('The harrowing of hell'). ('Harrow' is used in the old sense of ravage' or 'despoil'.)
The Christian tenet that after his death Christ descended into hell has no very clear scriptural basis, but the concept appealed strongly to the early Church, and it first became an article of faith in the 4th cent. The god or hero who descends to the lower regions to fetch the dead back to the upper world is well-known in classical mythology, and may have been the seed out of which the Christian idea grew. As early as the 2nd cent. there existed a body of writing containing descriptions of Christ's descent, how he overcame Satan and liberated the souls of the Old Testament saints. It was taught that because they lived and died in an era that was without benefit of the Christian sacraments they were relegated to a lower place until such time as Christ should come to redeem them. The story is first told as a continuous narrative in the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus (perhaps 5th cent.) where we read that 'the gates of brass were broken in pieces... and all the dead that were bound were loosed from their chains... and the King of glory entered in.' After Satan had been bound in irons, 'the Savior blessed Adam upon his forehead with the sign of the cross, and so did he also unto all the patriarchs and prophets and martyrs and forefathers. And he took them and leaped up out of hell.' The early Fathers of the Church who speculated about the matter concluded that the precise region was not in hell itself but on its border, or Limbo (Lat. limbus, a hem). The subject enjoyed great popularity in medieval drama and literature. It is retold in the Golden Legend, after the version in the Gospel of Nicodemus; in Dante's ' Inferno (canto 4) Limbo forms the first Circle of Hell and its inhabitants include the virtuous pagans, poets, philosophers and heroes of classical antiquity. In medieval art the subject formed one of the scenes in the cycle of Christ's Passion. It continued to be represented through the Renaissance but is seldom found after the 16th cent. Christ, holding the banner of the Resurrection (a red cross on a white ground, occasionally vice versa), enters through a doorway. The doors, broken from their hinges, have fallen to the ground, crushing Satan underneath. Demons flee into the darkness. A throng of figures approaches from a cavern, the foremost of whom reaches out to take Christ's hand; this is Adam. He is old and gray-bearded. Behind him may be Eve, and Abel with a shepherd's crook and perhaps clothed in pelts. Among the others are Moses with horn-like rays of light; King David wearing a crown; the penitent thief, whom Christ promised should be with him in heaven, holding the cross; John the Baptist, the last of the prophets, holding a cross-staff. Other lesser crowned heads and bearded patriarchs followed behind. In later examples classical elements may appear, with Cerberus, the three-headed dog, guarding the entrance and Pluto and Proserpine enthroned over the scene.