cles runs:
"_Visitation Articles in the Entire Electorate of Saxony_, together with
the Negative and Contrary Doctrines of the Calvinists and the Form of
Subscription, as Presented to be Signed by Both Parties."

As a result of the visitation, the Crypto-Calvinistic professors in
Wittenberg and Leipzig were exiled. John Salmuth [born 1575;
court-preacher in Dresden since 1584; died 1592] and Prierius, also a
minister in Dresden, were imprisoned. As a bloody finale of the
Crypto-Calvinistic drama enacted in Electoral Saxony, Chancellor Crell
was beheaded, October 9, 1601, after an imprisonment of ten years. Crell
was punished, according to his epitaph, as "an enemy of peace and a
disturber of the public quiet--_hostis pacis et quietis publicae
turbator_," or, as Hutter remarks in his _Concordia Concors_, "not on
account of his religion, but on account of his manifold perfidy--_non ob
religionem, sed ob perfidiam multiplicem_." (448. 1258.) For a long
period (till 1836) all teachers and ministers in Electoral Saxony were
required to subscribe also to the Visitation Articles as a doctrinal
norm. Self-evidently they are not an integral part of the _Book of
Concord_.

XIX. Controversy on Christ's Descent into Hell.

218. Luther's Doctrine.

While according to medieval theologians the descent into hell was
regarded as an act by which Christ, with His soul only, entered the
abode of the dead; and while according to Calvin and the Reformed
generally the descent into hell is but a figurative expression for the
sufferings of Christ, particularly of His soul, on the cross, Luther,
especially in a sermon delivered 1533 at Torgau, taught in accordance
with the Scriptures that Christ the God-man, body and soul, descended
into hell as Victor over Satan and his host. With special reference to
Ps. 16, 10 and Acts 2, 24. 27, Luther explained: After His burial the
whole person of Christ, the God-man, descended into hell, conquered the
devil, and destroyed the power of hell and Satan. The mode and manner,
however, in which this was done can no more be comprehended by human
reason than His sitting at the right hand of the Father, and must
therefore not be investigated, but believed and accepted in simple
faith. It is sufficient if we retain the consolation that neither hell
nor devil are any longer able to harm us. Accordingly, Luther did not
regard the descent into hell as an act belonging to the state of
humiliation, by which He pa