The descent of Jesus Christ to the dead has been a fundamental tenet of the Christian faith, as indicated by its inclusion in both the Apostles' and Athanasian Creeds. But it has also been the subject of suspicion and scrutiny, especially from evangelicals. Led by the mystery and wonder of Holy Saturday, Matthew Emerson offers an exploration of the biblical, historical, theological, and practical implications of the descent.

This in-depth study on the realm of death presents a message of hope held by the first generation of Christians and the early church. Using Scripture, patristic tradition, early Christian poetry, and liturgical texts, Archbishop Hilarion explores the mysterious and enigmatic event of Christ⿿s descent into Hades and its consequences for the human race. Insisting that Christ entered Sheol as Conqueror and not as victim, the author depicts the Lord⿿s descent as an event of cosmic significance opening the path to universal salvation. He also reveals Hades as a place of divine presence, a place where the spiritual fate of a person may still change. Reminding readers that self-will remains the only hindrance to life in Christ, he presents the gospel message anew, even in the shadow of death.

Born in controversy and raised in university settings, the Lutheran reform movement was embroiled immediately, publicly, and perennially in theological disputes and political battles. While controversies during Martin Luther's lifetime centered on disagreements with Rome and Geneva, present and later differences emerged over interpreting Luther's and Melanchthon's theologies on such issues as governmental interference, liturgical practices, justification's implications for good works and sin, the Lord's supper, and election. It is this defining dis-concord, alternating with attempts at concord and conciliation, that is reflected in the documents newly translated in this indispensable documentary companion to The Book of Concord, which includes the works of Agricola, Eck, Chemnitz, Melanchthon, and Luther.

Where was Christ's soul between his death and resurrection? Was it in heaven? Did it descend to the dead? This book answers that question, in two parts. The first half of the book is dedicated to exegesis, looking at what the Scriptures tell us about this important issue. The second half of the book is dedicated to historical sources relating to the doctrine of the descent in Protestant Churches in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

He descended into hell. Hans Urs von Balthasar, one of the most influential theologians of the twentieth century, placed this affirmation of the Nicene Creed at the heart of his reflection on the world-altering events of Holy Week, asserting that this identification of God with the human experience is at the "absolute center" of the Christian faith. Yet is such a descent to suffering really the essence of Catholic belief about the mystery of Holy Saturday? Alyssa Lyra Pitstick's Light in Darkness -- the first comprehensive treatment of Balthasar's theology of Holy Saturday -- draws on the multiple yet unified resources of authoritative Catholic teaching on Christ's descent to challenge Balthasar's conclusions. Pitstick conducts a thorough investigation of Balthasar's position that Christ suffered in his descent into hell and asks whether that is compatible with traditional teaching about Christ. Light in Darkness is a thorough argument for the existence and authority of a traditional Catholic doctrine of Christ's descent as manifested in creeds, statements of popes and councils, Scripture, and art from Eastern and Western traditions. Pitstick's carefully argued, contrarian work is sure to spur debate across the theological spectrum.

In this provocative, classic metaphysical thriller, a group of suburban amateur actors plagued by personal demons and terrors explore the pathways to heaven and hell Certain inhabitants of Battle Hill, a small community on the outskirts of London, are preparing to mount a new play by the neighborhood’s most illustrious resident, the writer Peter Stanhope. Each actor struggles with self-absorption, doubt, fear, and sin. But “the Hill” is not like other places. Here the past and present intermingle, ghosts walk among the living, and reality is often clouded by dreams and the dark fantastic. For young Pauline Anstruther, who is caring for an aging grandmother and frightened by the specter of a doppelgänger who gets closer with each visitation, the prospect of heaven exists in the renowned playwright’s willingness to bear the burden of her terror. For eminent historian Lawrence Wentworth, the rejection of his desire pulls him deeper inside himself, leaving him vulnerable to the lure of the succubus and opening wide the entrance to hell. A brilliant theological thriller, Descent into Hell is an extraordinary fictional meditation on sin and personal salvation by one of the twentieth century’s most original and provocative literary artists. Charles Williams, a member of the Inklings alongside fellow Oxfordians C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Owen Barfield, has written a powerful work at once profoundly disturbing and gloriously uplifting, an ingenious amalgam of metaphysics, religious thought, and darkest fantasy.

Gustaf Aulen's classic work, 'Christus Victor', has long been a standard text on the atonement. Aulen applies history of ideas' methodology to historical theology in tracing the development of three views of the atonement. Aulen asserts that in traditional histories of the doctrine of the atonement only two views have usually been presented, the objective/Anselmian and the subjective/Aberlardian views. According to Aulen, however, there is another type of atonement doctrine in which Christ overcomes the hostile powers that hold humanity in subjection, at the same time that God in Christ reconciles the world to Himself. This view he calls the "classic" idea of the atonement. Because of its predominance in the New Testament, in patristic writings, and in the theology of Luther, Aulen holds that the classic type may be called the distinctively Christian idea of the atonement.

Not since Betty Eadie’s Embraced by the Light has a personal account of a Near-Death Experience (NDE) been so utterly different from most others—or nearly as compelling. "This is a book you devour from cover to cover, and pass on to others. This is a book you will quote in your daily conversation. Storm was meant to write it and we were meant to read it." —from the foreword by Anne Rice In the thirty years since Raymond Moody’s Life After Life appeared, a familiar pattern of NDEs has emerged: suddenly floating over one’s own body, usually in a hospital setting, then a sudden hurtling through a tunnel of light toward a presence of love. Not so in Howard Storm’s case. Storm, an avowed atheist, was awaiting emergency surgery when he realized that he was at death’s door. Storm found himself out of his own body, looking down on the hospital room scene below. Next, rather than going “toward the light,” he found himself being torturously dragged to excruciating realms of darkness and death, where he was physically assaulted by monstrous beings of evil. His description of his pure terror and torture is unnerving in its utter originality and convincing detail. Finally, drawn away from death and transported to the realm of heaven, Storm met angelic beings as well as the God of Creation. In this fascinating account, Storm tells of his “life review,” his conversation with God, even answers to age-old questions such as why the Holocaust was allowed to take place. Storm was sent back to his body with a new knowledge of the purpose of life here on earth. This book is his message of hope.

There has been a lack of serious historical investigation of the famous creedal statement 'Christ descended into hell' that was universally affirmed by the church for the first 1500 years of Church history. This unique book is an in-depth investigation of the history of the doctrine of Christ's descent and how Revelation 1:18 alludes to that significant doctrine. The author demonstrates a real passion and a rigorous argument for Christ's triumphal descent into the underworld in order that he would 'fill all things' (Eph 4:10).

The Gospel of Nicodemus, otherwise known as the Acts of Pilate (Acta Pilati) is not assumed to have written by Pilate, but rather to have been compiled from the official acts which were preserved in the praetorium at Jerusalem. The original is said to have been written by Nicodemus in Hebrew. The work gained a wide readership in the Middle Ages, with its popularity shown by the number of languages and versions in which it exists. Currently, there are known copies in Greek, Coptic, Armenian and Latin. These Acts are composed of three sections. The first section relates to the trial of Jesus and is similar to Luke 23. The second part regards the Resurrection. Then in the third part, Christ's Descent into Hell (Descensus ad Infernos), for which there is no known Greek text. In it, Leucius and Charinus, two souls who are raised from the dead after the Crucifixion tell the Sanhedrin the circumstances of the descent of Christ into Limbo. This short book gives the full Acts of Pilate along with footnotes to referring Bible passages and includes the Latin text of "Descensus ad Infernos" as an appendix. The source text for this work is "Apocryphal Gospels, Acts, and Revelations" (1870) by Alexander Walker (1825-1903).