Whom God has raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be held by it.
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Athanasius the Apostolic
AD 373
To man it was not possible to succeed in this; for death belongs to man; wherefore, the Word, being God, became flesh, that, being put to death in the flesh, He might quicken all men by His own power.
for certainly it was impossible for him to be held by it:
It may also be understood as teaching us to believe Him to have loosed those pains which could not possibly hold Him, but which were holding those to whom He had resolved to grant deliverance.
Having loosed the sorrows, not to suffer, but to free the souls of the just from thence.
As it was impossible he should be held there, either by death, or hell, his soul being always united to the divine person: and his rising again being foretold in the Psalms, in the words here cited. (Witham)
Having overcome the grievous pains of death, and all the power of hell. (Challoner)
Not that Jesus suffered any thing after his death; that was impossible. But these pains were loosed in his regard, because he was preserved from them, as the bird is preserved from the nets of the fowlers, which are broken before it is taken in them. (St. Augustine, ep. ad. Olimp. xcv.)
Moreover he loosed others of those pains. (St. Augustine, lib. xii, chap. 13. de Gen. ad lit.)
for certainly it was impossible for him to be held by it:
so that His new birth from the dead was made a way for us also, since the pains of death, wherein we were held, were loosed by the resurrection of the Lord.
has broken the sorrows of Hell:
Either by His own resurrection or by the freeing of the dead.
for certainly it was impossible for him to be held by it:
Christ was not held fast by any necessity of death, but was "free among the dead": and therefore He abode a while in death, not as one held fast, but of His own will, just so long as He deemed necessary for the instruction of our faith.
And he whom God has raised up:
The Divine power is the same thing as the operation of the Father and the Son; accordingly these two things are mutually consequent, that Christ was raised up by the Divine power of the Father, and by His own power.
