Article September 6, 1900 Issue

From the Christian Fathers

BY JAMES J. ROME

PERHAPS is will be of interest to the readers of our periodicals to hear what the writers of the early Christian church had to say concerning some of the teachings wherein Christian Science is considered peculiar. The testimony and opinion of these "holy men of old" is considered by all Christians as very valuable on account of their living at such an early date in Christian history, when the pure teachings of Jesus and the apostles must have been fresh in their minds, and also because of their consecrated, holy lives.

St. Augustine, who lived 354 to 430 A.D., gives us some helpful and suggestive reflections on the allness of Good and the unreality of evil, a doctrine considered so dangerous by many. In Eusebius' writings we find some remarkable demonstrations by martyrs over the ferocity of wild beasts and in deliverance from bodily sufferings. This writer also quotes from Irenaeus 140 to 202 A.D., and Papias, of the first half of the second century, who both testify to the manifestation of healing in the churches. These extracts need no comment, they speak for themselves.

And I said, Behold God, and behold what God hath created; and God is good, yea most mightily and incomparably better than all these; but yet He who is good hath created them good, and behold how He encircleth and filleth them. Where, then, is evil, and whence and how crept it in hither? What is its root and what its seed? or hath it no being at all? Why, then, do we fear and shun that which hath no being? or if we fear it needlessly, then surely is that fear evil whereby the heart is unnecessarily pricked and tormented,—and so much a greater evil, as we have naught to fear, and yet do fear. Therefore either that is evil which we fear, or the act of fearing is in itself evil. Whence, therefore, is it, seeing that God, who is good, hath made all these things good? He, indeed, the greatest and chiefest good, hath created these lesser goods; but both Creator and created are all good. . . . So long, therefore, as they are, they are good; therefore, whatever is is good. That evil, then, which I sought whence it was, is not any substance; for were it a substance, it would be good. For either it would be an incorruptible substance, and so a chief good, or a corruptible substance, which, unless it were good, it could not be corrupted. I perceived, therefore, and it was made clear to me, that Thou didst make all things good, nor is there any substance at all that was not made by Thee; and because all that Thou hast made are equal, therefore all things are; because individually they are good, and altogether very good, because our God made all things very good. . . . Thou holdest all things in Thine hand in truth; and all things are true so far as they have a being; nor is there any falsehood unless that which is not is thought to be. . . .

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