Pagan Origin of Partialist Doctrines

by John Claudius Pitrat

Such was the general teaching and belief of the Pagans in regard to future punishment, before the coming of Jesus Christ, and the preaching of his Gospel.

As to the Jewish nation, not the slightest vestiges of any kind of belief regarding future punishment, can be traced out, neither in the Old Testament, nor in Josephus, nor in the writings of other historians, at least before the captivity of Babylon, which took place in the year 598 before the Christian era. Afterwards the Jews divided into four sects, the Essenes, the Sadducees, the Samaritans, who denied the existence of any future punishment, and the Pharisees, who, according to the testimony of Josephus, adopted the belief of Metempsychosis, or transmigration of the souls.

ARTICLE III.

Did the Christians of the First Centuries believe in Endless Hell?

We emphatically answer, no. If the Christian Fathers of the first centuries, have neither taught the dogma of endless hell, nor mentioned, in their writings, that their fellow-Christians knew or believed it, and if the same is proved by the testimony of the then existing Christian sects or denominations, it is evident that the first Christians did not believe in endless hell. But the Christian Fathers of the first centuries have neither taught the dogma of endless hell, nor mentioned, in their writings, that their fellow-Christians knew or believed it; and the same is proved by the testimony of the then existing Christian sects. These two members of the proposition we are to successively prove: 1st member: In the first century the four Gospels, and other books of the New Testament were written by the apostles, but history does not inform us of any other Christian writing, or author, in that age, except perhaps Clement, bishop of Rome, who, it is said, has left a letter to the Corinthians: critics call it Apocryphal. We have not read it. Therefore in order to know whether the first Christians believed in endless hell or not, we must recur to the works of the Christian Fathers who lived and wrote in the following centuries, and particularly to those who lived and wrote during the second.

St. Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, who suffered martyrdom at Rome, in the year 107, was the first apostolic Father of the second century. There are in the collection of the works of the holy Fathers, six letters ascribed to him by some authors; some others, Saumaise, Blondel, Daillé, etc., say that they are apocryphal. Mosheim, in his Histor. Christ., says, that it is doubtful whether they are of Ignatius or not. We have read those six letters, of which five are addressed to different Churches, and one to Polycarpus. Although they treat of the most important points of the Christian faith and duties, they are silent upon the question of endless hell. In the year 131, St. Quadratus presented to the emperor Adrian an apology of the Christian religion, which contained the principal Christian doctrines. Adrian was so pleased with this apology, that, if we must believe what Lampride says in his Life of Alexander Severus, he designed to rear a temple to Jesus Christ, and to place him among the gods of the empire. A fragment of this apology can be found in the works of Eusebe; but not a word is said about the dogma of endless hell.

St. Justin, a Platonician philosopher, was born at Naplouse, Palestine, in 103. He was converted to Christianity in 133. He wrote the following works: Exhortation to Gentiles; two Apologies of the Christian religion, the one to the emperor Antonine, and the other to the emperor Marcus-Aurelius; a Dialogue with the Jew Triphon; a treatise on Monarchy, or Unity of God; and an Epistle to Diognet, in which he states the reasons why Christians left the worship of the gods, and did not adopt that of the Jews. He composed other works, but they exist no more. The main editions of his works are those of Robert Etienne in 1551 and 1771, in Greek and Latin; that of Commelin in 1593, in Greek and Latin; that of Morel in 1656, and that of Don Marand in 1742, in folio. All these editions, and afterwards that of Migne, we have compared in the voluminous library of the theological seminary of Brou, France, where we have been ordained a priest. Although there were alterations of the text, we did not find any passage referring to the dogma of endless hell. True, addressing the Romans, he says: "Come, O Romans, to find instruction! Formerly I was like you, now be what I am. The power of the Christian religion has enlightened me, and freed me from servitude to my senses and passions: it has afforded me peace and serenity. The soul thus free is sure to reunite to her Creator, because it is right that she return to him from whom she emanated." But this passage neither explicitly nor implicitly supposes that he believed, or that the first Christians believed, in endless hell; it is simply a Platonician and Christian doctrine, in regard to the purity of our soul which is worthy of God only when unstained. However Bailly, a Catholic theologian, says that on page 74 of the first Apology there is a passage proving his belief in endless hell. We did not find it.

Meliton, bishop of Sardes, Lybia, under the reign of Marcus-Aurelius, presented to this emperor an Apology of the Christian religion, in 171. Eusebe and several other authors praise it. Only a few fragments of it are found in the Bibliotheca Patrum; in none of them is a question of the dogma of endless hell.

Athenagoras, a Platonician philosopher, was converted to the Christian religion, and presented, in 177, an Apology of the Christian doctrines to the emperors Marcus-Aurelius and Lucius-Aurelius-Commode. He justified the Christians, who were charged by the Pagans with atheism: with sacrificing and eating a child in their assemblies; and with indulging to impudicity. In this Apology he ascribed to God but a general providence; and he expressed the Platonician opinion, that angels, or spirits, had the government of this world. He admitted that there were pains and rewards in the future life. Let us not infer from this that he referred to the dogma of endless hell. No; he merely meant, by those pains and rewards, the Platonician doctrine about Metempsychosis.

Ireneus was born in Greece, in 140. He became bishop of Lyons, Gaul. He wrote several theological works in the Greek language. He believed in a general judgment, and in the millenium, namely, in a temporal kingdom of Jesus Christ on earth, which was to last one thousand years immediately before the general judgment. During this reign of Jesus Christ, the Christians were to enjoy a happiness which was to be a foretaste of the happiness they should enjoy after the general judgment. Not only this Father did not teach the dogma of endless hell, but according to the ultramontane Bergier, he has been charged by the pretended Orthodox divines with having expressed himself in an heterodox manner upon the divinity of the Word; upon the spirituality of the angels and of the human soul; upon free agency and the necessity of grace; and upon the state of the souls after death. He seemed to be inclined to believe Metempsychosis—this, however, is our private opinion, resting on his general views on the state of the souls after death. The Catholics invoke but one passage of his writings against this opinion. Grabe, a Protestant, published at Oxford, in 1702, an edition of his works; it is quite different from the Catholic editions.