HistoricalChristian.Faith

The Gospel of Nicodemus (Acts of Pilate) on the Intermediate State

Dates: c. 450 (apocryphal; date and strata disputed — see Notes) · Wikipedia
Summary: The Gospel of Nicodemus — its second part, the Descensus ad Inferos ("Descent into Hell") — is the earliest sustained narrative of the harrowing of Hades. Where the Fathers state the descent in a sentence or a hymn, this apocryphon dramatizes it: the patriarchs and prophets waiting in the darkness, John the Baptist heralding the dayspring among the dead, Seth's report of the archangel Michael at paradise's gate, and Christ shattering the gates of brass to lead Adam and the righteous out of Hades into paradise. It is the single most influential source of the medieval "Harrowing of Hell" in art, drama, and devotion.

Claims & evidence

The dead in "the shadow of death" greet the descending light

The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light, and they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them did the light shine.

— The Gospel of Nicodemus (Acts of Pilate), Descent into Hell 2 (18), M. R. James translation, Wikisource. The narrator-witnesses are the dead themselves: as "a golden heat of the sun" breaks into the gloom, "the father of the whole race of men, together with all the patriarchs and prophets, rejoiced." The whole frame presupposes the structured intermediate state — a holding-place where the OT righteous consciously wait, in darkness, for the One who will come down to them.

John the Baptist preaches in Hades as Christ's forerunner — "the dayspring from on high"

I am John, the voice and the prophet of the most High, which came before the face of his advent to prepare his ways … And now have I come before his face, and come down to declare unto you that he is at hand to visit us, even the dayspring, the Son of God, coming from on high unto us that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.

— Descent into Hell 2 (18), Wikisource. John, slain by Herod, descends ahead of Christ to announce his coming to the dead — the same role he played on earth (Luke 1:78, "the dayspring from on high"). This dramatizes the lone patristic conjecture that the Baptist was Christ's forerunner in Hades, ventured by Hippolytus (On Christ and Antichrist 45).

Seth reports Michael at paradise's gate and the "oil of mercy"

Thou wilt not be able to receive it save in the last days and times, save when five thousand and five hundred years are accomplished: then shall the most beloved Son of God come upon the earth.

— Descent into Hell 3 (19), Wikisource. Adam bids his son Seth tell the patriarchs what the archangel Michael said when Seth came to the gate of paradise begging "the oil of the tree of mercy" to anoint his dying father: it cannot be had until the appointed years are fulfilled and the Son of God descends to raise Adam's body. The waiting dead "rejoiced with a great rejoicing" at the sign that their release is at hand.

Christ shatters the gates of Hades — "Lift up your gates … the King of glory shall come in"

Remove, O princes, your gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in … The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle, he is the King of glory.

— Descent into Hell 5 (21), Wikisource. The voice of Psalm 24:7–9 thunders twice at the gates; Hades and Satan dispute in terror; the gates of brass are broken, the bars of iron ground to powder, and the bound dead loosed. This dialogue of Hell with Satan — the apocryphon's most celebrated scene — became the script for the medieval mystery plays of the Harrowing.

Christ takes Adam by the hand and leads the saints out of Hades into paradise

And the Lord stretching forth his hand … took the right hand of Adam and went up out of hell, and all the saints followed him.

— Descent into Hell 8 (24), Wikisource. "Peace be unto thee," Christ says to Adam, and signs the cross over him and the patriarchs; he commits them to the archangel Michael, who leads them into paradise. The intermediate holding-place of the OT righteous is emptied — the very mechanism weighed on the descent to the dead argument page (the freeing of the OT righteous and "leading captivity captive").

Notes

This is an apocryphon, not a Father's testimony. The Gospel of Nicodemus is a pseudonymous Passion-and-descent narrative, framed as the report of Nicodemus and of two sons of Simeon raised from the dead; the wiki cites it as an early witness to belief about the intermediate state, not as history or Scripture. It carries no apostolic authority and was never canonical.
Date and strata are disputed. The work is composite. Its first part, the Acts of Pilate (the praetorium scenes), is the older layer — commonly dated to the mid-4th century, with a prehistory the apologists already presuppose (Justin and Tertullian appeal to lost "Acts of Pilate"). The second part, the Descent into Hell quoted here, is a later addition, usually dated to the 5th–6th century, and survives chiefly in Greek and Latin recensions that differ in wording; the Latin Descensus became the parent of versions in every European language. The composite "Gospel of Nicodemus" reached its present form before c. 600. The "c. 450" placement here is an approximate, conventional slot for an undatable text, set by the descent layer we cite — like the Holy Saturday homily, the Odes of Solomon, and the hymn ascribed to Ambrose, it is listed under its work rather than a securely dated author.
Its importance is reception, not originality. The descent doctrine itself is far older — second-century writers are "full of it" (so M. R. James) — and the apocryphon adds nothing to the dogma. What it adds is drama: the named patriarchs, the dialogue of Satan and Hades, the breaking of the brazen gates. Through it the harrowing entered the liturgy, the iconography of the Anastasis, and the Corpus Christi and mystery cycles of the medieval West. It develops in extended narrative the same picture stated catechetically by Cyril of Jerusalem and dramatized in homily by the Holy Saturday homily.
It belongs to the cluster of descent arguments — the freeing of the OT righteous (descent to the dead), the content of the proclamation (what Christ announced), and the relocation of paradise (paradise relocation): here the saints are led "up out of hell" and handed to Michael for paradise, a vivid form of the relocation thesis the earliest Fathers resisted.