The answer
St. Cyril of Jerusalem says, “He was truly laid as Man in a tomb of rock; but rocks were rent asunder by terror because of Him. He went down into the regions beneath the earth, that thence also He might redeem the righteous.323 For, tell me, would you wish the living only to enjoy His grace, and that, though most of them are unholy; and not wish those who from Adam had for a long while been imprisoned to have now gained their liberty? Isaiah the Prophet proclaimed with loud voice so many things concerning Him; would you not wish that the King should go down and redeem His herald? David was there, and Samuel, and all the Prophets, John himself also, who by his messengers said, ‘Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another?’ (Matt. 11:3). Would you not wish that He should descend and redeem such as these?”324
Fr. Tadros Yacoub Malaty
Notes
323 See also St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures 14.18–19 (NPNF II/7:99).
324 St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures 4.11 (NPNF II/7:22) amended.