127 This is, strictly speaking, an error:  it is the woman’s seed
     which is to bruise the serpent’s head.  The error was perpetuated
     in the Latin Church by the Vulgate of Gen. iii. 15, ipsa conteret
     caput tuum, where ipsa refers to the woman (= she herself).

157 The epithet “white-robed” refers to the newly-baptized converts
     who received the white robe as a symbol of their new nature.  Cf.
     Perist. i. 67:  Christus illic candidatis praesidet cohortibus,
     and Ambrose (de Mysteriis, vii.):  “Thou didst receive (that is,
     after baptism) white garments as a sign that thou hast doffed the
     covering of thy sins and put on the chaste raiment (velamina) of
     innocence, whereof the prophet spake (Ps. li. 7), ’Thou shalt purge
     me with hyssop, and I shall be clean:  thou shalt wash me, and I
     shall be whiter than snow’” (Vulg.).

199 Phlegethon (rendered “Hell"), one of the rivers of the Virgilian
     Hades, is used to express the abode of the lost.  Cf.  Milton, P.  L.,
     ii. 580:—­

                “... fierce Phlegethon,
          Whose waves of torrent fire inflame with rage.”

The subject of the descensus ad inferos was evidently a favourite one with Prudentius and his contemporaries.  It has been suggested that apart from the scriptural basis of this conception Prudentius was influenced by the so-called Gospel of Nicodemus, which embodies two books, the Acts of Pilate and the Descent into Hell.  The latter is assigned by several critics to 400 or thereabouts, and gives a graphic account of Christ’s doings in Hades.  Synesius deals with the subject in one of his hymns (ix.), and Mrs Browning’s translation (see the essay on The Greek Christian Poets) of a passage in that poem may be quoted:—­

“Down Thou earnest, low as earth,
Bound to those of mortal birth;
Down Thou earnest, low as hell,
Where Shepherd-Death did tend and keep
A thousand nations like to sheep,
While weak with age old Hades fell
Shivering through his dark to view Thee.

* * * * *

So, redeeming from their pain
Chains of disembodied ones,
Thou didst lead whom thou didst gather
Upward in ascent again,
With a great hymn to the Father,
Upward to the pure white thrones!”

For a modern treatment of the theme see Christ in Hades, by
Stephen Phillips.

202 The words suggest the Catacombs, and perhaps refer to the custom
     of placing in the tomb a small cup or vase containing spices, of
     which myrrh (a symbol of death, according to Gregory of Nyssa, cf.
     xii. 71) was most usually employed.  Or the allusion may be to the
     practice of embalming.