INSCRIPTION ON THE KONT AT CHELMORTON. ^ 



The church at Chelmorton is dedicated to the Baptist, and 

 there are no less than 359 pre-reformation churches in England 

 so dedicated;* and where a church has been so dedicated, it 

 is but reasonable to suppose that any representations, whether 

 in figures or letters, upon the font, would refer to the Baptist ; 

 and the facts that have been adduced render it highly probable 

 that the baptism by St. John, his martyrdom, and the blessed 

 Trinity, would be referred to in an inscription on a font in a 

 church dedicated to the Baptist. Hitherto no such inscription 

 has been met with ; but on the 4th bell in Tideswell Church, 

 which is so dedicated, there is inscribed : — 



" Missi de ccelis nomen habeo Gabrielis," t 

 and on the 2nd bell at Norbury : — 



"Sonat hec coelis dulcissima vox Gabrielis," + 



Sir Duffus Hardy's two very able Reports on that Psalter ; and we were not 

 a little surprised to find in the Greek Creed so accurate a representation of the 

 longer Hebrew symbol— omitting the verb, as it does— that it can hardly be 

 doubled that it is a translation of it. The Hebrew symbol did not by any 

 means include all the attributes of Jehovah, nor did the Greek version, and no 

 Greek word existed that could represent that great name ; and it seems that 

 the framer of the Creed took very great pains, by means of the several triads, 

 to indicate all the attributes of the great Jehovah. The fair inference is that 

 the Hebrew symbol was the origin of the first part of the Creed ; if so, its 

 author must have known the symbol, and probably was a Hebrew Priest who 

 had been converted to Christianity, and not only translated the symbol, but 

 added the attributes of the great Jehovah, whom it represented ; and in his 

 favour it must be said, that he in no way disclosed the symbol, but rather 

 concealed it amongst the other triads. And it is remarkable that the early 

 Christians kept their creeds secret and unwritten, and that one Marcellus 

 wrote a profession of faith to Julius, a bishop, in a.d. 338, which consisted cf 

 three parts, the first and third plainly being his own composition, and the 

 second relating to all the three persons of the Trinity, which is supposed to be 

 the creed then in use in the Church of Rome ; and that this course was taken 

 in order not to betray the secret. (Dr. Salmon, Cont. Rev., Aug. 1878, p. 61.) 

 Both the Hebrew symbols are founded upon Deut. vi. 4 : "Hear, O Israel, 

 Jehovah, our God, is one Jehovah," which in the Prayer Hook of the Polish 

 and German Jews is rendered, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God; the 

 Lord is one ; " a very remarkable translation, in which the word Lord repre- 

 sents Adonai, which the Jews used in writing for Jehovah. Dr. Wolf says 

 that this passage is the password between strange Jews when they meet each 

 other. The Venice Creeds show that the Latin Creeds are translations from 

 them, anil they strongly confirm our English Creed. If the Hebrew symbol 

 be the origin of the Creed, the interest in it is much increased ; and 1 have 

 written this note in order to assist anyone, who may investigate that origin, 

 with lacts that have cost some labour to collect. 



* 1 Cox's Derbyshire Churches. 201. t 2 Ibid, 297. 



t 3 Ibid, 247. 



