Pagan Origin of Partialist DoctrinesPitrat, John Claudius
Religion
Pagan Origin of Partialist Doctrines
Pitrat, John Claudius
Catholic Church -- Controversial literature; Future punishment; Universalism
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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