whom God raised up, having freed him from the agony of death, because it was not possible that he should be held by it.
ExplanationCommentary
Verse 24. Having loosed the sorrows [2] of hell, and so forth In the ordinary Greek copies, of death. As to the sense of this place, 1. It is certain Christ suffered the pains and pangs of a violent death. 2. That his soul suffered no pains after death, nor in any place called hell. 3. We believe, as in the Apostles’ Creed, that his blessed soul descended into hell, that is, to that place in the inferior parts of the earth, (Ephes. 4:9) which we commonly call Limbus Patrum, not to suffer, but to free the souls of the just from thence.—As it was impossible he should be held there, either by death, or hell, his soul being always united to the divine person: and his rising again being foretold in the Psalms, in the words here cited. Witham.—Having overcome the grievous pains of death, and all the power of hell. Challoner.—Not that Jesus suffered any thing after his death; that was impossible. But these pains were loosed in his regard, because he was preserved from them, as the bird is preserved from the nets of the fowlers, which are broken before it is taken in them. Saint Augustine ep. ad. Olimp. xcv.—Moreover he loosed others of those pains. Idem, l. xii, chapter 13. de Gen. ad lit.