A holy one stays holy in Hades; physicians enter the wards

I have not digressed nor forgotten what lies before us; rather we want to establish this—that if all who went down into Hades before Christ are Christ’s forerunners, the prophets of Christ, so also Samuel has gone down there; for not simply, but as a holy one.

Wherever the holy one is, he is holy. Holy. Surely Christ is not no longer Christ because he was once in Hades? Was he no longer Son of God because he came to be in the underworld place “so that every knee should bend at the name of Jesus Christ—of heavenly and earthly and under-earthly beings”? So Christ was Christ even while below, and—if I may speak thus—while being in the lower place, by choice he was above. So also the prophets and Samuel, even if they go down where the souls below are. Below they can be in place; but they are below by choice. And I ask: †did they prophesy the things above the heavens?

But I cannot give a demon such power—that Samuel prophesies about Saul and the people of God, and prophesies about David’s kingdom that he is about to reign. Those who say these things will know the things of the truth according to the place; they will not find how to show that a holy one would not also come to be for those badly off into the place of those badly off. Let physicians come to be into the places of ailing soldiers, and let them enter where the stenches of their wounds are; this is what medical philanthropy suggests. So this the Word has suggested to the Savior and to the prophets—both to come here and to go down into Hades.