p. 1 | THE EARLY FATHERS by Dudley Marvin Canright

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 15, 1879

THE EARLY FATHERS.

By Dudley Marvin Canright

ELD. D. M. CANRIGHT.

ARNOBIUS, A. D. 300.

This author, in his large work, “Against the Heathens,” shows that he still holds to the old faith; for he says that the wicked will “be thrown into torrents of fire, amidst dark caverns and whirlpools, where they shall at length be annihilated, and vanish in perpetual extinction.” He held that man was of a middle nature, neither mortal nor immortal, but capable of either condition.

Of Arnobius, Dupin remarks: “He takes occasion from thence to discourse of the nature of souls; he pretends that they are of a middle quality between a spirit and a body, that they are by nature mortal, but that God of his goodness immortalizes the souls of those who repose their confidence in him. He confutes Plato’s notions concerning the soul’s immortality, and its excellency, dignity, exile, or imprisonment in the body. He supposes that it is corporeal and extraduce; that man is but very little different from the beasts; that his soul is mortal by nature, but that it becomes immortal by the grace of God.”

So D. T. Taylor says: “This writer evidently held to the annihilation of the wicked; for he says, ‘They are hurled down and reduced to nothingness, they vanish away in the abortion of an eternal destruction;’ ‘they can die if they know not God;’ this ‘utter destruction’ he calls ‘the real death of man, which leaves him nothing.’ ‘Souls that know not God are consumed by long-continued torment by a fierce fire.’ That souls are immortal, he calls ‘a vain hope.’”

Thus he writes: “Wherefore we should not be deceived or deluded with vain hopes, by that which a new class of men, elated with an extravagant opinion of themselves, tell us: that souls are immortal, next in rank of dignity to the Supreme God, derived from him as Creator and Father, divine, wise, inspired with knowledge, and free from stain of gross matter.”

Here is a square condemnation of the whole doctrine of the soul’s immortality as now taught. Arnobius condemns it as an extravagant opinion of man’s nature. He says it was then being introduced by a new class of men, which shows that it was not the old doctrine of the church.

That he taught the annihilation of the wicked is admitted by that great scholar, Prof. Shedd. He says, “The annihilation of the wicked was taught by Arnobius.”

Thus we see the leading men in the church all through the first centuries denying the immortality of the soul, but teaching the annihilation of the wicked.

Dr. Beecher says of Arnobius, “We now come to Arnobius; but his case need not detain us long as to the historic fact; for it is denied by no one that he taught the doctrine of the annihilation of the wicked.”

THE FATHERS IN GENERAL.

Of the early fathers and their faith Dr. Priestley, LL. D., F. R. S., says: “It was the opinion of most of the early fathers that the world was to be destroyed by fire, and that all men were to pass through this fire; that the good would be purified by it, and the wicked consumed.” He further says: “The Gnostics are said to have maintained that the greatest part of mankind would be annihilated at the day of Judgment, which was probably the same thing that was meant by those who said that they would be consumed in the fire that was to destroy the world.” “The ancient fathers only thought that when this world would be destroyed by fire, that fire would purify the good, and devour the wicked.”

It was the faith of the early church, as this learned author says above, that the wicked will be destroyed by the fire that finally purifies the earth. This is the teaching of Peter.

Thus we have traced the history of the doctrine of the immortality of man, the sleep of the dead, and the annihilation of the wicked, from the days of the apostles down through the first, second, and third centuries, and even into the beginning of the fourth century. During these three centuries we have found many of the most noted Christian writers, fathers, and bishops of the church, holding these doctrines, and teaching them as the common faith of the church in those days. It is noticeable that the advocacy of these doctrines called forth no opposition or words of censure from any party, as being new or heretical. The effort of Origen against it is the first of the kind on record. No public disapproval of the doctrine is met with for several ages, though it was extensively held and taught, as we have seen. This shows that it was not regarded as heterodox in those days.

FROM THE THIRD CENTURY TO THE REFORMATION.

From the close of the third and the beginning of the fourth century, the doctrine of the immortality of the soul seems to have become quite generally established in the church as an orthodox dogma, though very many of the doctrines growing out of it were not at once seen and believed. Several learned historians say that Tertullian, A. D. 200–220, was the first Christian writer who expressly asserted the unending torments of the damned. He was originally a pagan in belief, and by birth an African. He was of a fierce, fiery, rigid temper,—a fit man to father such a doctrine. He thus exults over the prospect of the pagans’ burning in hell. “How shall I admire, how laugh, how rejoice, how exult, when I behold so many proud monarchs, so many fancied gods, groaning in the lowest abyss of darkness; so many magistrates who persecuted the name of the Lord liquifying in fiercer fires than they ever kindled against the Christians; so many sage philosophers blushing in red-hot flames with their deluded scholars.” After quoting this, Gibbon exclaims: “The humanity of the reader will permit me to draw a veil over the rest of this infernal description.” But even this description has been surpassed in modern times by believers in the same awful doctrine.

Cyprian, the disciple and successor of Tertullian, zealously advocated the same doctrine. By their authority it obtained a firm foothold in the church. Of them an eminent historian says: “In order to ascertain the degree of authority which the zealous African [Tertullian] had acquired, it may be sufficient to allege the testimony of Cyprian, the doctor and guide of all the Western churches. As often as he applied himself to his daily study of the writings of Tertullian, he was accustomed to say, ‘Give me my master.’”

Says Neander, “Indeed, in many respects Tertullian stands generally at the line of demarkation between the old and the new time of the Christian church.” This was certainly true with regard to the doctrine of the future punishment of the wicked, to which he gave an entirely new idea. Again Neander says, “Tertullian was the first who definitely and clearly proclaimed the doctrine of a proper human soul in Christ.” Origen, the great corrupter of Christianity, then took up this new idea, and had it fully established in A. D. 244, as an orthodox dogma. Our historian says: “By means of Origen, who wrought out this doctrine so systematically, the idea of a proper, reasonable soul in Christ received a new dogmatical importance. This point, which up to this time had been altogether untouched in the controversy with Patripassians, was now, for the first time, expressly brought forward in the synod held against Beryllus of Bostra, A. D. 244; and the doctrine of a reasonable human soul in Christ was settled as the doctrine of the church.” Thus we have the origin of that doctrine.

Augustine, A. D. 415, was the first writer who attempted to prove that the Greek word αἰώνιος, aionios, everlasting, strictly signified endless, and hence to conclude that sinners would be eternally tormented! Says the historian: “Augustine, who flourished about A. D. 400–430, was the first to argue that aionios signified endless.”

Dr. Edward Beecher says on this point, “Beyond all doubt, however, Augustine led the way in that style of reasoning on the subject which now prevails in the orthodox world.” Again: “It is also worthy of note that, although this [an African school] is a Latin school, yet it was in this that the argument, now so familiar, for eternal punishment, from the necessary meaning of the word aionios, was first distinctly propounded by Augustine.” He then gives the occasion which called forth this argument from Augustine. This was as late as the year 413. Strange to say, Augustine, the author of this famous criticism on the Greek word aionios, was almost wholly ignorant of the Greek, as he himself confessed! He says, “I am not so accustomed to the Greek language that I am at all competent to read and understand books on such subjects” (De Trinitate, iii., Proem); and again: “I have learned very little of the Greek language.” (Contra literas Petiliani, I., ii., c. 38.)

Thus, step by step, history points out the birth and growth of these heathen doctrines in the church of Christ.

From this time the fogs and mists of what deepened into the gloom of the Dark Ages began to settle down upon the church and the world. The light of Bible truth was almost wholly obscured. Errors and heathen doctrines grew luxuriantly. Hence for several centuries after this we find but few traces of the Scriptural doctrine of man’s nature and destiny. Here and there are historical references which show that there were some all along the ages who had more or less light upon the subject. But the church was now in the wilderness (Rev. 12:14), and God’s servants were hidden away in the mountains, where they were seldom heard from.

Gregory the Great (a pope), in A. D. 590, in one of his books, says Dupin, “undertakes to treat of the state of the soul after death, and to refute the opinion of some, who, without separating from the church, doubted whether the soul lived after its separation from the body.” By this we may suppose that numerous believers, in standing in the Christian church, held to the doctrine of the unconscious state of the dead. No names are given, and we are not told that the believers of this sort wrote books in defense of their views.

John of Damascus, who died about A. D. 750, refers to a sect who flourished in his day, called the Thnetopsychites, “who,” says Dupin, “believe men’s souls to be like the beasts, and that they die with them.” The name of these believers is one given by John himself, and it is not stated that they formed a sect. We have just seen that persons holding this view existed in the days of Pope Gregory.

Maimonides, a very learned Jewish doctor, A. D. 1131–1202, taught that the wicked would finally be cut off from life eternal, and suffer excision, or annihilation of being. This extermination of being is regarded as the greatest of all punishments. He denied the immortality of the soul, though he held that the righteous would live forever. Some of the other Jewish doctors believed in the eternity of hell torments; but Prof. Hudson asserts that this view was never “an accepted Jewish doctrine.” The Mishna makes no mention of the soul’s immortality, nor of eternal pain; on the contrary, the soul, body, and spirit of evil men were finally to be totally destroyed.

Averroes, a famous Arabian philosopher in A. D. 1160, “rejected,” says Ezra Abbot, in Alger’s “Future Life,” “the doctrine of individual immortality.” Further than this, we do not know his views. He was persecuted for his belief. His views may have been the fruit of the seed sown very early in the days of the Arabian soul-sleepers, won over by the learning and subtilty of Origen.

Pope Boniface VIII, chosen to the papal see in 1294, appears to have questioned the soul’s immortality. In June, 1302, at an assembly of prelates and nobility, in presence of the king of France, William Du Plessis and four French earls charged upon the pope “that he was a heretic; that he did not believe in the immortality of the soul, nor in eternal life; and that he doubted the reality of our Lord’s body in the eucharist.”

Pope Leo X. had, by the Lateran Council of 1513, declared the human soul immortal, and this belief to be an article of the Christian faith. All who rejected it were heretics.

These references all along show that some persons were teaching views contrary to the doctrine of the soul’s immortality, though no names are given.