Last night I picked up my mail and found an envelope from one of my Th.M. professors, Dr. Robert Kolb. To read about him and the class he taught in January, see here. i opened it and enclosed was an article he wrote for 2002 edition of the Lutherjahrbuch, entitled, "Christ's Descent into Hell as Christological Locus in the Era of the Formula of Concord." He sent this to me in response to my recent article on the descent clause in the Creed.

The Heidelberg Catechism exposits this clause in the following way:

Question 44: Why is there added, “He descended into hell”?
Answer: That in my greatest temptations, I may be assured, and wholly comfort myself in this, that my Lord Jesus Christ, by His inexpressible anguish, pains, terrors, and hellish agonies, in which He was plunged during all His sufferings, but especially on the cross, hath delivered me from the anguish and torments of hell.

The Mansfeld Confutation (1565) critiqued the Heidelberg Catechism in general, but what is interesting is its refutation of Heidelberg 44.

First, the Mansfeld ministerium affirmed that God sent Martin Luther to Germany as his special prophet to give the true interpretation of the Creed and that Satan stood behind the Heidelberg in order to confuse the Germans.

Second, behind the Heidelberg's interpretation of the descent was its Sacramentarian error that denied the true presence of Christ in the Eucharist . . . and this part of the Creed provided another insidious opportunity to spread this error.

Third, Heidelberg 44 contained three errors:
1. it denies the catholic church's confession that Christ truly descended into hell thereby to conquer hell and give victory to the church;
2. it calls into question whether hell is a specific space;
3. it inclined to the "absurd opinion" that the descent could be interpreted to mean Christ's burial.

Fourth, in its analysis, the Mansfeld addressed the philosophical framework of the Calvinists that basic physics would not permit Christ to be in two places at once