THE SECRET OF THE GREAT APOSTASY

      THE SECRET OF THE GREAT APOSTASY.

IN spite of the infinite contrast repeatedly drawn by Inspiration in the Scriptures between

Greek ignorance and Christian knowledge, Christianity had barely become rooted in the

world before there were those amongst the Christians who began to incline to the world's

way, and to claim virtue for Greek ignorance. And this was the origin of the great

apostasy.

The exaltation of worldly wisdom, which was but Greek ignorance, was the secret

of the "falling away" from the truth of the gospel. And the divine warning against this

thing was especially urged to the Ephesians. First, in the letter to the Ephesians, as

follows: "This, then, is what I say unto you and urge upon you in the Lord's name. Do not

continue to live as the heathen are living in their perverseness. Owing to the ignorance

existing among them and the hardening of their hearts, their powers of discernment are

darkened, and they are cut off from the Life of God. For lost to all sense of shame, they

have abandoned themselves to licentiousness, in order to practice every kind of impurity

without restraint.

"But as for you, FAR DIFFERENT is the lesson that you learnt from the Christ --

if, that is, you really listened to Him, and by living in union with Him were taught the

Truth, as it is to be found in Jesus. For you learnt with regard to your former life that you

must lay aside your old nature, which, owing to the passions fostered by Error, was in a

corrupt state; and that you must undergo a mental and spiritual transformation, and once

for all clothe yourselves with a new nature -- one made to resemble God in the

righteousness and holiness demanded by the Truth." Eph. 4:17-24.

And again, at that important meeting when, from Miletus, Paul "sent to Ephesus,

and called the elders of the church," in his address to them, he spoke thus: "Take heed

therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made

you overseers, to feed the church of God, which He hath purchased with His own blood.

For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not

sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to

draw away disciples after them. Therefore watch, and remember, that by the space of

three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears. And now, brethren, I

commend you to God, and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up, and to

give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified." Acts 20:28-32.

This apostasy was the burden of the apostle's warning, not only at Ephesus, but in

other places. At Thessalonica, both in his preaching and in his letter to the Thessalonians,

he dwelt much upon this. For concerning the day of the coming of the Lord in glory,

having in his first letter written much of this, he wrote to them in his second letter thus:

"As to the coming of Jesus Christ, our Lord, and our being gathered to meet Him, we beg

you, Brothers, not lightly to let your minds become unsettled, nor yet to be alarmed by

any so-called `inspired' statement, or by any message, or by any letter, purporting to

come from us, to the effect that the day of the Master is here. Do not let any one deceive

you, try as they may. For come it will not, until after the Great Apostasy and the

appearing of that Incarnation of Wickedness, who is born for destruction, and who

opposes himself to every one that is spoken of as a God or as an object of worship, and so

exalts himself above them that he seats himself in the Temple of God, and displays

himself as actually being God!" 2 Thess. 2:1-4. Then, after having thus stated what that

apostasy would reveal, he appeals to the memory of the Thessalonians, thus: "Do you not

recollect how, when I was with you, I used to speak to you of all this?"

Much more is said of this in the Scriptures, but there is no need to cite more of it

here. This is sufficient to enable all to see how certainly the apostasy was connected with

the bringing in of worldly ignorance, and the mingling of it with the knowledge of God.

And it was only in proportion that worldly ignorance -- science falsely so called -- was

brought in, that the apostasy grew. And when the apostasy gained the ascendancy, it was

but the ascendancy, under the Christian name, of the original Pagan Greek philosophy

and science -- Greek ignorance -- in the professed Christian Church.

Against this evil, the apostles preached, wrote, and warned, all their days. For

they saw the enormous consequences that must result from the entertainment only of the

small beginnings that were apparent, even in their day. Yet in less than fifty years after

the death of the last of the apostles, this apostasy had become so prominent that there

were schools of it conducted under the Christian name and passing for Christian schools.

The leaders in this thing, the heads of these schools, made the so-called philosophy of the

world their standard; and amongst the standard world's philosophers they regarded Plato

as "wiser than all the rest, and as especially remarkable for treating the Deity, the soul,

and things remote from sense, so as to suit the Christian scheme." -- Mosheim.

This thing was readily adopted by large classes of would-be philosophers and

their imitators, who thus could assume the credit of being Christians without any of the

self-denial or the correction of the inner life that is essential to Christian experience. The

same old heathen life could be maintained under the name and profession of Christianity.

This evil made such progress that it was not long before "the estimation in which human

learning should be held was a question upon which the Christians were about equally

divided. Many recommended the study of philosophy and an acquaintance with the Greek

and Roman literature; while others maintained that these were pernicious to the interests

of genuine Christianity and the progress of true piety.

"The cause of letters and philosophy triumphed, however, by degrees; and those

who wished well to them continued to gain ground, till at length the superiority was

manifestly decided in their favor. This victory was principally due to the influence of

Origen, who, having been early instructed in the new kind of Platonism already

mentioned, blended it, though unhappily, with the purer and more sublime tenets of a

celestial doctrine, and recommended it in the warmest manner to the youth who attended

his public lessons. The fame of this philosopher increased daily among the Christians;

and in proportion to his rising credit, his method of proposing and explaining the

doctrines of Christianity gained authority, till it became almost universal." -- Id.

Christian Education by A.T Jones

15

The position of Origen at that time may be estimated from the fact that to this day

he is one of the chiefest of the Fathers of the church; and from the further fact that "from

the days of Origen to those of Chrysostom [A. D. 220-400], there was not a single

eminent commentator who did not borrow largely from the works of" Origen; and "he

was the chief teacher of even the most orthodox of the Western Fathers." "Innumerable

expositors in this and the following centuries pursued the method of Origen, though with

some diversity; nor could the few who pursued a better method make much head against

them."

But "this new species of philosophy, imprudently adopted by Origen and other

Christians, did immense harm to Christianity. For it led the teachers of it to involve in

philosophic obscurity many parts of our religion, which were in themselves plain, and

easy to be understood; and to add to the precepts of the Saviour no few things of which

not a word can be found in the Holy Scriptures. . . . It recommended to Christians various

foolish and useless rites, suited only to nourish superstition, no small part of which we

see religiously observed by many even to the present day. And finally, it alienated the

minds of many in the following centuries from Christianity itself; and produced a

heterogeneous species of religion, consisting of Christian and Platonic principles

combined. And who is able to enumerate all the evils and injurious changes that arose

from this new philosophy -- or, if you please, from this attempt to reconcile TRUE AND

FALSE RELIGIONS with each other?" -- Mosheim.

The result of all this is expressed in the one word -- "the Papacy," as it has been,

and as it is. Then occurred a curious though perfectly logical thing: In order to be

"scientific," the apostasy adopted that pagan science falsely so called. Then, when she

had filled the world with this pagan ignorance as Christian knowledge, and true science

in the simple reading of nature sought recognition, she anathematized, and prohibited,

and persecuted it.

That philosophic trend, as already stated, found its spring in Plato. But when it is

borne in mind that Plato was only the reporter and continuator of Socrates, who was the

great Greek educator, the basis of whose system of education was only "a profound and

consistent skepticism," it is plainly seen that this system of the new Platonism which

made the Papacy was nothing else than the system of Greek education swung in under the

Christian name, and passed off as Christian knowledge when it was only Pagan ignorance.

And this is "how" it is that "we are to account for the supreme elevation of this

man [Plato] in the intellectual history of our race." This is "how it happens that the

writings of Plato have preoccupied every school of learning, every lover of thought,

every church, every poet, -- making it impossible to think, on certain levels, except

through him." This is how it is that "he stands between the truth and every man's mind,

and has almost impressed language, and the primary forms of thought, with his name and

seal." -- "Representative Men," by Ralph Waldo Emerson, page 46. And this is also how

it is that "in the history of European thought and knowledge, down to the period of the

revival of letters, the name of Aristotle was without a rival, supreme. . . . It even came to

pass that, for a long period, all secular writings but those of Aristotle had dropped out of

use in Europe. . . . All sought in Aristotle the basis of knowledge. Universities and

grammar schools were founded in Aristotle." -- Encyclopedia Britannica, article

"Aristotle."

And this, in turn, is how it is that when Christianity was revived for modern times,

in the great Reformation, when Luther began to preach Christianity, and to introduce

Christian education anew into the world, he was compelled to meet, to renounce, and to

denounce, Aristotle, and other teachers of "a deceitful-philosophy," as follows: --

"Do not attach yourself to Aristotle, or to other teachers of a deceitful philosophy;

but diligently read the Word of God."

"He who says that a theologian who is not a logician is an heretic and an

adventurer, maintains an adventurous and heretical proposition.

"There is no form of syllogism which accords with the things of God.*

"In one word, Aristotle is to theology as darkness to light."

"Aristotle, that blind heathen, has displaced Christ."

And again, of education wholly: "I much fear the universities will become wide

gates to hell, if due care is not taken to explain the Holy Scriptures and engrave it on the

hearts of the students. My advice to every person is, not to place his child where the

Scripture does not reign paramount. Every institution in which the studies carried on lead

to a relaxed consideration of the Word of God must prove corrupting."

*The special point in this will be more clearly seen when it is understood that in

the Greek system, logic was the test of truth: than which it would be impossible to make a

greater mistake.

And it was the double placing of the worldly ignorance of Greek philosophy and

logic -- Plato and Aristotle -- above the divine knowledge of the Word of God, that, at the

very beginning of this revival of Christianity for modern times, led Wycliffe to declare

that "there is no subtlety in grammar, neither in logic, nor in any other science that can be

named, but that it is found in a more excellent degree in the Scriptures."

Such was the key-note of the Reformation. And though to the sincere Christian it

is all so plain and true; yet after the death of Luther, when the apostasy of Protestantism

had begun to come in, in less than one hundred years Aristotle was again given the chief

place in the seats of learning, and the Greek system of education was continued; so that

to-day it reigns supreme in the schools of both the Church and the State, even in

professed Christian and Protestant lands.