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Updated: May 22, 2025
One point of importance I have endeavored to impress, namely, that the papal hierarchy, with all its attendant evils, corruption, superstition, and spiritual despotism, was the logical successor of the Ante-Nicene church; that the ripened fruits of papalism were the direct results of the seeds of error planted in the second and third centuries.
From this account of the general attitude of the ante-Nicene writers toward a possible knowledge of God, it will readily be anticipated that the forms of the theistic argument used by Plato and by Aristotle will find no place in their system. St.
The ignorance of the Fathers, and, Origen excepted, of the Ante-Nicene Fathers in particular, in all that respects Hebrew learning and the New Testament references to the Old Testament, is shown in this so early fantastic misinterpretation grounded on the fact of our Lord's reminding, and as it were giving out aloud to John and Mary the twenty-second Psalm, the prediction of his present sufferings and after glory. But the entire passage in Tertullian, though no proof of his Arianism, is full of proofs of his want of insight into the true sense of the Scripture texts. Indeed without detracting from the inestimable services of the Fathers from Tertullian to Augustine respecting the fundamental article of the Christian Faith, yet commencing from the fifth century, I dare claim for the Reformed Church of England the honorable name of [Greek: archaspist
The ante-Nicene writers, generally speaking, avoid giving any theory of the atonement at all; but two of their greatest thinkers, Origen and Irenaeus, held that mankind had fallen under the dominion of Satan, and that Jesus by His sufferings paid a ransom to Satan in order that we might be freed from his power.
After emerging into the clear field of historic Christianity in the time of Justin Martyr, we find everywhere evidences of a rapidly developing apostasy. In one respect we approach an examination of the Ante-Nicene church with feelings of admiration. This was a heroic age, an age of Christian martyrs.
On the positive proofs of his own position, Horsley cites numerous passages from the ante-Nicene fathers. He contends that in the famous passage of Tertullian on which Priestley had laid so much stress, Tertullian meant by 'idiotæ, not the general body of unlearned Christians, but some stupid people who could not accept the great mystery which was generally accepted by the Church.
To have the truth, to have eternal life, to have the Son, to have the Father, all this then signifies one and the same thing for the evangelist, and for the greatest among the ante-Nicene fathers. But second, the conception that the Logos was born in Jesus might simply signify the same as Philo means, when he speaks of the Logos in Abraham and in the prophets.
When, the attention of any one familiar with the precise definitions of the Catholic Church which were necessitated by the speculations of Arians and other heretics is called for the first time to the writings of the ante-Nicene Fathers, he may be staggered by the absence of equal definiteness and precision in them. Bishop Bull boldly met the difficulties which might thus occur.
These general positions, which in their broad lines are common to practically all of the Ante-Nicene Fathers, serve to confirm the historical interpretation of the place occupied by early Christian theistic thought, and will pave the way to an appreciation of their use of the arguments for the existence of God. Adversus Grammaticos, I, 44. Hatch: Hibbert Lectures, 1888, Lect.
For argument-sake I will grant that the bond, which ties them into one, is not of the most trustworthy and authoritative description, and will proceed to show that even those Canons which are not formally quoted by early writers ought to be received as the rules of the Ante-Nicene Church, independently of their being found in one compilation.
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