The Descent into Hell,

1490

In the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus, Christ descends into Limbo to save the souls of the righteous but unbaptized patriarchs of the Old Testament. This scene was extremely rare in Roman Catholic iconography, disappearing almost entirely after the sixteenth century; in the Orthodox Church, however, the Descent became so popular as to replace the depiction of Christ’s resurrection. Western versions of the Descent often included reptilian demons and fiery landscapes, incorporating some of the imagery of the more common Last Judgment scene. Here the representation of Satan refers in part to Genesis 3:15, in which God tells the serpent that the son of man “shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel”; Christ literally fulfills that prophecy by trampling Satan underfoot, simultaneously crushing the gates and lifting the Just toward Heaven. In so doing, he exemplifies both the downward force of divine retribution and the upward force of salvation. Christ clasps the wrist of Adam, who leads a train of the Just, including Eve, Abel, David, and Solomon.