Yes, quite a mystery indeed.
Who knows how Hades operated?...
Are we to suppose that Hades was out of the loop?
I don't know.. Seems far fetched to me...
The one about fooling hades...
I don't think God needed to be so deceptive and cunning to accomplish His will.
This sort of thing is in the gray area of the dogmas of the Church...
I don't need the answer in this life.
I must say that the question of HOW Christ burst the bonds of Hades had never occurred to me... And I don't know if it merits even an enquiry... So I have a Priest friend who has a knack for and interest in dogma and catechesis, and I dropped him a text, to see if he might be interested in a 'small theological' discussion... I did not tell him what it was about... So I am awaiting his reply...
Meanwhile, some facts that need be kept in view:
Christ did not destroy hell...
Except within Himself...
And He released those who were His from its captivity...
And He did so AFTER He died as a man...
It is only as a man that He descended...
And it is only as a man that He Arose...
As God, He is always in all places at all times...
So my preliminary thoughts are that there is something very human-connected that is involved in His defeating Death in Hades and effecting His Resurrection...
At the beginning of His Ministry, when He was Baptized, He then went into the wilderness and fasted for 40 days and nights, and overcame the temptation to which Adam fell in His 3 responses to the devil... So right there He took up Adam's failed life, and lived it to the Cross in an effort to gather the dispersed who were lost - God's People - And He ended the earthly walk on the Cross - tetelestai - And then went to Hades to retrieve His Own -
Death will be fully destroyed only in the Age to Come...
Now we live in struggle against it...
Lest we fall in sin...
Seems like a decent topic to me...
Got a text reply - Maybe this afternoon my friend can make a little time... I think this will be a good question with which to stir his theological pot!
Arsenios