s cannot at all be made to bear.] {117}

Here I am compelled to confess that I never found a more palpable
misquotation of an author than this. I will readily grant that Bellarmin
may have quoted from memory, or have borrowed from some corrupt version
of the passage; and that he has unintentionally changed the moods of two
verbs from the subjunctive to the indicative, and inadvertently changed
the entire construction and the sense of the passage. But then what
becomes of his authority as a writer citing testimony?

Irenaeus in this passage is speaking not of what our Lord does now, but
what he will do at the last day; he refers only to the second coming of
Christ to judgment at the final consummation of all things, not using a
single expression which can be made by fair criticism to have any
reference whatever to the condition of souls on their separation from
the body. I have consulted the old editions, some at least published
before the date of Bellarmin's work; the suggestion offering itself to
my mind, that perhaps the ancient translation was in error, from which
he might have quoted. But I cannot find that to have been the case. The
old Latin version of this passage agreeing very closely with the Greek
still preserved in Epiphanius, and quoted by Roman Catholic writers as
authentic, conveys this magnificent though brief summary of the
Christian faith:

"The Church spread throughout the whole world, even to the ends of the
earth, received both from the Apostles and their disciples that faith
which is in one {118} God omnipotent, who made heaven and earth, the
sea, and all things therein, and in one Jesus Christ, the Son of God,
for our salvation made flesh, and in the Holy Ghost, who by the prophets
announced the dispensations (of God[43]), and the Advent, and the being
born of a Virgin, and the suffering, and the resurrection from the dead,
and the bodily ascension into heaven of the beloved Jesus Christ our
Lord, and his coming from heaven in the glory of the Father for the
consummation of all things, and for raising again all flesh of the human
race, THAT, in order that ([Greek: ina]), to Christ Jesus our Lord and
God, and Saviour and King, according to the good pleasure of the
invisible Father, every knee should bow of things in heaven and in
earth, and under the earth, and that every tongue should confess to Him,
and that he should execute just judgment on all: that he should send the
spirits of wickedness, a