Victory over Hades

Having been called to rescue the souls held in Hades, I delivered them. For they say, 'Lord, you have brought my soul up from Hades,' yet having been called, he did not free my troubled soul from the attachments of evils.

But may it never be! For neither the father, being either ungenerous or powerless, failed to free me from the suffering, nor did I, while refusing the suffering, ask for the cup to pass. For if suffering is unheard of, I truly was cowardly; but if death is arbitrary, I thought it cowardly to free man by using sophistry against the devil. Therefore, the devil, not agreeing with this, dragged me as if to drown me, unaware that he also had those whom he would have cast down by me.

As soon as I rushed upon Hades, I plundered its tombs and stripped the sarcophagi. I stripped them not by open fighting, but by invisibly providing the resurrection. For I loosed no one and all fled, I spoke nothing and liberty was proclaimed, I called no one and all rushed together. For as soon as I arrived as a king, the tyrant was despised, I shone as light and the darkness was dissolved.

For it was to see every prisoner seeing liberty, and every captive dancing the resurrection; thus, as those dead were marvelling at me in the victory, while casting down death in its defeat, saying: 'Where, O Death, is your sting? Where, O Hades, is your victory?' And these things are so. Let us send up glory for the things said to Christ, the King of all, for to him belong glory, honor, and worship, with the unblemished Father and the all-holy Spirit, unto the ages of ages. Amen.