Part 2
In the previous installment of this article the difference between Hebrew and Gentile beliefs about the Creator and the death state was briefly dealt with. The part which follows deals with the change which occurred in the early Hebrew church, which corrupted its doctrines with Gentile beliefs brought in by the flood of Gentile converts. Citations from the early Christian Fathers make the position clear.
On the Divinity and Pre-existence of Christ
IGNATIUS, A.D. 67: “Our God Jesus Christ” (epistle to Ephesus, ch. 18). “One physician, fleshly and spiritual, born and unborn, God made in flesh, the true life in immortality; born of Mary and of God” (Epistle to Ephesus, ch. 7).
“God manifest in human shape” (Epistle to Ephesus, ch. 18).
CLEMENT. A.D. 96: “There is one Christ, our Lord who saved us, who being first spirit was made flesh” (2nd Epistle to Corinth, ch. 9).
On Transubstantiation
IGNATIUS, A.D. 67: “The eucharist is the flesh of our saviour Jesus Christ” (Epistle to Smyrna, ch. 6).
The emperor Trajan asked Ignatius “Who is he that beareth God about with him” (Epistle on the martyrdom of Ignatius, ch. 2).
“The bread of life, which is the flesh of Christ, the drink of God, even his blood” (Epistle to Rome, ch. 8).
“That ye being imitators of God and having refreshed yourselves in the blood of God’ (Epistle to Ephesus, ch. 1).
Ignatius writes of some who refrained from taking the eucharist and from prayer because they did not confess “that the eucharist is the flesh of our saviour Jesus Christ” (Epistle to Smyrna, ch. 6).
Ignatius was, of course, a converted Gentile, brought up with the Gentile philosophical notions which, as I have said above, gradually infiltrated into the church.
On the Immortality of the Soul
CLEMENT, A.D. 96: “Let not therefore the pious man be vexed if he be afflicted in the times that now are (it was a time of persecution), a blessed time awaiteth him.
He shall live above with the fathers and shall rejoice without sorrow forever” (2nd Epistle to Corinth, ch. 19).
“Peter having borne his testimony went to his appointed place of glory.”
“Also Paul, when he had borne his testimony before the rulers, departed from the world and went to the holy place and safely reached the goal in the race of faith and received a noble reward” (1st Epistle to Corinth, ch. 5-6).
POLYCARP, Bishop of Smyrna about A.D. 108: An epistle on his martyrdom reads, “Polycarp received the crown of immortality” (ch. 10).
“The blessed Ignatius and Zozimus and Paul are now in their appointed place with the Lord with whom they suffered” (Poly-carp, Epistle, ch. 9).
IGNATIUS, A.D. 67: An epistle on his martyrdom reads, “Ignatius was about to attain to heaven (he was on his way to martyrdom at Rome). He was eager to depart from the world that he might sooner attain to the Lord” (ch. 4-5).
EUSEBIUS, A.D. 320: Bishop of Caesarea in Syria, writes of the heretic Menander, who followed Simon Magnus of Acts ch. 8 at Rome before the fall of Jerusalem: “the doctrine of the immortality of the soul and the resurrection of the dead prevailed in the church at this time” (Bk 2, ch. 26). THE CATACOMBS AT ROME: inscriptions of the first three centuries fully confirm this doctrine as held by the Church.
On Eternal Torments
CLEMENT, A.D. 96: “They are punished with dreadful tortures in unquenchable fire” (2nd Epistle to Corinth, ch. 17).
POLYCARP in the epistle on his martyrdom, “The fire of judgment to come, and of the eternal punishment reserved for the wicked” (ch. 11).
Kingdom of Heaven not on Earth
A.D. 81′: “When the emperor Domitian asked the grand children of Judas, the Lord’s brother, what was the nature of the kingdom preached by Jesus, they replied that it was not a temporal or earthly kingdom, but celestial- (Eusebius 13k 3, ch. 20) .
“The doctrine of an earthly reign of Jesus Christ was considered in the church before the end of the first century as heretical” (Eusebius, Bk 7, ch. 25).
PAPIA, A.D. 94: On the other hand, writing of his own days states, “there would be a certain millennium after the resurrection and there would be a corporeal reign of Christ on the earth” (Eusebius, Bk 3, ch. 39).
254-269: “In the reign of the emperor Callienus an alleged heresy sprang up by one named Hepos who taught that the promises given to holy men in the scriptures should be understood more as the Jews understood them, and supposed there would be a certain millennium of sensual luxury on earth” (Eusebius, Bk 7, ch. 24).
That was the faith of the Jewish Christian church as established by Jesus, as explained above; but the Gentile christian church disputed the idea.
The foregoing doctrines were then current in the Gentile church after the elimination of the Jewish personnel, and have continued till the present day in the Roman church and, with some exceptions, in the protestant churches also. It is not surprising, therefore, that as the Jewish personnel was eliminated so the old Jewish faith faded away, for we hear nothing of it after the first century, either in the Roman church or the protestant church of our days.
As to the authority claimed by Rome that their church is that sanctioned by Jesus, I might say that Rome was not envisaged as such when he conferred authority on Peter, in-so-far as to imply that Rome would destroy the Holy city and enslave its citizens. We can, however, accept as a fact that there has been a continual succession of bishops of that city from the time at least of Linus about A.D. 70 to the present day. I have myself been able to compile a list of Roman bishops to A.D. 1431. I have no reason to suppose, however, that Peter was not in Rome sometime before A.D. 66, when he was executed at the same time as the Apostle Paul; nor will I dispute that he was bishop of that church. But must we suppose that the authority Jesus conferred on Peter was intended to be continued to all succeeding generations? I do not think so, for two reasons. First, that Jesus spoke only as regards his own generation, ending with the destruction of Jerusalem, A.D. 70, when the church expected his personal return, then or thereabouts (Mat. 24. 34). Secondly, Peter was appointed a minister to the Jews, whilst Paul was appointed a minister to the Gentiles. I should have said the minister to the Gentiles (Gal. 2. 7). Peter was a very enthusiastic and loyal Jew and, although he was chosen to open the gates of the church to the Gentiles at a later date, he showed great reluctance to be identified with them (Gal. 2. 12). It was due to Paul’s labours that so many churches were established among the Gentiles.
Referring again to the authority which Jesus conferred on Peter, there is nothing to indicate an indefinite continuance or succession. The only assurance that was given was that the gates of hell should not prevail against it. Christ’s church was not confined to the ecclesia at Rome; it covered all those churches or individuals who were faithful to him, and the promise was that they would all be victorious in the end. God declared through the Hebrew prophets of old that he would fill the earth with his glory (Num. 14. 21), a promise that Christ came to confirm (Rom. 15. 8). The prophet Micah declared, “Thou wilt perform the truth to Jacob, the mercy to Abraham which thou bast sworn to our fathers from the days of old”. This time has not yet come, but we can be sure that “the gates of hell will not prevail against it”
The Sabbath and Israel and Jesus’ work on the Sabbath