Heretical translation against PURGATORY, LIMBUS PATRVM, CHRISTS DESCENDING INTO HELL

1 HAVING now discovered their corrupt translations for defacing of the Churches name, and abolishing of Priest and Priesthood: let us come to another point of very great importance also, and which by the wonted consequence or sequel [result] of error, includes in it many erroneous branches. Their principal malice then being bent against Purgatory, that is, against a place where Christian souls be purged by suffering of temporal pains after this life, for surer maintenance of their erroneous denial hereof, they take away and deny all third places, saying that there was never from the beginning of the world any other place for souls after this life, but only two: to wit, heaven for the blessed: & hell for the damned. And so it follows by their heretical doctrine, that the Patriarchs, Prophets, and other good holy men of the Old Testament, went not after their deaths, to the place called Abraham’s bosom, or limbus patrum, but immediately to heaven: and so again by their erroneous doctrine it follows, that the fathers of the Old Testament were in heaven, before our Saviour Christ had suffered death for their redemption: and also by their erroneous doctrine it follows, that our Saviour Christ was not the first man that ascended and entered into heaven: and moreover by their heretical doctrine it follows, that our Saviour Christ descended not into any such third place, to deliver the fathers of the Old Testament out of their prison, and to bring them triumphantly with him into heaven, because by their erroneous doctrine they were never there: & so that article of the Apostles Creed concerning our Saviour Christ his descending into hell, must either be put out by the Calvinists, as Beza did in his Confession of his faith printed an. 1564, or it has some other meaning, to wit, either the lying of his body in the grave, or (as Calvin and the purer Calvinists his scholars will have it) the suffering of hell pains and distresses upon the Cross.¹ Lo the consequence and coherence of these errors and heresies.

2 These now being the heretical doctrines which they mean to avouch and defend whatsoever come of it: first, they are at a point not to care a rush for all the ancient holy Doctors,² that write with full consent to the contrary (as themselves confess,³ calling it their common error) secondly, they translate the holy Scriptures in favour thereof, most corruptly & wilfully, as in Beza’s false translation (who is Calvin’s successor in Geneva) it is notorious, for he in his New Testament of the year 1556. printed by Robertus Stephanus in folio, with Annotations, makes our Saviour Christ say thus to his father, Non derelinques cadaver meum in sepulchro, thou shalt not leave my carcass in the grave, Act. 2. for that which the Hebrew, & the Greek, and the Latin,⁴ and S. Jerome according to the Hebrew, say: Non derelinques anima meam in inferno, as plainly as we say in English, Thou shalt not leave my soul in hell. Thus the Prophet David spake it in Hebrew,⁵ Ps. 15. thus the Septuaginta uttered it in Greek, thus the Apostle S. Peter alleges it, thus the holy Evangelist S. Luke in the Act. of the Apostles, cap. 2. records it, and for this, S. Augustine calls him an infidel that denies it: yet all this would not suffice to make Beza translate it so, because of certain errors (⁶ as he heretically terms them) which he would full gladly avoid hereby, namely, the Catholic true doctrine of limbus patrum, and Purgatory. What need we say more? He translates animam, a Carcass: (so calling our Saviour Christ’s body, irreverently, & wickedly) he translates infernum, grave.

3 Need we take any great labour to prove this to be a foul corruption, or that it is done purposely, when he confesses that he thus translates because else it would serve the Papists? Which is as much to say, as, the word of God if it be truly and sincerely translated, makes indeed for them. For the first part, we will not stand upon it, partly because it is of itself most absurd, and they are ashamed of it: partly, because it shall suffice to confute Beza, that two other as famous heretics as he, Castalio & Flaccus Illyricus write against him in this point, and confute him: partly also, because we speak not here universally of all heretical translations, but of the English corruptions specially, & therefore we may only note here, how gladly they also would say somewhat else for, soul, even in the text, if they durst for shame: for in the margin of that English translation,⁷ they say, or life, or person: thereby advertising the Reader, that he may read thus, if it please him, Thou shalt not leave my life in the grave, or, Thou shalt not leave my person. As though either man’s soul or life were in the grave, or, anima, might be translated person, which the self same English Bible does not,⁸ no not in those places where it is evident that it signifies the whole person. For though this word soul, by a figure, is sometime taken for the whole man, yet even there they do not, nor must not translate it otherwise than soul: because our tongue bears that figure as well as Latin, Greek, or Hebrew: but here, where it can not signify the whole person, it is wicked to translate it so.

4 But as for the word grave, that they put boldly in the text, to signify that howsoever you interpret, soul, or whatsoever you put for it, it is not meant according to S. August. & the faith of the whole Catholic Church, that his soul descended into Hell, whiles his body was in the grave: but that his soul also, was in the grave, howsoever that is to be understood. So making it a certain and resolute conclusion, that the holy Scripture in this place speaks not of Christ’s being in Hell, but in the grave: and that according to his soul, or life, or person, or (as Beza will have it) His Carcass or body: and so his soul in Hell, as the holy Scripture speaks, shall be, his body in the grave, as Beza plainly speaks,⁹ and the Bezites covertly insinuate: and white shall be black, and chalk shall be cheese, and everything shall be anything that they will have it. And all this their evident false translation, must be to our miserable deceived poor souls, the holy Scripture and God’s word.

5 Where we can not but marvel, why they are afraid to translate the words plainly in this place, of his soul being in Hell: Whereas in the Creed they admit the words, and interpret them, that by suffering Hell pains upon the Cross, so he descended into Hell, and no otherwise. Why did they not here also keep the words for the credit of their translation, and afterward (if they would needs) give them that gloss for maintenance of their heresy? This mystery we know not, and we would gladly learn it of the Puritan Calvinists, whose English translation perhaps this is. For, the grosser Calvinists (being not so pure and precise in following Calvin as the Puritans be, that have well deserved that name above their fellows) they in their other English Bibles have in this place discharged themselves of false translation,¹⁰ saying plainly, Thou shalt not leave my soul in Hell. But¹¹ in what sense they say so, it is very hard to guess: & perhaps themselves can not tell yet what to make of it, as appears by M. Whitaker’s answer to F. Campion.¹² And he is now called a Bishop among them, and proceeded Doctor in Oxford, that could not obtain his grace to proceed Doctor in Cambridge, because he preached Christ’s descending into Hell, and the Puritans in their second admonition to the Parliament, pag. 43. cry out against the politic Calvinists, for that in the Creed of the Apostles (made in English metre & song openly in their Churches in these words: His spirit did after this descend, into the lower parts, to them that long in darkness were the true light of their hearts) they favour his descending into Hell very much, and so consequently may thereby build Limbus Patrum, and Purgatory. And the Puritans in their second reply against M. Whitegift’s defense pag. 7. reprehend one of their chiefest Calvimstical martyrs for affirming (as they term it) a gross descending of our Saviour Christ into Hell. Thus the Puritans confess plainly their heretical doctrine against Christ’s descending into Hell.

6 The truth is, howsoever the politic Calvinists speak, or write in this point more plausibly and covertly to the people, and more agreeably to the Article of our faith, than either Calvin or their earnest brethren the Puritans do, which write and speak as fantastically and madly as they think: yet neither do they believe this Article of the Apostles Creed, or interpret it, as the Catholic Church and ancient holy fathers always have done, neither can it stand with their new profession so to do, or with their English translations in other places. It can not stand with their profession: for then it would follow that the Patriarchs and other just men of the Old Testament were in some third place of rest, called Abraham’s bosom, or Limbus Patrum, till our Saviour Christ descended thither, & delivered them from thence, which they deny in their doctrine, though they sing it in their metres. Neither can it stand with their English translations: because in other places where the holy Scriptures evidently speak of such a place, calling it Hell (because that was a common name for every place and state of souls departed, in the Old Testament, till our Saviour Christ by his Resurrection and Ascension had opened heaven) there, for Hell, they translate Grave.

7 As when Jacob says,¹³ Descendam ad filium meum lugens in infernum: I will go down to my son into Hell, mourning: they translate, I will go down into the grave unto my son, mourning: as though Jacob thought, that his son Joseph had been buried in a grave, whereas Jacob thought, and said immediately before, as appears in the holy Scripture, that a wild beast had devoured him, and so could not be presumed to be in any grave: or as though, if Joseph had been in a grave, Jacob would have gone down to him into the same grave. For so the words must needs import, if they take grave properly: but if they take grave improperly for the state of dead men after this life, why do they call it grave, ¹⁴ and not Hell, as the word is in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin? No doubt they do it, to make the ignorant Reader believe that the Patriarch Jacob spake of his body only to descend into the grave to Joseph’s body: for as concerning Jacobs soul, that was by their opinion, to ascend immediately after his death to heaven, and not to descend into the grave. But if Jacob were to ascend forthwith in soul, how could he say as they translate, I will go down into the grave unto my son? As if according to their opinion he should say, My sons body is devoured of a beast, and his soul is gone up into heaven: well, I will go down to him into the grave.

8 Gentile Reader, that thou mayst the better conceive these absurdities, and the more detest their guileful corruptions, understand (as we began to tell thee before) that in the Old Testament, because there was yet no ascending into heaven, the way of the holies (as the Apostle in his epistle to the Hebrews speaks) being not yet made open,because our Saviour Christ was to ¹⁵ dedicate and begin the entrance in his own person, and by his passion to open heaven:¹⁶ therefore (we say) in the Old Testament the common phrase of the holy Scripture is, even of the best men, as well as of others, that dying they went down ad inferos, or ad infernum: to signify that such was the state of the Old Testament before our Saviour Christ’s Resurrection and Ascension, that every man went down, and not up: descended, and not ascended: by descending I mean not to the grave, which received their bodies only: but ad inferos, that is, to hell, a common receptacle or place for their souls also departed, as well of those souls that were to be in rest, as those that were to be in pains & torments. All the souls both good & bad that then died, went downward, & therefore the place of both sorts was called in all the tongues, by a word answerable to this word, hell, to signify a lower place beneath, not only of torments, but also of rest.

9 So we say in our Creed, that our Saviour Christ himself descended into hell, according to his soul:¹⁷ So S. Jerome speaking of the state of the Old Testament, says: Si Abraham, Isaac, Jacob in inferno, quis in calorum regno that is, If Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were in hell, who was in the kingdom of heaven? And again, Ante Christum, Abraham apud inferos: post Christum latro in Paradiso. that is, before the coming of Christ, Abraham was in hell: after his coming, the thief was in Paradise. And lest a man might object,¹⁸ that Lazarus being in Abraham’s bosom, saw the rich glutton a far off in hell, and therefore both Abraham and Lazarus seem to have been in heaven:¹⁹ the said holy doctor resolves it, that Abraham and Lazarus also were in hell, but in a place of great rest & refreshing, and therefore very far off from the miserable wretched glutton that lay in torments.

10 His words be these in effect: If a man will say unto me, that Lazarus was seen in Abraham’s bosom, and a place of refreshing even before Christ’s coming: true it is, but what is that in comparison? Quid simile infernus & regna calorum? What has hell and heaven like? As if he should say, Abraham indeed and Lazarus (and consequently many other) were in place of rest, but yet in hell, till Christ came, & in such rest, as has no comparison with the joys of heaven. And S. Augustine disputing this matter sometime,²⁰ & doubting whether Abraham’s bosom be called hell in the Scripture, and whether the name of hell be taken at any time in the good part (for of Christ’s descending into hell, & of a third place where the Patriarchs remained until Christ’s coming, not heaven, but called Abraham’s bosom, he doubted not, but was most assured) the same holy doctor in another place, as being better resolved, doubts not, upon these words of the Psalm,²¹ Thou hast delivered my soul from the lower hell, to make this one good sense of this place, that the lower hell is it, wherein the damned are tormented: the higher hell is that, wherein the souls of the just rested, calling both places by the name of hell.

11 And surely of his marvelous humility and wisdom, he would have been much more resolute herein, if he had hard the opinion of S. Jerome, whom he often consulted in such questions, and of other fathers, who in this point speak most plainly, that Abraham’s bosom or the place where the Patriarchs rested, was some part of hell.²² Tertullian, (Li. 4. aduers. Marcion.) Says, I know that the bosom of Abraham was no heavenly place, but only the higher hell, or, the higher part of hell. Of which speech of the fathers, rose afterward that other name, limbus patrum, that is the very brim or uppermost & outmost part of hell, where the fathers of the Old Testament rested. Thus we see that the Patriarchs themselves were as then in hell, though they were there in a place of rest: in so much that S. Jerome says again, Ante Resurrectionem Christi not us in Judaea Deus, & ipsi qui nouerant eum, tamen ad inferos trahebantur. that is, Before the Resurrection of Christ, God was known in Jury, and they themselves that knew him yet were drawn unto hell. ²³ S. Chrysostom upon that place of Isaiah, I will break the brazen gates, and bruise the iron bars in pieces, and will open the treasures darkened, &c.²⁴ So he calls hell, says he, for although it were hell, yet it held the holy souls, and pretious vessels, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Mark that he says, though it were hell, yet there were the just men at that time, till our Saviour Christ came to deliver them from thence.

12 Therefore did Jacob say, I will go down to my son unto Hell. And again he says,²⁵ If any misfortune happen to (Benjamin) by the way, you shall bring my gray head with sorrow unto Hell, which is repeated again twice in the Chapter 44. by which phrase the holy Scripture will signify, not only death, but also the descending at that time of all sorts of souls into Hell, both good and bad. And therefore it is spoken of all sorts in the holy Scripture,²⁶ both of good and of bad. For all went then into Hell, but some into a place there of rest, others into other places there of torments. And therefore S. Jerome says, speaking of Hell according to the Old Testament, Hell is a place wherein souls are included: ²⁷ either in rest, or in pains, according to the quality of their deserts [deservings].

13 And in this sense it is also often said in the holy Scriptures, that such & such were gathered or laid to their fathers,²⁸ though they were buried in divers places, and died not in the same state of salvation or damnation: In that sense Samuel being raised up to speak with Saul, said, Tomorrow thou and thy sons shall be with me. that is, dead and in Hell, though not in the same place or state there: in this sense all such places of the holy Scripture as have the word Inferi, or Infernus correspondent both to the Greek and Hebrew, ought to be, and may be most conveniently translated by the word, Hell. as when it is said,²⁹ Thou hast delivered my soul from the lower hell. Ps. 85. v. 13. that is as S. Augustine expounds it, Thou hast preserved me from mortal sins that would have brought me into the lower Hell which is for the damned. Which place of holy Scripture and the like when they translate grave, see how miserably it sounds:³⁰ Thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest grave. which they would never say for very shame, but that they are afraid to say in any place (be the holy Scriptures never so plain) that any soul was delivered or returned from hell, lest thereof it might follow by and by, that the Patriarchs, and our Saviour Christ were in such a Hell.

14 And that this is their fear, it is evident, because in all other places where it is plain that the holy Scriptures speak of the Hell of the damned, from whence is no return, there they translate the very same word Hell, and not grave. As for example, The way of life is on high to the prudent, ³¹ to avoid from Hell beneath. lo, here that is translated Hell beneath, which before was translated the lowest grave. And again, Hell and destruction are before the Lord, how much more the hearts of the sons of men? But when in the holy Scriptures there is mention of delivery of a soul from Hell, then thus they translate:³² God shall deliver my soul from the power of the grave: for he will receive me. Can you tell what they would say? Does God deliver them from the grave, or from temporal death, whom he receives to his mercy? Or has the grave any power over the soul? Again when they say,³³ What man lives, and shall not see death? Shall he deliver his soul from the hand of the grave?

15 If they take grave properly, where man’s body is buried: it is not true either that every soul, yea or every body is buried in a grave. But if in all such places, they will say they mean nothing else but to signify death, & that to go down into the grave, and to die, is all one: we ask them why they follow not the words of the holy Scripture to signify the same thing, which call it, going down to Hell, not, going down to the grave? Here they must needs open the mystery of Antichrist working in their translations, and say, that so they should make Hell a common place to all that departed in the Old Testament, which they will not, no not in the most important places of our belief concerning our Saviour Christ’s descending into Hell, & triumphing over the same. Yea, therefore on purpose they will not, only for to defeat that part of our Christian Creed.

16 As when the Prophet first, Hosea 13. & afterward the Apostle, 1 Cor. 15. in the Greek, say thus:³⁴ Ero mors tua O mors, morsus tuus ero inferne. Vbiest, mors, stimulus tuus? Vbiest, infer, victoria tua? O death, I will be thy death: I will be thy sting, O Hell. Where is, O death, thy sting? Where is, O hell, thy victory? They translate in both places,³⁵ O grave, in stead of, O Hell. What else can be their meaning hereby, but to draw the Reader from the common sense of our Saviour Christ’s descending into Hell, and conquering the same, and bringing out the fathers and just men triumphantly from thence into heaven? Which sense has always been the common sense of the Catholic Church & holy Doctors,³⁶ specially upon this place of the Prophet. And what a kind of speech is this, and out of all tune, to make our Saviour Christ say, O grave I will be thy destruction? as though he had triumphed over the grave, and not over Hell: or over the grave, that is, over death: and so the Prophet should say death twice, and Hell not at all.

17 Why, my Masters, you that are so wonderful precise translators, admit that our Saviour Christ descended not into Hell beneath, as you say, yet I think you will grant that he triumphed over Hell, & was conquerer of the same. Why then did it not please you to suffer the Prophet to say so at the least, rather than that he had conquest only of death and the grave? You abuse your ignorant reader very impudently, and your own selves very damnably, not only in this, but in that you make grave, and death, all one, and so where the holy Scripture often joins together death & Hell, as things different and distinct: you make them speak but one thing twice, idly and superfluously.

18 But will you know that you should not confound them, but that Mors, & Infernus, which are the words of the holy Scripture in all tongues, are distinct: hear what S. Jerome says, or if you will not hear, because you are of them which have stopped their ears, let the indifferent Christian Reader harken to this holy Doctor, and great interpreter of the holy Scriptures according to his singular knowledge in all the learned tongues. Upon the foresaid place of the Prophet, after he had spoken of our Saviour Christ’s descending into Hell, and overcoming of death, he adds:³⁷ Between death and Hell this is the difference, that death is that whereby the soul is separated from the body: Hell is the place where souls are included, either in rest, or else in pains, according to the quality of their deserts. And that death is one thing, and Hell is another: the Psalmist also declares, saying: THERE IS not in death, that is mindful of thee, ³⁸ but in Hell who shall confess to thee? And in another place. Let death come upon them, and let them go down into Hell alive. Thus far S. Jerome.

19 By which differences of death and Hell, (whereof we must often advertise the Reader) are meant two things: death, and the going down of the soul into some receptacle of Hell, in that state of the Old Testament, at what time the holy Scriptures used this phrase so often. Now, these impudent translators in all these places, translate it grave, ³⁹ on purpose to confound it and death together, & to make it but one thing, which S. Jerome shows to be different, in the very same sense that we have declared.

20 But alas, is it the very nature of the Hebrew,⁴⁰ Greek, or Latin, that forces them so much to English it grave, rather than Hell we appeal to all Hebricians, Grecians, and Latinists in the world: first, if a man would ask, what is Hebrew, or Greek, or Latin for Hell: whether they would not answer, these three words, as the very proper words to signify it, even as Panis signifies bread: secondly, if a man would ask, what is Hebrew,⁴¹ or Greek, or Latin for a grave: whether they would answer these words, and not three other which they know are as proper words for grave, as lac, is for milk.

21 Yea, note & consider diligently what we will say. Let them show me out of all the Bible one place, where it is certain & agreed among all, that it must needs signify grave, let them show me in any one such place, that the holy Scripture uses any of those former three words for grave. As when Abraham bought a place of burial, whether he bought Infernum: ⁴² or when it is said the kings of Israel were buried in the monuments or sepulchres of their fathers, whether it say, in infernit patrum suorum. So that not only Divines by this observation, but Grammarians also and children may easily see, that the proper and natural signification of the said words, is in English Hell, and not grave.

⁴³22 And therefore Beza does strangely abuse his Reader, more than in one place, saying that the Hebrew word does properly signify grave, being deduced of a verb that signifies, to crave or ask, because it craves always new corpses, as though the grave craved more than Hell does,⁴⁴ or wallowed more, or were more hardly satisfied and filled than Hell for in all such places they translate grave. And in one such place they say,⁴⁵ The grave and destruction can never be full. Whereas themselves a little before, translate the very same words,⁴⁶ Hell and destruction: and therefore it might have pleased them to have said also, Hell and destruction can never be full, ⁴⁷ as their pew-follows do in their translation, & again, We shall swallow them up, like Hell. The Devil (we read) goes about continually like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour, Who is called in the Apocalypse, Abaddon, ⁴⁸ that is, destruction. and so very aptly Hell and destruction are joined together, and are truly said never to be filled. What madness and impudency is it then for Beza to write thus.⁴⁹ Who is ignorant that by the Hebrew word, rather is signified a grave, for that it seems after a sort to crave always new carcasses?

23 And again, concerning our Saviour Christ’s descending into Hell, and delivering the fathers from thence, it is marvel says Beza,⁵⁰ that the most part of the ancient fathers were in this error, whereas with the Hebrews the word SHEOL. Signifies nothing else but GRAVE. Before, he pleaded upon the etymology or nature of the word, now also he pleads upon the authority of the Hebrews themselves. If he were not known to be very impudent and obstinate, we would easily mistrust his skill in the Hebrew, saying that among the Hebrews the word signifies nothing else but grave. ⁵¹

24 I would gladly know, what are those Hebrews? Does not the Hebrew text of the holy Scripture best tell us the use of this word? Do not themselves translate it Hell very often? Do not the Septuaginta always? If any Hebrew in the world, were asked, how he would turn these words into Hebrew, Similes estis sepulchris de albatis you are like to whited graves: And, Sepulchrum eius apud vos est: His grave is among you: would any Hebrew I say translate it by this Hebrew word which Beza says among the Hebrews signifies nothing else but grave? ⁵² Ask your Hebrew Readers in this case, and see what they will answer.

25 What are those Hebrews then,⁵³ that Beza speaks of? Forsooth certain Jews or later Rabbines, which, as they do falsely interpret all the holy Scriptures against our Saviour Christ in other points of our belief, as against his Incarnation, Death, & Resurrection: so do they also falsely interpret the holy Scriptures against his descending into Hell, which those Jewish Rabbines deny, because they look for another Messias that shall not die at all, and consequently shall not after his death go down into Hell and deliver the fathers expecting his coming as our Saviour Christ did. And therefore those Jewish Rabbines hold as the Heretics do, that the fathers of the Old Testament were in heaven before our Saviour Christ’s Incarnation: & these Rabbines are they which also pervert the Hebrew word to the signification of grave, in such places of the holy Scriptures as speak either of our Saviour Christ’s descending into Hell, or of the fathers going down into Hell, even in like manner as they pervert other Hebrew words, of the holy Scripture as namely, alma, to signify a young woman,⁵⁴ not a virgin, against our Saviour’s birth of the B. Virgin Mary.

26 And if these later Rabbines be the Hebrews that Beza means, and which these gay English translators follow, we lament that they join themselves with such companions, being the sworn enemies of our Saviour Christ. Surely the Christian Hebrews in Rome and elsewhere, which of great Rabbines are become zealous doctors of Christianity, and therefore honour every mystery and article of our Christian faith concerning our Saviour Christ, they dispute as vehemently against those other Rabbines, as we do against the Heretics, and among other things they tell them, that Saul said,⁵⁵ Raise me up Samuël, and that the woman said, I see gods ascending out of the earth. & An old man is ascended or come up. and that Samuël said, Why hast thou disquieted me, that I should be raised up? and, Tomorrow thou and thy sons shall be with me. And the book of Ecclesiasticus says,⁵⁶ that Samuël died, and afterward lifted up his voice out of the earth, &c. All which the holy Scripture would never have thus expressed (whether it were Samuël indeed or not) if Saul and the Jews then had believed, that their Prophets and Patriarchs had been in heaven above. And as for the Hebrew word, they make it (as every boy among the Jews does well know) as proper a word for Hell, as panis is for bread. And as improper for a grave (though so it may be used by a figure of speech) as Cymba Charontis [Charon’s boat] is Latin for death.

27 But what speak I of these? Do not the greatest and most ancient Rabbines (so to call them) the Septuaginta always translate the Hebrew word, by the Greek ᾅδης,⁵⁷ which is properly hell? Do not the Talmudistes, and Chaldee paraphrases, and Rabbi Solomon Jarhi, handling these places of the Psalms, He will deliver my soul from the hand of Sheol, interpret it by Gehinum, that is, Gehenna, hell? and yet the Calvinists bring this place for an example that it signifies grave. likewise upon this place, Let all sinners be turned into SHEOL: the foresaid Rabbines interpret it by Gehinum, hell. In so much that in the Proverbs and in Job, it is joined with Abaddon. ⁵⁸ Where Rabbi Levi according to the opinion of the Hebrews, expounds Sheol, to be the lowest region of the world, a deep place opposite to heaven, whereof it is written, If I descended into Hell, thou art present: & so does Rabbi Abraham expound the same word in chap. 2. Iona.

28 This being the opinion and interpretation of the Hebrews, See the skill or the honesty of Beza, saying that Sheol, with the Hebrews signifies nothing but grave. Whereas indeed (to speak skilfully, uprightly, and not contentiously) it may signify grave sometime secondarily, but Hell, principally and properly, as is manifest, for that there is no other word so often used and so familiar in the Scriptures to signify Hell, as this, and for that the Septuaginta do always interpret it by the Greek word ᾅδης.

29 The which Greek word is so notorious and peculiar for Hell, that the Pagans use it also for Pluto, whom they feigned to be god of hell, and not god of graves: and if they would stand with us in this point, we might beat them with their own kind of reasoning, out of Poërs & profane writers, and out of all lexicons. Unless they will tell us (contrary to their custom) that we Christians must attend the Ecclesiastical use of this word in the Bible, and in Christian writers,⁵⁹ and that in them it signifies grave. For so Beza seems to say, that the Greek Interpreters of the Bible translated the Hebrew word aforesaid by this Greek word, as signifying a dark place: whereas the Greek Poëts used it for that which the Latins called Inferos, that is, Hell. Which ambiguity (says he) of the word, made many err, affirming Christ’s descending into Hell. So was LIMBUS builded, whereunto afterward Purgatory was laid.

30 I see Beza his wiliness very well in this point. For here the man has uttered all his heart, and the whole mystery of his crafty meaning of this corrupt translation: that to avoid these three things, Christ’s descending into Hell, Limbus patrum, and Purgatory, he and his companions wrest the foresaid words of the holy Scriptures to the signification of grave. But let the indifferent christian reader only consider Beza his own words in this place, point by point.

31 First he says, that the Greek Poëts were wont to use the Greek word for Hell: secondly, that they which interpreted the Bible out of Hebrew into Greek, used the very same word for that Hebrew word whereof we have now disputed: thirdly, that the ancient fathers (for of them he speaks,⁶⁰ as a little before he expresses) understood the said Greek word for Hell, and thereby grew to those errors (as he impudently affirms) of Christ’s descending into Hell, & of the place in Hell where the fathers rested, expecting the coming of our Saviour, &c. Whereby the Reader does easily see, that both the profane and also the Ecclesiastical use of the word is for Hell, and not for grave.

⁶¹32 And for the Latin word, it is the like case for all the world: & if a man will ask but his child that comes from the Grammar, what is Infernus, he will say Hell, and not grave: what is Latin for grave? He will answer Sepulchrum, or monumentum. but never Infernus, unless one of these Calvinisticall Translators taught him so, to deceive his father.

33 Now then, to draw to a conclusion of this their corruption also in their English translation: whereas the Hebrew, and Greek, and Latin words do most properly and usually signify Hell: and both Greek, and Latin interpreters precisely in every place use for the Hebrew word, that one Greek word, and that one Latin word, which by all custom of speaking & writing, signify Hell:⁶² it had been the part of sincere and true meaning translators, to have translated it also in English always by the word Hell: and afterward to have disputed of the meaning thereof, whether and when it is to be taken for Hell, or grave, or lake, or death, or any such thing. As in one place they have done it very exactly and indifferently, namely when Jonas says (c. 2. v. 2.) out of the whales belly, Out of the belly of Hell, cried I, and thou heardest my voice. so all translate it, and well, whatsoever it signify in this place. They think that Hell, here signifies nothing else but the whales belly and the affliction of Jonas, and so the word may signify by a Metaphorical speech, as when we say in English, It is a Hell to live thus: and ⁶³ therefore no doubt they did here translate it so, to insinuate that in other places it might as well signify grave, as here the whales belly.

34 But then they should have translated it also Hell in other places, as they did in this, and afterward have interpreted it grave in their commentaries, and not presumptuously to straiten [restrict, narrow] and limit the word of the Holy Ghost to their private sense and interpretation, & to prejudice the ancient and learned holy fathers, which look far more deeply and spiritually into this prophecy, than to Jonas or the whale, ⁶⁴ our Saviour himself also applying it to his own person, and to his being in the heart of the earth three days and three nights. And therefore S. Jerome says,⁶⁵ This belly of Hell, according to the story is the whales belly, but it may much better be referred to the person of Christ, which under the name of David, ⁶⁶ sings in the Psalm, Thou shalt not leave my soul in Hell: Who was in Hell alive, and free among the dead. And that which our Saviour says, The Son of man shall be in the heart of the earth, he does interpret of his soul in Hell. For as the heart is in the midst of the body, so is Hell said to be in the midst of the earth.

35 Thus then presupposing (as we must) that Jonas speaks in the person, of our Saviour Christ, the principal sense is not of the whales belly, but of that hell whither our Saviour Christ descended, and from whence he delivered the fathers of the Old Testament, himself ascending into heaven, as their king and general captain before them, and opening the way of heaven unto them,⁶⁷ as is signified in another prophet: and was the first that entered heaven.

36 Against all which truths and every point thereof, these translators are so watchful and wary,⁶⁸ that where the Apostle says, Christ began, and dedicated unto us the way into heaven, they say, in their English translations with full consent nothing else but, He prepared. Why are they falser here than their Masters, Calvin, Beza, Illyricus, who read, Dedicauit? [He dedicated] Is there nothing in the Greek word, but bare preparation? Where be these etymologists now,⁶⁹ that can strain and wring other words to the uttermost advantage of their heresy, and here are content for the like advantage, to dissemble the force of this word, which by all use and property signifies, to make new, to begin a thing, to be the first author, to dedicate:⁷⁰ as S. Augustine might have taught them, and their lexicons, and the Scriptures in many places. This translation (no doubt) is not done sincerely and indifferently of them, but for their own deceitful purpose, as is all the rest. When S. Paul speaks of preparation only, they know right well that he uses the usual word to prepare: as,⁷¹ He has prepared them a city: and wheresoever is signified preparation only, let them bring us one example where it is expressed by the other Greek word, which now we speak of.

37 But it is of more importance, which follows, and appertaining altogether to this controversy. Hebr.⁷² 5. v. 7. your translation is thus, in the very English bible that now is read in your Churches:⁷³ Who in the days of his flesh offered up prayers with strong crying, unto him that was able to save him from death, & was heard in that which he feared. Is the Greek here,⁷⁴ In that which he feared? You know that no grammar nor lexicon does allow you this translation. But either thus, for reverence, or as one of your own English Bibles has it, because of his reverence.

38 How is it then, that in your later English bibles you changed your former translation from better to worse?⁷⁵ or who taught you so to translate it? Forsooth the Heretic Beza, whose translation you follow for the most part in your later bibles, though here, in sense rather than in word. And who taught Beza? He says, Calvin was the first that ever found out this interpretation. And why? Surely for defense of no less blasphemy than this, that our Saviour JESUS Christ upon the Cross was horribly afraid of damnation,⁷⁶ that he was in the very sorrows and torments of the damned, and that this was his descending into Hell, and that otherwise he descended not. Let the Reader note these new teachers upon this place, and judge to what wicked end this translation tends.

39 A wonderful thing: when all antiquity with a general, & full consent has in that place of the holy Scripture read thus, that Christ was heard (of his father) for his reverence (according as our Saviour himself also says in the raising of Lazarus,⁷⁷ and signifies in his long prayer Io. 17:) how a blasphemous and presumptuous Heretic should be so malapert thus to alter it, that he was heard in that which he feared. that is, that he was delivered from damnation and the eternal pains of Hell, which he was sore afraid of. To the maintenance of which blasphemy, Beza will seem to force the Greek thus.⁷⁸ First (says he) εὐλάβεια does not here signify reverence or piety, but fear, and such a fear which he calls pauorem & consternationem animi, that is, dreadfulness and astonishment of mind, and other like words, to insinuate an exceeding horror and fear in our Saviour Christ. For confutation whereof, we might easily bring the common use of this Greek word in the holy Scriptures to signify not every fear, but that religious fear which is in the best men, joined with godliness, holiness, and devotion, as when in the Acts they that buried S. Stephen,⁷⁹ are called Viri timorati. devout men such as feared God.

40 But we need not go far, for Beza will help us himself, who tells us in another place the very same. His words be these:⁸⁰ εὐλάβεια significat non quemuis timorem, sed cum reuerentia potius quàm cum animi trepidation coniunctum. Latini religionem vocant. that is, εὐλάβεια does not signify every fear, but that which is joined with reverence rather than with astonishment of mind. The Latins do call it, religion or religious fear. If this be the true signification of εὐλάβεια, as Beza himself confess, why does he not so translate it in the foresaid place to the Hebrews? Why forsakes he the old approved Latin translation and general consent of all ancient interpreters, and translates it, that fear or astonishment of mind, which he says the word does not signify?

41 And Mark that in his foresaid annotation upon S. Luke he tells not a peculiar signification of the Greek word in that place, as though in some other places it might have another signification, but he tells generally what the very nature of the Greek word is, that is, that it signifies not every fear but a fear joined with reverence. And he said truly: and they shall hardly give an instance where it signifies that fear of astonishment, which both he and they translate in the foresaid place of S. Paul. Such a force has heresy to lead a man even contrary to his own knowledge, to falsify God’s holy word.

42 Yea Beza says further to this purpose (much more against his skill in the Greek tongue, if he had any at all) that ἐπί the preposition cannot bear this sense, For which or in respect whereof. and therefore he translates the Greek into Latin thus. Exauditus est ex metu, he was heard from fear: not, for fear, or, for his reverence. and because from fear, is a hard speech and dark, that seems to be the cause why our English translators say, In that which he feared, far from Beza in word, but agreeably in sense.

⁸¹43 But for this matter we send them to Flaccus Illyricus a captain Lutheran, who disputes this very point against the Calvinists: and teaches them that nothing is more common, than that signification of ἀπό. For proof whereof,⁸² we also refer them to these places of the holy Scripture. Mat. 13. Luc. 22. and 24. Act. 12. Psal. 87. And Machab. 5, 21. where ἀπό with a genitive, and διά with an accusative, signify all one, which Beza denies. Gentle Reader, bear with these tedious grammatications, fitter to be handled in Latin, but necessary in this case also, good for them that understand, & for the rest an occasion to ask of them that have skill in the Greek tongue, whether we accuse our adversaries justly or no, of false translating the holy Scriptures.

44 And we beseech them to give us a good reason why they professing to follow precisely the Greek, do not observe truly the Greek points, in such place as concerns this present controversy. For the place in the Apocalypse which they allege of our Saviour Christ’s suffering from the beginning (thereby to infer that the just men of the Old Testament might enter heaven then,⁸³ as well as after his real and actual death) according to the Greek points says thus, All that dwell upon the earth, shall worship him (the beast) whose names have not been written in the book of life of the Lamb slain, from the beginning of the world. Where it is evident, that the Greek text says not, the lamb slain from the beginning, but that the names of those Antichristian Idolaters were not written in God’s eternal book of predestination from the beginning, as it is also most plain without all ambiguity in the 17 Chapter v. 8. If in a place of no controversy they had not been curious [scrupulous] in points of the Greek, they might have great reason sometime to alter the same.

45 But if in points of controversy between us, they will say, divers pointing [punctuation] is of no importance, they know the contrary by the example of ancient heretics, which used this mean also to serve their false heretical purpose. If they say, our vulgar Latin text points it so, let them profess before God and their conscience, that they do it of reverence to the said ancient Latin text, or because it is indifferent, & not for any other cause, & for this one place we will admit their answer.