§1. IN Hebrew and early Christian cosmogonies, the earth was conceived as a disk surrounded by, and resting upon, underlying waters of vast extent and depth, which were called tehom or the abyss. God had spread forth the earth above the waters at the beginning; He had founded it upon the seas and established it upon the floods. From these ‘waters under the earth’, all springs and rivers welled up. Fertilizing streams are called the blessings of the deep that couches beneath. Alternatively, as the Book of Enoch has it, The earth was founded upon the water, and from the secret recesses of the mountains come beautiful waters from the creation of the world and unto eternity. Moreover, according to the Priests Code, the devastation …show more content…
We are now in a position to appreciate the stress that was laid in the early Christian centuries on the parallel first instituted by Apostle Paul between Christ’s Descent into Hades, and the Christian’s descent into the baptismal waters. “All we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death. We were buried therefore with Him through baptism into death ... if we have become united with Him by the likeness of His death, we shall be also by the likeness of His resurrection.” Baptism was pictured as the Likeness of Christ’s death, and Christian imagination dwelt on this thought and pursued it in detail, in the early history of the Church, after a fashion, which it is an effort to us to understand. Chrysostom’s commentary on Colossians 2:12 f. illustrates what I mean. St. Paul says that ‘having been buried with Christ in baptism, we are raised with Him through faith in God who raised Him from the dead, and that we are thus quickened with Christ, who made a show of principalities and powers after His Passion’. Now Chrysostom fastens on this last thought. The principalities over which Christ triumphed are the diabolical powers, which lost their power over the dead when Christ died on the Cross. Never was the devil in so shameful a plight. For while expecting to have Him, he lost even those, he had; and when that Body was nailed to the Cross, the dead arose. That is, Chrysostom applies the words of Colossians 2:15 to Christ’s Descent into Hades and the spoliation of the infernal powers, which He was believed to have effected there. Then he goes on to speak of the baptism of a catechumen, as comparable in some sort to the making of Adam. It is a new creation. He is formed in the waters; he receives spirit instead of a soul. As Adam was made a living soul so the newly baptized receives a spirit. In addition, after he is formed, He brings to him not beasts [over which Adam was given dominion] but devils and their prince, and says, ‘Tread upon serpents