THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL by Dudley Marvin Canright

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 20, 1879

THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.

By Dudley Marvin Canright

ELD. D. M. CANRIGHT.

ALLEGORICAL INTERPRETATION OF THE SCRIPTURES ADOPTED.

How could these Platonic doctrines be harmonized with the Bible? How could the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, conscious state of the dead, etc., be reconciled with the opposite doctrine everywhere taught in the Scriptures? This was, indeed, a serious difficulty; but the genius of these Platonizing teachers devised a mode of harmonizing the two. It was this: They assumed that all the Bible was to be understood, not literally, or according to its plain, obvious meaning, but allegorically, or as metaphors under which the truth was concealed. By this method, of course, they could make it teach any doctrine they pleased! Clement and Origen, especially the latter, were the chief movers in this work.

So plainly and fully has the learned Mosheim, in his Ecclesiastical History, treated this part of my subject, that I have only to quote him. He says: “One of the earliest evils that flowed from this immoderate attachment to philosophy, was the violence to which it gave rise in the interpretation of the Holy Scriptures. For, whereas the Christians had, from a very early period, imbibed the notion that under the words, laws, and facts recorded in the Sacred Volume, there is a latent sense concealed—an opinion which they appear to have derived from the Jews—no sooner did this passion for philosophizing take possession of their minds, than they began, with wonderful subtlety, to press the Scriptures into their service in support of all such principles and maxims as appeared to them consonant to reason; and at the same time most wretchedly to pervert and twist every part of those divine Oracles which opposed itself to their philosophical tenets or notions.” Of Clement he says: “Whatever, therefore, appears to him just and consonant to reason in the maxims or tenets of the philosophers, he is sure to discover laid down somewhere in the books of the Old Testament; and this leads him, not unfrequently, to strain and distort, in a most extraordinary manner, the words of Moses and the other sacred writers, in order to make them, apparently, speak one and the same language with Plato and the rest of the philosophers of Greece.”

He also says they tried to make the Bible doctrine of the resurrection fit their immortal-soul theory. “The restoration, or resurrection of the dead, was so interpreted as to accommodate it to the tenets of the Grecian sages.”

Origen, who lived in the close of the second and the first half of the third century, was a disciple of Clement, and also for a long time sat under the teaching of Ammonius. These teachers he followed, and carried their Platonic doctrines still further, especially with respect to the immortality of the soul.

The following quotations from Mosheim will clearly show all this: “Origen’s new method of explaining and illustrating religious truths by means of philosophy, required also a new method of expounding the Sacred Scriptures; for, meeting with many things in the Scriptures repugnant to the decisions of his philosophy, he deemed it necessary to devise some method of removing this disagreement. And, as it would add confirmation to his opinions if he could make it appear that they were supported by the authority of Scripture, some plausible way was to be devised which should make his speculations appear to be taught in the holy Oracles.” Hence, “perceiving that many of the facts and declarations of the Bible conflicted with the principles of his philosophy, he felt the necessity of resorting to some means of escaping their force; and he could find none more easy and effectual than this assumption. Whatever in the sacred books conflicts with my philosophy must not be taken literally, but must be converted into allegory. Safely posted behind this rule, he could easily resist whatever the Scriptures might oppose to his opinions.” “I have,” says Mosheim, “already touched upon the causes which led him to adopt this very dangerous rule for interpreting sacred history. They are obvious to every attentive reader. The statements of the Bible respecting the creation of the world, the origin of man, etc., were contrary to the precepts of his philosophy, and, therefore, he would sooner deny the truth of a portion of sacred history than give up his philosophy.”

Was the Platonic, or Ammonian, doctrine of the soul among those errors which he wished to make the Bible uphold? Yes; hear our historian on this point: “The foundation of all his faults was, that he fully believed nothing to be more true and certain than what the philosophy he received from Ammonius taught him respecting God, the world, souls, demons, etc.; and therefore he, in a measure, recast and remodeled the doctrines of Christ after the pattern of that philosophy.” Here we have the doctrine of Christ recast and remodeled, and the Bible distorted, to make them fit the heathen doctrine of the soul, and other errors. Our author continues: “He could not discover in the sacred books all that he considered true, so long as he adhered to the literal sense; but allow him to abandon the literal sense, and to search for recondite meanings, and those books would contain Plato, Aristotle, Zeno, and the whole tribe of philosophers. And thus nearly all those who would model Christianity according to their own fancy, or their favorite system of philosophy, have run into this mode of interpreting Scripture.” Behold here the origin of the figurative interpretation of the Bible. It was invented expressly to harmonize that book with Plato’s doctrine of the soul.

So thoroughly was Origen possessed with Plato’s doctrine of the immortal soul, that, though he professed to be a Christian and to believe the Bible, yet, says Hagenbach, in his “History of Christian Doctrine,” “Origen teaches that a belief in the doctrine of the resurrection of the body is not absolutely essential to the profession of Christianity, provided the immortality of the soul be maintained.”

This is but the natural fruit of that doctrine. If the soul is immortal, and lives without the body, what is the use of a resurrection?

The influence and authority of Origen extended far and wide, so much so that Mosheim says: “It would therefore be no mistake to say, that, as Constantine the Great imparted a new form to the civil state, so this Egyptian imparted a new form to the theology of Christians. . . . Origen introduced the Academy almost entire into the church.” “Indeed, it is not to be concealed that he coincided with Ammonius in the belief that the popular religions, if their fables and superstition were excluded, might, in a measure, be combined with Christianity.” “He unhesitatingly applied to Christ’s soul whatever he had learned respecting the human soul in the school of his master, Ammonius.” Thus we have traced the history of the old heathen dogma of the immortal soul from Egypt, through all its developments, till it was received into the church. As we have seen, the last move was not accomplished without much opposition from the old-fashioned Christians, and a terrible distortion of the Scriptures on the part of its Platonic advocates. Platonism continued to obscure more and more the light of the gospel, till it deepened into the midnight of the Dark Ages. Thus of the fourth century we read: “Nearly all who attempted philosophy in this century were of the sect called Modern Platonists. . . . The Christians, from the time of Constantine the Great, devoted much more attention to the study of philosophy and the liberal arts than they had done before.”

Of the fifth century the same author remarks: “The superstitious notions and human devices by which religion was before much clogged, were very considerably augmented. As no one in those times objected to Christians’ retaining the opinions of their pagan ancestors respecting the soul, heroes, demons, temples, and the like, and then transferring them into their devotions; and as no one proposed utterly to abolish the ancient pagan institutions, but only to alter them somewhat and purify them,—it was unavoidable that the religion and the worship of Christians should in this way become corrupted.”

Will the reader mark well the fact here recorded, that the pagan converts were allowed to retain and bring into the Christian worship the opinions of their pagan ancestors respecting the soul? When were those pagan opinions ever cast out of the church?—Never; they are cherished to this day, and the man who now undertakes to reject them is branded as opposing the Bible! Alas, how hard it is to uproot an error when it has once been allowed to grow among the tender plants of truth!

But I need not pursue this painful subject further. The evidence is overwhelming that Christianity, in the third century and onward, was grossly corrupted by Platonic philosophy; and that here was where Plato’s doctrine of the soul found its way into the church. I will close with the following candid confession from an able orthodox writer: “We would express our conviction that the idea of the immortality of the soul has no source in the gospel; that it comes, on the contrary, from the Platonists; and that it was just when the coming of Christ was denied in the church, or at least began to be lost sight of, that the doctrine of the immortality of the soul came in to replace that of the resurrection. This was about the time of Origen.”

PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN DOCTRINES OF THE SOUL COMPARED.

I have already shown that the early Christians received from Platonism their doctrine of the soul. I have also shown that Christianity was grossly corrupted by the reception of pagan tenets, and that great numbers of the pagans who embraced Christianity still retained all their former notions, especially with regard to the soul. I will now present a few more points, and compare the pagan doctrine of the soul, and hell torments, with the views held by Christians on these subjects. This will show them to be the same. I have quoted good authors to prove that Christianity was deeply corrupted with pagan doctrines and practices from the last part of the second century till Catholicism was fully established, and the night of the Dark Ages spread its gloomy pall of superstition and heathenism over all the world.

Inspired men foresaw and forewarned the church of this apostasy. To the elders of the Ephesian church, Paul said: “For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them.” This apostasy from the truth was to begin, then, even in the days of the apostles, and was to arise among their own disciples. To the Thessalonians, Paul wrote: “For the mystery of iniquity doth already work.” Even while the apostles were alive had this delusion begun. Paul warned his brethren not to be deceived by any man, but to “prove all things,” and “hold fast that which is good.” Yet men now think that the teachings of any professed Christian who lived as early as that, or even two hundred years later, are as good as the Bible, and not to be questioned. Hence, notwithstanding Paul’s warning, many have been deceived. Some were so far deceived by vain philosophy, even in a large and flourishing church which had long enjoyed the watchcare of the apostle, as to deny the resurrection. Hence Paul’s inquiry of the Corinthians, “How say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead?” As we have seen, all the authority of the apostles was not able to crush this false doctrine; so of other heresies. Of these early corruptions, Mr. Dowling, in his “History of Romanism,” thus remarks: “There is scarcely anything which strikes the mind of the careful student of ancient ecclesiastical history with greater surprise than the comparatively early period at which many of the corruptions of Christianity which are embodied in the Roman system took their rise.”

Robinson, author of the “History of Baptism,” thus writes: “Toward the latter end of the second century, most of the churches assumed a new form, the first simplicity disappeared; and insensibly, as the old disciples retired to their graves, their children, along with new converts, both Jews and Gentiles, came forward and new-modeled the cause.” Yes; and this new modeling was done to make it fit their old pagan doctrines. Archibald Bower, in his valuable “History of the Popes,” has clearly demonstrated that Catholicism is only paganism with another name. This he repeatedly declares and proves. He says that the Christians of Rome, in the fifth century, who had come over from heathenism, “were yet but half Christians, and had only grafted the Christian religion on the old stock of pagan superstition.”

Of the influence of heathen converts upon Christianity, Mr. Bower says: “For those rites and ceremonies, however heathenish, instead of ever being given up by them, were by degrees adopted by the Christian inhabitants of the countries where the new-comers

settled. And thus the half Christians, for they were no better, remained half Christians, while the true Christians became half pagans. Thus we may well account for the many errors and corruptions that overspread and disfigured the whole face of the church, after the irruption and conversion of the barbarous nations that broke into the empire in the fourth and fifth centuries. Their usages were first connived at, and afterward adopted by the church.”

Can any one wonder that pagan doctrines came into the church and supplanted the doctrines of Christ?