Harrowing of Hades

Introduction

Judging merely by the degree to which a service affects me emotionally, it seems that the Vesperal Liturgy of St. Basil celebrated on the morning of Great and Holy Saturday is my favorite service. The selection of Scripture readings, hymnography and psalmody really chokes me up. Today's celebration of that liturgy was as glorious as ever, and I want to share a few impressions that I had. All Scripture quotations are from the Lexham English Bible except where indicated.

The Back Story to the Harrowing of Hades

Most people in the tradition of my upbringing have no idea what the Harrowing of Hades is. In order that the rest of my article can make sense, let me present its primary source.

At the moment of Jesus' death, this happened: "And the tombs were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many." (Matthew 27:52-53). Among those raised from the dead were two sons of St. Simeon the God Receiver, i.e., the Simeon who received Jesus into his arms in Luke 2:28. Ananias, Caiaphas, and the Righteous Saints Joseph of Arimathaea, Gamaliel, and Nicodemus locked these two in a room and adjured them to tell them how and by whom they were raised from the dead. This is a selection from their sworn testimony:

O Lord Jesus Christ, the resurrection and the life of the world, grant us grace that we may give an account of Thy resurrection, and Thy miracles which Thou didst in Hades. We then were in Hades, with all who had fallen asleep since the beginning of the world. And at the hour of midnight there rose a light as if of the sun, and shone into these dark regions; and we were all lighted up, and saw each other. And straightway our father Abraham was united with the patriarchs and the prophets, and at the same time they were filled with joy, and said to each other: This light is from a great source of light. The prophet Hesaias, who was there present, said: This light is from the Father, and from the Son, and from the Holy Spirit; about whom I prophesied when yet alive, saying, The land of Zabulon, and the land of Nephthalim, the people that sat in darkness, have seen a great light. 

Then there came into the midst another, an ascetic from the desert; and the patriarchs said to him: Who art thou? And he said: I am John, the last of the prophets, who made the paths of the Son of God straight, and proclaimed to the people repentance for the remission of sins. And the Son of God came to me; and I, seeing Him a long way off, said to the people: Behold the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the world. And with my hand I baptized Him in the river Jordan, and I saw like a dove also the Holy Spirit coming upon Him; and I heard also the voice of God, even the Father, thus saying: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And on this account He sent me also to you, to proclaim how the only begotten Son of God is coming here, that whosoever shall believe in Him shall be saved, and whosoever shall not believe in Him shall be condemned. On this account I say to you all, in order that when you see Him you all may adore Him, that now only is for you the time of repentance for having adored idols in the vain upper world, and for the sins you have committed, and that this is impossible at any other time. 

While John, therefore, was thus teaching those in Hades, the first created and forefather Adam heard, and said to his son Seth: My son, I wish thee to tell the forefathers of the race of men and the prophets where I sent thee, when it fell to my lot to die. And Seth said: Prophets and patriarchs, hear. When my father Adam, the first created, was about to fall once upon a time into death, he sent me to make entreaty to God very close by the gate of paradise, that He would guide me by an angel to the tree of compassion and that I might take oil and anoint my father, and that he might rise up from his sickness: which thing, therefore, I also did. And after the prayer an angel of the Lord came, and said to me: What, Seth, dost thou ask? Dost thou ask oil which raiseth up the sick, or the tree from which this oil flows, on account of the sickness of thy father? This is not to be found now. Go, therefore, and tell thy father, that after the accomplishing of five thousand five hundred years from the creation of the world, thou shall come into the earth the only begotten Son of God, being made man; and He shall anoint him with this oil, and shall raise him up; and shall wash clean, with water and with the Holy Spirit, both him and those out of him, and then shall he be healed of every disease; but now this is impossible. 

When the patriarchs and the prophets heard these words, they rejoiced greatly.
And when all were in such joy, came Satan the heir of darkness, and said to Hades: O all-devouring and insatiable, hear my words. There is of the race of the Jews one named Jesus, calling himself the Son of God; and being a man, by our working with them the Jews have crucified him: and now when he is dead, be ready that we may secure him here. For I know that he is a man, and I heard him also saying, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death. He has also done me many evils when living with mortals in the upper world. For wherever he found my servants, he persecuted them; and whatever men I made crooked, blind, lame, lepers, or any such thing, by a single word he healed them; and many whom I had got ready to be buried, even these through a single word he brought to life again. 

Hades says: And is this man so powerful as to do such things by a single word? or if he be so, canst thou withstand him? It seems to me that, if he be so, no one will be able to withstand him. And if thou sayest that thou didst hear him dreading death, he said this mocking thee, and laughing, wishing to seize thee with the strong hand; and woe, woe to thee, to all eternity! 

Satan says: O all-devouring and insatiable Hades, art thou so afraid at hearing of our common enemy? I was not afraid of him, but worked in the Jews, and they crucified him, and gave him also to drink gall with vinegar. Make ready, then, in order that you may lay fast hold of him when he comes. 

Hades answered: Heir of darkness, son of destruction, devil, thou hast just now told me that many whom thou hadst made ready to be buried, be brought to life again by a single word. And if he has delivered others from the tomb, how and with what power shall he be laid hold of by us? For I not long ago swallowed down one dead, Lazarus by name; and not long after, one of the living by a single word dragged him up by force out of my bowels: and I think that it was he of whom thou speakest. If, therefore, we receive him here, I am afraid lest perchance we be in danger even about the rest. For, lo, all those that I have swallowed from eternity I perceive to be in commotion, and I am pained in my belly. And the snatching away of Lazarus beforehand seems to me to be no good sign: for not like a dead body, but like an eagle, he flew out of me; for so suddenly did the earth throw him out. Wherefore also I adjure even thee, for thy benefit and for mine, not to bring him here; for I think that he is coming here to raise all the dead. And this I tell thee: by the darkness in which we live, if thou bring him here, not one of the dead will be left behind in it to me. 

While Satan and Hades were thus speaking to each other, there was a great voice like thunder, saying: Lift up your gates, O ye rulers; and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting gates; and the King of glory shall come in. When Hades heard, he said to Satan: Go forth, if thou art able, and withstand him. Satan therefore went forth to the outside. Then Hades says to his demons: Secure well and strongly the gates of brass and the bars of iron, and attend to my bolts, and stand in order, and see to everything; for if he come in here, woe will seize us. 

The forefathers having heard this, began all to revile him, saying: O all-devouring and insatiable! open, that the King of glory may come in. David the prophet says: Dost thou not know, O blind, that I when living in the world prophesied this saying: Lift up your gates, O ye rulers? Hesaias said: I, foreseeing this by the Holy Spirit, wrote: The dead shall rise up, and those in their tombs shall be raised, and those in the earth shall rejoice. And where, O death, is thy sting? where, O Hades, is thy victory? 

There came, then, again a voice saying: Lift up the gates. Hades, hearing the voice the second time, answered as if forsooth he did not know, and says: Who is this King of glory? The angels of the Lord say: The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle. And immediately with these words the brazen gates were shattered, and the iron bars broken, and all the dead who had been bound came out of the prisons, and we with the n And the King of glory came in in the form of a man, and all the dark places of Hades were lighted up. 

Immediately Hades cried out: We have been conquered: woe to us! But who art thou, that hast such power and might? and what art thou, who comest here without sin who art seen to be small and yet of great power, lowly and exalted, the slave and the master, the soldier and the king, who hast power over the dead and the living? Thou wast nailed on the cross, and placed in the tomb; and now thou art free, and hast destroyed all our power. Art thou then the Jesus about whom the chief satrap Satan told us, that through cross and death thou art to inherit the whole world? 

Then the King of glory seized the chief satrap Satan by the head, and delivered him to His angels, and said: With iron chains bind his hands and his feet, and his neck, and his mouth. Then He delivered him to Hades, and said: Take him, and keep him secure till my second appearing. 

And Hades receiving Satan, said to him: Beelzebul, heir of fire and punishment, enemy of the saints, through what necessity didst thou bring about that the King of glory should be crucified, so that he should come here and deprive us of our power? Turn and see that not one of the dead has been left in me, but all that thou hast gained through the tree of knowledge, all hast thou lost through the tree of the cross: and all thy joy has been turned into grief; and wishing to put to death the King of glory, thou hast put thyself to death. For, since I have received thee to keep thee safe, by experience shall thou learn how many evils I shall do unto thee. O arch-devil, the beginning of death, root of sin, end of all evil, what evil didst thou find in Jesus, that thou shouldst compass his destruction? how hast thou dared to do such evil? how hast thou busied thyself to bring down such a man into this darkness, through whom thou hast been deprived of all who have died from eternity? 

While Hades was thus discoursing to Satan, the King of glory stretched out His right hand, and took hold of our forefather Adam, and raised him. Then turning also to the rest, He said: Come all with me, as many as have died through the tree which he touched: for, behold, I again raise you all up through the tree of the cross. Thereupon He brought them all out, and our forefather Adam seemed to be filled with joy, and said: I thank Thy majesty, O Lord, that Thou hast brought me up out of the lowest Hades. Likewise also all the prophets and the saints said: We thank Thee, O Christ, Saviour of the world, that Thou hast brought our life up out of destruction. 

And after they had thus spoken, the Saviour blessed Adam with the sign of the cross on his forehead, and did this also to tire patriarchs, and prophets, and martyrs, and forefathers; and He took them, and sprang up out of Hades. And while He was going, the holy fathers accompanying Him sang praises, saying: Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord: Alleluia; to Him be the glory of oil the saints. 

And setting out to paradise, He took hold of our forefather Adam by the hand, and delivered him, and all the just, to the archangel Michael. And as they were going into the door of paradise, there met them two old men, to whom the holy fathers said: Who are you, who have not seen death, and have not come down into Hades, but who dwell in paradise in your bodies and your souls? One of them answered, and said: I am Enoch, who was well-pleasing to God, and who was translated hither by Him; and this is Helias the Thesbite; and we are also to live until the end of the world; and then we are to be sent by God to withstand Antichrist, and to be slain by him, and after three days to rise again, and to be snatched up in clouds to meet the Lord. 

While they were thus speaking, there came another lowly man, carrying also upon his shoulders a cross, to whom the holy fathers said: Who art thou, who hast the look of a robber; and what is the cross which thou bearest upon thy shoulders? He answered: I, as you say, was a robber and a thief in the world, and for these things the Jews laid hold of me, and delivered me to the death of the cross, along with our Lord Jesus Christ. While, then, He was hanging upon the cross, I, seeing the miracles that were done, believed in Him, and entreated Him, and said, Lord, when Thou shall be King, do not forget me. And immediately He said to me, Amen, amen: to-day, I say unto thee, shall thou be with me in paradise. Therefore I came to paradise carrying my cross; and finding the archangel Michael, I said to him, Our Lord Jesus, who has been crucified, has sent me here; bring me, therefore, to the gate of Eden. And the flaming sword, seeing the sign of the cross, opened to me, and I went in. Then the archangel says to me, Wait a little, for there cometh also the forefather of the race of men, Adam, with the just, that they too may come in. And now, seeing you, I came to meet you. 

The saints hearing these things, all cried out with a loud voice: Great is our Lord, and great is His strength. 

All these things we saw and heard; we, the two brothers, who also have been sent by Michael the archangel, and have been ordered to proclaim the resurrection of the Lord, but first to go away to the Jordan and to be baptized. Thither also we have gone, and have been baptized with the rest of the dead who have risen. Thereafter also we came to Jerusalem, and celebrated the passover of the resurrection. But now we are going away, being unable to stay here. And the love of God, even the Father, and the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with you all. 

Having written these things, and secured the rolls, they gave the half to the chief priests, and the half to Joseph and Nicodemus. And they immediately disappeared: to the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. (http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/gospelnicodemus-roberts2.html)

This is the background to everything else I write in this article. 

The Crossing of the Red Sea

In the liturgy this morning, there are fifteen extensive Old Testament readings, one of which is Exodus 13:20 - 15:19. This passage lays out the story of the crossing of the Red Sea by the children of Israel and includes the First Song of Moses, which because of its liturgical importance is also known as the First Biblical Ode. As I listened to the public reading of this passage today, my mind and emotions were awhirl as I noticed something new: Yahweh lured the Egyptians into following the Israelites into the Red Sea so that he could destroy them. It is real explicit here in 14:4:

I will harden the heart of Pharaoh, and he will chase after them, and I will be glorified through Pharaoh and through all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am Yahweh.

And then the way it is execute is so glorious that I want to quote in full 14:22-31:

And the ⌊Israelites⌋ entered the middle of the sea on the dry land. The waters were a wall for them on their right and on their left. And the Egyptians gave chase and entered after them—all the horses of Pharaoh, his chariots, and his charioteers—into the middle of the sea. And during the morning watch, Yahweh looked down to the Egyptian camp from in the column of fire and cloud, and he threw the Egyptian camp into a panic. And he removed the wheels of their chariots so that they drove them with difficulty, and the Egyptians said, “We must flee aways from Israel because Yahweh is fighting for them against Egypt.” 

And Yahweh said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the sea, and let the waters return over the Egyptians, over their chariots, and over their charioteers.” And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the sea returned ⌊at daybreak⌋ to its normal level, and the Egyptians were fleeing ⌊because of it⌋, and Yahweh swept the Egyptians into the middle of the sea. And the waters returned and covered the chariots and the charioteers—all the army of Pharaoh coming after them into the sea. Not ⌊even⌋ one survived among them. But the ⌊Israelites⌋ walked on the dry land in the middle of the sea. The waters were a wall for them on their right and on their left. And Yahweh saved Israel on that day from the hand of Egypt, and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the shore of the sea. And Israel saw the great hand that Yahweh displayed against Egypt, and the people feared Yahweh, and they believed in Yahweh and in Moses his servant.

One reason this passage was moving is that I saw so clearly how it foreshadowed Christ's Harrowing of Hades: Jesus lured Hades into welcoming him into his realm so that He could then trash it. St. Gregory of Nyssa captured what took place vividly with this metaphor:

For since, as has been said before, it was not in the nature of the opposing power to come in contact with the undiluted presence of God, and to undergo His unclouded manifestation, therefore, in order to secure that the ransom in our behalf might be easily accepted by him who required it, the Deity was hidden under the veil of our nature, that so, as with ravenous fish, the hook of the Deity might be gulped down along with the bait of flesh, and thus, life being introduced into the house of death, and light shining in darkness, that which is diametrically opposed to light and life might vanish; for it is not in the nature of darkness to remain when light is present, or of death to exist when life is active. (The Great Catechism, chapter 24,  emphasis my own)

And then in Exodus 14:30 where it says "Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the shore of the sea", I immediately thought of that glorious icon of Christ's Harrowing of Hades where we can see the locks and keys and chains that formerly bound the inmates of Hades. We are free of the tyranny of death and we can see its devastation just as the Israelites saw their former captors floating in the Red Sea:

The Judgment of the Corrupt Members of the Divine Council

I recently read an excellent book called The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible by Dr. Michael S. Heiser. It has opened the interpretation of the Bible for me by explaining its ancient Near East context. Well, having just read the book, when we sang Psalm 82 today, I actually understood for the first time what we were singing about AND it dawned on me that it was absolutely dead on the best psalm to sing at the moment we celebrate Christ's Harrowing of Hades:

God (elohim) stands in the divine assembly;
he administers judgment in the midst of the gods (elohim).
“How long will you judge unjustly
and ⌊show favoritism to the wicked⌋? Selah
Judge on behalf of the helpless and the orphan;
provide justice to the afflicted and the poor.
Rescue the helpless and the needy;
deliver them from the hand of the wicked.”
They do not know or consider.
They go about in the darkness,
so that all the foundations of the earth are shaken.
I have said, “You are gods (elohim),
and sons of the Most High, all of you.
However, you will die like men,
and you will fall like one of the princes.”
Rise up, O God, judge the earth,
because you shall inherit all the nations.

In order to see the evidence for this interpretation of the Psalm, you will have to read The Unseen Realm or read the articles here or watch the videos here, but briefly this is what is going on:

• At the tower of Babel, "Yahweh confused the language of the whole earth, and there Yahweh scattered them over the face of the whole earth." (Genesis 10:9)
• At this point, he disinherited all the nations of the world, assigned their direct governance lesser elohim, i.e., to members of his Divine Council, and chose a not yet existing people group--Israel--to be the nation that He himself governed:

When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance,
when he divided the sons of men,
he fixed their bounds according to the number of the sons of God;
but Yahweh's portion was his people,
Jacob his share of inheritance. (Deuteronomy 32:8-9, Jerusalem Bible) 

⌊And do this so that you do not lift⌋ your eyes toward heaven and ⌊observe⌋ the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of the heaven, and be led astray and bow down to them and serve them, things that Yahweh your God has allotted to all of the peoples under all of the heaven. But Yahweh has taken you and brought you out from the furnace of iron, from Egypt, to be a people of inheritance to him, ⌊as it is this day⌋. (Deuteronomy 4:19-20) 

• Some of the lesser elohim became corrupt and lured the nations under their charge to worship themselves instead of Yahweh and then to tempt Israel to do the same. 

They sacrificed to the demons, not God,
to gods whom they had not known,
new gods who came from recent times;
⌊their ancestors had not known them⌋. (Deuteronomy 32:17)

• And then Psalm 82 is where Yahweh passes His judgment upon the corrupt lesser elohim for their corrupt governance of the nations of the world and strips them of their immortality: "You will die like men". He also expropriates the nations and claims them to be his portion just as Israel had been: "Rise up, O God, judge the earth, because you shall inherit all the nations."

Now, this is the Psalm we are singing in the liturgy while re-enacting Christ's Harrowing of Hades, and it made so much sense. Jesus enters Hades, a bastion of corrupt elohim power, trashes the place, and inaugurates the judgment of Psalm 82. This Psalm is an amazing prayer of spiritual warfare. Every time we pray it, we are reminding the powers of darkness of the final consummation of their judgment.

Conclusion

Vesperal Liturgy of St. Basil celebrated on the morning of Great and Holy Saturday is just an amazing service. I cry through most of it year after year. The back story is epic, the Old Testament foreshadowing is awe-inspiring, and the realization of how what happened applies to our current spiritual warfare is breathtaking. And then, of course, there is the human fact that because of this event, some day I will be able to see Dad and Matt again.