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According to the creed, Christ descended to the dead. Then after his own death, according to Catholic belief, Jesus freed the just who had died beforehand from their place in death, to live in heaven. In this painting, Christ has just burst into the place of the dead.
The artist, Blessed Fra Angelico, depicts the moment in which Christ arrives in the realm of the dead, literally blowing the door off its hinges with His divine power. The souls of the just stand ready to greet Him, the long-awaited One, and now they are prepared to accompany the King of kings to the realm of endless day that He has opened forever by His Death on the Cross.
Fra Angelico scholar Stephan Beissel ably unpacks this scene: “Christ carries the standard of the Resurrection and Victory in his left hand, and extends his right hand to Abraham, behind whom one sees Adam, Eve, Moses, David, and the other Patriarchs. … Christ does not touch Satan and advances on a light cloud. He is magnificently dressed in luminous garments and surrounded by rays of glory, while two demons are seized with fear and take flight.”[1]
Not only does Christ “not touch Satan,” but, as Fra Angelico depicts with even a slight shade of joyous humor, Limbo-Devil under doorChrist utterly squashes Satan beneath the door to the netherworld, recalling the words of the prophecy God addressed to the serpent in the garden of Eden at the dawn of salvation history: “I will put enmity between you and the women, and between your offspring and hers. He will strike at your head, while you strike at his heel” (Gen 3:15). The love of Christ poured out on the Cross has created an unstoppable force that breaks the chains of sin, shatters the door of the realm of death…" (from “Holy Week in Art: Holy Saturday—Fra Angelico’s “Christ in Limbo,” at http://sites.nd.edu/oblation/2014/0...-holy-saturday-fra-angelicos-christ-in-limbo/
The painter, Fra Angelico, is recognized as a great painter of the early Renaissance in Europe. Many would be surprised to learn that he, a great Renaissance painter, was beatified by Pope John Paul in 1982.
The artist, Blessed Fra Angelico, depicts the moment in which Christ arrives in the realm of the dead, literally blowing the door off its hinges with His divine power. The souls of the just stand ready to greet Him, the long-awaited One, and now they are prepared to accompany the King of kings to the realm of endless day that He has opened forever by His Death on the Cross.
Fra Angelico scholar Stephan Beissel ably unpacks this scene: “Christ carries the standard of the Resurrection and Victory in his left hand, and extends his right hand to Abraham, behind whom one sees Adam, Eve, Moses, David, and the other Patriarchs. … Christ does not touch Satan and advances on a light cloud. He is magnificently dressed in luminous garments and surrounded by rays of glory, while two demons are seized with fear and take flight.”[1]
Not only does Christ “not touch Satan,” but, as Fra Angelico depicts with even a slight shade of joyous humor, Limbo-Devil under doorChrist utterly squashes Satan beneath the door to the netherworld, recalling the words of the prophecy God addressed to the serpent in the garden of Eden at the dawn of salvation history: “I will put enmity between you and the women, and between your offspring and hers. He will strike at your head, while you strike at his heel” (Gen 3:15). The love of Christ poured out on the Cross has created an unstoppable force that breaks the chains of sin, shatters the door of the realm of death…" (from “Holy Week in Art: Holy Saturday—Fra Angelico’s “Christ in Limbo,” at http://sites.nd.edu/oblation/2014/0...-holy-saturday-fra-angelicos-christ-in-limbo/
The painter, Fra Angelico, is recognized as a great painter of the early Renaissance in Europe. Many would be surprised to learn that he, a great Renaissance painter, was beatified by Pope John Paul in 1982.
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