XIV. Received opinion: Old-Testament faithful not received into paradise until Christ opened it; limbus patrum

XIV. The positive and received sentence of the ancients down to our Sardian age was that the souls of the faithful of the Old Testament were not received into paradise before Christ by his death had unlocked it and first entered it with the thief. But this is among those questions on account of which the Church ought least to be troubled or split, as Calvin authorizes (Institutes book 4, chapter 1, §12) — especially if there is consensus in this, that the souls of the ancient fathers immediately from their departure obtained beatitude and the beneficent presence of God. Theophilus of Antioch among the ancients (Allegories book 4): In these things also, he says, that he sees Abraham among the infernal, this reason is thought by some to underlie, that all the saints before the advent of the Lord Jesus Christ are said to have descended even to the inferi, though into a place of refreshment.

So John Chrysostom (homily 4 on Mark), Jerome to Heliodorus in the epitaph of Nepotianus, likewise to Paula on the death of Blesilla and on Ecclesiastes chapters 3 and 9, Augustine (City of God book 20, chapter 15, and letter 99 to Evodius), the Council of Toledo under Honorius celebrated in the year 633 (chapter 1): He descended, it says, to the inferi, that he might rescue the saints who were held there — which sentence clearly also assert Irenaeus, Tertullian, Origen, Gregory of Neocaesarea, Eusebius, Macarius of Jerusalem, Basil, Athanasius, Epiphanius, Cyril of Jerusalem, Ambrose, Rufinus, Synesius, and even among the juniors Zwingli on Hebrews 11:39–40, Calvin in the Psychopannychia, Bullinger on Luke 16:23 and Hebrews 9:8 and 1 Peter 3:19, and Martyr on 2 Kings 2:13.