Pagan Origin of Partialist DoctrinesPitrat, John Claudius
Religion
Pagan Origin of Partialist Doctrines
Pitrat, John Claudius
Catholic Church -- Controversial literature; Future punishment; Universalism
Macrobe gives us a summary of ancient or Platonician theology, which
contains a true Trinity, of which that of the Papists and of the
self-called Protestant Orthodox is but a copy. According to this
summary, the world has been formed by the universal soul: this soul is
the same as their spiritus, or spirit. They also call the Holy Spirit
Creator: "Veni Creator spiritus," etc., [translation,] Come Spirit
Creator, etc., (Catholic hymn.) Macrobe adds, that from this spirit or
soul the intelligence, which he calls _men's_ proceeds. Is this not the
Father, the Son, or wisdom, and the Spirit that creates and vivifies
all? Even is not the expression _to proceed_ common to the ancient and
to the Papist and Protestant Orthodox Churches in the filiation of the
first three beings?
Macrobe goes farther. He recalls the three Principles to a primitive
unit, who is the sovereign God. After resting his theory on this Trinity
he adds: "You see how this unit, or original monade of the first cause,
is preserved entire and indivisible up to the soul, or spirit, which
animates the world." This testimony of Macrobe has so much more bearing,
that he wrote in the beginning of the fifth century; that he was the
first Chamberlain of the emperor Theodose, and was the most learned
antiquarian of that age.
Another most important fact we shall record. It is beyond any doubt
that before the coming of Jesus Christ the Jews did not hold the dogma
of Trinity, nor do they now. Their Rabbins, and all the Roman Catholic
theologians, agree on this point.
During the first three centuries of the Christian era the dogma of
Trinity was not generally believed. The Simonians, the Nicholaïtes, the
Valentinians, the Basilidians, the Carpocratians, the Ophites, the
Sethians, all the Gnostics, and many other Christian sects rejected it.
It was only in the fourth century, that Arius and the above sects were
condemned in the council of Nice, because they denied the divinity of
Jesus Christ. This council was assembled by the order of the emperor
Constantine I., who was urged to it by the Bishop of Rome, (or Pope,)
whose Church held the dogma of Trinity. As a matter of course the
bishops of the council had to decide according to the will of those two
leaders; for Constantine threatened them with deposition and exile: in
fact he banished Arius, and deposed seventeen bishops, who did not
subscribe to the decision of the council.
The doctrine that Jesus Christ was not God himself was so generally
spread, and so deeply rooted in the minds, that several successors of
Constantine I. embraced Arianism; and it was only after centuries that
Arianism, which was spread nearly all over the East, was crushed by the
papal and the imperial power.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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