Though the controversy was suppressed in Hamburg, and Aepinus died May
13, 1553, the theological questions involved were not settled, nor had
all of the advocates of the views set forth by Aepinus disappeared from
the scene. Even such theologians as Westphal, Flacius, Gallus, and
Osiander were partly agreed with him. Osiander says in an opinion: "I am
asked whether the descent of Christ pertains to the satisfaction made
for us or only to His triumph over the enemies. I answer briefly that
the descent of Christ into hell pertained to the satisfaction He merited
for us as well as to the triumph over the enemies, just as His death on
the cross does not belong to the one only, but to both.... Thus by
descending into hell He rendered satisfaction for us who merited hell,
according to Ps. 16." On the other hand, a synod held July 11, 1554, at
Greifswald made it a point expressly to deny that the descent of Christ
involved any suffering of His soul, or that it was of an expiatory
nature, or that this article referred to the anguish of His soul before
His death, or that it was identical with His burial. They affirmed the
teaching of Luther, _viz._, that the entire Christ, God and man, body
and soul, descended into hell after His burial and before His
resurrection, etc. (Frank, 446f.; 416.)
Furthermore, in a letter to John Parsimonius, court-preacher in
Stuttgart, dated February 1, 1565 John Matsperger of Augsburg taught
that, in the article of the descent of Christ, the word "hell" must not
be taken figuratively for torments, death, burial, etc., but literally,
as the kingdom of Satan and the place of the damned spirits and souls
wherever that might be, that the entire Christ descended into this place
according to both divinity and humanity, with His body and soul, and not
only with the latter, while the former remained in the grave; that this
occurred immediately after His vivification or the reunion of body and
soul in the grave and before His resurrection; that the Descent was
accomplished in an instant, _viz._, in the moment after His vivification
and before His resurrection; and that Christ descended, not to suffer,
but, as a triumphant Victor, to destroy the portals of hell for all
believers. Parsimonius, too, maintained that Christ did not in any way
suffer after His death, but denied emphatically that "hell" was a
definite physical locality or place in space, and that the descent
involved a local motion of the body. Brenz assented to the views of
Parsimonius, and the preachers of Augsburg also assented to them. In
order to check his zeal against his opponents, Matsperger was deposed
and imprisoned. (Frank, 450 f.)
Such being the situation within the Lutheran Church concerning the
questions involved in the Hamburg Controversy, which by the way, had
been mentioned also in the Imperial Instruction for the Diet at
Augsburg, 1555, the _Formula of Concord_ considered it advisable to pass
also on this matter. It did so, in Article IX, by simply reproducing
what Luther had taught in the sermon referred to above. Here we read:
"We simply believe that the entire person, God and man after the burial,
descended into hell, conquered the devil, destroyed the power of hell
and took from the devil all his might." (1051, 3.) "But how this
occurred we should [not curiously investigate, but] reserve until the
other world, where not only this point [this mystery], but also still
others will be revealed, which we here simply believe, and cannot
comprehend with our blind reason." (827, 4.) Tschackert remarks: "Ever
since [the adoption of the Ninth Article of the _Formula of Concord_]
Lutheran theology has regarded the Descent of Christ as the beginning of
the state of exaltation of the human nature of the God-man." (559.)