Moralia in Job 1218

23. The Lord descended for us not only into the world, but also into hell. — As if He said: I, who not only sought the sea, that is, the world, through the human flesh and soul I assumed, but also, through it willingly laid down in death, descended even to the uttermost parts of hell, as it were to the depths of the sea. For if the sea, according to the manner of divine speech, ought to be understood as the world, nothing prevents the depths of the sea from being understood as the prisons of hell. This depth of the sea the Lord sought, when He entered the lowest parts of hell to snatch away the souls of His elect. Whence it is also said through the prophet: Thou hast made the depth of the sea a way, that the delivered might pass over (Isaiah 51:10).

For this depth of the sea, before the coming of the Redeemer, was not a way but a prison, because it enclosed within itself even the souls of the good, though not in penal places. Yet the Lord made that depth a way, because, coming thither, He granted His elect to pass over from the prisons of hell to the heavenly places. Whence it is also fittingly said there: That the delivered might pass over (ibid. 10). And what he had called the depth of the sea, this, repeating in other words, he calls the uttermost part of the abyss, because just as the abyss of the waters is comprehended by no sight of ours, so the hidden things of hell are penetrated by us with no sense of knowledge. For we see those who are taken away from here, but we do not see what retribution of torments awaits them according to their merit.

He walked in hell, because He came free to those who were bound. — But it is to be weighed with vigilant care that He declares He walked in the uttermost part of the abyss. For to walk belongs not to the bound but to the free. For him whom chains bind they likewise hinder in his steps. Therefore, because the Lord bore no chains of sin, He walked in hell. For He came free to those who were bound. Whence it is written: I am become as a man without help, free among the dead (Psalm 88:5). Therefore for the Lord to walk in the uttermost parts of the abyss is to find nothing of His own detention in the place of damnation, as Peter attests, who says: Having loosed the sorrows of hell, according as it was impossible that He should be held by it (Acts 2:24).

Or certainly, because in walking we are led from place to place, and are found present here and there; the Lord is said to have walked in hell, so that He might be shown to have been present, through the power of His divinity, to the souls of the elect in each several place. Whence also the spirit of wisdom is described as mobile (Wisdom 7:24), so that, by the fact that it is nowhere absent, it may be signified to meet us everywhere. This His descent the Lord regards as the more wonderful, the more frequently He pours it into redeemed man. For repeating it again, He adds: