Why did St. Jacob of Sarug call the cross of the Lord Christ “The Divine Chariot”?

After His death on the cross, the body of Christ was buried in the tomb. The cross became a kind of divine chariot bearing the soul of Christ down into Hades, that He may destroy its gates and liberate all those who were held captive and take them to paradise, rejoicing in their victory over the devil and over death. As for the Lord’s divinity, it parted neither from His

body nor from His soul. St. Peter says, “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit, by whom also He went and preached to the spirits in prison” (1 Pet. 3:18–19).