JESUS DESCENDED INTO HELL? WHAT CAN THAT MEAN?

The phrase from the Apostles Creed, "He (Jesus Christ) descended into hell." How should this phrase be interpreted?

          This question is a good example of how words from another language, place and time can have quite a different meaning in common English usage. The original Greek of the Creed says Christ descended to “lowest parts” and doesn’t use the Greek mythological word for the place of the dead “Hades”. The Latin translates that as “inferos” or the “lowest ones”. The Catechism makes a clear distinction that those who have not known Christ, and are thus deprived of the vision of God, are in hell. Not necessarily a place with devils and pitchforks, but certainly a place of pain and sorrow because one is deprived of the deepest desire of the soul: union with God. This would be everyone who died before the saving death of Christ on the cross.

           Catechism #633 Scripture calls the abode of the dead, to which the dead Christ went down, "hell" - Sheol in Hebrew or Hades in Greek - because those who are there are deprived of the vision of God.479 Such is the case for all the dead, whether evil or righteous, while they await the Redeemer: which does not mean that their lot is identical, as Jesus shows through the parable of the poor man Lazarus who was received into "Abraham's bosom":480 "It is precisely these holy souls, who awaited their Savior in Abraham's bosom, whom Christ the Lord delivered when he descended into hell."481 Jesus did not descend into hell to deliver the damned, nor to destroy the hell of damnation, but to free the just who had gone before him.482

           In the Hebrew and Greek original understanding, the place of the dead just referred to wherever people went after death with no real distinction between a place of punishment and a place of reward. The same goes for the original English meaning of “hell” which referred simply to the abode of the dead. In current English usage, especially given the understanding of the judgment that comes after death, hell is generally referred to as a place of punishment.

            The liturgical translation of the Apostles Creed puts it “he descended to the dead,” thus making it a bit easier to understand. Popular devotional recitation of the Apostles Creed hasn’t quite caught up with this liturgical use, even after 40 years. The new revision of the English texts of the Mass preserve this use of the “descended to the dead.” Perhaps when we introduce the revised text of the Creed at Mass, we can make the total switch over from “descended to hell” and not have this misinterpretation any more.