Pagan Origin of Partialist Doctrines

by John Claudius Pitrat

The Pagans did not permit their candidates to initiation to assist at the celebration of the mysteries, which was always preceded by this formula, solemnly and loudly spoken by an officer, "Away from here ye profane and impious men, and all those whose soul is contaminated with crimes!" So in Catholic churches, not now, but from the first centuries down to the middle age, the deacon arose after the homily, turned toward the assistant, and ordered the catechumens to leave the church, because the celebration of the mysteries was to commence. Those mysteries are the mass, during which the priest who officiates commands Jesus Christ to descend from heaven into a wafer, which he, (priest,) holds in his hands, and to change it into his own blood, flesh, soul, and divinity. The Pagans initiated the candidates near the front door of their temples: so in the Catholic churches, the baptismal fonts where the catechumens are initiated, namely, baptized, are placed near the portal. Here we shall remark, that, for many centuries, children are baptized, (even now parents are obliged under the pain of mortal sin to have their children taken to the church to be baptized) three days after they are born. The Pagans initiated candidates chiefly on the eve of great celebrations: so, in the Romish church, catechumens are baptized chiefly on the eve of Easter, and of Pentecost.

The Pagans believed that initiation made them holy; so the Romish church holds that baptism remits the original and all other sins, and makes holy. The Pagans revered in their temples the statue of Pan, in whose hands was a seven-pipe flute; also, they revered other emblems of the seven planets: so in the Romish Church holds the doctrine of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, and of the doctrine of the seven sacraments. In the month of February the Pagans celebrated the Lupercales, and the feast of Proserpine: so the Church of Rome celebrates the Candlemas-day. We cite the very words of Bergier, a Catholic priest, and an ultra Papist, who writes thus in his Theological Dictionary; article Candlemas:

"Several authors ascribe the institution of Candlemas-day to the pope Gelase, for the purpose of opposing it to the Lupercales of the Pagans, who went processionally out in the fields making exorcisms. It is the opinion of the venerable Bede. 'The Church,' he says, 'has happily changed the lustrations of the Pagans, which took place in February around the fields. She has substituted to them processions, in which the people carry in their hands burning tapers.' Others ascribe this institution to the pope Vigil, and say that it has been substituted to the feast of Proserpine, which the Pagans celebrated in the first days of February with torches.'

The Pagans worshiped Juno as the wife of the god Jupiter: so the Church of Rome worships the virgin Mary as the wife of God. The Pagans celebrated the exaltation of the virgo or virgin, the sixth sign and seventh constellation in the ecliptic; so the Romish Church has established the feast of Assumption, namely, of the ascension of the virgin Mary to heaven. The Pagans made solemn processions to honor the goddess Ceres; so the Romish Church has instituted pompous processions in the honor of the virgin Mary.

Remark.—All the above institutions and doctrines of the Romish Church, and also those which we shall examine in the following chapters, date from the first centuries. All the Catholic doctors, theologians, and historians, confess it.

From the numerous and undeniable historical facts summed up in this chapter we legitimately draw the conclusions, 1st. That, in the first centuries of the Christian era, the Church of Rome established mysteries; 2d. That the Church of Rome borrowed her mysteries from the mysteries of the Pagans; and, 3d. That a law of secrecy was binding the catechumens after their initiation, though this law was not so stringent as it was among the Pagans.

When, in the sixteenth century, the Protestants shook the yoke of the Pope, they rejected many of the mysteries of the Church of Rome; however, they kept several of them, such as the mystery of Trinity, namely, of three Gods composing but one God; the mystery of incarnation, namely of God himself descending from the heavens, vesting our mortal clay in the womb of a woman for the purpose of being persecuted and slain on a cross by men, thus pay to himself the debt owed to him by men who had disobeyed him, (though they did not live yet,) in the person of Adam. These, we say, and other mysteries of the Romish Church, the Protestants or Heterodox in the opinion of the Catholics, preserved and transmitted them to their sons, or Partialists, who now call the Roman Catholics heathens; call the liberal Christian Churches heterodox, and call themselves most emphatically Evangelical Churches, Orthodox Churches.

The final and strictly logical conclusion of this chapter is this:

Therefore the mysteries of the Romish Church, and those of the self-called Orthodox Protestant Churches, are of Pagan origin.