From the writings of the Church Fathers during the 3rd century, Origen of Alexandria, a student scholar of Clement of Alexandria, wrote that John the Baptist had died before Christ, "so that he might descend to the lower regions and announce [preach] his coming. For everywhere the witness and forerunner of Jesus is John, being born before and dying shortly before the Son of God, so that not only to those of his generation but likewise to those who lived before Christ should liberation from the death be preached, and that he might everywhere prepare a people trained to receive the Lord."
(Origen, In Lucam Homily (Homily on Luke) 4, in PG 12 :1811.)
John the Baptist Preaching in Hell (picture)
Hippolytus, wrote that John the Baptist had died first that he might prepare the souls in the spirit world for the gospel. John, “first preached to those in Hades, becoming a forerunner there when he was put to death by Herod, that there too he might intimate that the Saviour would descend to ransom the souls of the saints from the hand of death.”
Later, a medieval Easter drama, the "Harrowing of Hell," John descends first, then is there to greet Christ when Christ descended.
