Did Christ descend to the dead after the crucifixion?

Justin Martyr c. 100–c. 165 ADDialogue with Trypho 72.4

From the words of the same Jeremiah they cut out this: "The Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, remembered his dead who slept in the earth of the grave, and went down to them to preach to them his salvation."

Justin quotes a saying he attributes to Jeremiah. It is not in our Bibles. Irenaeus quotes it too. It shows the descent was already a Christian belief.

Irenaeus of Lyons c. 130–c. 202 ADAgainst Heresies 4.27.2

And for this reason the Lord descended into the regions beneath the earth, preaching his coming even to those there, with forgiveness of sins for those who believe in him. And all those believed in him who hoped in him, that is, who foretold his coming and served his arrangements, the righteous and the prophets and the patriarchs, to whom he forgave their sins just as he did to us.

Irenaeus passes on a presbyter’s teaching on the sins of the men of old: their sins were written down for our instruction, and the Lord’s death brought them healing too. This part of Against Heresies survives in its ancient Latin translation, not in Greek.

Irenaeus of Lyons c. 130–c. 202 ADAgainst Heresies 5.31.1

But as it is, he spent three days where the dead were, as the prophet says of him: The Lord remembered his holy dead, those who had slept before in the land of burial, and descended to them, to draw them out and to save them. And the apostle also says: He ascended; what does that mean, if not that he also descended into the lower parts of the earth?

Against teachers who denied the resurrection of the flesh and said the soul flies straight past heaven at death, Irenaeus argues that the Lord himself kept the law of the dead for three days. He goes on (5.31.2) that the disciples’ souls likewise wait in an invisible place appointed by God until the resurrection. The prophet quoted is the Jeremiah saying Justin also uses; the passage survives in Latin.

Gospel of NicodemusDescent into Hell (Acts of Pilate, part 2) 21 and 24

Lift up your gates, you rulers, and be lifted up, eternal gates, and the King of glory shall come in ... the bronze gates were shattered and the iron bars were crushed ... the King of glory stretched out his right hand ... and raised up Adam, the forefather

A popular apocryphon, framed as the report of two men raised from the dead. It, not the New Testament, is the source of the medieval harrowing of hell, with the gates broken and Adam raised by the hand.

Rufinus of Aquileia c. 345–411 ADCommentary on the Apostles' Creed 18

It should be known that the words "he descended into hell" are not added in the creed of the Roman church, nor are they found in the churches of the East. Yet the meaning of the phrase seems to be the same as "he was buried".

Rufinus's creed at Aquileia had the phrase; Rome's did not yet. He then defends the descent from Scripture.

John CalvinInstitutes of the Christian Religion 2.16.10

Nothing had been done if Christ had only endured corporeal death. ... In order to interpose between us and God's anger, and satisfy his righteous judgment, it was necessary that he should feel the weight of divine vengeance.

Calvin keeps the creed's words but re-reads them: the descent is not a journey to free the dead (he calls the Limbus story a fable in the sections just before) but Christ bearing, on the cross, the weight of God's judgment and the horrors of eternal death in his soul.