The Apostasy Developing
By C. L. Emerson
THE THREE BABYLONS. NO. 9.
WONDERFUL transformations of character were wrought by the Gospel in its purity. Would that its force and energy had ever continued. But as we turn to the “sure word of prophecy,” we find that an apostasy is to come. The same word tells us the reason. Men will turn away their ears from the truth (the Word of God, John. 17:17), and be turned unto fables. Truly, that is the only possible way for an apostasy to take place. Let us behold this apostasy working, as is told in ecclesiastical history. During the first century of the Christian era the church remained comparatively pure, but the apostle tells us that the “mystery of iniquity doth already work,” only Christ in the hearts of His people held it back so much that we find a comparatively pure church at the end of the first century. The historian Mosheim tells us that it is not to be denied that even in this century the perverse Jewish custom of making the Bible of none effect by forced and frigid allegories found admirers in the Christian church. At the beginning of the second century, when every apostolic voice was hushed, the work of apostasy began in earnest. We are going to study the teachings of the greatest Christian teachers for the next two centuries, and we wish it borne in mind that the history of any association is but the history of the working out of the principles of the honored and trusted leaders of that association. But few men think for themselves; they rather follow their leader, as a flock of sheep a shepherd. Let this be borne in mind, I say, as we study the leaders of the Christian church during the second, third, and fourth centuries, and we have the history of the church for that time. There was born in the city of Shechem about 114 A.D. a boy that in manhood was to shape to quite an extent the history of the Christian church. This boy was Justin Martyr. Born of non-Christian parents, he chose heathen philosophy as a pursuit. After having become thoroughly indoctrinated in the false principles of philosophy, he accepted the Christian religion. He ever after his professed conversion wore his philosopher’s cloak, and if the outside is an index to the inside, we must conclude that he ever remained a heathen philosopher. Justin ever after his conversion continued to cherish an undue regard for the wisdom of the pagan sages. His mind was never completely emancipated from the influence of a system of false metaphysics; and thus it was that, while his views of various doctrines of the Gospel remained confused, his allusions to them are equivocal if not contradictory.—Ancient Church, period 2, sec. 2, chapter 1, par. 6. Justin not only thought much of the pagan sages, but he thought it his duty to recommend them to the youth who attended the divinity school of which he was head. But heathen philosophy at best is man’s wisdom, and that is what caused all the heathenism that ever existed. And to teach men who are studying for Gospel ministers to study heathen philosophy is to trap them into studying that which will effectually nullify all the power of the Gospel. Not that it is stronger, but the Gospel is powerful only when trusted, and if something else is trusted as much, the Gospel loses all its power in the unbelieving heart. But if Justin cherished “an undue regard” for heathenism, he did not trust the Word of God. Either he never had learned its power, or he had forgotten it before he could recommend heathen philosophy; and the church that accepted his views must first have left God’s Word. He was allegorical; that is, he did not think the Bible meant just what it says; for he said the angels never ate the food prepared for them by Abraham. But the Word says, “They did eat.” Gen. 18:8. When one finds himself called upon to say the plain Word (where there is no possibility of a figure of speech) does not mean what it says, he simply puts his word against God’s. To accept it is to reject God. Then the quotations of Justin are so loose that they reveal the one who quotes them as one who does not understand the sacredness of God’s Word. He quotes Eze. 14:20 thus: “If Noah and Jacob and Daniel should beg either son or daughter, the request would not be granted them.” Thus we see that the sense of the sacredness of the Word was lost in Justin and naturally in those whom he taught. He was one of the foremost teachers of his time, and is highly prized even to-day. The church was not entirely backslidden in Justin’s day, but with the sacredness of the Word on the wane and their minds inoculated with the idea that heathen philosophy—the very antithesis of the Gospel—was a good thing, they were in a good position to be led terribly wrong. C. L. EMERSON.