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gentleman of blood; [what have you said?] nor God Almighty; but he can make a gentleman by creation. If you ask which is the better of these two; civilly, the gentleman of blood; morally the gentleman by creation may be the better; for the other may be a debauched man, this a person of worth.

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2. Gentlemen have ever been more temperate in their religion than the common people, as having more reason, the others running in a hurry. In the beginning of Christianity the fathers writ contra gentes, and contra gentiles, 10 they were all one; but after all were Christians, the better sort of people still retained the name of Gentiles, throughout the four provinces of the Roman empire; as gentilhomme in French, gentil-huomo1 in Italian, gentil-huombre in Spanish, and gentle-man2 in English: and they, no question, being persons of quality, kept up those feasts which we borrow from the Gentiles; as Christmas, Candlemas, May-day, &c. continuing what was not directly against Christianity, which the common people would never have endured.

20

XLIX.

GOLD.

THERE are two reasons given why those words, Jesus autem transiens per medium eorum ibat, were about our old

1 Gentil-huomo] gentel-homo, H. and H. 2.

2 Gentleman, H. 2] gentilman, H.

1. 22. There are two reasons &c.] The second reason given here is not what Selden gives elsewhere. After mentioning the alchemical reason for the inscription, he adds—'alii opinati sunt . . . amulcri vicem obtinuisse, et caedi et vulneribus averruncandis. Certe verba illa in iis quibus tortorum quaestioni subjecti interdum, dolori allevando abigendoque, utuntur locum habere ex jurisconsultis aliquot scimus.' Works, vol. ii. p. 1386.

Camden mentions the story told by the alchemists; but, with a

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gold. The one is, because Ripley the alchymist, when he made gold in the tower, the first time he found it, he spoke these words, per medium eorum, that is, per medium ignis et sulphuris. The other is, because these words were thought to be a charm, and that they did bind whatsoever they were written upon, so that a man could not take it away. To this reason I rather incline.

L.

HALL.

THE hall was the place where the great lord did use to 10 eat, (wherefore else were the halls made so big?) where he

disregard of dates, he gives Raymond Lully as the successful projector in the Tower. He adds that others say that the text on the coins was only an amulet used in that credulous warfaring age to escape dangers in battle. See Camden, Remains, sub tit. 'Money,' p. 242 (ed. 7, London, 1674).

We learn, too, that the rose nobles of other nations, as well as of ours, had these words stamped upon them. They were used in England first by Edward III, and were copied on the coins of several later reigns. Sometimes another passage of Scripture was used instead of them; as e. g. 'A domino factum est istud, et est mirabile in oculis nostris;' or 'per crucem tuam salva nos Christe redemptor.' See Archbishop Sharpe, Dissertation on the Golden Coins of England, secs. 4 and 6.

1. 9. The hall was the place &c.] See e. g. Household Statutes (first half of thirteenth century), framed for Bishop Grossetest. 'Make ye your own household to sit in the hall, as much as ye may. . . And sit ye ever in the middle of the high borde (table) that your face and cheer be shown to all men. And all so much as ye may, without peril of sickness and weariness, eat ye in the hall before your men. For that shall be to you profit and worship.' Manners and Meals in Olden Time, Part I, p. 329, 331 (Early English Text Society). The Eltham Ordinances for the government of the royal household under Henry VIII are framed in view of the King's dining in Hall, and they give special permission for private meals when the King does not dine in the Hall. See chh. 44, 45, and 52, pp. 151, 153.

saw all his servants and his tenants about him. He eat not in private, except in time of sickness; when once he became a thing cooped up, all his greatness was spilled. Nay, the king himself used to eat in the hall, and his lords sat with him, and then he understood men.

LI.

HELL.

I. THERE are two texts for Christ's descending into hell; the one, Psalm xvi. the other, Acts ii. where the Bible, that

But that the custom was ceasing to be observed appears from ch. 77, p. 160, which gives rules which had become necessary 'by reason of the seldom keeping of the King's Hall.'

The above are printed in. A Collection of Ordinances for the Government of the Royal Household (1790, 4to).

1. 7. There are two texts &c.] This is incorrect. There are other texts which have been, rightly or wrongly, interpreted to prove the descent. Conf. Ephesians iv. 9: 'Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth?' and 1 Peter iii. 19: 'By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison.' In the Forty-two Articles of 1552, the descent into hell is explained and confirmed by a reference to this passage: 'Quemadmodum Christus pro nobis mortuus est et sepultus, ita est etiam credendus ad inferos descendisse. Nam corpus usque ad resurrectionem in sepulchro jacuit; spiritus ab eo emissus, cum spiritibus qui in carcere sive in inferno detinebantur fuit, illisque praedicavit, quemadmodum testatur Petri locus.' In the Thirty-nine Articles of 1562, the Article on the descent ends with the words 'ad inferos descendisse,' and omits all reference to the preaching to the spirits in prison. At this date the authorised version of the Bible was Cranmer's, or the great Bible (1539), in which (as in Tyndale's earlier version) the reading in Acts ii. 27 is 'thou wilt not leave my soul in hell.' The Thirty-nine Articles were confirmed or recognised by Parliament in 1571, at which date, and up to 1611, the authorised version was the 'Bishops' Bible' (1568). In this version the text remains unchanged-'because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell'; and in the corresponding passage in Psalm xvi. 10 the word 'hell is marginally explained as 'in the state that souls be after this life.'

was in use when the Thirty-nine Articles were made, has it (hell). But the Bible that was in Queen Elizabeth's time, when the Articles were confirmed, reads it (grave), and so it continued till the new translation in King James's time, and then 'tis hell again. But by this we may gather the Church of England declined, as much as they could, the descent; otherwise they never would have altered the Bible.

2. He descended into hell. This may be the interpretation 10 of it. He may be dead and buried, then his soul ascended into heaven. Afterwards he descended again into hell, that is, into the grave, to fetch his body, and to rise again. The ground of this interpretation is taken from the Platonic

The text is changed in the Geneva Bible (1557) which reads 'grave' for hell. This version was in common private use, and was most favoured by the Puritan party, but it was not authorised or appointed to be read in church. It does not appear, therefore, that the Church of England at any time 'altered the Bible,' as Selden incorrectly says.

1. 13. the Platonic learning] That a metempsychosis was a Platonic doctrine is certain. It appears in the story of Er, the son of Arminius, in Rep. x. and in the Phaedrus 248, 249, where, in one passage, the soul which is to take a new body is said to fall to the earth. So among the later Platonists, Porphyry speaks of τὰς ψυχὰς εἰς γένεσιν KATIοÚσas (De Antro Nympharum, sec. 10), and again in his 'Apopμai πρòs тà voŋtá, sec. 32. Conf. also Plotinus, Enneades, Enn. 4, lib. 8, Περὶ τῆς εἰς τὰ σώματα καθόδου τῆς ψυχῆς, passim : and especially in § 4. Εἴληπται οὖν ἡ ψυχὴ) πεσοῦσα, καὶ πρὸς τῷ δεσμῷ οὖσα ... τεθάφθαι τε λέγεται καὶ ἐν σπηλαίῳ εἶναι.

But that these views affected the language of the early Christians, and that they understood the descent into hell in Selden's sense of the words, there is nothing to show, and there is abundant evidence to the contrary. On this subject the Greek and Latin fathers speak with one voice. They understand Christ's descent into hell as a fact distinct from his burial and resurrection. It is a literal visit to the lower regions where the souls of the dead were detained, and from which the souls of the old prophets and saints were liberated at Christ's coming. Pearson, in his long and learned discussion on the descent, puts the question, thus far, beyond all reasonable doubt. Archbishop Usher, writing on the descent, shows out of Plato and other philosophers and poets, that the word Hades is used to signify

learning, who held a metempsychosis, and when a soul did descend from heaven to take another body, they called it katáßaoi eis ädŋv, taking adŋs for the lower world, the state of mortality. Now the first Christians, many of them, were Platonic philosophers, and no question spoke such language as then was understood amongst them. To understand by hell, the grave, is no tautology, because the creed first tells what Christ suffered, He was crucified, dead, and buried; then it tells us what he did, He descended into hell, the third day he rose again, he ascended, &c.

LII.

HOLY-DAYS.

THEY say the Church imposes holy-days. There's no such thing, though the number of holy-days is set down in some of our Common-prayer books1. Yet that has relation to an act of parliament, which forbids the keeping of any other holy-days. The ground thereof was the multitude of holy-days in time of popery. But those that are

1 Books, H. 2] book, H.

a general invisible future state of the soul after it is separated from the body, and he interprets the descent accordingly. Conf. Parr's Life of Usher, Appendix 27. Selden's interpretation appears to be entirely his own. I can find no other authority for it.

1. 15. an act of parliament, which forbids &c.] This is the 5 and 6 of Edward VI, ch. 3, which enacts: 'that all the days hereafter mentioned shall be kept and commanded to be kept holy-days, and none other . . . and that none other day shall be kept and commanded to be kept holy-day, or to abstain from lawful bodily labour.' The list given corresponds with that now in the Book of Common Prayer. Selden's remark must have been made at some date before June 8, 1647, when an Ordinance was put out by Parliament that festivals called holy-days were no longer to be observed, any law, statute, custom or canon to the contrary notwithstanding. Rushworth, Collections, vol. vi. p. 548.

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