THE CHURCH PERIODS

THE CHURCH PERIODS

Ephesus Revelation 2:1-7 c. 90-200 A.D. “fully purposed”

Ephesus IV. The Condemnation Rev. 2:4-7

(Rev 2:4) Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.

Ephesus A.The Pioneers of Bible Deviations “fully purposed”

Ephesus B.The Place of Bible Deviations “fully purposed”

1. The social life of Alexander

2. The religious life of Alexander

PHILO • Philo lived from 20 B.C. to 50 A.D. • He is a Jew • He’s called the Rabbi of the “Great Synagogue” in Alexander • He Establishes a theological school in Alexander

3. The philosophical life of Alexander

Socrates 469-399 B.C.

Plato 427-327 B.C.

Aristotle 384-322 B.C.

PHILO • Philo lived from 20 B.C. to 50 A.D. • He is a Jew • He’s called the Rabbi of the “Great Synagogue” in Alexander • He Establishes a theological school in Alexander

Pantaenus • 120-200 A.D. • He leads the school to around 190 AD

Clement of Alexandria • 150-215 A.D. • When he takes over the school, it suddenly referred to as Christian. • And no church historian can explain why

Adamantius Origen • 184-254 A.D.

Ephesus • He was born of Christian parents at Alexander, Egypt in 184 AD • In 202 AD his was arrested in the persecutions under Severus, and was martyred . • Origen, tried to join his father, but his mother hide his clothes. Therefore he inherited the responsibility of his Mother and 6 siblings. • At the age of 19 he became the president of the “Christian University” at Alexander • (Walker, History of the Christian Church,74)

Ephesus • What is written about him: • Philip Schaff writes: • “Origen was the greatest scholar of his age, and the most gifted, most industrious, and most cultivated of all the ante-Nicene fathers. Even heathens and heretics admired or feared his brilliant talent and vast learning. His knowledge embraced all departments of the philology, philosophy, and theology of his day. With this he united profound and fertile though, keen penetration, and glowing imaginations. As a true Divine, he consecrated all his studies by prayer, and turned them, according to his best convictions, to the service of truth and piety.” • (Schaff, History of the Christian Church 2:790)

Ephesus • Eedermans’ Handbook to the History of Christianity says, • “Origen was the greatest scholar and most prolific author of the early church. He was not only a profound thinker but also deeply spiritual and loyal churchman.” • (Dr. Tim Dowley, edEerdman’s Handbook to the History of Christian 104) • Walker wrote, • “No man of purer spirit or nobler aims ornaments the history of the ancient church” • (Walker, A History of Christian Church)

Ephesus • The “fundamentals” he believed: • He believed God wrote the Bible • He believed Christ was the • virgin-born Son of God • He believed Jesus Christ died on the cross, was buried, and rose again

Ephesus The “not-so-fundamentals” he believed: • He did not believe that Genesis 1-3 was literal • “Who is so foolish as to suppose that God, after the manner of a husbandman, planted a paradise in Eden, towards the east, and placed in it a tree of life, visible and palpable, so that one tasting of the fruit by the bodily teeth obtained life?..And if God is said to walk in the paradise in the evening, and Adam to hide himself under a tree, I do not suppose that any one doubts that these things figuratively indicate certain mysteries, the history having taken place in appearance, and not literally.” • (Roberts and Donaldson, Ante-Nicene Fathers, 165.)

Ephesus The “not-so-fundamentals” he believed: • He believed in the allegorical method of interpreting the Bible • “In Origen the process was complete which had long been interpreting Christian truths in terms of Hellenic thinking. He gave to the Christian system the fullest scientific standing, as tested by the science of that age, which was almost entirely comprised in philosophy and ethics. His philosophic standpoint was essentially Platonic and Stoic, with a decided leaning toward positions similar to those of the rising Neo-Platonism, the lectures of whose founder, AmmoniusSaccas, he is said to have heard. These philosophic principles he sought to bring into harmony with the Scriptures, as his great Hebrew fellow townsman, Philo had done, by allegorical interpretation of the Bible..This allegorical system enabled Origen to read practically what he wish into the scriptures.” • (Walker, History of the Christian Church, 75.)

Ephesus • One of the few times he took the Bible literal is in Matt. 19:12 when he castrated himself. • (Will Durant, The story of Civilization 3:613 ) (Mat 19:12) For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother's womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.

Ephesus The “not-so-fundamentals” he believed: • He believed Christ was a created being • (i.e. Christ is “A” god…But not “the” God.) • Commenting on John 1:18 Origen wrote • “Accordingly John came to bear witness of the light, and in his witness-bearing he cried saying… “No one hath seen God at any time; the only begotten God, who is in the bosom of the father, he hath declared Him” • Allen Menzies “The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol 10:343

KJV(Joh1:18) No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him. John 1:18 (New American Standard Bible) 18 No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him. New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures John 1:18 No man has seen God at any time; the only-begotten god who is in the bosom [position] with the Father is the one that has explained him.

Ephesus The “not-so-fundamentals” he believed: • He believed the Holy Spirit was a created being. • “ We therefore, as the more pious and the turer course, admit that all things were made by the Logos, and that the Holy Spirit is the most excellent and the first in order of all that was made by the Father through Christ. • Menzies, Ante-Nicene Fathers, 10:328

Ephesus The “not-so-fundamentals” he believed: • He did not believe in salvation by grace, but by works • Origen writes: • “Let us then grasp eternal life and grasp it with all our force. God does not give it to us: He offers it to us. It is in our own power to stretch forth our hand by good acts, and grab hold of life, and place it within our soul.”

Ephesus The “not-so-fundamentals” he believed: • He believed in Baptism regeneration (beginning with sprinkling infants) and transubstantiation. • George Park Fisher, D.D.,LLD, History of Christian Doctrine (NY Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1896) 68 • He believed Christ’s death was paid as a ransom to Satan • Walker, History of the Christian Church, 77. Also, Earle E. Cairns, Christianity through the centuries, rev. (Grand Rapids, Mich. Zondervan Pub. House, 1954),112

Ephesus The “not-so-fundamentals” he believed: • He did not believe in hell, but believed in purgatory • “But in the mean time, both in those temporal worlds which are seen, as well as in those eternal worlds which ar invisible, all those beings are arranged, according to a regular plan, in the order and degree of their merits; so that some of them in the first, others in the second, some even in the last times, after having undergone heavier and more severe punishment, endured for a lengthened period, and for many ages, so to speak, improved by this stern method of training, and restored at first by the instruction of the angels, and subsequently by the powers of a higher grade, and thus advancing through each stage to a better condition, reach even to that which is invisible and eternal, having travelled through, by a kind of training, every single office of the heavenly powers. • (Roberts and Donaldson, Ante-Nicene Fathers,4:261)

Ephesus The “not-so-fundamentals” he believed: • He goes on to write: • “ Heaven, in which heaven and earth, the end and perfection of all things, may be safely and most confidently placed,-where,viz,., these, after their apprehension and their chastisement for the offences which they have undergone by way of purgation, may, after having fulfilled and discharged every obligation, deserve a habitation in that land. • Robert and Donaldson, Ante-Nicene Fathers, 4:275

Ephesus The “not-so-fundamentals” he believed: • He believed in a universal salvation of all, including Satan • “The end of the world, then, and the final consummation, will take place when everyone shall be subjected to punishment for his sins; a time which God alone knows, when He will bestow on each one what he deserves. We think, indeed, that the goodness of God, through His Christ, may recall all His creatures to one end, even His enemies being conquered and subdued. • Roberts and Donaldson, Ante-Nicene Fathers, 4:260

Ephesus The “not-so-fundamentals” he believed: • He denied the bodily resurrection • Cairns, Christianity Though the Centuries, 112 • He denied the millennium kingdom • Fisher, History of Christian Doctorine, 112 • He called premillenialism “a Jewish Dream.” • Schaff, History of the Christian Church, 3:619

Ephesus The “not-so-fundamentals” he believed: • He believed in the preexistence of the human soul • (i.e. He believed John the Baptist was previously an angle) • Menzies, Ante-Nicene Fathers, 10:340 • This belief originated with Plato

Ephesus The “not-so-fundamentals” he believed: • He believed that the stars were beings, and that Jesus died for the stars. • He wrote,… “He died not for men only but for all other intellectual beings too..It would surely be absurd to say that he tasted death for human sins and not for any other being besides man which had fallen into sin, as for example for the stars”. • Menzies, Ante-Nicene Fathers, 10:293

Ephesus ORIGEN’S LIFE AND WORK He is called the “father of the textual criticism.”(conjectural emendation) The result was his famous “Hexapla.” When Origen castrated himself in 231 A.D., he was excommunicated from the church in Alexandria He then went to Caesarea, where he set up a second “Christian” university By this time, he has written over 6,000 volumes himself (Jerome even asked, “Which of us can read all that he was written.”

Ephesus 6. In 249 A.D., under the Decian persecution, Origen was arrested, tortured, and Martyred 7. He bequeathed his library to his favorite student, Phaphilus (c.240-309) 8. When Pamphilus dies in 309, he passes on the corrupted reading of Origen to one of his personal disciples..the famous church historian, and famous Bishop of Caesarea, Eusuebuis.

THE CHURCH PERIODS