Pagan Origin of Partialist Doctrines

by John Claudius Pitrat

The Roman Catholic writers are unanimous in the opinion that it was the belief of a large number of Pagans that man had fallen from a higher state of existence. St. Augustine, more especially, lengthily and emphatically insists upon the general belief of the Pagans in original sin, when he writes against Pelage. However, we shall bring forth other testimonies, which will not leave, in the mind of the reader, any doubt that the Pagans generally believed in original sin.

Cicero, in his work De Republica, book third, after painting the grandeur of the human nature, and then contrasting its subjection to miseries, to diseases, to sorrow, to fear, and to the most degrading passions, was at a loss to define man. He called him a soul in ruins. It was for the same reason that, in Plato, Socrates reminds to his disciples that those who had established mysteries, and who, he said, were not to be despised, taught that according to their ancestors, any one who dies without having been purified is plunged into the mire of the Tartarus; whereas, he who has been purified dwells with the gods. Clement of Alexandria, in his Stromata, book third, writes, that, according to the testimony of Philolaüs, the Pythagorician, all the ancient theologians and poets said that the soul was buried in the body, as in a grave, as a punishment for some sin. It was also the doctrine of the Orphics, as can be seen in Plat., Cratyl., Opera, tome third.

In the pages 48, 50, and 51, of the treatise of Plutarch, on the Delays of Divine Justice, we read: "A State, for instance, is one same thing continued, a whole, alike to an animal which is ever the same, and the age thereof does not change the identity. The State then being one, as long as the association maintains the unity, the merit and the demerit, the reward and the punishment for all that is done in common are justly ascribed to it, as they are to a single individual. But if a State is to be considered in this point of view, it ought to be the same with a family proceeding from the same stock, from which it holds I do not know what sort of hidden strength; I do not know what sort of communication of essence and qualities, which extend to all the individuals of the race. Beings produced through the medium of generation are not similar to the productions of arts. In regard to the latter, when the work is completed it is immediately separated from the hand of the workman, and it no longer belongs to him: true it is done by him, but not from him. On the contrary, what is engendered proceeds from the substance itself of the generating being; so that it holds from him something which is justly rewarded or punished in his stead, for that something is himself."

According to the doctrine of the Persians, Meshia and Meshiane, or the first man and first woman, were first pure, and submitted to Ormuzd, their maker. Ahriman saw them and envied their happiness. He approached them under the form of a serpent, presented fruits to them, and persuaded them that he was the maker of man, of animals, of plants, and of the beautiful universe in which they dwelled. They believed it; and since that Ahriman was their master. Their nature became corrupt, and this corruption infected their whole posterity. This we find in Vendidat-Sade, pages 305, and 428.

Thus sin does not originate from Ormuzd; but, Zoroaster says, from the being hidden in crime. This testimony is found in the Exposition of the Theological System of the Persians, extracted from the books Zends, Pehlvis, and Parsis, by Anquetil du Perron. The following passage, "There are stains brought by man when he comes to life," is found in the 69th tome of the Memoirs of the Academy of Inscriptions.

We read in the Ezour-Vedam, book 1, chapter 4, tome 1, pages 201 and 202: "God never created vice. He cannot be its author; and God, who is holiness and wisdom, can be the author but of virtue. He gave us his law in which he prescribes what we ought to do. Sin is a transgression of this law by which it is prohibited. If sin reigns on the earth, we ourselves are its authors. Our perverse inclinations have induced us to transgress the law of God; hence, the first sin which has induced us to commit others." The same author in book 5, chapter 5, tome 2, acknowledges that the first man was created in a state of innocence; and that he was happy because he controlled his passions and desires.

Maurice in his Indiæ Antiquitates, vol. 6, page 53, proves that the Indians had a knowledge of the fall of the first man and of the first woman; he proves also that the dogma of original sin was taught by the Druids. Voltaire, on the seventeenth page of his work, Additions to General History, confesses that the Bramas believed that man was fallen and degenerated: "this idea," he adds, "is found among all the ancient peoples."

The Father Jesuit Bouchet, in a letter to the Bishop of Avranches, writes: "The gods," our Indians say, "tried by all means to obtain immortality. After many inquiries and trials, they conceived the idea that they could find it in the tree of life, which was in the Chorcan. In fact they succeeded; and in eating once in a while of the fruits of that tree, they kept the precious treasure they so much valued. A famous snake, named Cheiden, saw that the tree of life had been found by the gods of the second order. As probably he had been entrusted with guarding that tree, he became so angry because his vigilance had been deceived, that he immediately poured out an enormous quantity of poison, which spread over the whole earth."

In the Ta-Hio, or Moral of Confucius, page 50, Confucius, after saying that reason is a gift from heaven, adds, "Concupiscence has corrupted it, and it is now mixed with many impurities. Therefore take off those impurities so that it resume its first luster, and all its former perfection." The philosopher Tchouangse taught, in conformity with the doctrine of King or sacred books of the Chinese, "that in the former state of heaven, man was inly united to the supreme reason; and that he practiced all the works of justice. The heart relished the truth. There was in man no alloy of falsity. Then the four seasons of the year were regular. Nothing was injurious to man, and man was injurious to nothing. Universal harmony reigned in all nature. But the columns of the firmament having been broken, the earth was shaken in its very foundations. Man having rebelled against the heavens the system of the universe was deranged; evils and crimes flooded the earth." This testimony is extracted from the Discourse of Ramsey on Mythology, pages 146, and 148.

M. de Humboldt, in the tome 1, pages 237 and 274, and also in the tome 2, page 198 of his Views of the Cordilleras and of the monuments of America, says, "That the mother of our flesh; the serpent Cihuacohuati, and her are famous in the Mexican traditions. Those traditions represent the mother of our flesh fallen from her first state of innocence and happiness." Voltaire, in Questions on Encyclopedia, says; "The fall of man degenerated is the basis of the theology of all the ancient nations."