Re: POREUQEIS EKHRUXEN APEIQHSASIN in 1Peter3:19~20

From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Sun Jan 11 1998 - 14:54:00 EST


At 11:35 AM -0600 1/11/98, Paul S. Dixon wrote:
>On Sun, 11 Jan 1998 21:45:38 +0800 Steven Cox
><scox@ns1.chinaonline.com.cn.net> writes:
>> Does this verse tell us:
>> (a) Christ went-and-preached to spirits who had
>> previously in Noah's day (sic) been disobedient
>> (and we don't know whether they listened or not)
>> (b) Christ went-and-preached to spirits-in-prison
>> who then refused to believe POTE OTE in Noah's day.
>
>Greetings from the gorgeous white country of Portland, Oregon. We had a
>terrific snow/ice storm last night, power is out, roads virtually
>impassable,
>and church services cancelled. So, I get to jump into this stimulating
>and
>interesting passage (fortunately, our house still has power).
>
>I am reminded of our recent discussion in Mt 28:19 where a strong
>argument
>(at least, I thought so; and, so apparently most of the translations) was
>made for taking the aorist participle as an attendant circumstance. I
>find the parallel between the two passages striking: POREUQENTES OUN
>MAQHTEUSATE
>(Mt 28:19) with POREUQEIS EKHRUXEN (1 Pet 3:19). Remember, according to
>Wallace, there are five structural clues for the attendant circumstance:
>tense of participle is aorist, tense of main verb is aorist, mood of main
>verb is imperative or indicative, participle precedes the main verb,
>frequent in narrative (p 759).
>
>Hence, the aorist participle should be taken coordinately with the main
>verb. The antecedent action, then, is not because of the aorist tense of
>the participle, but because of the logic of the action itself. He had to
>go before he preached.
>
>The thesis, however, that the going and preaching of v. 19 followed the
>resurrection of Christ is suspect. There is no necessary temporal
>progression from v. 18 to v. 19. The connection may simply be given by
>EN hWi which relates back to the immediately preceding PNEUMATI. Christ
>went and preached to the spirits who had disobeyed and who are now in
>prison. But, when did Christ do that?
>
>This is answered by the following verse which should be taken
>epexegetically,
>hOTE APEXEDECETO hH TOU QEOU MAKROQUMIA ...KIBWTOU, "when the patience of
>God kept waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the
>ark." That is, Christ in the Spirit preached to the men (who are now
>spirits confined to prison) in the days of Noah. He did it in and
>through Noah's proclamation.
>
>This interpretation suggests, of course, that the uninspired punctuation
>of both the UBS and Nestle's text be changed so the comma be not after
>EKHRUXEN, but after POTE. The hOTE clause, then, explains and gives the
>timing of the preceding POREUQEIS EKHRUXEN.
>
>Another benefit to this interpretation is it removes the rather bizarre
>view seeing Christ descending into this prison after His death and
>resurrection to preach to these disobedient souls. One can certainly see
>why and how the "second chance" teaching surfaced. Furthermore, it does
>not contribute to the possible erroneous view in Eph 4 which sees Christ
>descending into Hell.
>
>To sum up: Christ, in the Spirit, went and preached to the spirits now
>in prison who had formerly disobeyed. He did so when God's patience kept
>waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the ark.
>
>Hey, this is a fascinating passage.

It (or rather I should say our interpretations of it) may get even more
fascinating yet, perhaps even bizarre, before we're through with it. I will
only say that putting a comma between POTE and the hOTE clause and
understanding the hOTI clause as referring back to the preceding POREUQEIS
EKHRUXEN strikes me as destroying the single clearest temporal link in the
entire passage and creating a strange linkage to a supposed proclamation by
Jesus in a pre-existent state to the dead. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding
what Paul means here. Is it somewhat akin to the faith of Abraham in Romans
4 that is placed in a God who creates out of nothing and raises the
dead--where the apostle seems to be saying that Abraham's faith was an
anticipation of faith-righteousness actually held later by those who have
responded to the gospel of Christ's death and resurrection. But this is
different: it involves a preaching of the gospel to those sinners of the
time while the ark was being built and God was patiently waiting for them
to be redeemed.

But I think rather the linkage of the "going and preaching to the dead" to
the death and resurrection of Christ in the second half of 3:18 is
intentional. It is referred to again in 1 Peter 4:5-6: judgment is to be
passed upon the living and the dead, says 4:5, and 4:6 says that this is
why the gospel was preached TO THE DEAD, so that they might have the
opportunity for repentance: hINA KRIQWSI MEN KATA ANQRWPOUS SARKI ZWSI DE
KATA QEON PNEUMATI--they are to be condemned for their lives in the past
KATA ANQRWPOUS but because they have heard and responded to the gospel IN
THE SPIRIT, they are to LIVE hereafter KATA QEON.

Isn't this precisely the passage in 1 Peter that is referred to in the
clause in Apostle's Creed, "he descended into Hell"? I think the sense of
3:18-20 is that Christ was raised in the spirit and in the spirit went and
preached to the dead, even to the dead of the period before the great
flood, and this in the interval between Good Friday and the appearances of
Easter morning. At least, that seems to me a more plausible understanding
of the sequence in 3:18-20, the Greek of which doesn't really seem to me to
be all that mangled.

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics/Washington University
One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018
Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cconrad@yancey.main.nc.us
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/



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