cited by him to establish this point is the evidence of Irenaeus (book i. c. 2). [See Benedictine ed, Paris, 1710. book i. c. 10. p. 48.] Bellarmin quotes that passage in these words:  “To the just and righteous, and to those who keep his commandments, and persevere in his love, some indeed from the beginning but some from repentance, he giving life confers by way of gift incorruption, and clothes them with eternal glory.”  To the quotation he appends this note “Mark ‘to some’ that is, to those who presently after baptism die, or who lay down their life for Christ; or finally to the perfect is given immediately life and eternal glory; to others not, except after repentance, that is, satisfaction made in another world[42].”

[Footnote 42:  Agreeably to the principles laid down in my preface, I will not here allude to the doctrine of purgatory, on which Bellarmin considers this passage to bear; nor will I say one word on the intermediate state of the soul between death and the resurrection, on which I am now showing that the words of Irenaeus 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