Pagan Origin of Partialist Doctrines

by John Claudius Pitrat

Theophile was promoted to the episcopal see of Antioch, in 168. We have from his pen but three Books to Autolic; they have been edited by Don Prudent Marand. He is the first Father who used the word Trinity. His works are a refutation of Paganism, and an apology of Christianism. We could not find in them the dogma of endless hell; he only vaguely speaks of rewards and pains hereafter.

We have seen that the above Fathers, who compose the complete list of the Fathers of the second century, neither taught the dogma of endless hell, nor have recorded that the first Christians held such a dogma. Therefore we may draw the conclusion that the first Christians did not believe the doctrine of endless hell.

We pass to the Fathers of the third century. Titus Flavius Clement, of Alexandria, a Platonician philosopher, became a Christian, and succeeded to Pantenus, a professor of the school of Alexandria, in 190; and he died in 217. Alexander of Jerusalem and the celebrated Origen were his disciples. He wrote many works, the principal thereof are: Exhortations to Pagans; his Pedagogue; his Hypotyposes; and his Stromatas, which are divided into eight books. It is said that the best edition of his works is that of Potter, published at Oxford, in 1715, in two vols. folio. I read only the Paris edition, published in 1696. In his Exhortations to Pagans, he pointed out the absurdity of idolatry, and of the fables of Paganism. In his Stromatas he compared the doctrines of the philosophers with those of Jesus Christ. In the treatise headed, Which rich man will be saved? he shows that he who will use his riches properly will obtain salvation: he does not say salvation from endless hell. His Pedagogue is a treatise of morals in which he relates how the first Christians righteously lived and fervently served the Lord. In all these works it is not a question of the dogma of endless hell, either taught to the Christians or believed by them.

According to Le Clerc, Beausobre, d'Argens, Barbeyrac, Scultet, Daillé, Mosheim, Brucker, Semler, etc., this Father did not believe the spirituality of God and of man's soul.... It is a fact that, in his Stromatas, he says that God is composed of a body and of a soul, and that so is our soul. He believed in the Pagan fable that the angels had sexual intercourse with human females, and had begotten giants; he refers probably to the Giants who had fought against the Titans. All the Catholic theologians themselves admit the above, and say, that, though a Christian, he was too much of a Platonician philosopher. This is the reason why the Pope, Benedict XIV., opposed his worship, as a saint, in the Romish Church. These statements show how far this Father was from holding the dogma of endless hell.

Tertullian was one of the Fathers who wrote at the end of the second century; however, as he died in 216, we class him among the Fathers of the beginning of the third century. His works are on Prayer, on Baptism; also he wrote Exhortation to Patience; two Books to his Wife; Testimony of the Soul; treatises on Spectacles and Idolatry; treatise on Prescription; two books against the Gentiles; one against the Jews; one against Hermogenes; one against the Valentinians; one against the Gnostics; one on the Crown; one to Scapula; books against Praxeas; books on Pudicity, on Persecutions, on Fast, against the Physics, on Monogamy. These works we had not the advantage to read; but we have studied the following in our theological school: his treatise on Penance; his five books against Marcion; his treatise on the Flesh of Jesus Christ; his book on the Resurrection of the Flesh; and his Apology of the Christian Religion.

In these works which, let this be cursorily said, were written in Latin, for Tertullian was the first Father who wrote in this language, we read several times the word infernus, synonimous to Tartarus, and the words ignem eternum, used in speaking of pains, which will be inflicted upon the wicked after the general judgment; but nothing positive in regard to the duration of the punishment, for he might have used the adjective æternum hyperbolically; nor anything in regard to the belief of the first Christians in regard to it, nor even of his contemporaneous Christians. If the dogma of endless hell had been generally believed by the Christians, he would have certainly mentioned it in his Apology of the Christian Religion; for one of the main charges of the Pagans against them was that they were Atheists; and thereby denied the Elysium and the Tartarus. However, in no one of the fifty arguments which compose the Apology does he say a word about endless hell, even about any punishment beyond the grave. He only, in the forty-eighth argument, says, that there will be a resurrection of the flesh.

Sextus Julius Africanus, a Christian historian, who wrote in the beginning of the third century, is altogether silent about the dogma of endless hell, at least in the fragments of his works which have been preserved by Eusebe.

Origen was born at Alexandria, in 185. He has been one of the most talented and learned among the Fathers. He wrote the following works: Exhortation to Martyrdom; Commentaries on the Holy Scriptures. He undertook an edition of the Bible in six columns, and headed it Hexaples. The first column contained the Hebrew text in hebraic letters; the second, the same text in Greek letters; the third contained the version of Aquila; the fourth column, the version of Symmaque; the fifth, that of the Septuagint; and the sixth, that of Theodotion. He considered the version of the Septuagint as the most authentical. The Octaples contained, also, two Greek versions, which had been recently found, and whose authors were unknown. He wrote more than one thousand sermons; he wrote his celebrated work about Principles, and a treatise against Celse.

All the above works have not been transmitted to us entire, though the most of them are, as can be seen in the Bibliotheca Sanctorum Patrum, published in Paris, in 1826. This Catholic edition, we positively know, is not as impartial as it ought to be. So much has been written, for centuries, against Origen and for his justification, that a mere summary of those writings would fill volumes. Besides, would we make this summary we might perhaps be suspected of partiality, because Origen's doctrines are favorable to the bearing of this work; therefore we shall extract from the works of Feller, a Romish priest and a Jesuit, what we have to write about his accusation and justification, and about the summary of his doctrines.

Feller says, Article Origen: "In the fourth century, the Arians invoked his authority to prove that Jesus Christ was not God. St. Athanase, St. Basile, and St. Gregory of Nazianze, defended him. Hilaire, Tite de Bostres, Didyme, Ambrosius, Eusebe of Verceil, and Gregory of Nysse have laudably spoken of his works; whereas, Theodor of Mopsueste, Apollinary, and Cesary, have disparagingly written of them. Origen was condemned in the fifth general council, held at Constantinople, in 553. The pope Vigil condemned him anew. St. Epiphane, Anastase the Sinaïte, St. John Climaque, Leonce of Byzantium, Sophronius, patriarch of Jerusalem, and Antipater, bishop of Bostres, violently denounced his writings; the pope Pelage II. said that heretical works were not worse than Origen's writings. There are, in the acts of the sixth council, an edict of the emperor Constantine Pogonat, and a letter of the pope Leon II., in which he is counted with Didyme and Evagrius among the Theomaques, or enemies of God.