Frauds and Follies of the Fathers: A Review of the Worth of Their Testimony to the Four GospelsWheeler, J. M. (Joseph Mazzini)
Religion
Frauds and Follies of the Fathers: A Review of the Worth of Their Testimony to the Four Gospels
Wheeler, J. M. (Joseph Mazzini)
Christianity -- Controversial literature; Fathers of the church
Justin also informs us (Apol., lxvi.) that through the suggestions
of wicked demons, bread and wine were placed before the persons to be
initiated into the mysteries of Mithras in imitation of the Eucharist.
He could believe that Jesus, sitting at a table, actually offered his
own body and blood to eat and drink, but the idea that the Christian
Sacrament of the Lord's Supper was copied from the Mysteries never
struck him. Having plenty of devils he put them to a deal of use. He
tells us how they came into existence: "God committed the care of men
and of all things under heaven to angels whom he appointed over them.
But the angels transgressed this appointment, and were captivated by
love of women, and begat children who are those that are called demons"
(2nd Apol. v., p. 75). These subdued the human race partly by magical
writings and partly by fears and punishments. Not content with inventing
the heathen mythology they raised up the Samaritans, Simon and Menander,
"who did many mighty works by magic." This is what he says the Jews said
of Jesus (Dial, chap. Ixix). Justin twice has the audacity to assert
that the Romans erected a statue to the Samaritan Simon, as a god. He
gives the inscription Simoni Deo Sancto. To Simon the Holy God. This, if
not a fraud, was a very gross error. Apart from the unlikelihood of the
story and its absence of corroboration by any heathen writer, a fragment
has been found with the inscription "Semoni Sanco Deo," being probably
the base of a statue erected to the Sabine Deity, Semo Sancus. He
further charges the Romans with human sacrifices in celebrating the
mysteries of Saturn; a charge absolutely false and unsupported by
any Pagan author, although repeated by the Christian Fathers, Tatian,
Cyprian, Tertullian, Lactantius, Epiphanius, etc. Justin also says the
devils put forward and aided Marcion the follower of Paul, who accused
the other apostles of having perverted the Gospel doctrines. He
frequently alleges that the Christians cast out devils in the name of
Jesus Christ, and that women and men among them possessed prophetic
gifts, but he gives no special instance of any miracle wrought in his
own time. He makes maniacs and demoniacs to be possessed by the spirits
of the dead, and appeals to "necromancy, divination by immaculate
children, dream-senders and assistant spirits" in proof of life after
death (immortality he seems to have considered the gift of God). All the
early Fathers believed in necromancy. Lactantius ("Divine Institutes,"
book iv., chap, xxvii.) calls it the most certain proof of Christianity,
because those who are skilled in calling forth the spirits of the dead
bring Jupiter and other gods from the lower regions, but not Christ, for
he was not more than two days there. Justin says we ought to pray that
the evil angel may not seize our soul when it departs from the body.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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