mightest inhabit the earth, and receive the inheritance of the wilderness; saying to those that are in bonds, Come forth; and to those that are in darkness. Show yourselves." For if the "prisoners" are the Jews, of whom the Lord said, "Come forth, ye that will, from your bonds,"—meaning the voluntary bound, and who have taken on them "the burdens grievous to be borne"[1] by human injunction,—it is plain that "those in darkness" are they who have the ruling faculty of the soul buried in idolatry.
For to those who were righteous according to the law, faith was wanting. Wherefore also the Lord, in healing them, said, "Thy faith hath saved thee."[2] But to those that were righteous according to philosophy, not only faith In the Lord, but also the abandonment of idolatry, were necessary. Straightway, on the revelation of the truth, they also repented of their previous conduct.
Wherefore 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."[3] It is not plainly the place, which, the words above say, 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. For who in his senses can suppose the souls of the righteous and those of sinners in the same condemnation, charging Providence with injustice?
But how? Do not [the Scriptures] show that the Lord preached[4] the gospel to those that perished in the flood, or rather had been chained, and to those kept "in ward and guard?"[5] And it has been shown also,[6] in the second book
- ↑ Matt. xxiii. 4; Luke xi. 47.
- ↑ Matt. ix. 22, etc.
- ↑ The passage which seems to be alluded to here is Job xxviii. 22, "Destruction and Death say, We have heard the fame thereof with our ears."
- ↑ εὐηγγελίσθαι used actively for εὐηγγελίσαι, as also immediately after εὐηγγελισμένοι for εὐηγγελισάμενοι.
- ↑ 1 Pet. iii. 19, 20.
- ↑ Potter, p. 452; Ante-Nicene Library, vol. ii. Clement, p. 28.
