me also into the dust of the death’ (Psalm 22:15). Again, ‘What profit is there in my blood, when I shall have descended into corruption?’ (Psalm 30:9) Again, ‘I descended into the deep mire, where there is no bottom’ (Psalm 69:2). Moreover, John says, ‘Are You He that shall come (into hell, without doubt), or do we look for another?’ (Matthew 11:3, Luke 7:20) Also Peter says that ‘Christ being put to death in the flesh, but quickened in the Spirit which dwells in Him, descended to the spirits who were shut up in prison; who in the days of Noah believed not, to preach unto them’ (1 Peter 3:18-20).

What He did in hell is declared by this. Moreover, the Lord says by the Prophet, as though speaking of the future, ‘You will not leave my soul in hell, neither will You suffer Your Holy One to see corruption’ (Psalm 16:10). In prophetic language he speaks of the descent into hell as actually fulfilled, ‘O Lord, You have brought my soul out of hell; You have saved me from them that go down into the pit’” (Psalm 30:3 LXX).

30. “It is said then in the Psalms, ‘I laid me down and slept, and rose up again, because the Lord sustained me’ (Psalm 3:5). Again, ‘Because of the wretchedness of the needy and the groaning of the poor, now will I arise, says the Lord’ (Psalm 12:5). In another place, ‘Because You have turned and quickened me, and brought me out of the deep of the earth again’ (Psalm 71:20 LXX). He is also spoken of, ‘He became as a man without help, free among the dead’ (Psalm 88:4-5). It is not said ‘a man’, but ‘as a man’. In that He descended into hell, He was ‘as a man’; but He was ‘free among the dead’, because He could not be detained by death. Therefore in the one nature, the power of human weakness; in the other, the power of divine majesty is exhibited.

Leo the Great, Epistle 15

Leo the Great, Letter 15

Furthermore in the matter which you placed last in your confidential letter, I am surprised that any intelligent Christian should be in difficulty as to whether when Christ descended to the realms below, his flesh rested in the tomb: for as it truly died and was buried, so it was truly raised the third day. For this the Lord Himself also had announced, saying to the Jews, destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up (John 2:19). Where the evangelist adds this comment: but this He spoke of the temple of His body. The truth of which the prophet David also had predicted, speaking in the person of the Lord and Savior, and saying: Moreover my flesh also shall rest in hope; because You will not leave my soul in Hades, nor give Your Holy One to see corruption (Ps. 16:10; Acts 2:27). From these words surely it is clear that the Lord’s flesh being buried, both truly rested and did not undergo corruption: because it was quickly revived by the return of the soul, and rose again. Not to believe this is blasphemous enough, and is undoubtedly of a piece with the doctrine of Manichaeus and Priscillian, who with their blasphemous conceptions pretend to confess Christ, but only in such a way as to destroy the reality of His incarnation, and death, and resurrection.

Gregory the Great, Epistle to George the Presbyter 7.15

Christ, in his descent, did not rescue all in Hades but only those who believed and observed his precepts

Some had said that Christ, when He descended into hell, saved all who there acknowledged Him as God, and delivered them from the pains due to them. I desire that we should think very differently. When He descended into hell, He delivered through His grace those only who both believed that He should come and observed His precepts in their lives. It is evident that after the Incarnation of the Lord no one can be saved, even of those who hold His Faith, who don’t have the life of faith. Since it is written, ‘They acknowledge that they know God, but in deeds they deny Him’ (Titus 1:16). John says, ‘He that says that he knows Him, and does not keep His commandments, is a liar (1 John 2:4). James also, the brother of the Lord, writes saying, ‘Faith without works is dead’ (James 2:20). Are believers now saved without good works, while the unbelieving and reprobate without good action were saved by our Lord descending into hell? If so, then the lot of those who never saw the Incarnation of the Lord was better than that of these who have been born after the mystery of His Incarnation. But it is stupid to say or think this, and the Lord Himself testifies to His disciples, ‘Many kings and prophets have desired to see the things which you see, and have not seen them’” (Matthew 13:17; Luke 10:24).

Considering, therefore, all these things; and do not hold anything but what the true faith teaches through the Catholic Church. The Lord, in descending into hell, rescued from infernal durance those only whom while living in the flesh He preserved through His grace in faith and good conduct. He says in the Gospel, ‘When I shall be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all to myself’ (John 12:32); He means all that are elect. One could not be drawn to God after death who had separated himself from God by evil living”.

John of Damascus, Exposition of the Orthodox Faith 3.29

The soul, when it was deified, descended into Hades, in order that, just as the Sun of Righteousness rose for those upon the earth, so likewise He might bring light to those who sit under the earth in darkness and shadow of death (Matt. 4:16, Luke 1:79). He brought the message of peace to those upon the earth, of release to the prisoners and of sight to the blind. He became to those who believed the Author of everlasting salvation and to those who did not believe a reproach of their unbelief; so He might become the same to those in Hades. He did this that every knee should bow to Him, of things in heaven, and things in earth and things under the earth (Phil. 2:10). After He had freed those who had been bound for ages, immediately He rose again from the dead, showing us the way of resurrection.

Anonymous, The Great Sabbath

Something strange is happening – there is a great silence on earth today, a great silence and stillness. The whole earth keeps silence because the King is asleep. The earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh and he has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began. God has died in the flesh and hell trembles with fear.

He has gone to search for our first parent, as for a lost sheep. Greatly desiring to visit those who live in darkness and in the shadow of death, he has gone to free from sorrow the captives Adam and Eve, he who is both God and the son of Eve.

The Lord approached them bearing the cross, the weapon that had won him the victory. At the sight of him Adam, the first man he had created, struck his breast in terror and cried out to everyone: “My Lord be with you all”. Christ answered him: “And with your spirit”. He took him by the hand and raised him up, saying: “Awake, O sleeper, and rise from the dead, and Christ will give you light”.

I am your God, who for your sake have become your son. Out of love for you and for your descendants I now by my own authority command all who are held in bondage to come forth, all who are in darkness to be enlightened, all who are sleeping to arise. I order you, O sleeper, to awake. I did not create you to be held a prisoner in hell.

Rise from the dead, for I am the life of the dead. Rise up, work of my hands, you who were created in my image. Rise, let us leave this place, for you are in me and I am in you; together we form only one person and we cannot be separated. For your sake I, your God, became your son; I, the Lord, took the form of a slave; I, whose home is above the heavens, descended to the earth and beneath the earth. For your sake, for the sake of man, I became like a man without help, free among the dead. For the sake of you, who left a garden, I was betrayed to the Jews in a garden, and I was crucified in a garden.

See on my face the spittle I received in order to restore to you the life I once breathed into you. See there the marks of the blows I received in order to refashion your warped nature in my image. On my back see the marks of the scourging I endured to remove the burden of sin that weighs upon your back. See my hands, nailed firmly to a tree, for you who once wickedly stretched out your hand to a tree.

I slept on the cross and a sword pierced my side for you who slept in paradise and brought forth Eve from your side. My side has healed the pain in yours. My sleep will rouse you from your sleep in hell. The sword that pierced me has sheathed the sword that was turned against you.

Rise, let us leave this place. The enemy led you out of the earthly paradise. I will not restore you to that paradise, but I will enthrone you in heaven. I forbade you the tree that was only a symbol of life, but see, I who am life itself am now one with you. I appointed cherubim to guard you as slaves are guarded, but now I make them worship you as God.

The throne formed by cherubim awaits you, its bearers swift and eager. The bridal chamber is adorned, the banquet is ready, the eternal dwelling places are prepared, the treasure houses of all good things lie open. The kingdom of heaven has been prepared for you from all eternity.

“On the third day he rose again”

Ignatius, Letter to the Smyrnaeans 3

For I know that after His resurrection also He was still possessed of flesh, and I believe that He is so now. When, for instance, He came to those who were with Peter, He said to them, “Lay hold, handle Me, and see that I am not an incorporeal spirit.” And immediately they touched Him, and believed, being convinced both by His flesh and spirit. For this cause also they despised death, and were found its conquerors. And after his resurrection He did eat and drink with them, as being possessed of flesh, although spiritually He was united to the Father.

Irenaeus, Against Heresies 5.3.2

If men think only of the weakness of the flesh, and do not consider the power of him who raises it from the dead, they ignore the might of God.… For God fails in power if he does not give life to mortality and bring corruptibility to incorruption. But we ought to infer God’s power in all these things from a consideration of our beginning; God took clay from the earth, and fashioned man. Now to bring man to being, to make a living and rational creature, of bones, muscles, veins and all the rest of man’s economy, which as yet did not exist; this was a task far harder, far more incredible, than to restore this creature when it had been created and then re-dissolved into the earth, having returned to those elements out of which man was first created. If God gave existence, when he so willed, to those who did not exist, much more will he restore those who have come into being to the life which he gave them, if he so wills. The flesh which at the beginning was the subject of God’s art will be found capable of receiving and assimilating God’s power. (Henry Bettenson, ed., The Early Christian Fathers: (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 1969), 98.

Athanasius, On the Incarnation 27–28

Christian fearlessness of death as proof of the resurrection

27. That death has been dissolved, and the cross has become victory over it, and it is no longer strong but is itself truly dead, no mean proof but an evident surety is that it is despised by all Christ’s disciples, and everyone tramples on it, and no longer fears it, but with the sign of the cross and faith in Christ tread it under foot as something dead. Of old, before the divine sojourn of the Savior, all used to weep for those dying as if they were perishing. But since the Savior’s raising the body, no longer is death fearsome, but all believers in Christ tread on it as nothing, and would rather choose to die than deny their faith in Christ. For they really know that when they die they are not destroyed, but both live and become incorruptible through the resurrection. And that devil, who formerly exulted wickedly in death, “its pangs having been loosed” (Acts 2:24), only he remains truly dead. And the proof of this is that human beings, before believing in Christ, view death as fearsome and are terrified at it. But when they come to faith in him and to his teaching, they so despise death that they eagerly rush to it and become witnesses to the resurrection over it effected by the Savior. For even while they are still young in stature they hasten to die, and not only men but also women practice for it with exercises. It has become so weak that even women, who were formerly deceived by it, now mock it as dead and paralyzed. For as when a tyrant has been defeated by a legitimate king and bound hand and foot, all those that then pass by mock him, hitting and reviling him, no longer fearing his fury and barbarity because of the victorious king; in this way death also having been conquered and placarded by the Savior on the cross, and bound hand and foot, all those in Christ who pass by trample on him [death], and witnessing to Christ they mock death, jeering at him, and saying what was written above, “O death, where is your victory? O hell, where your sting?” (1 Cor 15:55).

28. Is this, then, a meager proof of the weakness of death? Or is it a feeble demonstration of the victory over it wrought by the Savior, when boys and young girls in Christ despise this present life and practice dying? For by nature human beings are afraid of death and of the dissolution of the body. But this is most amazing, that one who has put on the faith of the cross scorns even things according to nature, and is not afraid of death because of Christ. And just as, while it is the nature of fire to burn, if someone were to say that there is something not fearful of burning but rather which shows it to be weak—as is said of asbestos by the Indians—then one who does not believe this claim, if he wished to put the claim to the test, putting on the inflammable material and touching fire would certainly be convinced thereby of the weakness of the fire. Or just as if someone wanted to see the tyrant bound, he would certainly enter into the country and domain of the conqueror and see the one feared by others rendered weak. So also, if anyone is incredulous, and even after such great things and after so many have become martyrs in Christ, after the daily scorn shown towards death by the illustrious in Christ, if, regardless, he still has doubt in his mind that death has been destroyed and brought to an end, he would do well to wonder at such a great thing, only let him be neither obstinate in disbelief nor shameless in the face of what is so clear. But just as he who has the asbestos knows that fire cannot touch it, and he who wishes to see the tyrant bound goes over to the domain of the victor, so let the one not believing the victory over death accept the faith of Christ and come over to his teaching, and he will see the weakness of death and the victory over it. For many who at first disbelieved and mocked, afterward believed, and thus so despised death as even themselves to become martyrs for Christ. (John Behr, 107–111).

Rufinus of Aquileia, Commentary on the Creed 29

“The Third Day He Rose Again from the Dead.” The glory of Christ’s resurrection threw a lustre upon everything that before had the appearance of weakness and frailty. If it once seemed impossible to you that an immortal Being could die, you see now that he who has overcome death and is risen again cannot be mortal. But understand here the goodness of the Creator: as far down as you have cast yourself by sinning, so far has he descended in following you. And do not impute a lack of power to God, the Creator of all things, by imagining his work to have ended in the fall into an abyss that he in his redemptive purpose was unable to reach. We speak of “underworld” and “upperworld,” because we are bounded by the definite circumference of the body, and are confined within the limits of the region prescribed to us. But to God, who is present everywhere and absent nowhere, what is “under” and “above”? Notwithstanding, through the assumption of a body there is room for these also.

Augustine, On the Trinity 4.6

Sacramentum and Exemplum

To balance this double death of ours the savior paid in his single one, and to achieve each resurrection of ours he pre-enacted and presented his one and only one, by way of sacrament (sacramentum) and by way of model (exemplum) . . . Being clothed with mortal flesh, in that alone he died and in that alone he rose again; and so in that alone he harmonized with each part of us, by becoming in that flesh the sacrament for the inner man and the model for the outer one. As a sacrament of our inner man [i.e., a saving mystery for our souls], he uttered that cry, both in the psalm and on the cross, which was intended to represent the death of our soul: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” . . . By the crucifixion of the inner man is to be understood the sorrows of repentance and a kind of salutary torment of self-discipline . . . Again, the Lord’s death is the model (exemplum) for the death of our outer man, because such sufferings were the greatest possible encouragement to his servants “not to fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul” (Matthew 10:28) . . . Likewise, the resurrection of the Lord’s body is found to serve as a model for our outer man’s resurrection . . . So then, the one death of our savior was our salvation from our two deaths, and his one resurrection bestowed two resurrections on us (trans. Hill, WSA I/5:156-57).

Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms

The Resurrected Christ is the source of our renewal

101.7. The faith of Christians is not triumphant because they believe that Christ died but because they believe that Christ rose again. Even a pagan believes that he died . . . In what do you really take pride? You believe that Christ is risen and you hope that through Christ you will rise. This is why your faith is triumphant: If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved (Rom. 10:9). 

120.6. By the passion the Lord passed over from death to life; and opened a way for us who believe in his resurrection, that we too may pass over from death to life. It is no great thing to believe that Christ died: pagans and Jews, and all bad people believe that. All of them are sure that he died. The faith of Christians is in the resurrection of Christ. This is what matters to us that we believe that he rose from the dead.

“He ascended into heaven”

Athanasius, Against the Arians 1.41

“Highly exalted” does not signify the exaltation of the substance of the Word; that was and is always equal with God. The exaltation is of the manhood. It is said after the incarnation of the Word, to make it clear that “humbled” and “exalted” refer to the human nature.… The Word, being the image of the Father, and immortal, “took the form of a servant,” and as man endured death for our sake in his own flesh, that thus he might offer himself to the Father on our behalf; therefore also as man he is said to be highly exalted because of us and on our behalf, that as by his death we all died in Christ, so also in Christ himself we may all be exalted, being raised from the dead and ascending into heaven “whither Jesus the forerunner has entered for us …” [Heb. 6:20]. And if it is now for us that Christ has entered into heaven itself, though he was before and always is the Lord and the maker of the heavens, it is therefore for us that Scripture speaks of his being exalted. Just as He who himself sanctified all says also that he sanctifies himself to the Father for our sakes; not that the Word may become holy, but that he himself may sanctify all of us in himself. (Bettenson, Early Christian Father, 278–279.)

Augustine, On Faith and the Creed 6.13

On natural and spiritual bodies

 13. We believe that he ascended into heaven, an abode of blessedness that he also promised to us when he said, They shall be like the angels in heaven (Matt. 22:30), in the which is the mother of us all, the eternal Jerusalem in the heaven (Gal. 4:26). Our belief that a body of clay was taken up to heaven is a cause of scandal to some people, be they irreligious gentiles or heretics. [Gentiles assert that nothing earthly can be found in heaven,] and this is because they are unacquainted with our scriptures and the truth of the remark: What is sown is a natural body, and what is raised is a spiritual body (1 Cor. 15:44). This does not imply that the body is changed into a spirit and becomes such, because our present body, which is described as natural, does not undergo transformation and become a soul. What is meant is a spiritual body, which because of its subjection to the spirit makes it compatible with its heavenly abode, changed and transformed from all frailty and earthly weakness to the purity and steadfastness of heaven. This is the transformation of which the same apostle speaks: We shall all rise, but we shall not all be changed (1 Cor. 15:51). He teaches that this will be a transformation not into something worse but into something better . . . . But any attempt to discover the place and position of the Lord’s body represents both the height of curiosity and an exercise in folly; the only thing we are required to believe is that it is in heaven. It is not given to our human frailty to fathom the secrets of heaven, but it is in keeping with our faith, when reflecting on the dignity of the Lord’s body, to think thoughts that are both sublime and free from error. (WSA I/8:164)

“And is seated at the right hand of the Father”

Rufinus of Aquileia, Commentary on the Creed 32

Scriptural testimony to Christ’s being seated at God’s right hand

32. To sit at the right hand of the Father is a mystery belonging to the Incarnation. For it does not befit that incorporeal nature without the assumption of flesh; neither is the excellency of a heavenly seat sought for the divine nature, but for the human. Whence it is said of him, Your seat, O God, is prepared from thence forward; You are from everlasting. The seat, then, whereon the Lord Jesus was to sit, was prepared from everlasting, in whose name every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things on earth, and things under the earth; and every tongue shall confess to him that Jesus is Lord in the glory of God the Father; of whom also David thus speaks, The Lord said to my Lord, Sit on my right hand until I make Your enemies Your footstool. Referring to which words the Lord in the Gospel said to the Pharisees, If therefore David in spirit calls Him Lord, how is He his Son? By which He showed that according to the Spirit He was the Lord, according to the flesh He was the Son, of David. Whence also the Lord Himself says in another place, Verily I say unto you, henceforth you shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the power of God. And the Apostle Peter says of Christ, Who is on the right hand of God, seated in the heavens. And Paul also, writing to the Ephesians, According to the working of the might of His power, which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and seated Him on His right hand.

Augustine, On Faith and the Creed 7.14

On the meaning of the Father’s “right hand” and seated posture

We should not take this to mean that some kind of human form is to be ascribed to God the Father, so that a right and left side are envisaged in the minds of those who think about him. And . . . we are not to imagine this to mean a sedentary position, lest we incur the sacrilegious guilt of those whom the apostle excoriates, who have exchanged the glory of the immortal God for the image of a mortal human being (Rom. 1:23). For a Christian to erect an image of this sort in a place of worship is forbidden; even more prohibited is the construction of one in our heart, which is the true dwelling place of God, provided it has been cleansed of this world’s desires and fallacies.

By “right hand,” then we are to understand a reference to the height of blessedness, where justice, peace, and joy are to be found, just as the goats are placed at the left hand, which denotes a place of unhappiness, because of their evil and inhumane behavior. Consequently, when God is said to sit, what is meant is not the location of his members but his power to judge, a power which his divine person has never lacked, and one which confers their just deserts on those who deserve them. When the last judgment takes place, however, the undoubted glory of the only-begotten Son of God, judge of the living and the dead, is destined to be revealed with much greater clarity in the sight of the human race. (WSA 165)

Rufinus of Aquileia, Commentary on the Apostles’ Creed

32. To sit at the right hand of the Father is a mystery belonging to the Incarnation. For it does not befit that incorporeal nature without the assumption of flesh; neither is the excellency of a heavenly seat sought for the divine nature, but for the human. Whence it is said of Him, Your seat, O God, is prepared from thence forward; You are from everlasting. The seat, then, whereon the Lord Jesus was to sit, was prepared from everlasting, in whose name every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things on earth, and things under the earth; and every tongue shall confess to Him that Jesus is Lord in the glory of God the Father; of Whom also David thus speaks, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit on my right hand until I make Your enemies Your footstool. Referring to which words the Lord in the Gospel said to the Pharisees, If therefore David in spirit calls Him Lord, how is He his Son? By which He showed that according to the Spirit He was the Lord, according to the flesh He was the Son, of David. Whence also the Lord Himself says in another place, Verily I say unto you, henceforth you shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the power of God. And the Apostle Peter says of Christ, Who is on the right hand of God, seated in the heavens. And Paul also, writing to the Ephesians, According to the working of the might of His power, which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and seated Him on His right hand.

John of Damascus, On the Orthodox Faith 4.1

After Christ was risen from the dead, he laid aside all his passions—his corruption or hunger or thirst or sleep or weariness or such like. For, although he did taste food after the resurrection (Luke 24:43), yet he did not do so because it was a law of his nature (for he felt no hunger), but in the way of economy, in order that he might convince us of the reality of the resurrection, and that it was one and the same flesh which suffered and rose again. But he laid aside none of the divisions of his nature, neither body nor spirit, but possesses both the body and the soul intelligent and reasonable, volitional and energetic. In this way, he sits at the right hand of the Father, using his will both as God and as man in behalf of our salvation, energizing in his divine capacity to provide for and maintain and govern all things, and remembering in his human capacity the time he spent on earth, while all the time he both sees and knows that he is adored by all rational creation. For his Holy Spirit knows that he is one in substance with God the Word, and shares as Spirit of God and not simply as Spirit the worship accorded to him. Moreover, his ascent from earth to heaven, and again, his descent from heaven to earth, are manifestations of the energies of his circumscribed body. For He shall so come again to you, says he, in like manner as you have seen Him go into Heaven Acts (1:11).

“He will come again to judge the living and the dead”

Tertullian, Apology

Pagans conceptions of the afterlife borrow from Christians

We are also ridiculed because we proclaim that God is going to judge the world. Yet even the poets and philosophers place a judgment seat in the underworld. In the same way if we threaten Gehenna, which is a store of hidden underground fire for purposes of punishment, we are received with howls of derision. Yet they likewise have the river Pyriphlegethon in the place of the dead. And if we mention paradise, a place of divine delight appointed to receive the spirits of the saints, cut off from the knowledge of this everyday world by a kind of barrier consisting of that zone of fire, then the Elysian Fields have anticipated the faith in this respect. So how, I ask you, do these resemblances to our doctrines on the part of the philosophers or poets come about? They are just taken from our mysteries. And our mysteries, being earlier, are more trustworthy, and more to be believed than these mere copies! If they invented these mysteries subsequently out of their senses, then our mysteries would have to be reckoned as copies (imagines) of what came later. For the shadow never preceded the body, nor the copy before the truth (Nunquam enim corpus umbra aut veritatem imago praedecit).

Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures 15.1, 23, 26.

(1) We preach not one coming of Christ, but a second as well, far more glorious than the first. The first gave us a spectacle of His patience; the second will bring with it the crown of the Kingdom of God. In general all things are twofold in our Lord Jesus Christ. His birth is twofold, one of God before the ages, and one of a virgin in the consummation of the ages. His descent is twofold, one lowly, “like the rain upon the fleece,” and a second, His manifest coming, which is yet to be. In His first coming He was wrapped in swaddling clothes in the manger; in His second He will be “robed in light as with a cloak.” In His first coming He “endured a cross, despising shame”; in His second He will come in glory, attended by a host of angels. We do not rest, therefore, in His first coming, but we look also for His second. Just as we said of His first coming: “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord,” so we shall repeat the same at His second coming, saying with the angels in adoration, as we meet our Master: “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” The Savior will come this time, not to be judged, but to judge those who then judged Him. He who then was silent before His judges will remind those wicked men of their cruelty at the Cross, and say: “Such and such you did, and I was silent.” Then He came by divine condescension, seeking to win men by His teaching; but this time they will of necessity, whether they will or no, submit to Him as King. (FC 64:53–54.)

(23) But someone present will say: “I am poor,” or “I may be sick in bed at the time,” or “I shall be taken, a woman in the mill”; “Shall we be overlooked?” Take heart; the Judge is no respecter of persons. “Not by appearance shall he judge nor by hearsay shall he decide.” He does not esteem the learned above the simple, nor the rich above the poor. Though you be in the fields the angels will take you. Do not think that He will take the lords of the land but will leave you, the husbandman. Though you be a slave, though you be poor, have no anxiety; He who took the form of a servant will not despise servants. Though you lie sick in bed, it is written: then “there will be two on one bed; one will be taken, and the other will be left.” Though you be forced to grind in the mill, man or woman, though you be in bonds and attached to the mill, yet He “who leads forth those bound in strength,” will not overlook you. He brought Joseph out of bondage and prison to a kingdom; He will redeem you too from your afflictions and lead you into the kingdom of heaven. Only take courage, toil and strive zealously, for nothing will be lost. Every prayer you make, every psalm you sing is recorded; every alms, every fast is recorded, every lawful marriage as well as continence for God’s sake, is recorded. First in the lists are the crowns for virginity and purity, and you shall shine as an angel. You have listened gladly to the good; listen patiently now to the opposite. Your every act of covetousness is recorded, and every act of fornication; every false oath is recorded, every blasphemy, sorcery, theft and murder. All these are henceforth recorded, if after Baptism you commit the same faults; for what went before is blotted out. (FC 64:68–69.)

(26) The judgment will be awesome, the sentence an occasion for dread. The kingdom of heaven lies before us, everlasting fire has been prepared. Some one will ask, how can we escape the fire, how can we enter into the kingdom? “I was hungry,” He says, “and you gave me to eat” (Matt. 25:35). Learn the way now; have done with allegory and fulfill what is said. “I was hungry and you gave me to eat; I was thirsty and you gave me to drink; I was a stranger and you took me in; naked and you covered me; sick and you visited me; I was in prison, and you came to see me” (Matt. 25:36). If these words describe your conduct, you will reign with Him; if not, you will be condemned. Therefore begin now to act thus; persevere in the faith; avoid being shut out like the foolish virgins, who delayed to buy oil. It is not enough that you have the lamp, you must keep it burning. Let the light of your good deeds shine before men; let not Christ be blasphemed because of you. Put on an incorruptible garment, bright with good works. Administer well any stewardship entrusted to you by God. Have you been granted riches? Then dispense them rightly. Has the task of teaching been committed to you? Carry it out zealously. Many are the portals of good stewardship. Only let none of us be condemned and cast out, but rather may we with confidence meet Christ the eternal King, who reigns forever. For He reigns forever, who judges living and dead, having died for the living and the dead. As Paul says: “For to this end Christ died and rose again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living” (Rom. 14:9). FC 64:71–72.

Rufinus of Aquileia, Commentary on the Creed 33

To be constantly prepared – “quick” and “dead” refer to “soul” and “body”

33. That He shall come to judge the quick and the dead we are taught by many testimonies of the divine Scriptures. But before we cite what the Prophets say on this point, we think it necessary to remind you that this doctrine of the faith would have us daily solicitous concerning the coming of the Judge, that we may so frame our conduct as having to give account to the Judge who is at hand. For this is what the Prophet said of the man who is blessed, that, He orders his words in judgment (Ps. 112:5). When, however, He is said to judge the quick and the dead, this does not mean that some will come to judgment who are still living, others who are already dead; but that He will judge both souls and bodies, where, by souls are meant the quick, and the bodies the dead; as also the Lord Himself says in the Gospel, Fear not them who are able to kill the body, but are not able to hurt the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.

Augustine, On Faith and the Creed 8.15

8, 15. We believe, too, that he will come from heaven to judge the living and the dead, at that time which he considers most appropriate. Whether the reference here is to the just and sinners or to those he will find on earth who have not yet died, they are described as the living, while the dead mentioned are those who will rise at his coming. Not only may such a saving economy which took place in time not be compared with that divine generation which takes place in God but it also bears the character of past and future. For our Lord was once on earth, is now in heaven, and he will come again in glory as judge of the living and the dead. He will come in the same way as he ascended, as the Acts of the Apostles teaches. And the Book of Revelation refers to that same temporal order in the text: The One who is, who was, and who is to come, says these things (Rev. 1:8). WSA I/8:165.