Article May 15, 1902 Issue

Extracts from the Primitive Fathers

The following extracts from the primitive Christians, found in the Ante-Nicene Christian library, will be read with interest, especially by Christian Scientists:—

From Origen, about a.d. 125.—I am of the opinion that the expression by which God is said to be "All in All," means that he is "All" in each individual person. Now he will be all in each individual in this way: When all rational understanding, cleansed from the dregs of every sort of vice, and with every cloud of wickedness swept away; and when all that can either feel or understand or think, will be wholly God; and when it will no longer behold or retain anything else than God; but when God will be the measure and standard of all its movements, and thus God will be "All," for there will no longer be any distinction of good and evil. Seeing evil nowhere exists, for God is all things, and to him no evil is near, nor would there be any longer a desire to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, on the part of him who is always in possession of good, and to whom God is all, the last enemy moreover who is called Death, is said on this account to be destroyed, that there may not be anything left of a mournful kind when Death does not exist, nor anything adverse, when there is no enemy.

Baptism is an escape from matter. "The Lord leading us out of disorder, illuminates us by bringing us into light, which is shadowless and is material no longer."

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