He suffered death and was buried

The original Greek (pathonta kai tafenta) and Latin (passus et sepultus est) texts of the Nicene Creed both use the phrase "He suffered and was buried."

In English, this is translated as "He suffered death and was buried." Without "death," the phrase could misleadingly suggest Jesus was buried alive. In the Gospel of Luke and other biblical contexts, the word “suffer” is used in an absolute sense, meaning “to suffer death.”

The word death was deliberately added to refute heresies that denied the actual physical death of Jesus.

Various theories and heresies emerged to deny the reality of Jesus’s death. The ‘Swoon Theory’ claims that Jesus did not truly die but merely lost consciousness. The ‘Mistaken Identity Theory’ asserts that someone else was crucified in His place.

Several heresies also challenged the fact of Jesus’s death. Docetism argued that Jesus only appeared to have a body, thereby denying his actual suffering and death on the cross. Many Gnostic sects rejected his true humanity and the reality of his crucifixion.

‘Cerinthianism’ taught that the divine Christ was united with the human Jesus at His baptism, and departed before the crucifixion, leaving only the human to suffer and die. ‘Theopassianism’ asserted that God himself suffered on the cross, while ‘Patripassianism’ held that the Father suffered vicariously through the suffering of the Son.

On the contrary, Jesus endured excruciating suffering during his Passion. The Latin word ‘crux’ means cross, and the verb ‘excruciare,’ from ‘ex’ (out of) and ‘cruciare’ (to torment), literally means “to torment out of the cross.”

As the prophet Isaiah foretold: “It was our infirmities that He bore, our sufferings that He endured,” and “He was pierced for our offenses, crushed for our sins,” Jesus suffered, died, and was buried.

At the incarnation, Jesus stripped off the glory of his divinity. As a human, he went even further to shed even the dignity of his humanity.

He dared to sacrifice his reputation, self-respect, and even modesty in laying down his life. Willingly, he endured the unjust verdict, the humiliation of scourging, the crowning with thorns, the public degradation of self-esteem as a convicted criminal, the shame of being nailed virtually naked to the cross, and a cruel death by crucifixion.

Christ's sufferings were twofold: in his body and his soul. Physically, he endured the pain of scourging, being crowned with thorns, carrying a heavy cross, and finally, being nailed to the Cross and dying from blood loss. In his soul, he suffered the pain of rejection, humiliation, opposition from enemies, and abandonment by friends.

Jesus was buried in a tomb. It signified his full participation in the human condition. The curse of Adam's sin, that we ‘return to the ground,’ applies to all, and Jesus too experienced death as the separation of body and soul.

Following his death, his body was placed in the tomb. This burial definitively proved the reality of his death.

His soul descended to Sheol, Abaddon, and the Pit in the Old Testament and Hades in the New Testament. Both the righteous and the unrighteous were in Hades. This realm of the dead is distinct from the ‘Lake of Fire’ and serves as a holding place for the dead until the final judgement. 

That means He did not descend to Hades only as a human soul; rather, it was the Person of the Son, in His human soul united to His divine nature, who went to liberate the righteous dead.

Jesus descended into Hades in His human soul that was inseparably united to His divinity — so both His humanity (soul) and divinity were present in that descent, though His human body remained in the tomb.

The Catholic Catechism describes Christ's descent as going to the realm of the dead in his human soul, united to his divine person, and opening the gates of heaven for the just. 

The death and burial of Jesus were witnessed by many. A centurion saw him die, and a soldier confirmed it by piercing his side with a lance. When Joseph of Arimathea requested Jesus’ body, Pilate had an officer verify his death. Nicodemus participated in the burial, alongside Mary Magdalene and other women present at the tomb. Christ’s burial is the bridge between his death and resurrection, and attests to the reality of both.

The Son of God took on a human body to suffer, die, and rise again, securing our redemption and salvation.

The tomb, once humanity’s final resting place, has been transformed into a profound symbol of hope. This invites me to reflect and look beyond death and the grave, towards the promise of eternal life.