The Secret Vault presents: The Christian and Pagan Creeds Collated. Rev. Robert Taylor, A. B. & M. R. C. S.
By the Rev. Robert Taylor, A. B. & M. R. C. S.
What is a Heretic
The only definition that will express the distinction between orthodoxy and heresy, is, that the orthodox party are those who have the upper hand, the heretics are those who have the misfortune to get ousted. All Dissenters are heretics. Should any order of those of the present day come to possess themselves of the ascendancy, (which God avert) how absurd or monstrous so ever their religious tenets might be, they would forthwith become perfectly orthodox; and the church, in its turn, losing hold of the great primum-mobile of divinity (its revenues and honours) might carry with it the self-same doctrines which it now holds, into a state of the most deplorable and damnable heresy. "The learned have reckoned upwards of ninety different heresies which arose within the first three centuries; nor does it appear that even the most early and primitive preachers of Christianity, were able to keep the telling of the Christian story in their own hands, or to provide any sort of security for having it told in the same way. St. Paul accuses St. Peter of wilfully corrupting the gospel of Christ, [Galatians 2. 14; Acts 15-39; Philippians 3-2; Phil. 1. 15, &c.] and (whatever we may feel ourselves bound to think of himself) makes no mincing of the matter, in telling us, that the other apostles were "false apostles, deceitful workers, dogs, and liars, and that they preached Christ out of envy and strife." [1 John 4-3.]
In the epistles ascribed to John, and which are admitted to have been written some time before either of our gospels; it appears that there were persons professing the Christian faith, who considered that a belief that such a person as Jesus Christ had ever existed, was no part of that faith; and that he was denied to have had any real existence as a man, or to have come in the flesh, at a time when, if that fact could have been established, there would have been no occasion to make a virtue of any man's faith: the matter could at once have been settled for ever on a basis of certainty that would have prevented the power of the mind to conceive a doubt on the subject.
The very earliest Christian writings that have come down to us, are of a controversial character, and written in attempted refutation of heresies. These heresies must therefore have been of so much earlier date and prior prevalence; they could not have been considered of sufficient consequence to have called (as they seem to have done) for the entire devotion and enthusiastic zeal of the orthodox party to extirpate, or keep them under, if they had not acquired deep root, and become of serious notoriety - an inference which leads directly to the conclusion that they were of anterior origination to any date that has hitherto been ascribed to the gospel history. When the simple fact of the existence of such a man as Jesus Christ is questioned, it is usual for the modern advocates of Christianity to shelter themselves from all contemplation of the historical difficulties of the case, by assuming his existence to be incontrovertible, and that nothing short of idiocy of understanding, or an intention to irritate and annoy, rather than either to seek or to communicate information, could prompt any man to moot a doubt on the subject; nor is it in the power of language to exceed the airs of insolence and domination which even our Unitarian theologists assume, to cloak over their inability to give satisfaction on this, the simplest and prime position of the case, by taking it for granted, forsooth, that none but the reckless desperate, or downright fools, [a] could ever have held the human existence of Christ as problematical. We might, say they, as well affect to deny the existence of such an individual as Alexander the Great, or of Napoleon Bonaparte, and so set at defiance the evidence of all facts but such as our senses have attested.
[a] Let any man only read the Preface to the Rev. J. R. Beard's Historical Evidences of Christianity Unassailable, and imagine if he can, how either God or Pope could ever have thundered with more audacious Godhead.] [LN., Beard, John Relly, 1800 to 1876AD, he was a unitarian minister schoolmaster, university lecturer, and translator and avid writer.]
It being quite forgotten that the existence of Alexander and Napoleon was not miraculous, and that there never was on earth one other real personage whose existence as a real personage was denied and disclaimed even as soon as ever it was asserted, as was the case with respect to the assumed personality of Christ. But the only common character that runs through the whole body of heretical evidence, is that they one and all, from first to last, deny the existence of Jesus Christ as a man, and professing their faith in him as a God and Saviour, yet uniformly and consistently hold the whole story of his life and actions to be allegorical. "The greatest part of the Gnostics (taking that name as the most general one for all the heretics of the three first centuries) denied that Christ was clothed with a real body, or that he suffered really." [Mosheim, Vol. 1, p. 136.] [LN., Mosheim, Lorenz von. 1693 to 1755, German Lutheran church historian.]
Tertullian speaks of only two heresies, that existed in the time of the Apostles, i.e. the Docetae, so called from the Greek [ GK] opinion, suspicion, appearance merely, as expressive of their opinion that Christ had existed in appearance only, and not in reality; and the Ebionites, so called from the Hebrew word abionim, in expression of their poverty, ignorance, and vulgarity. [Quoted in Lardner, Vol. 4, p. 512.] Docetism, says Dr Lardner, "seems to have derived its origin from the Platonic philosophy. For the followers of this opinion were principally among [Quoted in Lardner, Vol. 4, p. 628.] the higher classes of men, and were chiefly those who had been converted from heathenism to Christianity. As far then, as such a question admits of proof, this is absolute proof that no such a person as Jesus Christ ever existed, - "Blow winds, and crack your cheeks!" [LN., Tertullian, Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus, around 155 to 240AD, he was an early Christian author.]
Heretics who Denied Christ's Humanity
Within the immediate year of the alleged crucifixion of Christ, or sooner than any other account of the matter could have been made known, it was publicly taught, that instead of having been miraculously born, and having passed through the impotence of infancy, boyhood, and adolescence, he had descended on the banks of the Jordan in the form of perfect manhood, that he had imposed on the senses of his enemies, and of his disciples, and that the ministers of Pilate had wasted their impotent rage on an airy phantom. [Syntagma, p. 101.] Cotelerius has a strong passage to this effect, that "it would be as it were to deny that the sun shines at mid-day, to question the fact that this was really the first way in which the gospel story was related:"
"While the apostles were yet on earth, nay, while the blood of Christ was still recent on Mount Calvary, the body of Christ was asserted to be a mere phantasm" [Apostolis adhuc in saeculo superstitibus apud Judaeam Christi sanguine recente, et Phantasma corpus Domini asserebatur. - Cotel. Patres Apostol tom. 2, p. 24.]
The heretics in regular succession from Simon Magus, so considerable a hero in the Acts of the Apostles, downwards - as Menander [a], Marcion [b], Valentine [c], Basilides [d], Bardesanes [e], Cerdo [f], Manes [g], Leucius [h], Faustus [i], - vehemently denied the humanity of Christ.
a Menander, around 342 to 290BC, he was a dramatist, of Athenian new comedy
b Maricon of Sinope, around 85 to 160AD, he was an important early figure of Christianity, and theologian, who denied Christ was God, excommunicated he taught the Gospel of Marcion, which became known as Marcionism.
c Valentinus or Valentinius, around 100 to 160AD, he was a well-known early Christian gnostic theologian.
d Basilides, he was an early Christian Gnostic religious teacher in Alexandria Egypt, and apparently claimed he inherited his teachings from Matthias, one of the supposed Apostles elected after the death of Jesus?
e Bardaisan, Latin Bardesanes, he was a Syriac or Parthian gnostic, founder of the Bardaisanites, a scientist and scholar, poet and philosopher known for his knowledge of India.
f Cerdo, early 2nd century, he was a Syrian gnostic, apparently a pupil of Simon Magus?
g Manes, Mani, a prophet, 216 to 274AD, he was in origin Iranian, who founded Manichaeism, a gnostic style faith.
h Leucius Charinus, supposed critic of the gospels, and denier of Christ in the flesh, also a disciple of the Apostle John, but most report of him relies on Photios 1st of Constantinople?
i Faustus of Mileve, later 4th century, he was a Manichean Bishop, and high regarded teacher, debater and preacher.
Though Dr Lardner thinks the testimony of Cerdo of sufficient respectability to assist the claims of the New Testament, and concludes that Cerdo was a Christian, and received the books of the New Testament as other Christians did; yet, taking that book as his guide, he established his sect at Rome, where he taught, (the New Testament in his understanding of it containing nothing to the contrary), that "our Savour Jesus Christ was not born of a virgin, nor did appear at all in the flesh, nor had he descended from heaven; but that he was seen by men only putatively, that is, they fancied they saw him, but did not see him in reality, for he was only a shadow, and seemed to suffer, but in reality did not suffer at all."
Marcion of Pontus, 127AD
The successor of Cerdo, and himself the son of the orthodox bishop of that city, whose opinions, according to the testimony of his adversary Epiphanias, prevailed, and in his own day still subsisted throughout Italy, Egypt, Palestine, Arabia, and Syria, was so far from believing that our Saviour was born of a virgin that lived did not allow that he had ever been born at all. He maintained that the son of God took the exterior form of a man, and appeared as a man, but without being born, or gradually growing up to the full stature of a man, he had showed himself at once in Galilee, completely equipped for his divine mission, and that he immediately assumed the character of a Saviour.
Dr Lardner instructs us that the Marcionites (the followers of the opinions of Marcion) believed the miracles of Christ; they moreover allowed the truth of the miraculous earthquake and darkness at the crucifixion; they acknowledged his having had twelve disciples, and that one of them was a traitor. "It is evident that these persons were in general strictly virtuous, that they dreaded sin as the greatest evil, and had such a real regard for Christ as to undergo martyrdom rather than offer incense to idols." (605.) This was at least so much more than Origen, with all his orthodoxy, would do. If we deny these men to have been Christians, to whom shall we confine that designation? It cannot be disputed that the Gospel according to St. Mark does admit of a Marcionite reading; nor did these primitive dissenters entirely reject Luke's Gospel, though in their copy of that Gospel the verse 39 of its 24th chapter [A] contained the little particle not, where our copies have omitted it - an omission which, at the first blush, seems to make a trifling difference. Tertullian, in his way, is indecently eloquent in describing the tenets which the Marcionites held with respect to the person of Christ. [B] [LN., I know not how Lardner can write such nonsense, all records show that Marcion did not believe in a human Christ, therefore how could they accept such things?]
[a] Luke 24-39. "Handle me and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as you see me have." The Marcionite reading was, - &c. "a spirit, hath not flesh and bones, as ye see that I have not."]
[b] Non novem mensium cruciatu deliberatus, non subita dolorum concussione per corporis cloacam effusus in terram, nec molestus uberibus diu infans, vix puer, tarde homo sed de coelo expositus, semel grandis, semel totus, statim Christus, Spiritus et Virtus et Deus tantum. - Adv. Marcion, 601.]
Leucius, 143AD
Or Lucian, for he had many names - Lucanus, Lucius, Leicius, Lentitius, Leontius, Seleucius, Charnius, Leonides, and even Nexocharides, which mean all one and the same person, was a distinguished Christian Docete, and one of the most eminent forgers of sacred legends of the second century. He is charged with being the forger of the Gospel of Nicodemus and was the author of the forged acts or journeyings of the Apostles. In the commentaries which go under the name of Clement of Alexandria, a passage from this work is quoted, which says that the Apostle John, "attempting to touch the body of Christ, perceived no hardness of the flesh, and met with no resistance from it, but thrust his hand into the inner part." A sense which, whatever sense or nonsense there be in it, is at least kept in countenance by St. Luke's Gospel (if this Lucius and our Luke are not one and the same person), where Luke tells us of Christ's vanishing away, which nobody could do (Chap. 24, 5-31), and then, without any entree, standing again (a la vampire) in the midst of them (5-36.) Say we nothing of the corroboration from St. John's Gospel, where he bids Thomas thrust his hand into his side, which nobody could have endured (John 20-27.) but refused to let the lady Magdalene so much as touch him, which nobody could have had any objection to. (5-17.) We have no reason, however, to think this Leucius, any the sorrier a Christian because Pope Gelasius has condemned him and his writings, declaring that all his writings are apocryphal, and he himself a disciple of the devil.
Apelles, 160AD
That is, about twenty years after the establishment of Marcion, whose disciple he had been, made a schism from (he Marcionite church; and thus, we trace by what degrees the Docetian doctrines were brought into a nearer conformity to the present type of Christianity, and what was originally romance began to assume a certain resemblance to history.
Apelles renounced the doctrine of Docetism, and maintained that Christ was not an appearance only, but had flesh really, though not derived from the Virgin Mary, for as he descended from the super-celestial places to this earth, he collected to himself a body out of the four elements. Having thus formed to himself a corporeity, he really appeared in this world, and taught men the knowledge of heavenly things. Apelles taught that Jesus was really crucified, and afterwards showed that very flesh in which he suffered, to his disciples; but that afterwards, as he ascended, he returned the body which he had borrowed back again to the elements, and so completed his anabasis, and sat down at the right hand of God, without any body at all. According to this Father, however, Christ was not born, nor was his body like ours; for though it was real and solid, it consisted of aerial and ethereal particles, not of such gross matter as our frail bodies are composed of. - It was a sort of amber.
Faustus,
The most learned and intelligent Manichean, whom we have elsewhere quoted as directly charging the orthodox party with having egregiously falsified the gospels, (a charge which the orthodox only answer, by retorting it again upon the heretics,) in his interrogative style, thus expresses himself - [a] "Do you receive the gospel? (ask ye) Undoubtedly' I do! Why then, you also admit that Christ was born? - Not so; for it by no means follows, that in believing the gospel, I should therefore believe that Christ was born! Do you not then think that he was of the Virgin Mary? Manes has said, "Far be it that I should ever own that our Lord Jesus Christ &c.
[a] Accipis evangelium? Et maxime. Proinde ergo et natum accipis Christum? Non ita est. Neque enim sequitur ut si evangelium accipio, idcirco et natum accipiam Christum. Ergo non putas eum ex Maria Virgine esse? Manns dixit, Absitut Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum per naturalia pudenda mulieris de scendisse confitear. - Lardner, ita, vol. 4, p. 20.]
Down the whole stream of time, to the present day, there has been a long succession of heretics, whose tenets were the diametrical reverse of these of the more-early Christians. From Artemon, Theodotus, Sabelnus, Paul of Samosata, Marcellus, Photinus, &c. we inherit the curse of the Unitarian schism, which denies the divinity, as strenuously, as the earlier Fathers had denied the humanity of Christ. The orthodox have devised a scheme that seems to have been intended to bring both parties together, or to enable them to turn their arms either against the one faction or the other, as political interests might prompt, or need require; and the union of the two natures - perfect God and perfect man - is now the orthodox divinity. It is, I suppose, upon inference from these difficulties, which never could have been started with respect to any being who had ever really existed; or which being started, could have been settled at once and for ever, by the production of any one municipal certificate, or independent historical testimony, that Mr. Volney, Mr. Carlile, and other persons who do not exactly deserve to be considered as idiots, have ventured to deny that any such person as Jesus ever existed.
It is of essential consequence to be borne in view, that in order of time,
Those who denied the humanity of Christ were the first class of professing Christians, and not only first in order of time, but in dignity of character, in intelligence, and in moral influence.
Those who denied the divinity, were the second, and in every sense a less philosophical and less important body.
The junction of the two in the mongrel scheme of modern orthodoxy, seems to have been completed in the articles of peace drawn up for the Council of Nice, a. d. 325.
The deniers of the humanity of Christ, or, in a word, professing Christians, who denied that any such a man as Jesus Christ ever existed at all, but who took the name Jesus Christ to signify only an abstraction, or prosopopaeia, the principle of Reason personified; and who understood the whole gospel story to be a sublime allegory, or emblematical exhibition of the sufferings and persecutions which the divine principle of reason, may be supposed to undergo, ere it could establish its heavenly kingdom over the understandings and affections of men; - these were the first, and (it is no dishonour to Christianity to pronounce them) the best and most rational Christians. Many such fell victims to the sincerity of their faith, not, indeed, as is monstrously pretended by the persecuting genius of Paganism, but by the remorseless savageness of the infatuated idiots, who, having once been interested in the allegorical fiction, like our country louts or Unitarian stolids of the present day, would needs have it that it must all be true, and were ready to tear any one to pieces who attempted to deprive them of the agreeable delusion.
The allegorical sense may, by any unsophisticated mind, be still traced; and, by changing the name Jesus throughout for that of Reason, the New Testament will acquire a character of comparative dignity and consistency, which without that clue to the interpretation of it, would be sought for in vain.
Heretics Who Denied Christ's Crucifixion
Not only among the Apostles, but by those who were called Apostles themselves, was the reality of the crucifixion steadily denied. In the gospel of the Apostle Barnabas, of which there is extant an Italian translation written in 1470, or in 1480, which Toland [Toland's Nazarenus, Letter I. Chap. 5, p. 17.] himself saw, and which was sold by Cramer to Prince Eugene, it is explicitly asserted, that "Jesus Christ was not crucified, but that he was taken up into the third heavens by the ministry of four angels, Gabriel, Michael, Raphael, and Uriel; that he should not die till the very end of the world, and that it was Judas Iscariot, who was crucified in his stead."
This account of the matter entirely squares with the account which we have of the bitter and un-appeaseable quarrel which took place between Paul and Barnabas, in the Acts of the Apostles. [a] without any satisfactory account of the ground of that quarrel; as well as with the fact that Paul seems always to have preferred imposing his gospel on the ignorant and credulous vulgar, and lays such a significant emphasis on the distinction that he preached "Jesus Christ, and Him crucified," as if in marked opposition to his former patron, Barnabas, who preached Jesus Christ, but not crucified.
[a] Acts 15-39. "And the contention was so sharp between them, that they departed asunder one from the other." We never hear of their being reconciled again - but that is not extraordinary - no beast in nature is so implacable as an offended saint.]
The Basilidians, in the very beginning of Christianity, in like manner denied that Christ was" crucified, and asserted that it was Simon of Cyrene, who was crucified in his place: which account of the matter stood its ground from the first to the seventh century, and was the form in which Christianity presented itself to the mind of Mahomet, who, after instructing us how the Virgin Mary conceived by smelling a rose, tells us, that "the Jews devised a stratagem against him, but God devised a stratagem against them, and God is the best deviser of stratagems." "The malice of his enemies aspersed his reputation, and conspired against his life, but their intention only was guilty, a phantom or a criminal was substituted on the cross, and the innocent Jesus was translated into the seventh heaven." [See the Koran, C. 3 v. 53, and C. 4. 5. 156, of Maracci's edition.] So much for the evidence of the Crucifixion of Christ!
Heretics who Denied Christ's Resurrection
In like manner, we have a long list of sincerely-professing Christians down from the earliest times, who denied the resurrection of Christ.
Theodoret informs us of Cerinthus, who was contemporary with the Apostle John and his followers, and that he held and taught that Christ suffered and was crucified, but that he did not rise from the tomb: but that he will rise when there shall be a general resurrection. Philaster says of him [A] that he taught that men should be circumcised, and observe the Sabbath, and that Christ was not yet risen from the dead, only he announces that he will rise. [LN., St Philastrius, late 4th century, Bishop of Brescia, very dubious, anybody that is pretended to have the marks of the Stigmata, is a falsehood.]
[A] Docet autem circumcidi et sabbatizare et Christum nondum resurrexisso a mortuis sed, resurrecturum annunciat. Lardner, Vol. 4, p. 368.]
Had the Christ of the Gospels been really the founder of the Christian religion, certainly it would be incumbent on all Christians to be circumcised as he was, and to observe that Jewish law only, which he observed, and which he was so far from abrogating, that he declared that "heaven and earth should pass away ere one jot or one tittle of that law," should be dispensed with. - Matthew. 5-18. Our modern religionists are Paulites: The Jews alone are the followers of the example and religion of Jesus.
The Cerinthians,
The Valentinians,
The Markosians,
The Cerdonians,
The Marcionites,
The Bardisanites,
The Origenists,
The Hierakites,
The Manichees, Stand in the long and never interrupted succession of Christian (Sects) who denied the Resurrection of Christ
I have heard of one of the most popular and distinguished preachers among the Unitarians, who, upon being homely pressed with the question as to where he believed the body of Jesus Christ might at this moment be, pointed with his finger to the turf, and looked vastly droll, in intimation of his concurrence in that orthodox belief, so sublimely expressed in the epitaphs we stumble on in Deptford church-yard: against which, I believe there never was an infidel yet, who could bring a rational objection.
"Go home, dear friends, dry up your tears,
Here we shall lie, till Christ appears,
And when he comes we hope to have
A joyful rising from the grave."
As the whole amount of the internal evidence for the alleged fact of the Gospel, it may then be fairly stated, that in contravention of the clear understanding of the mystical nature of the whole Mythos, which those who bear the brand of heresy have given us - while a thousand expressions in the writings of the orthodox themselves confirm that understanding: not so much as any two continuous sentences can be adduced from any pen that wrote within a hundred years of the supposed death and resurrection of Christ, which are such as any writer whatever would have written, had he himself believed that such events had really occurred.
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Next Chapter XLV part 1. The Whole of the External Evidence of the Christian Religion.