The Death of the Soul: Christ’s Descent into Hell in the Thought of Calvin, Lefèvre, and Cusa

Abstract

ABSTRACT A lacuna in scholarship currently exists on the place of Christ’s descent into hell in the theology of John Calvin. The impression given by this lacuna is that Calvin had little to say about the descensus. However, the reformer devoted more energy explaining the descensus than any other clause of the Apostles’ Creed, an explanation already developed in his first treatise the Psychopannychia. This article shows how the French humanist scholar Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples’ reliance on Nicholas of Cusa demonstrates an organic stream of teaching in the late medieval period within which Calvin’s theology of Christ's descent into hell is clearly situated. Calvin, Lefèvre, and Cusa all understood the descent into hell as Christ’s experience of the second death, or the death of the soul. Calvin’s descensus theology was far from novel and exceeds a mere metaphorical reference to the crucifixion despite suggestions to the contrary in popular scholarship.