How Christ Harrowed Hell
As soon as Christ's soul left his body, Hell quaked.
As soon as Christ's soul left his body, Hell quaked..
Editor’s Notes
How the moment of Christ’s death marked the beginning of His royal dominion over souls.
That the descent into Hell revealed His kingship to every soul in the realm of the dead.
Why even the briefest glimpse into this world of spirits reveals immeasurable glory and judgement.
He shows us that no corner of creation escaped the impact of His Cross and the triumph of his Death.
The Triumph in the World Below
The Passage of Our Lord to the Father—Chapter XIII
St. Matt. xxi. 14-17; St. Mark xi. 1-11; St. Luke xix. 29-44; St. John xii. 12-18.
Story of the Gospels, § 132
Burns and Oates, London, 1892
Our Lord’s Death the beginning of His Triumph
It must have seemed to the eyes of men that the victory of the enemies of our Lord reached its height and consummation at the moment when He breathed His last on the Cross.
The narratives of the Evangelists proceed from His expiration to give a short account of the solemn and tranquil ceremony of His entombment by His disciples, under the guidance of His bereaved Mother. They close this part of the history, when they have told us of the stone which Joseph rolled to the door of the sepulchre, adding also that the Jews took the precaution of setting the guard of Roman soldiers to secure the Body, lest it should be stolen away by the disciples.
But neither the Jews nor the soldiers thought of what had in truth taken place, before the Sacred Body had been touched by the devout worshippers by whom it was removed from the Cross on which it hung, before even they had had the time to show it any reverence or any love, before it had rested for a short time in the arms of the Blessed Mother who had given it birth, and whose office it was to take leave of it before it was placed in the tomb. The moment of our Blessed Saviour's death was the beginning of His triumph, when His most glorious Soul took possession of the empire of souls of which He was the Saviour.
He had been proclaimed by His enemies the King of the Jews in derision, whereas He was in truth King, not of one nation alone, but of all the children of Adam, and of the whole universe, all peoples and tribes and languages. As soon as the breath had left His Body, He began to assume His rights over that part of the children of men who were contained in what we speak of as the world below.
Immense multitudes in the other world—acknowledging his sovereignty
There was collected, awaiting His coming, a far more numerous crowd of souls than the population of the whole world, if it had all been brought to His feet, could have furnished. Earth contains, at any given time, only a small portion of the human race, whereas the world of human spirits is made up of each succeeding generation, and the whole mass of humanity, since the beginning of ages, was now at His feet as the Lord of all.
No one among all the myriads of whom the whole multitude of disembodied spirits is made up, but was ready or constrained to acknowledge Him as King. Some had known Him while they were themselves as yet upon earth, and all may have known Him in some way as the subject of prophecy or the object of hope. As to the extent of their knowledge we have no clear revelation at all, but we are certain that it must have been far more extensive than is commonly thought by men in this world, whose view concerning those who have gone before them does not often reach far beyond the things of sense. But with the myriads of souls no longer imprisoned in the flesh, there could be no doubt at all as to the sovereignty or the majesty or the omnipotence of their King.
Some indeed may tremble before Him, but as the Apostle tells us, at the name of Jesus every knee is to bow, of things that are in Heaven, on earth, and under the earth, and every tongue must confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father. The words of the Apostle express the truth of the unlimited dominion and indisputable sovereignty of our Lord over all things, visible and invisible, and into this Kingdom He entered at the moment of His death.
It would take a long time to count over merely the principal heads of the myriads of spirits who then became the subjects of Him, of Whom in the same passage St. Paul speaks as having received this empire of souls because He had become obedient unto death, even to the death of the Cross. It would be necessary and delightful to have to speak of all that was great and noble in that spiritual world, as well as of those who have taken their part among the trembling enemies of our Lord, who nevertheless cowered beneath His rod. It is our present business only to make it clear that this large multitude of spirits became from this moment the subjects of the crucified Son of Man, and apparently the first class of the spoils of His conquest to be visited by Him in Person.
Thither, then, we believe our Lord's Soul, now clothed in glory and beatitude, took its flight, accompanied by thousands of adoring angels, the evil spirits falling back and fleeing before His face. The saints who had been redeemed by His Blood flocked forth to meet Him at the gates, which had been broken down by the breath of His approach. His Soul was not only in glory and beatitude itself, but was at once the source of untold joys and blessings to thousands and thousands of His redeemed. But we cannot draw out the whole ravishing picture—part, and only a part, of that joy which our Lord had set before Him when, despising the Cross, He endured the shame, as the Apostle says.
The opening of the Kingdom of Heaven
These things are enshrined in the contemplations of the faithful children of the Church, which delights to find her children familiar with them. We have but here and now to remind ourselves of the simple teaching of the Catholic Doctors, who tell us that the inhabitants or sojourners of that world of spirits may be conveniently divided into four classes, according to the state in which the great Judge of all men finds them when they come to stand before Him at the time of their death.
Some souls pass before Him without any stain of sin to be found in them, and, since the gates of Heaven have been thrown open to men by the redemption which our Lord accomplished for us all, such souls have a right through Him to the Kingdom of Heaven as their eternal lot. But, until Heaven was opened by our Lord, the way was always barred against the children of Adam. But the Church sings in her hymn, Te Deum: Tu devicto mortis aculeo, aperuisti credentibus regna cælorum.
It was, therefore, not as yet possible for the saints to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, as our Lord had not opened it by His presence, and therefore those who died without stain of sin entirely cancelled, could not as yet inherit the Kingdom. Thus we find our Lord in His Parable, if so it is to be called, of Dives and Lazarus, saying that the soul of Lazarus was taken by the angels unto Abraham's bosom.
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