before him, an apocryphal dream. The like stuff is that also which was vented heretofore unto the world in the apocryphal gospel of Nicodemus, to say nothing of that sentence which is read in the old Latin editions of the book of Ecclesiasticus; "I will pierce all the lowermost parts of the earth, and behold all that are asleep, and enlighten all them that hope in the Lord;" which although it be not now to be found in the Greek original, and hath perhaps another meaning than that to which it is applied; yet is it made by the author of the imperfect work upon Matthew, one of the chief inducements which led him to think that our Saviour descended into hell, to visit there the souls of the righteous.

The tradition that of all others deserveth greatest consideration, is the article of the creed touching Christ's descent into hell, which Genebrardd affirmeth to have been so hateful to the Arians, that, as Ambrose reporteth upon the fifth chapter of the epistle to the Romans, they struck it quite out of the very creed of the apostles. But neither is there the least footstep of any such matter to be seen in St. Ambrose; and it sufficiently appeareth otherwise, that the Arians did not only add this article unto their creeds, but also set it forth and amplified it with many words, so far off were they from being guilty of suppressing it. For as the fathers of the first general council, held in the year of our Lord three hundred and twenty-five at Nice, in Bithynia, did publish a creed against the Arians; so the Arians on the other side, in the year three hundred and fifty-nine, set out a creed of their own making, in a synod purposely kept by them at

Istud inter Apocryphorum computandum est somnium. Dionys. Carthusian, in 1 Pet. cap. 3.

c Penetrabo omnes inferiores partes terræ, et inspiciam omnes dormientes, et illuminabo omnes sperantes in Domino, vel ut ab authore operis imperfecti in Matth. (inter opera Chrysostomi) homilia 4. citatur. Descendam ad inferiores partes terræ, et visitabo omnes dormientes, et illuminabo sperantes in Deum. Ecclesiastic. cap. 24. ver. 45.

d Ambrosius in quintum caput ad Romanos auctor est Arianos huic articulo ita fuisse adversatos, ut eum de symbolo apostolorum expungerent. Gilbert. Genebrard. lib. 3. de Trinitate; in symboli Athanasiani expositione.

Nice in Thracia, that by the ambiguity of the council's name, the simpler sort might be more easily induced, to mistake this Nicene for that other Catholic Nicene creed. And whereas the true Nicene fathers had in their creed omitted the article of the descent into hell, which, as we shall afterwards hear out of Ruffinus, was not to be had in the symbols of the eastern churches, these bastard fatherlings in their Nicene creed, did not only insert this clause: "Hef descended to the places under the earth;" but added also for further amplification, "Whom hell itself trembled at." The like did they, with the words a little altered, in another creeds set out in a conventicle gathered at Constantinople and in a third creed likewise, framed by them at Sirmium, and confirmed the same year in their great council at Ariminum, they put it in with a more large augmentation, after this manner: "He descended to the places under the earth, and disposed things there, whom the keepers of hell gates seeing, shook for fear." If therefore any fault were committed in the omission of this article, it should touch the orthodox fathers of Nice, and Constantinople rather, whom the Latins', disputing with the Grecians in the council of Ferrara, do directly charge with subtracting this article from the apostles' creed; although they free them from blame in so doing, "because they that took it away did not deny it, nor fight against the truth."

But first they should have shewed that the fathers of

e Sozomen. lib. 4. hist. cap. 18. Nicet. Thesaur. lib. 5. cap. 17.

* Καὶ εἰς τὰ καταχθόνια κατελθόντα, ὃν αὐτὸς ὁ ᾅδης ἐτρόμαξε. Theodoret. lib. 2. hist. cap. 21.

5 Καὶ εἰς τὰ καταχθόνια διεληλυθότα ὅν τινα καὶ αὐτὸς ὁ ᾅδης ἔπτηξε. Athanas. in epist. de synodis Arimini et Seleuciæ. Socrat. lib. 2. hist. cap. 41. edit. Græc. vel. 32. Latin.

* Καὶ εἰς τὰ καταχθόνια κατελθόντα, καὶ τὰ ἐκεῖσε οἰκονομήσαντα, ὃν ≈vλwpoi ädov idóvreç čopičav. Athanas. ibid. Socrat. lib. 2. cap. 37. edit. Græc. vel 29. Latin. The speech is taken from Job, chap. 38. ver. 17. in the Septuagint.

Constat ex hoc, nihil esse de symbolo apostolorum subtrahendum. Subtractum tamen est illud: Descendit ad inferos. Verum qui detraxerunt, id non negabant, neque cum veritate pugnabant. Joann. Foroliviensis episc. in session. 10. concil. Ferrar.

Nice and Constantinople did find this article of Christ's descent into hell in the apostles' creed, before they excused them from taking it away from thence. For the creed of the council of Constantinople, which commonly goeth under the name of the Nicene creed, being much larger than our common creed, and itself also, no less than the other, being heretofore both accounted and named' the apostles' creed, it is not to be thought that it would leave out any article, which was then commonly believed to have been any parcel of the creed received from the apostles. Add hereunto the ingenuous confession of Busæus the Jesuit, in his positions touching Christ's descent into hell: "St. Cyprian" or Ruffinus rather, in his exposition of the creed, denieth that this article is read in the creed of the church of Rome, or the churches of the East: and some of the most ancient fathers, while they gather up the sum of the Christian faith, or expound the creed of the apostles, have omitted this point of doctrine. But at what time it was inserted in the creed, it cannot certainly be determined." The first particular church that is known to have inserted this article into her creed, is that of Aquileia, which added also the attributes of invisible" and impassible, unto God the Father Almighty in the beginning of the creed; as appeareth by Ruffinus, who framed his exposition of the creed according to the order used in that church. But whether any

* Epiphan. in 'Αγκυρωτ. pag. 518. Αὕτη μὲν ἡ πίστις παρεδόθη ἀπὸ τῶν ἁγίων ἀποστόλων.

In missa Latina antiqua, edit. Argentin. ann. 1557. pag. 41. post recitatum symbolum Constantinopolit. subjicitur. Finito symbolo apostolorum dicat sacerdos. Dominus vobiscum.

Beatus Cyprianus, vel potius Ruffinus, in expositione symboli, negat hunc articulum legi in ecclesiæ Romanæ symbolo, et orientis ecclesiis et vetustissimi patres quidam, dum vel summam fidei Christianæ, vel symbolum apostolicum exponunt, hoc dogma prætermiserunt. Quando autem insertum sit symbolo, certe constitui non potest. Jo. Busæ. de descensu Christi ad inferos, Thes. cap. 33.

His additur: Invisibilem et impassibilem.

Sciendum

n Omnipotentem. quod duo isti sermones in ecclesiæ Romanæ symbolo non habentur. Constat autem apud nos additos hæreseos causa Sabellii. Ruffin. eposit. symb.

Nos tamen illum ordinem sequimur, quem in Aquileiensi ecclesia per lavacri gratiam suscepimus. Id. ibid.

other church in the world for five hundred years after Christ, did follow the Aquileians in putting the one of these additions to the apostolical creed, more than the other, can hardly, I suppose, be shewed by any approved testimony of antiquity.

Cardinal Bellarmine noteth, that "St. Augustine' in his book De fide et symbolo, and in his four books, De symbolo ad Catechumenos, maketh no mention of this part, when he doth expound the whole creed five several times." Nay, Petrus Chrysologus, who was archbishop of Ravenna four hundred and fifty years after Christ, doth six several times go over the exposition of the creed, and yet never meddleth with this article. The like also may be observed in Maximus Taurinensis' his exposition of the creed. For as for the two Latins expositions thereof that go under the name of St. Chrysostom, (the latter whereof hath it, the former hath it not) and the others that are found in the tenth tome of St. Augustine's works among the sermons De tempore (fourt of which do repeat it, and two" do omit it), because the authors of them, together with the time wherein they were written, be altogether unknown, they can bring us little light in this inquiry. Only for the Greek symbol this is certain, that as it is not found in the recital which Marcellus Ancyranus maketh thereof in his epistle to Julius bishop of Rome; so is it likewise wanting in the Greek creed written in Saxon characters, which is to be seen at the end of king Æthelstan's psalter in Sir Robert Cotton's rare treasury. And after it came to be admitted more generally into the Latin, as it was there at first Descendit ad inferna, and at last De

P Augustinus in libro de fide et symbolo, et quatuor libris de symbolo ad Catechumenos, non meminit hujus partis, cum totum symbolum quinquies exponat. Bellarm. de Christo, lib. 4. cap. 6.

9 Petr. Chrysolog. serm. 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62.

Maxim. homil. de traditione symboli.

s Tom. 5. oper. Chrysost. Latin.

Serm. de tempore, 115. 131. 181. 195.

"Serm. 119. et 123.

* Vid. veterem ordinem Romanum; et Innocentium III. de mysteriis missæ, lib. 2. cap. 15.

scendit ad inferos: so with a like diversity do I find the same added to the Greek also; κατελθόντα εἰς τὰ κατώτατα being put to express the one, and κατελθόντα εἰς ᾅδου to answer the other; the latter whereof is to be seen in our common printed copies: the former in a manuscript of Bennet college library in Cambridge, where the symbol of the apostles, together with the whole psalter is set down in Greek and Latin, but the Greek written in Latin letters.

Neither is there by this which hath been said any whit more derogated from the credit of this article, than there is from others, whose authority is acknowledged to be undoubted and beyond all exception, as namely that of our Saviour's death, and the Communion of Saints; the one whereof as sufficiently implied in the article of the crucifixion as a consequent, or the burial as a necessary antecedent thereof; the other as virtually contained in the article of the Church, we find omitted not in the Constantinopolitan symbol alone, and in the ancient apostolical creeds expounded by Ruffinus, Maximus, and Chrysologus, but also in those that are extant in Venantius Fortunatus, five hundred and eighty, and in Etherius' and Beatus, seven hundred and eighty-five years after Christ; as in the two Greek ones likewise, that of Marcellus, and the other written in the time of the English Saxons. In all which likewise may be noted, that the title of Maker of heaven and earth is not given to the Father in the beginning of the creed, which out of the creed of Constantinople we see is now every where added thereunto. Of which additions, as there is now no question any where made, so by the consent of both sides, this of the descent into hell also is now numbered among the articles of the apostles' Creed. For the Scripture having expressly testified that the prophecy of the Psalm

y Fortunat. lib. 11. num. 1. exposit. symboli.

z Ether. et Beat. lib. 1. contra Elipandum Toletan. pag. 51. edit. Ingolstad.

a Descensum ad inferos nunc, consentientibus sectariis, inter germanos symboli apostolici articulos numeramus. Jo. Busæus, de descens. Thess. cap. 33. b Act. chap. 2. ver. 27. 31.