fered much concerning the place of the Infernus; but never any doubted but that it signified some place or other:* and if hades till their funerals were performed, and the souls of them who died an untimely or violent death, were kept from the same place until the time of their natural death should come. This he farther expresses in the terms of the magicians, whose art was conversant about souls departed: Aut optimum est hic retineri, secundum ahoros (i. e. dwgove), aut pessimum, secundum Biæothanatos (Bialodavárovc), ut ipsis jam vocabulis utar, quibus auctrix opinionum istarum Magica sonat, Hostanes, et Typhon, et Dardanus, et Damigeron, et Nectabis, et Bernice. Publica jam literatura est, quæ animas. etiam justa ætate sopitas, etiam proba morte disjunctas, etiam prompta humatione dispunctas, evocaturam se ab inferum incolatu pollicetur.' Ibid. c. 57. Of that of the insepulti, he produceth the example of Patroclus: Secundum Homericum Patroclum funus in somnis de Achille flagitantem, quod non alias adire portas inferum posset, arcentibus eum longe animabus sepultorum.' Ibid. c. 56. The place he intended is that, Iliad. ¥.71, Θάπτε με, ὅττι τάχιστα πύλας ἀίδαο περήσω. Where it is the observation of Eusta- serves an extraordinary accurateness in that question of Penelope concerning Ulysses, upon that same ground. Odyss. A. 831. Εἴπου ἔτι ζώει, καὶ ὁρᾷ φάος κελίσιο· Τὸ δὲ, καὶ ὁρᾷ φῶς ἡλίου, δι ̓ ὀρθότητα ἐννοίας here very observable that, according to Hæc omnis, quam cernis, inops inhumataque turba est; Nec ripas datur horrendas nec rauca fluenta Transportare prius, quam sedibus ossa quierunt. Centum errant annos, volitantque hæc littora circum.-Virg. Æn. vi. 325. Thus he is to be understood in the description of the funeral of Polydorus, Æn. iii. 62. Not that anima does there signify the body, as some have observed; but that the soul of Polydorus was then in rest, when his body received funeral rites, as Servius : Legimus præterea in Sexto insepultorum animas vagas esse, et hinc constat non Sedibus ut saltem placidis And that the soul of Polydorus was so wandering about the place where his body lay unburied, appeareth out of Euripides in Hecuba, where he speaketh thus: v. 30. Νῦν ὑπὲς μητρὸς φίλης Εκάβης αίσσω, σῶμ' ἐρημώσας ἐμὸν, Τριταῖον ἤδη φέγγος αἰωρούμενος. legitime sepultum fuisse. Rite ergo, red- And in the Troades of the same poet this "Ω φίλος, ὦ πόσο μας, And when their bodies were buried, then they had conceived any such notion as the state of death, and the permansion of the dead in that state, they needed not to have fallen into doubts or questions; the patriarchs and the prophets being as certainly in the state of death, and remaining so, as Corah, Dathan, and Abiram are, or any person which is certainly condemned to everlasting flames. Though therefore it be certainly true that Christ did truly and properly die, as other men are wont to do, and that after expiration he was in the state or condition of the dead, in deadlihood, as some have learned to speak; yet the CREED had spoken as much as this before, when it delivered that he was dead. And although it is true that he might have died, and in the next minute of time revived, and consequently his death not (precisely taken) signify any permansion or duration in the state of death, and therefore it might be added, he descended into hell, to signify farther a permansion or duration in that condition: yet if hell do signify nothing else but the state of the dead, as this opinion doth suppose, then to descend into hell is no more than to be dead; and so notwithstanding any duration implied in that expression, Christ might have ascended the next minute after he descended thither, as well as he might be imagined to revive the next minute after he died. Being then to descend into hell, according to this interpretation, is no more than to be dead; being no man ever doubted but that person was dead who died; being it was before delivered in the CREED that Christ died, or, as we render it, was dead: we cannot imagine but they which did add this part of the Article to the CREED, did intend something more than this, and therefore we cannot admit this notion as a full or proper exposition. /2 There is yet left another interpretation grounded upon the general opinion of the Church of Christ in all ages, and upon a probable exposition of the prophecy of the Psalmist, taking 371-372 the soul in the most proper sense for the spirit or rational part of Christ; that part of a man which, according to our Saviour's doctrine, the Jews could not kill; and looking upon hell, as a A place distinct from this part of the world where we live, and distinguished from those heavens whither Christ ascended, into which place the souls of men were conveyed after or upon their death; and therefore thus expounding the words of the Psalmist in the person of Christ: Thou shalt not suffer that soul of mine which shall be forced from my body by the violence of pain upon the cross, but resigned into thy hands, when it shall go into that place below where the souls of men departed are detained; I say, thou shalt not suffer that soul to continue there as theirs have done; but shalt bring it shortly from thence, and reunite it to my body. For the better understanding of this exposition, there are several things to be observed, both in respect to the matter of it, and in reference to the authority of the fathers. First, therefore, this must be laid down as a certain and necessary truth, that the soul of man, when he dieth, dieth not, but returneth unto him that gave it, to be disposed of at his will and pleasure, according to the ground of our Saviour's counsel, "Fear not them which kill the body, but cannot kill the soul." (Matt. x. 28.) That better part of us therefore, in and after death, doth exist and live, either by virtue of its spiritual and immortal nature, as we believe; or at least the will of God, and his power upholding and preserving it from dissolution, as many of the fathers thought. This soul, thus existing after death, and se parated from the body, though of a nature spiritual, is really and truly in some place; if not by way of circumscription, as proper bodies are, yet by way of determination and indistancy; so that it is true to say, this is really and truly present here, and not elsewhere. Again, the soul of man, which, while he lived, gave life to the body, and was the fountain of all vital actions, in that separate existence after death, must not be conceived to sleep, or be bereft and stripped of all vital operations, but still to exercise the powers of understanding and of willing, and to be subject to the affections of joy and sorrow. Upon which is grounded the different estate and condition of the souls of men during the time of separation; some of them by the mercy of God being placed in peace and rest, in joy and happiness; others by the justice of the same God left to sorrow, pains, and misery. As there was this different state and condition before our Saviour's death, according to the different kinds of men in this life, the wicked and the just, the elect and reprobate: so there were two societies of souls after death; one of them which were happy in the presence of God, the other of those which were left in their sins and tormented for them. we conceive the righteous Abel, the first man placed in this happiness, and the souls of them that departed in the same faith to be gathered to him. Whosoever it was of the sons of Thus Adam, which first died in his sins, was put into a place of torment; and the souls of all those which departed after with the wrath of God upon them were gathered into his sad society Now as the souls at the hour of death are really separated from the bodies; so the place where they are in rest or misery after death, is certainly distinct from the place in which they lived. They continue not where they were at that instant when the body was left without life: they do not go together with the body to the grave; but as the sepulchre is appointed for our flesh, so there is another receptacle, or habitation and mansion, for our spirits. From whence it followeth, that in death the soul doth certainly pass by a real motion from that place, in which it did inform the body, and is translated to that place, and unto that society, which God of his mercy or justice hath allotted to it. And not at present to inquire into the difference and distance of those several habitations (but for method's sake to involve them all as yet under the notion of the infernal parts, or the mansions below), it will appear to have been the general judgment of the Church, that the soul. of Christ contradistinguished from his body, that better and more noble part of his humanity, his rational and intellectual soul, after a true and proper separation from his flesh, was really and truly carried into those parts below, where the souls of men before departed were detained; and that by such a real translation of his soul, he was truly said to have descended into hell. Many have been the interpretations of the opinion of the fathers made of late; and their differences are made to appear so great, as if they agreed in nothing which concerns this point: whereas there is nothing which they agree in more than this which I have already affirmed, the real descent of the soul of Christ unto the habitation of the souls departed. The persons to whom, and end for which he descended, they differ in; but as to a local descent into the infernal parts they all agree. Who were then in those parts, they could not certainly define; but whosoever were there, that Christ by the presence of his soul was with them, they all determined. That this was the general opinion of the Church, will appear, not only by the testimonies of those ancient writers who lived successively, and wrote in several ages, and delivered As Irenæus: Cum enim Dominus in medio umbræ mortis abierit, ubi animæ mortuorum erant, post deinde corporaliter resurrexit-manifestum est, quia et discipulorum ejus, propter quos et hæc operatus est Dominus, animæ abibunt in invisibilem locum definitum eis a Deo, &c.' l. v. c. 26. Clemens Alexandrinus was so clearly of that opinion, that he thought the soul of Christ preached salvation to the souls of hell. Strom. 1. vi. c. 6. And Tertullian proves that the inferi are a cavity in the earth where the souls of dead men are, because the soul of Christ went thither: Quod si Christus Deus, quia et homo mortuus secundum Scripturas, et sepultus secundum easdem, huic quoque legi satisfecit, forma humana mortis apud inferos functus, nec ante adscendit in sublimiora cœlorum quam descendit in inferiora terrarum, ut illic Patriarchas et Prophetas compotes sui this exposition in such express terms as are not capable of any other interpretation; but also because it was generally used as an argument against the Apollinarian heresy: than which nothing can shew more the general opinion of the catholics and the heretics, and that not only of the present, but of the precedent ages. For it had been little less than ridiculous to have produced that for an argument to prove a point in controversy, which had not been clearer than that which was controverted, and had not been some way acknowledged as a truth by both. Now the error of Apollinarius was, That Christ had no proper intellectual or rational soul, but that the Word was to him in the place of a soul: and the argument produced by the fathers for the conviction of this error was, That Christ descended into hell,* which the Apollinarians faceret; habes et regionem inferum subterraneam credere, et illos cubito pellere, qui satis superbe non putent animas fidelium inferis dignas.' De Anim. c. 55. - Γυμνῇ σώματος γενόμενος ψυχῇ ταῖς γυμναῖς σωμάτων ὡμίλει ψυχαῖς. Orig .contra Celsum, 1. ii. §. 43. Ipsa anima, etsi fuit in abysso, jam non est, quia scriptum est, non derelinques animam meam in inferno.' S. Ambros. de Incarn. c. 5. Si ergo secundum hominem, quem Verbum Deus suscepit, putamus dictum esse, hodie mecum eris in Paradiso, non ex his verbis in cœlo existimandus est esse Paradisus. Neque enim ipso die in cœlo futurus erat homo Christus Jesus, sed in inferno secundum animam, in sepulcro autem secundum carnem. Et de carne quidem, quod eo die in sepulcro sit posita, manifestum est evangelium. Quod vero illa anima in infernum descenderit, apostolica doctrina prædicat. Quandoquidem B. Petrus ad hanc rem testimonium de Psalmis adhibet, Quoniam non derelinques animam meam in inferno, neque dabis sanctum tuum videre corruptionem. Illud de anima dictum est, quia ibi non est derelicta, unde tam cito remeavit; illud de corpore, quod in sepulcro corrumpi celeri resurrectione non potuit.' S. August. Epist. 57. al. 187. ad Dardanum, c. 2. §. 5. Καταβὰς μέχρι καὶ χθονὸς Θάνατος νέμεν ἔθνια. Φρίξει σε γέρων τότε Αΐδας ὁ παλαιγενής, Synes. Hymn. ix. 7. Ψυχὴ δὲ ἡ θεία, τὴν πρὸς αὐτὸν λαχοῦσα συν δρομήν τε καὶ ἕνωσιν, καταπεφοίτηκε μὲν εἰς ᾅδου, Θεοπρεπεῖ δὲ δυνάμει καὶ ἐξουσία χρο μένη, καὶ τοῖς ἐκεῖσε πνεύμασι κατεφαίνετο. 5. Cyril. Aler. Dial. de Incarn. t. v. par. i. c. 31. What the Apollinarian heresy was, is certainly known: they denied that Christ had a human soul, affirming the Word was to him in the place of a soul. 'Apollinaristas Apollinarius instituit, qui de anima Christi a catholicis dissenserunt, dicentes, sicut Ariani, Deum Christum carnem sine anima suscepisse. In qua quæstione testimoniis evangelicis victi, mentem, qua rationalis est anima hominis, non fuisse in anima Christi sed pro hac ipsum Verbum in ea fuisse, dixerunt.' S. August. de Hæres. 55. Against this heresy the catholics argued from the descent into hell, as that which was acknowledged by them all, even by the Arians (with whom the Apollinarians in this agreed), as we have shewn before by three several creeds of theirs in which they expressed this descent. This is the argument of Athanasius in his fourth dia |