HistoricalChristian.Faith

Athanasius of Alexandria on the Intermediate State

Dates: c. 371 · Wikipedia
Summary: Athanasius of Alexandria (c. 296–373), defending the integrity of Christ's incarnate body against those who said the Word was changed into flesh and bone, affirms that while the body lay in the tomb the Word — not parted from it — descended "to preach, as Peter says, also to the spirits in prison" (1 Pet 3:19), a fourth-century witness to the descent embedded in a christological argument. The passage is later quoted approvingly by Aquinas (Summa III q.52) as proof of the descensus.

Claims & evidence

While the body lay in the grave, the Word went to preach to the spirits in prison

But in the Body which was circumcised, and carried, and ate and drank, and was weary, and was nailed on the tree and suffered, there was the impassible and incorporeal Word of God. This Body it was that was laid in a grave, when the Word had left it, yet was not parted from it, to preach, as Peter says, also to the spirits in prison.

— Letter to Epictetus (Letter 59), §5, historicalchristian.faith. Athanasius's burden in the letter is anti-Apollinarian: the body born of Mary is truly human, not the very Essence of the Word changed into "flesh, bones, hair." To make the point he separates body from Word at death — the body alone is "laid in a grave," while the Word, though it had "left it," was "not parted from it" and went to the spirits in prison. The descent is here adduced almost in passing, as a fixed datum of the gospel he can use to prove that the Word and the body are distinct.

The Word, not the lifeless body, did the preaching among the dead

And this above all shews the foolishness of those who say that the Word was changed into bones and flesh. For if this had been so, there were no need of a tomb. For the Body would have gone by itself to preach to the spirits in Hades. But as it was, He Himself went to preach, while the Body Joseph wrapped in a linen cloth, and laid it away at Golgotha.

— Letter to Epictetus (Letter 59), §6, historicalchristian.faith. Athanasius presses the same distinction one step further: the buried body did nothing, but "He Himself" — the Word — "went to preach" among the dead. The reasoning assumes the descent as an agreed fact and reads it as evidence for a two-sided Christ: a body in the tomb at Golgotha, and the living Word active among "the spirits in Hades." For Athanasius the interval between death and resurrection is real, and the Word is not idle in it.

Notes

• The descent appears in Athanasius as a premise, not a thesis: his quarrel is over the nature of Christ's body, and the descent to the spirits in prison is something he can take for granted to settle that quarrel. This makes the Letter to Epictetus a casual but firm witness that, by the late fourth century, Christ's preaching to the dead (1 Pet 3:19) was settled coin in the East.
• Athanasius is also often cited for the descent via De Synodis 8, which speaks of one who "descended into the parts beneath the earth, and regulated the things there, Whom the gate-keepers of hell saw [Job 38:17] and shuddered." But that line is Athanasius quoting the Arian-leaning Sirmium "Dated Creed" of 359 in order to refute it, not composing it himself — so it is not independent Athanasian testimony to the descent. The Letter to Epictetus passages above, by contrast, are his own words. See the descent-clause argument.
• He stands with the broader patristic tradition treating descent to the dead as a real event in the interval between cross and resurrection. The Letter to Epictetus passage is the one later adduced by Aquinas (Summa III q.52), who cites Athanasius as a father-authority for the descensus.