THE PLATONIC AND NEOPLATONIC

TRADITIONS AND ROOTS OF CHRISTIANITY

By IAN ELLIS-JONES PhD (UTS)

Excerpts from a thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements of

The Liberal Catholic Institute of Studies (Australian Campus)
for a Diploma in Religious Studies
The Liberal Catholic Church in the Province of Australasia (Including Indonesia)
This thesis is not an official document of the Liberal Catholic Church
Copyright Ian Ellis-Jones 2009
All Rights Reserved

Van der Leeuw wrote (1927a:61) that [e]very great movement begins with inspiration and
ends in dogma. Regrettably, Christianity is no exception.
Although Christianity began its life as a Jewish sect it cannot be stressed enough that
several of its key building block Christian concepts such as Christ as the Logos, and even
the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity itself, came not from Judaism nor from Gnosticism, let alone
from any one or more of the many different competing Gnostic sects, as is often (wrongly)
asserted, but from mainstream Greek philosophy.1 Indeed, the whole concept of the Logos,
as well as the concept of the Trinity in its more Christian form at least, 2 are of Greek
philosophical origin,3 and their incorporation into mainstream Christianity is very much
associated with the so-named Alexandrian School of Theology. Sadly, certain other ideas,
that still form the backbone of conventional, traditional Christianity, such as the doctrine of
vicarious atonement, also came not from Judaism but from Greco-Roman mystery religion
but were unfortunately carnalized and literalized by those sections of the Church which
would in time become dominant to such an extent that the original religious understanding
and significance became almost unrecognisable in the process. As regards the influence of
Greco-Roman mystery religion, the prominent Baptist minister and civil rights activist, the
late Martin Luther King, Jr, in his study of the influence of the Greco-Roman mystery
religions, especially Mithraism, upon Christianity, wrote (1949-50:Online):
The Greco-Roman world in which the early church developed was one of diverse
religions. The conditions of that era made it possible for these religions to sweep
like a tidal wave over the ancient world. The people of that age were eager and
1

There were many fundamental differences between the Gnostics and the Alexandrians. For example, Gnostics
saw no need for faith whereas Clement and other Alexandrians regarded knowledge (gnosis) as being the result
and perfection of faith, the latter having primacy as a first principle for the foundation of knowledge.
2
Insofar as the Trinity is concerned, although notions of a divine trinity, triplicity or triad can be found in many
other religions, its most immediate and temporal connection with what became mainstream Christianity was via
Greek philosophical thinking. The history and source of the Christian Doctrine of the Holy Trinity are not to be
found in Christian revelation but in Platonic philosophy. Indeed, the very language of the doctrine comes from
classical Greek philosophy. It was Origen who set out on a doctrinal basis the Holy Trinity based upon standard
Middle Platonic triadic emanation schemas. The word, as opposed to the concept, of the Trinity was actually
created by the Christian apologist Tertullian (c160-220 CE) as a shorthand expression to refer to what he saw as
the triune nature of the Godhead as expressed in the Bible. It was not until the last quadrant of the 4th
century ... that what might be called the definitive Trinitarian dogma 'One God in three Persons' became
thoroughly assimilated into Christian life and thought: The New Catholic Encyclopedia, vol 14, p 295.
3
Even the idea of the immortality of the human soul was not derived by the Jews from the Hebrew Bible (the
Old Testament of the Christian Bible) but rather was taken from Plato. Both the Jewish communities of
antiquity as well as the early Christian churches were deeply influenced by Greek philosophical ideas. The New
Testament of the Christian Bible provides no scriptural basis for belief in an "immortal soul" surviving
consciously after death. The words immortal soul are found nowhere in the Bible. The word immortal occurs
only once in the entire Christian Bible (see 1 Tim 1:17), where it refers specifically to God. Only God has
immortality.

zealous in their search for religious experience. The existence of this atmosphere
was vitally important in the development and eventual triumph of Christianity.
These many religions, known as Mystery-Religions, were not alike in every respect:
to draw this conclusion would lead to a gratuitous and erroneous supposition. They
covered an enormous range, and manifested a great diversity in character and
outlook, "from Orphism to Gnosticism, from the orgies of the Cabira to the fervours
of the Hermetic contemplative." [Angus, The Mystery Religions and Christianity, p
vii.] However it is to be noticed that these Mysteries possessed many fundamental
likenesses; (1) All held that the initiate shared in symbolic (sacramental) fashion the
experiences of the god. (2) All had secret rites for the initiated. (3) All offered
mystical cleansing from sin. (4) All promised a happy future life for the faithful.
[Enslin, Christian Beginnings, pp 187, 188.]
It is not at all surprising in view of the wide and growing influence of these religions
that when the disciples in Antioch and elsewhere preached a crucified and risen
Jesus they should be regarded as the heralds of another mystery religion, and that
Jesus himself should be taken for the divine Lord of the cult through whose death
and resurrection salvation was to be had. That there were striking similarities
between the developing church and these religions cannot be denied. Even
Christian apologist had to admit that fact.
...
There can hardly be any gainsaying of the fact that Christianity was greatly
influenced by the Mystery religions, both from a ritual and a doctrinal angle. This
does not mean that there was a deliberate copying on the part of Christianity. On
the contrary it was generally a natural and unconscious process rather than a
deliberate plan of action. Christianity was subject to the same influences from the
environment as were the other cults, and it sometimes produced the same reaction.

Whatever the origins of the various doctrines and dogmas of what became conventional,
traditional, mainstream Christianity - and some of those doctrines and dogmas did arise out
of Judaism Christianity the Christian Church as a whole (unlike the Liberal Catholic
Church) continues to affirm the Jewish roots and flavour of the Gospel stories and
teachings and of the Churchs fundamental doctrines and seeks to downplay the influence
of the philosophies and religions of the Greco-Roman world. Like most things in life, the
true position is much more complex.
Professor Samuel Angus, sometime Professor of New Testament and Historical Theology,
St Andrews College, University of Sydney, and a leading authority on the environment of
early Christianity and, in particular, the Greco-Roman mystery religions (see, especially,
Angus [1925] 1975; 1929; 1931) wrote that
... Greek religion is that of the most cultured people who ever lived on this earth of
ours. Religion deals with the ageless quest of the spirit mans effort to base his

life on some enduring foundation. We must approach the religion of the Greek in
the spirit of sympathy. God is the god not of the Jews only, but of the Greeks.
Clement of Alexandria said, There were two revelations of God one the
revelation of Philosophy to the Greeks, and one the revelation of religion among
the Hebrews.4

Manly P Hall has written that if, as we Liberal Catholics generally assert to be the case,
there is an underlying unity of the true wisdom of the worlds religious traditions and
teachings, esoterically understood, then the philosophical basis of what Hall refers to as
the doctrine of religious unity originates in the most mature and convincing of Platos
conclusions (1945:19). The Athenian-born Plato (c427-347 ECE), who Dean Inge in his
book Christian Mysticism rightly described as the father of European Mysticism, wrote 5
and spoke of The One and The Good. Plato saw philosophy as being a kind of logos[,]
and Platos notion of logos6 may be analysed in modern terms as the reasonable use of
words in thinking (Urmson and Re 1989:242). Consistent with his doctrine of generals
and particulars, with religion being a general, and the worlds different religions being
specialized particulars, Plato wrote and spoke of the existence of two different worlds, the
first (but not in time or origin) being our phenomenal or physical world of visible things.
However, there is another world of ideas 7 and forms, each of which (the Ones
Themselves) made manifest in our everyday supposedly material world as things visible, in
which these ideas and forms are visible only to the mind itself, or rather not visible but
intelligible, grasped only by the pure intellect using bare words (Urmson and Re
1989:243).
So, according to Plato, there is a world of being, in which everything exists, always is, has
no becoming and does not change (the world of forms), and there is a world of becoming,
which comes to be and passes away, but never really is (the physical world or cosmos). 8
Accordingly, we have such things as Goodness, which is distinct from things which are
good in themselves, and Beauty, which is also distinct from things which are beautiful, and
so forth. However, there is only one Goodness, one Beauty, and so forth. This Platonic
idealism is found in many parts of our Liberal Catholic Liturgy, but most especially in the Act
4

Extracted from notes of Anguss 1933 lecture on Greek religion, as quoted by Ernest H Vines in Parer
(1971:23).
5
Hall (1945:78) writes that the most important and least known of Platos writings are his Five Books on
Theology, which, fortunately, were preserved by Proclus of Alexandria, surnamed the Platonic Successor.
6
The word Logos refers not only to the expression of the Divine but also to its intelligibility: see Mitchell
(2006:66).
7
For Plato the word idea meant first visible form and then form in general.
8
See Platos Timaeus, 28a.

of Faith when we speak of God being Love and Power and Truth and Light. Unless there
be One which Itself is Beauty, Justice, as well as such other things as Love, Power, Truth
and Light, there would be no sense in calling anything beautiful (Urmson and Re
1989:243), just, loving, powerful, true or full of light.
From Platos theory of forms - that the real world originates in the realm of ideas, that ideas
shape and create reality, that what we see as the so-called material world is only a shadow
of the real word - these ideas can easily be seen in the writings of Bishop Leadbeater,
especially in The Science of the Sacraments, which is essentially a treatise of the power of
the mind to generate ideas and then translate those ideas into thought forms of great
transformative power.9 Platos concept of The One also had a powerful impact on
Christian metaphysics and mysticism and coalesced perfectly with Jewish monotheism
(see, eg, Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord (Deut 6:4)).
For Plato, human improvement was the supreme good, toward which all learning should
actively trend (Hall 1945:79). We see this emphasis on the need for human improvement in
the services in The Liturgy pertaining to the Holy Orders. Examples include the following,
extracted from various services of Holy Orders:

[Y]ou must learn self-control and acquire additional powers. Instead of allowing your body to
direct and enslave you, you should endeavour to live for the soul. Wherefore as a first step
you must learn in this grade of cleric to control, and rightly to express yourselves through,
the physical body ... (The Ordination of Clerics, 359)

In this order, you learn control of the emotions and passions, as before you learned to
master the crude instincts of the physical body. ... If through carelessness or selfishness the
emotions have been allowed to become self-centred, it is our duty not to kill them out, but to
purify and raise them; to substitute for devotion to our own pleasure devotion to God and
humanity; to put aside, as far as may be, affection for self for the affection that gives, caring
nothing for any return; not to ask love, but to give love. (The Ordination of Doorkeepers,
362)

As you had to learn to purify emotion, so also must your mind be pure. As you learned to
perceive the necessity for physical cleanliness, or to throw off with repugnance the lower
emotion, so also must you thrust away unworthy thought, remembering that all thought is
unworthy that is impure, selfish, mean or base; such, for example, as would seek for flaws
instead of gems in thinking of the character or work of another. ... Wherefore as readers it is
your duty to train and develop the powers of your mind, to study and fit yourselves that you
may help to train and develop the minds of others. (The Ordination of Readers, 364-365)

See also Thought-Forms by Besant and Leadbeater.

In this grade of exorcist it is your duty by strenuous effort to develop the power of the will
and by its exercise to cast out from yourselves the evil spirit of separateness and
selfishness. Having learned to control your own evil habits, you will have greater power to
help others to cast out the evil from themselves, not only by example but by precept and
even by direct action on your part. (The Ordination of Exorcists, 367)

From ancient times, also, it has been required of those who enter this order that they strive
to acquire certain virtues of character, such as are typified by the vestments delivered unto
them. By the amice, control of speech; by the maniple, the love of service or diligence in all
good works; by the tunicle, the spirit of joy and gladness, or freedom from care and
depression, that is to say, confidence in the good law, which may be interpreted as a
recognition of the plan revealed by almighty God for the perfecting of his creation. (The
Ordination of Subdeacons, 378)

The above are more than just moral exhortations. In each grade or order grace or spiritual
power is conferred to the extent to which the candidate is open to it and does what is
required, invoking the help of the One who has, and is, all Power. By such means, personal
transformation, especially in the form of ego deflation at great depth, takes place.
Platos idealism was dominated not just by the importance of striving for human
improvement at all levels but also by the supremacy of the mind ... with the possibility of
the intellect accomplishing through proper cultivation all that is necessary to the security of
man (Hall 1945:79). In the opinion of Plato, a philosophic and contemplative life was a
necessity in order for there to be any participation in the Divine life. Our Liturgy makes it
clear (see, for example, the above excerpts) that more than proper use and control of the
intellect is required, and, further, that there is a Mind that is above all human minds of which
our individual minds form but a small part.
Platos idea that the universe is the body of a blessed god, that the earth itself is an
eternal animal crawling endlessly through space, ever living, but ever changing its
appearances (Hall 1945:78), had a powerful influence on early Christian thinking and
undoubtedly played a key role in the development of the Christian notion of the mystical
body of Christ as well as Leadbeaters understanding of the importance of building a
Eucharistic temple. Indeed, it is not overstating things to say that the Liberal Catholic
understanding of the Holy Eucharist being a means by which divine power can be
spiritualized and brought to descend to and upon the so-called material world, for the
purpose of quickening and hastening the evolution of not only the congregants but indeed
the inhabitants of the whole world is very Platonic in its philosophical idealism.

We can also see Platos influence in our Liberal Catholic understanding of the descent of
spirit into matter, and all that ensues thereafter, namely, the ineffable sacrifice of thy Son,
the mystery of his wondrous incarnation and passion, his mighty resurrection and his
triumphant ascension (Liturgy 217). This teaching may have come to our Church most
immediately from Theosophy but, again, it was Plato who in his writings set forth the
descent of human souls out of the mystery of the milky way, like seeds falling into the matrix
of generation (Hall 1945:78). The process of involution, according to Plato, proceeds as
follows, as described by Hall (1945:78):
Arriving within the seminal humidity of the sub-lunary sphere, the souls become
intoxicated with the effluvium of matter and take upon themselves bodies, by which
process they die out of their spiritual estate in order to be born as physical beings.
Thus, birth is truly death; and each man is locked within the sarcophagus of his
own body. Here he must remain until he is liberated by the philosophic disciplines.

The progress of human consciousness, according to Plato, was achieved by two means,
writes Hall (1945:79):
By the first, release from matter was the result of a slow evolutionary process; the
human being grew by experience alone, following the difficult course of trial and
error.
The second, or philosophic approach, was unfoldment through personal effort. The
mind was weaned from its attachments to purely physical pursuits by discipline and
the study of the sciences, especially geometry. Over the gate of Platos academy [Mouseion]
in Athens was carved the inscription: Let no man ignorant of geometry enter here.10

Hall (1945:79) writes of the significance of Plato in these terms:

The scope of the Platonic teachings can be estimated from the statement of Jowett,
the English translator of the collected works of Plato. This learned, if somewhat
mid-Victorian translator said, The germs of all ideas, even most Christian ones,
are to be found in Plato.
Voltaire observed that in pure point of doctrine, Plato should have been the first
canonized saint of the Christian Church.
Ferrier, in the Institutes of Metaphysics, summed up a considerable learning in this
terse statement: All philosophic truth is Plato rightly defined; all philosophic error is
Plato misunderstood.
10

Ageometretos medeis eisito (Let not one destitute of geometry enter my doors"). Plato also wrote, "The
knowledge of which geometry aims is the knowledge of the eternal": Resp, VII, 52. However, it was Plutarch,
and not Plato, who wrote, "God geometrizes", and "Plato said God geometrizes continually": see Plutarch,
Convivialium disputationum, liber 8,2. God geometrizes, said the mystics and occultists in the Middle Ages,
partly out of self-protection for fear of persecution which did in fact occur, and partly because what was being
spoken of was otherwise seen to comprise a coherent system of symbols, albeit in the nature of a mystery.

Plato also developed the idea of a World-Soul, the creation of which, according to Platonic
cosmology, is as follows (as described by Ferguson 1976:Online):
The Divine Craftsman is good and desires all things to be like himself. So he brings
order out of chaos and fashions a world-soul; the cosmos is thus a living creature
endowed with life and intelligence. The material universe includes fire and earth to
make it visible and tangible, and the other elements to give it proportions. The
father creates the divine heavenly bodies, the visible gods, and entrusts to them
the fashioning of the mortal part of man; he himself creates form what is left over
from the creation of the world-soul souls equal in number to the stars. 11

Now, prior to the Christian era, Athens reigned supreme over Alexandria 12 as a centre for
the study of philosophy and higher learning. However, Athens was too intimately
associated with the faded glories of polytheism to dispute with [Alexandria] the supremacy,
writes the United Free Church minister the Rev William Fairweather in his book Origen and
Greek Patristic Theology (1901:3). In time, in the earliest centuries of the Christian era,
there flourished in Alexandria many schools of philosophy (Fr John 1963:13):
Amongst them we find the Jewish school (Philo); the Gnostics, the School of the
Christian Apologists (Clement of Alexandria and Origen), the Neoplatonic School
organized by Plotinus and Porphrey. The early Christian Fathers associated with
these Schools aimed mainly at achieving a scientific exposition of the revealed
truths of religion, but from the nature of the case they could not fulfil their task of
defence against paganism with which they were everywhere surrounded without
touching on most of the questions that belong to the domain of philosophy. Greek
philosophy was never entirely abandoned, and the school of Aristotle, who had
been a disciple of Plato, continued to exercise great influence on the minds and
deliberations of the early Fathers of the Church.13

As Moussa (nd:Online) has pointed out, Alexandria had become, by the middle of the
Second Century CE, one of the intellectual capitals of the Roman Empire, in large part as
a result of the hard work of the Ptolemies. The city had a large Jewish community, which, in
many ways, paved the way for the growth and developemnt of Christianity in the city. Then,
in time, there were a number of Christian communities. Most of the Christians in Alexandria
were native Egyptians who had little or no interest in Greek philosophy and
intellectlualizing. There was, however, a smaller, highly educated, community of Christians
in Alexandria who were very familiar with Greek philosophy. When an Alexandrian school of
philosophy of the Christian kind finally developed, the school that eventuated reflected the
11

J Ferguson, An Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Mysticism and the Mystery Religions, as quoted in Platonic
Dualism, [Online] viewed 1 May 2009, <http://www.mystae.com/restricted/streams/gnosis/dualism.html>.
12
Alexandria, in Egypt, was built by Alexander the Great in 332 BCE.
13
Fr John (1963:13).

mysticism found throughout the Middle East and tended to interpret Sacred Scripture
allegorically14 rather than literally an approach that would later find favour with many
prominent Liberal Catholics, especially Fr Geoffrey Hodson. 15 As mentioned elsewhere in
this thesis, the very early Christian church, especially the Church of Antioch, the most
ancient church after that of Jerusalem, having been founded by Saints Peter16 and Paul
themselves, was highly mystical in its spirituality, and this was certainly true of the
Alexandrian Church Fathers as well. Fairweather has written of some of the more important
factors that led to Alexandria becoming the important place that it did become for early
Christianity (1901:2):
Everything combined to mark out Alexandria as the place most likely to take the
lead in any great intellectual movement. Many currents of thought met and mingled
in this cosmopolitan city, which witnessed not only the first attempts at a scientific
theology, but also the simultaneous rise of the last great system of ancient
philosophy. As a result of the syncretism of the period, a remarkable spirit of
toleration prevailed in the community; the adherents of different cults and creeds
lived side by side in mutual goodwill.

It was not a Christian but the Hellenized (and more particularly, Alexandrian) Jewish
philosopher Philo, also known as Philo Judaeus as well as Philo of Alexandria (20 BCE - 50
CE), a contemporary of Jesus, who is generally credited with having developed the
teachings about the Logos in the first century CE. The Jewish Encyclopedia refers to the
distinctive and idiosyncratic manner in which Philo developed the concept of the Logos:
This name [Logos], which he borrowed from Greek philosophy, was first used by
Heraclitus and then adopted by the Stoics. Philo's conception of the Logos is
influenced by both of these schools. From Heraclitus he borrowed the conception
of the "dividing Logos" ( ), which calls the various objects into
existence by the combination of contrasts ("Quis Rerum Divinarum Heres Sit," 43
[i. 503]), and from Stoicism, the characterization of the Logos as the active and
vivifying power. But Philo borrowed also Platonic elements in designating the
Logos as the "idea of ideas" and the "archetypal idea" ("De Migratione Abrahami,"
18 [i. 452]; "De Specialibus Legibus," 36 [ii. 333]). There are, in addition,
14

See, especially, Gal 4:24 (Now this is an allegory ...). Grant and Freedman ([1960] 1993:27) write that
Clement and Origen were of the view that the synoptic provided a literal, historical account of Jesuss work,
while John composed an allegorical version which gave the inward, spiritual meaning of Jesus. The writers also
note that Origen sometimes argued all four gospels were partly historical and partly symbolical (also at 27).
15
See, eg, The Hidden Wisdom in the Holy Bible, vols 1-4 (vols 1-2, 1967; vol 3, 1971; vol 4, 1981) (Wheaton
IL: Theosophical Publishing House (Quests Books), and The Christ Life from Nativity to Ascension (Wheaton IL:
Theosophical Publishing House (Quests Books), 1975). Philo is noted for his allegorical interpretation of the
Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible). This translation was made in the first instance for the
use of Greek-speaking Jews living in Alexandria (A Concise Bible Dictionary, London: Cambridge University
Press, nd, p 138).
16
St Peter is reputed to have been the first among the Bishops of Antioch, the Church of Antioch itself having
been established in, it is generally believed, 33 CE. In 325, at the First Council of Nicea, the bishopric of Antioch
was recognized as a Patriarchate as were those of Rome, Alexandria and Jerusalem.

Biblical elements: there are Biblical passages in which the word of Yhwh is
regarded as a power acting independently and existing by itself, as Isa. lv. 11
(comp. Matt. x. 13; Prov. xxx. 4); these ideas were further developed by later
Judaism in the doctrines of the Divine Word creating the world, the divine thronechariot and its cherub, the divine splendor and its shekinah, and the name of God
as well as the names of the angels; and Philo borrowed from all these in
elaborating his doctrine of the Logos.17

Philo, a Middle Platonist,18 who greatly admired both the Essenes as well as the
Pythagoreans (but especially the latter),19 is sometimes referred to as having been a
Gnostic, but although some of the raw material of Gnosticism can be found in Philo, he is
not, except in the vaguest sense, himself a Gnostic (Chadwick 1967, as quoted in Churton
2005:42). There is certainly room for confusion and disputation, for Philo did indeed
combine and synthesize Jewish religious ideas with Greek (both Stoic and Platonic)
philosophy in a highly idiosyncratic fashion. Indeed, the Jewish Encyclopedia goes so far as
to say that Philos God was not the God of the Old Testament, but the idea of Plato
designated as , in contrast to matter:20
Nothing remained, therefore, but to set aside the descriptions of God in the Old
Testament by means of allegory. Philo characterizes as a monstrous impiety the
anthropomorphism of the Bible, which, according to the literal meaning, ascribes to
God hands and feet, eyes and ears, tongue and windpipe ("De Confusione
Linguarum," 27 [i. 425])21

Philo, according to Churton (2005:40)

wrote polemics against those who taught two gods; at the same time, Philo himself
called the Logos (the divine instrument of creation) a second god, archangel,
Lord, and Name.
17

C H Toy, C Siegfried and J Z Lauterbach, Philo Judaeus, in JewishEncylopedia.com, viewed 12 May 2009,
<http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=281&letter=P#1056>. See also Churton (2005:43) who also
refers to the Stoic background of the Logos. Tatian the Assyrian (c110-180 CE), who was an early Christian
theologian, apologist and writer who had been trained in Greek philosophy and who may have later established
a school of his own in Mesopotamia, is said by some to have been the first Christian writer to declare that God
created matter by the power of the Logos: see Studer (1992). (Tatian took and combined the four Gospels of the
New Testament in his Diatessaron. According to Grant and Freedman ([1960] 1993:27) he retained the order of
none of them, though for the Galilean ministry of Jesus he relied primarily on Matthew, and for the story of the
Crucifixion, on John.) As mentioned, the pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Heraclitus of Ephesus (c535-475 BCE)
also spoke of the eternal Logos, by which he meant Godly Wisdom from whom everything received its
existence.
18
Middle Platonism refers to the development of Platonism, or ideas associated with Plato, during the period
from roughly 130 BCE up to the late 2 nd century CE. Philo was a later Middle Platonist, and perhaps the most
prominent one of the lot. Middle Platonism was followed by Neoplatonism which took shape in the 3 rd century
CE.
19
The ancient Pythagoreans had an evening ritual or mediation in which they would reflect upon their individual
acts and omissions of the past day, asking themselves the following three questions: (1) In what I have failed?
(2) What good have I done? (3) What have I not done that I ought to have done?
20
Toy, Siegfried and Lauterbach (Online).
21
Toy, Siegfried and Lauterbach (Online).

Nevertheless, Philo, whose soul [was] athirst for God and entire aim was to see God
(Kirk [1934] 1966:21), always described God as One, or, in Greek terms, as the Monad
(Churton 2005:43), this God being beyond all being. This was a truly transcendent God
which, according to Philo, was even beyond the Monad. According to the Jewish
Encyclopedia Philo's transcendental conception of the idea of God precluded the Creation
as well as any activity of God in the world. 22 This God brought the cosmos into being in two
ways, first, by means of a pure act of the will, and then by means of his Logos (or word) the
physical world or cosmos was brought forth. (This idea forms the basis of the thinking of
those Liberal Catholics of a Theosophical mindset, and others as well, who make a
distinction between the God who is Absolute and Beyond Being on the one hand, and the
God or Logos (Word) of the Solar System to which this planet belongs (Pigott 1925:21) on
the other. This last mentioned God, who is God at least in the fullest sense in which we,
with our own limited understanding, can conceive of such a Being, is analogous to what
Plato and the Stoics referred to as the World-Soul (of which the human soul is an
emanation). Indeed, Philo also embraced the Stoic doctrine of the immanence of God.23 In
short, God is both entirely outside of the world as well as the only actual being therein.24
Philo was perhaps the first to see the Platonic Ideas as Gods thoughts (Churton 2005:43).
He wrote of redemption in terms of losing self in something higher, with the goal of
spiritual life as being the vision of God (Churton 2005:46 and 47, respectively), something
which was also, in Philos words, a vision of peace, for God alone is perfect peace (see
Kirk [1934] 1966:21). This vision of God could be experienced only in moments of ekstasis
(ecstasy). We cannot see God with ordinary physical sight, but only with the eye of the
soul (Kirk [1934] 1966:22), and that requires a special kind of asceticism, self-mortification
and purity of body, mind and spirit:
Who, then, shall be the heir? Not that reasoning which remains in the prison of the
body according to its own voluntary intentions, but that which is loosened from
those bonds and emancipated, and which has advanced beyond the walls, and if it
be possible to say so, has itself forsaken itself. "For he," says the scripture, "who
shall come out from thee, he shall be thy heir." Therefore if any desire comes upon
thee, O soul, to be the inheritor of the good things of God, leave not only thy
country, the body, and thy kindred, the outward senses, and thy father's house, that
is speech; but also flee from thyself, and depart out of thyself, like the Corybantes,
22

Toy, Siegfried and Lauterbach (Online).

Toy, Siegfried and Lauterbach (Online).
24
Toy, Siegfried and Lauterbach (Online).
23

or those possessed with demons, being driven to frenzy, and inspired by some
prophetic inspiration. For while the mind is in a state of enthusiastic inspiration, and
while it is no longer mistress of itself, but is agitated and drawn into frenzy by
heavenly love, and drawn upwards to that object, truth removing all impediments
out of its way, and making everything before it plain, that so it may advance by a
level and easy road, its destiny is to become an inheritor of the things of God. 25

At the same time Philo wrote that the root of sin was the lust to become equal to God. 26 He
saw the so-called Fall (as it is known in conventional Christianity) as being simply the result
of creation or involution into a lower world, for there was still an unbroken union with God
in love with the soul being Gods bride. 27 This is very much the Liberal Catholic position.
Philo wrote of the importance of silent contemplation and the meditative state, which will
bring about not just emotional equanimity but also peace and union with the Divine:
When therefore the soul is made manifest in all its sayings and doings, and is
made a partaker of the divine nature, the voices of the external senses are reduced
to silence, and so likewise are all troublesome and ill-omened sounds, for the
objects of sight often speak loudly and invite the sense of sight to themselves; and
so do voices invite the sense of hearing; scents invite the smell, and altogether
each varied object of sense invites its appropriate sense. But all these things are
put at rest when the mind going forth out of the city of the soul, attributes all its own
actions and conceptions to God.28

Philo translated the Jewish Scriptures in light of the language and thought forms of a
number of different stands of Greek thought (in particular, Stoic, Platonic and
Neopythagorean). In the process, he gave a spiritual interpretation of the Jewish scriptures
and taught his Logos-doctrine which afterwards was to prove such a useful receptacle for
the doctrine about Christ (van der Leeuw 1927a:67). Philo used the word Logos (which he
described as the Idea of Ideas) to refer to both the governing principle of [the] relation
between transcendent God and lower world as well as Gods image (Churton 2005:43
and 44), hence his reference to the divine man (cf Moses at the burning bush) being
indwelled by the Logos. To Philo the idea of the Logos was central and had a mystical
power, for he was in no doubt that contemplation of and speculation about the works of the
Logos [would] reveal secrets (Churton 2005:45). He also spoke of the power of God
mediating between God and the world as mysteries and, in various places, as esoteric.29

25

Who is the Heir of Divine Things?, Ch 17, 14:68-70, in Yonge (Online).

Legum allegoriae, 149; De cherubim, 58-64, in Philo (1973).
27
De posteritate Caini, 12; De cherubim, 42-53, in Philo (1973).
28
Allegorical Interpretation III, Ch 4, 14:44, in Yonge (Online).
29
De scrificiis Abelis et Caini, 60, 131-32; De Abrahamo, 122; De fuga et inventione, 95; De cherubim, 48,
in Philo (1973).
26

Philo had an enormous impact on the thinking and theology of the Christian Greek Fathers
who were shortly to make their own mark in Alexandria. Fairweather writes (1901:3):
Philo and his predecessors had to a great extent paved the way for a systematized
expression, in terms of Greek philosophy, of the contents of Jewish-Christian
tradition. Under the influence of philosophical and Oriental ideas the jagged edges
of Judaism had been toned down, and elements of a metaphysical and mystical
nature assumed. In the doctrine of the Logos a meeting-point had been found
between Jewish monotheism and Gentile philosophy.

As mentioned earlier, the concept of the Logos was of great importance to Philo but he did
not actually invent the concept. Insofar as the Doctrine of the Trinity is concerned, although
notions of a divine trinity, triplicity or triad can be found in many other religions, its most
immediate and temporal connection with what became mainstream Christianity was via
Greek philosophical thinking. The history and source of the Doctrine of the Trinity are not to
be found in Christian revelation per se but in Platonic philosophy. Indeed, the very language
of the doctrine comes from classical Greek philosophy. It was Origen (c185-254 CE) who
set out on a doctrinal basis the Holy Trinity based upon standard Middle Platonic triadic
emanation schemas. The word, as opposed to the concept, of the Trinity was actually
created by the Christian apologist Tertullian (c160-220 CE) as a shorthand expression to
express what he saw as the triune nature of the Godhead as expressed in the Bible. It was
not until the last quadrant of the 4th century ... that what might be called the definitive
Trinitarian dogma 'One God in three Persons' became thoroughly assimilated into Christian
life and thought.30
Significantly, when polytheism began to displace monotheism in Ancient Greece in about
600 BCE, it was the philosophers who objected most vehemently and eloquently to what
they saw as a distortion, indeed corruption, of the true Ancient Wisdom. For example,
Xenophon (570-466 BCE) said:
Among gods and people there exists one Most High God, Who does not resemble
them either mentally, or externally. He is all sight, all thought, all hearing. He
eternally and immovably resides in one place ... With His thought He governs all
without difficulty.31

30

See The New Catholic Encyclopedia, vol 14, p 295.

As cited in Bishop Alexander (Mileant), trans N and N Semyanko (ed D Shufran), The One God Worshipped
in the Trinity, viewed 5 April 2009, <http://www.orthodoxpr.com/Orthodox/OneGod.html>.
31

The preponderance of historical records supports the view that it was in the 2nd century
(c190 CE) that the Christian Church decided to establish what might be called a Christian
School in the City of Alexandria. At first it was a school for children only, but out of this
school emerged the famous Catechitical [sic] School [of Alexandria], 32 also known as the
Alexandrian School of Theology or simply the Alexandrian School. The Churchs aim,
both in setting up this School and otherwise, was to demonstrate that true philosophy led
the way to Christianity and not to Paganism.33 Fairweather writes that the moulding of
Christian theology according to the Greek type is specially identified with the Catechetical
School of Alexandria and that the School arose out of the necessities of the Alexandrian
Church itself (1901:8).
The first director of, and the principal exponent of Christianity (van der Leeuw 1927a:67)
in, the Catechetical School of Alexandria 34 was, according to Bishop Eusebius, a converted
Sicilian-born Stoic named Pantaenus35 (died c212 CE) who, as a result of his travels to and
throughout India, had acquired an understanding of the doctrines of Indian religious
philosophy (van der Leeuw 1927:67) which be brought to Alexandria.36 We are told that the
venerable (Farrar 1886:183) Pantaenus discovered that true philosophy is found, not in
the Porch, but in Nazareth, in Gethsemane, in Gabbatha, in Golgotha; and he set himself to
make it known to the world.37 Regrettably, only a few fragments of his writings remain
(Farrar 1886:183). However, there is no doubt that under Pantaenus leadership the
Catechetical School of Alexandria became quite well-renowned, such that it has been said
that [a]ll the learning of Christendom may be traced to this source.38
The Catechetical School was a Christian school ... honourably distinguished from the
pagan schools of the period by making a virtue a subject for practice, and not merely for
32

See Great Theosophists: Ammonius Saccas (Online).

See Great Theosophists: Ammonius Saccas (Online), quoting from Fr George Stebbings The Story of the
Catholic Church (1915). However, according to St Jerome, the school existed as a catechetical school from the
Apostles time: see Pantaenus The Alexandrian Philosopher (Online).
34
The Catechetical School of Alexandria made special use of the method of teaching known as Socratic
dialogue, a method designed for the expulsion of ignorance and error, and for the cultivation of a genuine love
of truth (Fairweather 1901:11). Socratic dialogue is used to this day as a teaching and learning method in many
law schools throughout the world, especially in the United States of America.
35
Later Saint Pantaenus.
36
Pantaenus, with whom Clement of Alexandria became closely associated, first as master and pupil
respectively, and later as colleagues, was the head, if not the actual founder, of the Alexandrian School, which
was founded in around 190 CE. He may have been the head of the Alexandrian School before he went to India.
37
Pantaenus The Alexandrian Philosopher (Online). Pantaenus is quoted by Eusebius in Hist Eccl, VI.14.2.
38
Pantaenus The Alexandrian Philosopher (Online).
33

definition and discourse (Fairweather 1901:11-12). Furthermore, the theology that emerged
from this Alexandrian School of Theology was a constructive one as opposed to the
defensive theology substituted for the living teaching of Christ (van der Leeuw 1927a:66
and 70) that was elsewhere developing in Christianity around about the same time. Van der
Leeuw writes (1927a:66-67):
Alexandria has always been one of the most remarkable of the Christian churches;
here Egypt, Greece, Israel, Rome and the Orient met, not only in commerce, but
also in intellectual and spiritual intercourse. Nowhere did the new faith find a richer
ground to develop. ... Naturally the Christian church in Alexandria became with
Rome the leading Church of the Christian religion. Here from the earliest days the
instruction of members in the Christian doctrine was organised better than
anywhere else; here for the first time we find a critical study and arrangement of
the Christian scriptures.

Fairweather has written (1901:1-1):

The Greek patristic theology was the result of the application of the specific
methods of Greek philosophy to the new material supplied by the Christian history,
with the view of constructing a reasoned theory of God and the universe. As such it
was the last characteristic creation of the Greek genius. In the New Testament
God is represented from a religious point of view; but for the Greek mind, which
conceived God metaphysically as abstract Being, a scientific theology was
indispensable. The facts of Christianity had to be so interpreted as to yield a
conception of God which would at once conserve His unity, and yet admit of His
organic connection with man as Lord and Saviour. Naturally this result was reached
only through a process of development.

It has been mentioned already that, early in the Christian era, the Jewish philosopher Philo
emphasised the mystical quality of our relationship with the Divine, the latter being seen by
Philo to be supra-rational in nature and which can only be contacted and experienced
through and in moments of ekstasis (ecstasy). As such, he was a forerunner of
Neoplatonism, which otherwise took shape in the 3rd Century CE, and which will be the
subject of more detailed consideration later in this chapter of this thesis. Philo himself had a
direct and very profound influence upon both the Athenian-born Clement of Alexandria 39
(c150-215 CE), a convert to Christianity from paganism 40 who would in time succeed
Pantaenus as the head of the Catechetical School of Alexandria, 41 and his pupil and
protg Origen of Alexandria (c185-254 CE), each of whom were late Second Century
39

Titus Flavius Clemens, but known as Clement of Alexandria (cf Clement of Rome).
Fairweather (1901:12) writes that Clements own studies in religion led him to forsake paganism and
embrace Christianity.
41
Clement, who studied under Pantaenus, was also a pupil of Tatian the Assyrian. He was a convert to
Christianity.
40

Greek Fathers of the early Christian Church, with the latter (Origen) undoubtedly being one
of the greatest of all Christian theologians.42 Fairweather writes (1901:13):
In the great work of winning the Greek world for Christianity, Clement was the
immediate precursor of Origen, the forerunner without whom Origen, as we know
him, could not have been.

Clement of Alexandria, himself a student of and successor to Saint Pantaenus, was highly
knowledgeable in both Greek43 and Egyptian philosophy which led him to conclude that
truth could be found even in the heathen systems. 44 For Clement, philosophy was no
work of darkness, but in each of its forms a ray of light from the Logos, and therefore
belonging of right to the Christian (Fairweather 1901:14). Clement combined in himself the
nobility of Greek culture with the depth of Christian faith (van der Leeuw 1927a:67-68), and
was largely responsible for developing what can only be described as an eclectic form of
Christian Platonism.45 Although no systematic theologian in the modern sense, Clement
may be said to have laid the foundation of a true scientific dogmatic (Fairweather 1901:24).
Van der Leeuw writes (1927a:68):
He considered Greek philosophy and Jewish law to be the paedagogus meant to
lead man to Christ, and believed that the Logos directed and inspired the
philosophy of Greece until He could be fully manifested in Christ. Thus Christianity
was shown as the natural and necessary consummation of Greek and Jewish
culture ...

As mentioned earlier, the Christians in Alexandria were not all of one mind and accord. The
majority of Christians in the city, those who were Egyptian-born and bred, had little or no
interest in Greek philosophy. Then there was a smaller group of Christians who were very
42

Alexander, later bishop of Jerusalem, was also a pupil of Clement at the Catechetical School. Other notable
Alexandrian theologians include Saint Cyril of Alexandria (c378-444), a Doctor of the Church and once Pope of
Alexandria when that city was at the height of its influence and power in the Roman Empire, and Saint
Athanasius of Alexandria (c293-373) (one of four great Doctors of the Eastern Church). Mention should also be
made of Athenagoras (c133-190), an Athenian philosopher who converted to Christianity and became an
important Christian apologist and who almost certainly had some connection with the catechetical school in
Alexandria (although he was probably never its head, as has been claimed by some writers). Cyril taught that
there was one (mia) nature of the incarnate Logos (mia fusij tou qeou Logou sesarkwmenh). Sadly, Cyrils
organized campaign of attacks, some extremely violent in nature, on those whom he saw as dissenters or
heretics ultimately brought an end to the teaching of Greek philosophy in Alexandria (Bushby 2004:263). As
regards the teaching of philosophy in Athens, that came to an end as a result of an edict of the Emperor
Justinian who prohibited its teaching and caused all schools closed (Bushby 2004:263).
43
Clement saw much of value in Platonic metaphysics, Stoic ethics and Aristotelian logic (Chadwick [1967]
1993:97).
44
See Great Theosophists: Ammonius Saccas (Online).
45
Clement himself admitted to being an eclectic: see his Stromata, I:37. See Hoyland (1928) for an interrelationship between Platonism and Christianity; the otherwise scholarly study is, however, marred by a
praeparatio evangelica style of approach, that is, seeing Platos views and teachings as a preparation for a
similar expression of teaching in the Gospels purportedly proclaimed by Jesus himself.

Greek, and espcially Platonic, in their philosophising. Clement sought to expound a

middle way between the views of these two different groups of Christians. Fairweather has
spoken of how Clement was able to successfully combine the best of Greek philosophy with
the revealed wisdom from the Hebrew Bible and the prophets culminating in Jesus
incarnation (1901:86-87):
The true goal of the Greek philosophy, as well as of the revealed wisdom
proclaimed by the prophets, was the incarnation of Jesus, which focussed [sic] all
previous self-communications of the Eternal Reason. A knowledge essentially
devoid of error is thus guaranteed to us. ... Clement held that a mans life is likely to
be virtuous in proportion to his knowledge of the truth. ... By the union of the divine
and human natures in His own person, Christ has become the source of the new
life of humanity.

Fairweather has also written of how Clement saw philosophy as the divine precursor to
Christianity (1901:15):
What philosophers of all schools had been aiming at was also the aim of
Christianity, viz a nobler life. The difference, according to Clement, was this: while
the ancient philosophers had been unable to get more than glimpses of the truth, it
was left to Christianity to make known in Christ the perfect truth.

Clements writings, which display his profound indebtedness to Middle Platonism (Churton
2005:117), perhaps best exemplify what our own Bishop Frank Pigott had in mind when he
wrote of the lost gnosis in his book The Parting of The Ways (1925:35), for, as Churton
has pointed out (2005:115):
[Clement] was not declared to be a heretic, and his works have therefore survived
in the orthodox circles. Of all the extant writings of the first centuries of the
Christian era, it may be that those of Clement conform most closely to what Bishop
Irenaeus of Lyons might have called the gnosis truly so-called.

Clement, who attained the rank of presbyter in the Church of Alexandria (Fairweather
1901:13), is famous for having written, There is one river of truth, but many streams fall
into it from this side and that. 46 Bishop Pigott (1934:Online) has written concerning
Clements statement:
Judaism is one such tributary; Hellenism is another; the genius of the Latins has
also poured in in very large measure; and more recently the Nordic races, chiefly
but not wholly through Protestantism, have added their special contribution. And
now there comes another tributary bearing the ancient wisdom of the East. It is as
yet but a trickle but it may be destined to flow in greater and greater fullness.
Charles Leadbeater is mainly responsible for that.
46

Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, I:5.

Clement was a Christian who [also] called himself a Gnostic, indeed a self-confessed
Gnostic (Churton 2005:115 and 117, respectively). He saw himself as a true Gnostic.
Indeed, he spoke, quite unashamedly, of the Christian being a Gnostic, whilst making it
clear that he was referring not to any of the various schools and sects which were active in
the 2nd century and which called themselves gnostic but rather to that true or
ecclesiastical gnosis (Farrar 1886:185) which the Apostle Paul referred to as my
knowledge in the mystery of Christ (Eph 3:4). 47 Clement railed against what he labeled the
Apostlic orthodoxy and the evangelical canon (Farrar 1886:185) which, in his view, had
perverted and corrupted the true religion and teachings of Jesus.
R F Horton, in his book The Mystical Quest of Christ, writes (1923:9) that, insofar as
Clement was concerned
What was revealed in Christ was the utmost that we could know; and the additions
made by the Gnostic systems were fictitious.

As a Gnostic Christian whose inquiring spirit caused him ... to travel through many lands in
search of the most distinguished Christian teachers (Fairweather 1901:12-13), Clement
affirmed that the true wisdom or gnosis was that inner illumination to which the true
Christian could attain if he lived the life of purity and love which our Lord had taught (van
der Leeuw 1927a:69). He believed that there were differences in knowledge (gnosis)
between Christians. The more enlightened ones were those who had methodically devoted
themselves to living a highly moral life, along Platonic lines, in their acquisition of a deeper
knowledge and understanding of the Divine. Clements aim was to bring his students to a
state of spiritual vision, not as a single experience so much as a dynamic, growing
movement, of which this life on earth formed only a part (Churton 2005:117). Fairweather
writes (1901:15):
As the world must needs go through several stages preparatory to the coming of
Christ, so must a man advance by degrees from faith () to love, and from love
to knowledge (), to the position of a perfect Christian.

47

Clement especially opposed those Gnostics who taught that the material world or the created order was alien
to and from Almighty God.

Faith was thus only the first step toward gnosis, for, according to Clement, the Christian
must advance from faith to knowledge by the path of simple obedience and rectitude
(Fairweather 1901:31). In his Stromateis Clement has this to say about faith and gnosis:
Faith then is a compendious knowledge of the essentials, but gnosis is a sure and
firm demonstration of the things received through faith, being itself built up by the
Lords teaching on the foundation of the faith, and carrying us on to unshaken
conviction and scientific certainty. ... [T]here seems to me to be a first kind of
saving change from heathenism to faith, a second from faith to gnosis; and this
latter, as it passes on into love, begins at once to establish a mutual friendship
between that which knows and that which is known. And perhaps he who has
arrived at this stage has already attained equality with the angels.
At any rate, after he has reached the final ascent in the flesh, he still continues to
advance, as is fit, and press on through the holy Hebdomad [the seven planetary
spheres] into the fathers house, to that which is indeed the Lord's abode, being
destined there to be, as it were, a light standing and abiding forever, absolutely
secure from all vicissitude.48

The reference to the holy Hebdomad [the seven planetary spheres] is significant, as we
are familiar with the seven days of creation, the seven rays, the seven mighty spirits
before the throne (cf Rev 1:4), and so forth. Hodson in his book The Seven Human
Temperaments writes (1952:2):
The One becomes Two or androgyne. These Two interact to produce the Third
Aspect of the threefold manifested Logos. These Three in turn unite in all their
possible combinations to produce seven groups of three. In three of these groups,
one of the three predominates; in three others, two predominate and in the
seventh, all are equally manifest. Since divine consciousness is focused and active
in each of these Emanations, they are regarded as finite Beings or "Persons".
From the Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity, the Seven emerge, who are known
in Christian Cosmogony as the Seven Mighty Spirits before the Throne, in Judaism
as the Seven Sephiroth and in Theosophy as the Seven Planetary Logoi, each the
Logos of a Scheme of seven Chains of globes.49

All of this is beautifully captured in the Ascription in the Liberal Catholic Churchs service of
Benediction of the Most Holy Sacrament (see Liturgy 262):
To the most holy and adorable Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, three Persons in
one God; to Christ our Lord, the only wise counsellor, the Prince of peace; to the
seven mighty spirits before the throne; and to the glorious assembly of just men

48

Stromata, VII.
In cosmic numerology or sacred geometry the number seven represents such things as fullness, individual
completeness (the number twelve representing corporate completeness), the perfection of the human soul,
and grace. It is considered to be the divine number and thus the most spiritual of all numbers.
49

made perfect, the Watchers, the Saints, the Holy Ones, be praise unceasing from
every living creature; and honour, might and glory, henceforth and for evermore.

Not only did Clement take from Greek philosophy the concept of the Logos, he divinised it
such that both the Son and the Holy Spirit were also first-born powers and first created. In
that regard, Clement distinguished the so-called Son-Logos from the Logos itself. Thus, the
Liberal Catholic/Theosophical understanding of Christ as the World Teacher, expressing
himself through, among others, the person and personality of Jesus, has its origins and
finds early expression in Clement. Churton (2005:117) writes:
Clement saw Christ the Logos as the implicate, unifying factor of all the projected
archetypes. This also meant that Clement saw all religions as being the sacred
expressions of the divine archetypes, while the divine Logos-Christ, present (if
unseen) in all, united the All.

In the writings and teachings of Clement, God is manifested through the Son, by whose
grace as Logos He has in some degree been known to the nobler spirits of every age and
country (Fairweather 1901:26). These ideas are reflected in various parts (for example, in
the Prayers of Intent and in The Commemoration of the Saints) of the Service of the
Holy Eucharist in The Liberal Catholic Liturgy (217 and 219; 235 and 237)
Wherefore, O Lord and heavenly Father, we thy humble servants, bearing in mind
the ineffable sacrifice of thy Son, the mystery of his wondrous incarnation, [his
blessed passion,] his mighty resurrection, and his triumphant ascension, do here
make before thy divine majesty the memorial which our Lord hath willed us to make

And we join with them in worship before thy great white throne, whence flow all
love and light and blessing through all the worlds which thou hast made.

For Clement the Christian gospel was the highest revelation of the Logos, who has given
indication of his presence wherever men rise above the level of the beasts and of the
uncivilised savage (Fairweather 1901:24). The eternal Word has appeared as man in
order to become our Teacher and Saviour (Fairweather 1901:29).
Clement, like Liberal Catholics, had a high vision of humankind, and its innate divinity and
potential. His philosophy and theological system recognised the reality of sin, but there was
no place for any Calvinistic-type sin-sodden view of our innate total depravity or the like.
Thus, Clement rejected and denied the doctrine of original sin - something the Jews have
always repudiated as well - but he was still nevertheless of the view that fallen man [was]

powerless to restore himself to good (Fairweather 1901:29). We needed the help of Christ
to achieve that. Having said that, Clement was very much a Universalist, being a firm
believer in the doctrine of apocatastasis. He would have had no difficulties at all in agreeing
with that part of the Liberal Catholic Act of Faith that states that all his sons shall one day
reach his feet, however far they stray (Liturgy 210; 229). Any punishments meted out by
God were, according to Clement, saving and disciplinary, leading to conversion. 50
Fairweather writes (1901:33):
Clement held that after death perfect blessedness will be reached through a
further process of further development, accepted the Pauline doctrine of a glorified
resurrection body, and allowed the possibility of repentance and reformation until
the last day, when probation would cease.51

God was thus not an angry, vengeful god that needed to be appeased. It was simply a case
of our impurity which needed to be overcome, so that unity with the Divine may be
attained (van der Leeuw 1927a:70). We wander from the path which leads to
righteousness (Confiteor, Liturgy 204; 224) out of ignorance of who and what we really are.
All of this was, for Clement, part and parcel of the Christian doctrines of creation and
redemption.
Clement saw Jesus, not so much as Saviour, but as Way-Shower and Exemplar, with the
way being one of self-sacrifice and selfless self-giving. Only by such means could one be
initiated into the Mysteries of the Kingdom of God. Clement spoke of those Mysteries in
these terms:
But the Mysteries are delivered mystically, that what is spoken may be in the mouth
of the speaker; rather not in his voice, but in his understanding. "God gave to the
Church, some apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some
pastors and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry,
for the edifying of the body of Christ."
The writing of these memoranda of mine, I well know, is weak when compared with
that spirit, full of grace, which I was privileged to hear. But it will be an image to
recall the archetype to him who was struck with the Thyrsus. 52

50

See Stromata, VII, 2; Pedagogue, I, 8. Quoted in Hanson (1899), ch 9. See also Apocacatastasis, New
Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, vol 1, [Online] viewed 9 April 2009,
<http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/encyc01.html?term+Apocatastasis>.
51
See Stromata, VII, 2, 16.
52
Stromata, 1, 1. Online version: viewed 28 April 2009, <http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/clementstromata-book1.htm>.

Van der Leeuw writes (1927a:70) that Clement understood Christs self-giving as being a
living allegory53 of the need for our own crucifixion of our egos:
The message which Christ brought to man was not that life meant a crucifixion, but
that through the crucifixion of our earthly self the spirit within could attain to the new
birth.

As regards the nature of the mysteries that Clement saw as his duty and responsibility to
expound, Clements approach was very much in the esoteric tradition which was followed
by Jesus himself who said, To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but
for those outside everything is in parables (Mk 4:11). Thus, Fairweather writes (1901:19):
Founding on Col 1:25 ff, Clement holds that hidden mysteries received by the
apostles from the Lord had been handed down in direct succession until those who
possessed the tradition of the blessed doctrine came by Gods will to us also to
deposit those ancestral and apostolic seeds (Strom I 1, vi 8). These Christian
mysteries were not disclosed to the general body of the pupils attending the
Catechetical School ... They had the fundamental dogmas of the Church
expounded to them, but not the abstruser speculations about the being of God, the
origin of the world, the last things, the relation of reason to revelation, of philosophy
to Christianity, of faith to knowledge, which were reserved for the enlightened. 54

In Clements system of theology, salvation did not depend upon any notions of vicarious
atonement or propitiation or expiation as traditionally understood by conventional,
mainstream Christianity. Fairweather writes (1901:30) that:
When all is said there is no doubt that, in the general view of Clement, salvation
hangs not upon Christs finished work as a sacrificial victim for the sins of men, but
merely upon the fact of a spiritual transformation wrought in us by the Word as the
worlds Instructor.

The Christian life therefore becomes one of imitating God, especially Christ Jesus. For
Clement, that is the basis of Christian morality and ethics. Fairweather writes (1901:32):
This is the one great principle running through his often very detailed treatment of
Christian ethics. By the aid of the incarnate Word we are enabled to become
imitators of God.

53

Fairweather writes (1901:18 fn 1) that, according to Clement, Scripture [had] even a fourfold sense the
literal, the mystic, the moral, and the prophetic. See Stromata, 1, 28.
54
Col 1:25-30 reads as follows: Whereof I am made a minister, according to the dispensation of God which is
given to me for you, to fulfil the word of God; Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from
generations, but now is made manifest to his saints: To whom God would make known what is the riches of the
glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory: Whom we preach, warning
every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus:
Whereunto I also labour, striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily.

We find this idea reflected in the Service of the Holy Eucharist in The Liberal Catholic
Liturgy (221; 239):
Under the veil of earthly things now have we communion with our Lord Jesus Christ;
soon with open face shall we behold him and, rejoicing in his glory, be made like unto
him. Then shall his true disciples be brought by him with exceeding joy before the
presence of his Father's glory.

Fairweather (1901:26) writes that one of the merits of Clement is that he grasps so firmly
the doctrine of the Trinity, and then goes to on to describe the God in whom Clement
believed (1901:26):
God is inexpressible, having neither parts, qualities, nor relations. He is formless
and nameless, though we sometimes give Him titles which are not to be taken in
their proper sense,- the One, the Good, Intelligence or Existence, or Father, or
God, or Creator, or Lord (Strom v 12). This idea of God whom he further speaks of
as the great depth or abyss, would hardly be distinguishable from the
abstraction of Philo and the Alexandrian Platonists, were it not for the qualifying
declaration that to the Son of God there is nothing incomprehensible. God is
therefore not absolutely, but only relatively, incomprehensible.

Thus, according to Clement, although the Father was essentially unknowable, the Son as
the mood or consciousness of the Father may become the object of knowledge
(Fairweather 1901:27).55 Clement also wrote of the essential unity between the God and
the Father and God the Son. Further, there was also the Holy Spirit, for Clement wrote, O
mystic marvel, the universal Father is one, and One the universal Word, and the Holy Spirit
is one and the same everywhere.56
Churton refers to Clements system of thought and teaching as being one of the earliest
formulations of a type of Neoplatonism (2005:117), the latter being a partly gnosticized
form of Platonic tradition (2005:417). Neoplatonism, which took for its religious ideal the
direct apprehension of the divine essence (Fairweather 1901:23), will shortly be the subject
of separate consideration. As for Clement, he may or may not have been a self-confessed
Gnostic Christian, but even the modern day Gnostic scholars are quick to point out that he
avoided the excesses and extravagances of much of the thinking of early Gnostics sects,
refusing, for example, the temptation of some Gnostics to sunder the whole within a
dynamic of precosmic conflict (Churton 2005:117).

55
56

Clement referred to God the Son as the Name, Energy, Face, etc, of God (Fairweather 1901:27).
Paedogogus I, 6.

Clement was, above all, a believer in reason and intellectual freedom, something of
immense importance to Liberal Catholics. Fairweather writes (1901:16-17):
Clement further maintained that, in order to be a full-grown Christian manhood,
practical piety must be combined with intellectual freedom. There must, he held, be
scope for reason as well as for faith, for knowledge as well as for love. This led him
to attach less importance to mere historical facts than to the underlying ideas. The
letter of revelation he brought under the judgment of reason. But not so as to make
reason independent of faith, which he declared to be as necessary for spiritual as
breath for physical life.

Regrettably, but not surprisingly, Clements eclecticism met with some opposition, and in
203 CE he was deposed as head of the Catechetical School of Alexandria and replaced by
his pupil Origen.
Origen, the great teacher of the Greek Church (Fairweather 1901:viii), indeed the greatest
early Christian theologian and church father, and one who was extremely well-versed in
Greek philosophy, succeeded Clement as head of the Alexandrian School of Theology. He
was a prolific writer on Christian teachings who valued dogma [but] abjured dogmatism
(Fairweather 1901:1x). Among his various writings, De Principiis, Origens treatise of
systematic theology, was the first constructive theology the [Christian] Church had yet
produced (van der Leeuw 1927a:77). It is no wonder that even John Cardinal Newman
could say of Origen, I love the name of Origen. 57 F W Farrar, in his Brompton Lectures
compiled and published with the title History of Interpretation, also paid high tribute to the
significance of Origen as a Christian theologian and philosopher (1886:188):
Like the influence of Socrates in Greek philosophy, so the influence of Origen in
Church history is the watershed of multitudes of different steams of thought.

Origen, like Clement and others of the early Christian era in the Platonic and Neoplatonic
tradition, believed in the essential oneness of all life and, in particular, the indestructible
unity of God and all spiritual essence (Fairweather 1901:96). Origen never doubted that
the word of God was the sole source of absolute certitude, and the sole repository of
essential truth (Fairweather 1901: ix-x), and that the Gospel was the power of God unto
salvation to every one that believeth (Rom 1:16), but he attache[d] the greatest value to a
scientific conception of Christianity ... [h]ence the union in him of the Platonic philosopher
with the orthodox traditionalist (Fairweather 1901:89). According to Origen, all Christian
57

Newman, as cited in Fairweather (1901:v).

doctrine had to be subjected to the light of reason and not simply accepted on faith at face
value. Fairweather writes (1901:89):
As the revelation of the highest reason, Christianity must lend itself to elucidation
by the science of reasoning, and, in fact, it admits of being stated in clear dogmatic
propositions.

Such an approach to the construction, interpretation and application of Christian doctrine

and dogma has been a cornerstone of Liberal Catholic writing and thought throughout the
years. For example, Parry and Rivett ([1969] 1985:3) write:
The [Liberal Catholic] Churchs official attitude is simply to bestow the fullness of all
those teachings and sacraments that may broaden the understanding, whilst
allowing the right to non-literal and unprejudiced interpretation of doctrine and
scripture, and the right to be open-minded.

Origen affirmed and expounded both the transcendence of God as the one eternal Essence
and the immanence of God in the whole of creation, with the latter being revealed in Christ.
We see the influence of this thinking in various parts of The Liberal Catholic Liturgy, but
perhaps never more beautifully than in this portion of the Service of the Holy Eucharist (see
Liturgy 218; 236):
All these things do we ask, O Father, in the name and through the mediation of thy
most blessed Son, for we acknowledge and confess with our hearts and lips that +
+ by him were all things made, yea, all things both in heaven and earth; ++ with
him as the indwelling life do all things exist, and ++ in him as the transcendent glory
all things live and move and have their being:

Fairweather sums up Origens position on the matter with these words (1901:96):
We live and move and have our being in God because by His power and reason
He fills and holds together all the diversity of the world. The task to which Origen
addresses himself resembles in certain respects that attempted by the
Neoplatonists; for him as for them the problem is how to establish the organic unity
of God and the world, and counteract the dualism of Oriental theosophies. 58
58

Cf Acts 17:28 (For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have
said, For we are also his offspring). The reference to the One in whom we live and move and have our being is,
according to several scholars, based on an earlier saying of Epimenides of Knossos (6th century BC[E]) (Note,
The New American Bible [Fireside Study Edition/Catholic]). Epimenides of Knossos was a Greek seer,
philosopher and poet. The saying For we are also his offspring comes from Aratus of Soli, a 3 rd century BCE
poet from Cilicia (Note, The New American Bible). Aratus (c315 BCE/310 BCE-240 BCE) was a Greek didactic
poet. In this and other verses of his writings the Apostle Paul displays his intimate familiarity with Greek writings
and teachings. Also of interest is that Mithraism came to the West when Cilician pirates were settled in Greece
in the first century BCE. One of the major cities in Cilicia was Tarsus from which Paul came some 180 years
after the Cilician pirates had been resettled. Paul was demonstrably familiar with Greco-Roman mystery religion
and his concept of the indwelling cosmic Christ often bears little resemblance to or connection with the historical
Jesus.

Not surprisingly, Origen, like Clement, was also a firm believer in Christian Universalism, 59
the pre-existence of the human soul 60 (with the latter, the human soul, being seen to be a
mirror of the Deity), and the final salvation of all human beings, but this should come as
no surprise to students of the history of the early Church. John Wesley Hanson, the
scholarly author of Universalism: The Prevailing Doctrine of the Christian Church During Its
First Five-Hundred Years ([1899] Online), has written this about the Early Christian
Churchs almost universal belief in universal salvation:
Universal Restitution was the faith of the early Christians for at least the First Five Hundred
Years of the Christian Era. ...
The surviving writings of the Christian Fathers, of the first four or five centuries of the
Christian Era, abound in evidences of the prevalence of the doctrine of universal salvation
during those years.61

Thus, Origen believed that although the created spirit in the exercise of its own free will
shall fall away from God, it must still return to being in him. These are sentiments, indeed
deep convictions that receive eloquent expression in The Liturgy of the Liberal Catholic
Church (see, especially, the Confiteor and the Act of Faith). Fairweather writes (1901:96)
that the ultimate deification of humanity is a leading idea in the Greek theology, something
which is reflected in both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible. For example, Jesus
himself affirmed, Is is not written in your law, I said ye are gods (Jn 10:34; cf Ps 82:6).62

59

See De Principiis, II, x:3, 4.I, I; Against Celsus, iv, 13; VIII. Lxxii. Quoted in Hanson (1899), ch 10.
"In the temporal world which is seen, all beings are arranged according to their merits. Their place has been
determined by their conduct" (De Principiis 3.3.5).
61
See <http://www.tentmakerorg/books/Prevailing.html> (viewed 9 April 2009). See also Stetson (2008).
62
One of T S Eliot's most memorable poems "East Coker" begins with the words, "In my beginning is my end",
and concludes with the words, "In my end is my beginning" (see M Roberts (ed), The Faber Book of Modern
Verse, London: Faber and Faber, 1960, pp 126, 133) in all, a most apt poetic expression of the position
expounded by both early Greek Patristic thought and Liberal Catholic theology.
60

Van der Leeuw (1927a:80) points out that Origen - just like Jesus himself who spoke in
parables to the masses but to his inner group revealed the secret of the Kingdom
of God (see Mk 4:11) - in his various lectures and writings gave teachings such as
the majority could understand but it was only in the company of a small group of
closer disciples that he could expound the deeper doctrines and be understood.
Origen, like Clement, spoke and wrote of his belief in the mysteries of Jesus,
participation in those mysteries, and of the wisdom hidden in a mystery. 63 In
several passages of Contra Celsum, Origens famous refutation of Celsus attack on
Christianity, Origen makes it clear that he not only believed in the existence of the
Christian mysteries ... he knew and spoke of them with the authority of one who had
been initiated into them (van der Leeuw 1927a:85). One such passage from Contra
Celsum is as follows:
... whoever is pure not only from defilement, but from what are regarded as lesser
transgressions, let him be boldly initiated in the mysteries of Jesus, which properly
are made known only to the holy and pure. ... The initiated of Celsus accordingly
says, Let him whose soul is conscious of no evil come. But he who acts as
initiator, according to the precepts of Jesus, will say to those who have been
purified in heart, He whose soul has, for a long time, been conscious of no evil,
and especially since he yielded himself to the healing of the world, let such an one
hear the doctrines which were spoken in private by Jesus to His genuine disciples.
... [Celsus] does not know the difference between inviting the wicked to be healed,
and initiating those already purified into the sacred mysteries! 64

Fairweather, in his book Origen and Greek Patristic Theology, writes (1901:70):

According to Origen, the Spirits chief object in Scripture is to communicate

ineffable mysteries regarding the affairs of men, ie souls inhabiting bodies. [De
principiis iv 11.] But, passing forthwith into the region of the transcendent, he
remarks that among those matters which relate to souls we must rank as primary
the doctrines bearing upon God and His only-begotten Son, namely, of whose
nature He is, and in what manner He is the Son of God, and what are the causes of
His descending even to the assumption of human flesh, and of complete humanity:
and what also is the operation of this Son, and upon whom and when exercised.

The Alexandrian theologians were also eminent philosophers, believing that philosophy was
of divine origin (Philip 1998:Online). In particular, as has already been pointed out on a
number of occasions, the Alexandrian School of Theology had a special focus on both

63
64

Contra Celsum, III, 61.

Contra Celsum, III, 60. See also Contra Celsum, III, 59, 61 and 62.

Christian and pagan (Greek) writings,65 and Alexandria itself (which was in its heyday one of
the intellectual capitals of the Roman Empire) also had more than a passing acquaintance
with Buddhism,66 which itself had an influence upon Greek thought. 67 Insofar as Origens
system of theology was concerned, his philosophy of revelation accounts for the Gnostic
and Neoplatonic features mixed up with it (Fairweather 1901:87).
Origen, who was speculative to the verge of audacity (Fairweather 1901:ix), and even
more of an idealistic philosopher than Plato himself (Fairweather 1901:87), gave us a key
which, if used wisely and intelligently, enables us to find the lost gnosis, the true
theosophia, or what Besant ([1909] 1984:60) referred to as the wisdom underlying all
religions when they are stripped of accretions and superstitions ... teachings [that] aid the
unfoldment of the latent spiritual nature in the human being, without dependence or fear.
The key is this every religion, according to Origen, has a body, a soul, and a spirit. Van
der Leeuw describes it this way (1927:82-83):
Origens conception of the Scriptures was that they could be interpreted in three
different ways, the first according to the letter or the body of the Scriptures, the
second according to the soul, giving the allegorical meaning of the different
passages, and the third according to the spirit, giving the esoteric interpretation.

Origen found the scriptural basis for his tripartite method of interpretation in the Hebrew
Bible, relevantly, among other parts of the Tanakh, in Proverbs 22:20-21:
Have not I written to thee excellent things in counsels and knowledge, That I might
make thee know the certainty of the words of truth; that thou mightest answer the
words of truth to them that send unto thee? 68

When one applies this key to the sacred scriptures of the worlds great religions one finds
that, when they are interpreted literally, they are for the most part at odds with each other,
65

Clement, in particular, was extremely well versed in the writings and teachings of persons such as Marcion,
Plato, Aristotle and Socrates as well as the works of many gnostic scholars.
66
Buddhist gravestones from the Ptolemaic period have been found in Alexandria.
67
Clement of Alexandria wrote concerning the Buddha, Buddhism, and the influence of Buddhism on Greek
thought in his Stromata (Miscellanies), Book 1, Chapter 15, at a time when there already were in existence (and
had been for some time) several active Buddhist communities in the Hellenistic world. Indeed, there appears to
have been more than a little syncretism between Buddhism and Greek philosophical thought. Many of the
ancient Greek philosophers (eg Hegesias of Cyrene, who lived c300 BCE) appear to have been attracted to
Buddhist asceticism and teachings.
68
Fairweather writes (1901:74 fn 2) that the word translated (in the KJV and the RV) excellent things literally
means three or in triple form and is so rendered by the Greek Septuagint () and the Vulgate
(tripliciter), perhaps with the idea of repetition to emphasise the truth. In any event, Origen used Prov 22:20 as
support for his threefold interpretation of sacred scripture.

and largely, if not entirely, irreconcilable. Thus, a passage of scripture such as Jesus saith
unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me
(Jn 14:6) leads Christian fundamentalists to say things such as, God has spoken his final
word in Jesus Christ, and If Christianity is right, all other religions are wrong. 69 The result
a truly horrible state of affairs which has resulted in thousands of years of acrimony,
needless division, wars, inquisitions, heresy trials, witch hunts, martyrdoms, executions,
and so forth.
Now, when one starts to interpret scriptures allegorically, 70 that produces a vast
improvement, and we start to see enormous similarities between the worlds various sacred
scriptures. However, the allegorical method of interpretation has its limitations and involves
a lot more subjectivity and intuitive guesswork than its proponents care to admit, and
suffers from an unavoidable ex post facto and somewhat mechanical superimposition of an
already adopted system of metaphysical or esoteric belief system
The third method of interpretation - the spiritual one - leads one to conclude that, despite
the many obvious differences in the contents of the worlds religions, there is, if one is
honest enough to admit it, some underlying common message, namely that all life is one,
that the One becomes the many so that the many may know themselves to be one, that we
all come from God (whether we care to use that word or not to describe the Sacred or the
Holy and the Ineffable One), that we belong to God, and live, move and have our being in
God, and are godlike in nature, and are each on our way back to God, that as we sow, so
shall we reap, that what belongs to us by right of consciousness can never be lost, and so
forth. All of this is affirmed and embraced by the Liberal Catholic Church and is given
abundant expression in The Liturgy. Origen expressed it this way:
Since then Scripture itself also consists as it were of a visible body, and of the soul
in it that is perceived and understood, and of the spirit which is according to the
patterns and shadow of the heavenly things - come, let us call on Him who made
for Scripture body and soul and spirit, a body for them that came before us, a soul
for us, and a spirit for them that in the age to come shall inherit life eternal, and
shall attain to the heavenly and true things of the law; and so let us for the present
69

In logic, a statement of the last mentioned kind is not an argument at all, but only what is known as a
conditional statement, as it does not state the premises necessary to support its conclusion. In short, it is a
fallacy.
70
Although Origen was certainly not the first to expound the allegorical method of interpretation, he was
certainly the first who attempted to give it a scientific basis (Fairweather 1901:73). According to Origen, the
function of allegorism was to discover, exhibit, and expound the deeper sense of Scripture (Fairweather
1901:76).

search not the letter but the soul. And if we are able, we shall ascend also to the
spirit, in our account of the sacrifices whereof we have just read. 71

For Origen, the Scriptures were a mine of speculative truths even though he never
depart[ed] from the position that the Bible is the sole guide to those higher truths which,
however they may vary as regards the form of their presentation, remain always the same
in substance (Fairweather 1901:71). Nevertheless, there was indeed a divine purpose as
respects the concealment of spiritual truths under cover of some narrative of visible things
or human deeds, or of the written legislation (Fairweather 1901:71), for although the letter
of Scripture is capable of edifying the multitude, who cannot investigate the mysteries
[t]he great instrument for discovering and interpreting the deeper mysteries underlying the
letter of Scripture is the allegorical method (Fairweather 1901:71, 73).
Origen also shared Clements views on the interrelationship, but also the contradistinction,
between faith and gnosis. Fairweather has this to say about Origens views on this matter
(1901:94-95):
Faith Origen views as a whole-hearted belief manifesting itself in a ready
obedience. While accepting the doctrine of justification by faith alone, he holds that
the faith which does not influence conduct is dead. A living faith cannot consist in
sin, but changes the whole walk and conversation. ...
...
Faith gradually develops into knowledge, and the life of faith advances with
every increase in the number of doctrinal propositions the truth of which is
recognised.

Although the mystic element [was] not predominant in Origen, it was certainly present
(Fairweather 1901:93). Thus, Origen, consistent with his mystical understanding of the
Logos (which, according to Clement, is always actively working in the responsive human
soul, ever revealing new spiritual truths to the disciple on the path), placed little weight or
significance upon the Crucified One (that is, Jesus Christ) except as a divine teacher and
special manifestation of the Logos. Fairweather writes (1901:91):
To the perfect, Christ is nothing more than the manifestation of the Logos who has
been from eternity with the Father, and whose activity has also been eternal. It is
not as the Crucified One, but merely as a divine teacher that He is of consequence
to the wise. He was sent indeed as a physician to sinners, but as a teacher of
divine mysteries to those who are already pure, and who sin no more. (Contra
Celsum, iii 63).

71

Origen, In Lev Hom, V.

Fairweather has written of the importance of these early Church Fathers (1901:4):
The special task, then, to which the Christian theologians of Alexandria addressed
themselves, was that of harmonising the apostolic tradition concerning Christ with
the theological conclusions of the Jewish-Alexandrian philosophers a task which
necessarily involved considerable modification of absolute statement on the one
side or the other.

Thus, the early Greek Fathers of the Church saw Christianity as embodying all that was
good and noble in Greek philosophy and pagan religion. Indeed, they went further than that,
stating that whatever elements of truth were contained in the former reached their
completion or had their culmination in Christian doctrine. Fairweather writes (1901:92) of
the hybrid or heterodox nature of at least certain elements of Origens system of theology: 72
The moral and religious ideal set forth in the system of Origen is one which has its
roots partly in Neoplatonic mysticism and partly in Holy Scripture.

Fairweather sums up Origens views and contribution to Christian thought with these words
(1901:93):
For him the ideal to be sought by the human spirit is the state without sorrow, the
state of insensibility to all evils, of order and peace but peace in God. The way to
attain this is through self-knowledge, repression of the sensuous, and due
cultivation of the meditative hour: but in all this he sees nothing inconsistent with
the most active endeavours to promote the kingdom of God.

Archdeacon F W Farrar, who certainly did not approve of Origens version of Christianity,
nevertheless could not, and did not, deny the immense impact Origen had on the early
Church. Farrar writes (1886:201):
The influence of Origen was wide and deep [(fn 1:) Gieseler says that his
exegetical writings were the model and source for all succeeding Greek
commentators (i. 232); he might have added, and for most Latin ones also], and all
the more so because he did not expand and systematise in the Christian Church,
as Philo had done in the Jewish, the principles which [were] at work in the writings
of [other Church] Fathers.

Over time, the religious and mystical philosophy later known as Neoplatonism 73 evolved.
The term is problematic and controversial in that several of those most intimately
associated with this school of philosophy, especially the Egyptian-born Plotinus (204-270
72

Elsewhere in his book Origen and Greek Patristic Theology Fairweather refers to what he regards as Origens
essentially heterodox [theological] system (1901:97) in which Origen incorporated so many philosophical
doctrines with those of Scripture, [so as] to weave them into one heterodox system (1901:94).
73
The term Neoplatonism (neuplatonisch in German) was first coined by a German historian.

CE) and Porphyrey (c234-c305 CE), would have seen themselves as being Platonists, and
can still be seen to this day to have been Platonists, 74 notwithstanding that as time went by
the movement increasingly became a synthesis of not only a number of distinct schools of
Greek thought and philosophy (in particular, Platonism, Aristotelianism, Stoicism and
Pythagoreanism)75 but also esoteric elements from such places as Egypt and India. It would
later become the foundation and backbone of Christian mysticism, and otherwise had a
profound influence upon early Christian thinkers such as Augustine and PseudoDionysius.76 Also, several notable early Christian philosophers (for example, Justin and
Athenagoras) wrote unashamedly of the connections between Christianity on the one hand
and Platonism and Neoplatonism on the other.77
Neoplatonism built upon many of the foundations already laid down by Platonism itself,
especially the core idea that Man originally by the power of the Divine Image within him
could control all Nature, but gradually lost this power through his own fault (Corelli
1966:421) (cf the traditional Christian doctrine of the Fall). For the Neoplatonist, the human
mind was a noble thing - indeed the very throne of the Godhead Itself. The emphasis was
not on our total depravity but on our high calling and innate potential as the image and
very likeness of God. Alexandrian Christology may be said to have begun with Origen, who
believed not only in the pre-existence and multiple ages of the human soul 78 but, more
74

This was certainly the view of the eminent Thomas Taylor who was the first to translate the works of Plotinus
into English (see Mead (1914)) as well as that of the classical scholar John D Turner.
75
Despite what the German philosopher, scholar and literary critic Friedrich Schlegel wrote, albeit in relation to
the question of universals (see Benn 1 1882:283), namely, Every man is born either a Platonist or an
Aristotelian, there has always been synthesisation and syncretisation.
76
Neoplatonism also had an influence upon Islamic and Jewish thinkers.
77
Christian Gnostics, such as Valentinus, did likewise, albeit highly selectively.
78
Belief in the pre-existence of the soul was not peculiar to Pythagoras and Plato, but was also current in the
East, and may well have been suggested to Origen by certain Jewish apocrypha in which there was a large
admixture of Oriental ideas (Fairweather 1901:87-88). As to whether or not Origen actually believed in
reincarnation, the evidence from Origen's own extant works (see, eg, his Commentaries on Jn 6:7 [229 CE] and
Mt 10:20 [248 CE]: see Reincarnation [Online]) tends to suggest that Origen did not actually believe in
reincarnation per se or not at least as the doctrine was generally understood. A local synod (not being an
ecumenical council as such) condemned Origens teachings on pre-existence of the soul held in 543 CE. What
was subsequently condemned at the Second Council of Constantinople held in 553 CE - an ecumenical council
which was not primarily concerned with the issue of reincarnation but with an issue known as The Three
Chapters - was not Origens supposed belief in reincarnation but the actions of certain Origenists (namely
Evagrius and the Isochrists) who had redefined and reformulated (and thereby distorted) Origen's original
Christology so that it came to read like a defence of reincarnation. We may never know what Origens precise
views actually were on the matter of reincarnation. For example, in Contra Celsum it is unclear whether Origen
is asserting his own personal association with Platos belief in transmigration of souls (reincarnation) or simply
referring to Celsus as having made such an association. See also Weatherhead (1957:4, fn 1) who refers to,
among other material, certain statements contained in an article written by the Liberal Catholic priest G N
Drinkwater that had been published in an issue of The Liberal Catholic. See, generally, Hampton (1925) and
Cooper (1927).

importantly, in an eternal, as opposed to a once-only in time, generation of the Son, the

Logos, by means of which God communicates Itself from and throughout all eternity.79 It
was also Origen who wrote the decisive and seminal text of Christian Neoplatonism known
as De Principiis (On First Principles).
Neoplatonism, as a religious philosophy, is a special form of idealistic monism,80 asserting
that all reality is ultimately mental, that the physical world is produced by the mind, and that
we experience the physical world through the medium of ideas and not directly.
Neoplatonism has been described as being the basic philosophy of Plato with special
emphasis upon its mystical content (Hall 1945:27) in other words, Platonic mysticism. 81
As such, Neoplatonism postulates one infinite and primeval Source of Being, which is the
source of all life as well as absolute causality, and the only real existence in which all things
subsist and have their being. Unity is reality, not just the underlying reality behind all
appearances of diversity. Indeed, according to Neoplatonists, diversity is an illusion in any
event. The key to all Neoplatonic thinking is, firstly, that all life is one, and secondly, that
good is co-eternal with unity (Hall 1945:40). This understanding of life needs to be
experienced, not just intellectually, but at the deepest levels of ones being.
Neoplatonists placed a special emphasis on the attainment of the state of enlightenment,
meaning the individual attainment of the philosophic state (Hall 1945:37 and 38) such that
the eternal prisoner, our spirit long buried in the tomb or sepulchre of matter or substance
- the very essence of Life Incarnate - can rise to perfected glory by means of an ongoing
process of purification, knowledge and service to others. The Neoplatonists were also
Universalists, affirming not only their belief in the oneness of life - Gods life and ours [which] is distinctly an Eastern teaching (Pigott 1934:Online) but also embracing the view
that whilst the One ever seeks perfect Self-conscious expression by becoming and taking
the form of the many, the many (indeed, all) will eventually find their way back to the One
Source of Being. This is beautifully reflected in the Act of Faith of the Liberal Catholic
Church (see Liturgy 210, 229):
79

The Alexandrian School of Theology also laid the foundations for the development of Christian humanism.
The Liberal Catholic philosophical orientation is highly monistic in nature. Tettemer ([1951] 1974:252)
describes monism in these terms: I could no longer see how the source of all things, Being, Itself, could create
anything outside itself, as the dualism of Christianity teaches; for outside Itself there could be only non-being, or
nothing.
81
Neoplatonists drew inspiration from, and meditated upon, not just the writings of Plato but also the teachings
of Pythagoras.
80

We believe that God is love and power and truth and light; that perfect justice rules
the world; that all his sons shall one day reach his feet, however far they stray. We
hold the fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man; we know that we do serve him
best when best we serve our brother man. So shall his blessing rest on us + and
peace for evermore. Amen.

Such optimism, especially as regards the idealistic manner in which God is described,
together with the notions of the perfectibility of all human beings, and the idea that perfect
justice rules the word, are very Platonic, and that Platonism carried through to the
Neoplatonism of the 3rd century and, many centuries later, in the revival of Neoplatonism
that occurred, first during the Renaissance, 82 and later in the 19th century, re-manifesting
itself, especially in the United States of America, in such movements as Transcendentalism,
New Thought, Christian Science, Theosophy and other metaphysical movements, but not
unfortunately in mainstream conventional Christianity. Manly P Hall writes that
Neoplatonism was too broad and profound a system of philosophy to gain general
acceptance (1945:18). This is not at all surprising, for, as Fairweather points out (1901:23),
the Neoplatonists borrowed whatever appeared to them good from every possible source.
Fairweather goes on to say (1901:23):
They contemplated nothing less than the introduction of a universal religion,
constructed on principles so broad that the wise of all the earth could adhere to it. It
was their aim to set matters right between philosophy and theology, between
doctrine and life, and to satisfy the needs of the soul on a scale to which
Christianity could make no pretension.

H P Blavatsky supports the view that the Ancient Wisdom entered Christianity in a
prominent way by means of Neoplatonism. She writes (1879:Online):
There were Theosophists before the Christian era, notwithstanding that the
Christian writers ascribe the development of the Eclectic theosophical system to
the early part of the third century of their Era. Diogenes Laertius traces Theosophy
to an epoch antedating the dynasty of the Ptolemies; and names as its founder an
Egyptian Hierophant called Pot-Amun, the name being Coptic and signifying a
priest consecrated to Amun, the god of Wisdom. But history shows it revived by
Ammonius Saccas, the founder of the Neoplatonic School. It was the aim and
purpose of Ammonius to reconcile all sects, peoples and nations under one
common faith -- a belief in one Supreme Eternal, Unknown, and Unnamed Power,
governing the Universe by immutable and eternal laws.

82

During this period Greek and Arabic Neoplatonic texts were acquired, translated and disseminated, resulting
in a revival of interest in the philosophy.

Ammonius Saccas,83 who was referred to immediately above by Madame Blavatsky, was an
Alexandrian-born philosopher and Philalethian, lover of truth,84 who received his early
education in the childrens school which preceded the Catechitical [sic] School, 85 and who
never committed anything to writing. 86 Hall writes that Ammonius convictions were the
direct result of internal inspiration rather than formal study and disputation (1945:179).
Perhaps most importantly, he was the teacher for some eleven years of Plotinus,87 to whom
the work of recording the Neoplatonic teachings was taken up.88 Although many writers
(and not just Blavatsky) refer to Ammonius Saccas as having been the founder of
Neoplatonism, it is Plotinus who is generally credited with having been the principal founder
(in the sense of his having been the developer and perfector) of Neoplatonism, 89 indeed
the greatest exponent of Neoplatonism (von Krusenstierna 1977:28), although it is clear
that Ammonius Saccas was the biggest single influence on Plotinus in terms of the
development of his philosophy of Neoplatonism.
Plotinus was also associated with the Alexandrian School of Theology. His system of
metaphysics and cosmology was quite complex involving three hypostases, namely the
One, the Intelligence or Mind (Nous),90 and the Soul a veritable trinity of sorts, in which
the Intelligence (cf the Son, in the Christian religion) derives and acknowledges its source in
and from the One, as a result of the self-reflection of the latter. The relationship has been
described as being as follows (Moore 2008:Online):
The Intelligence may be understood as the storehouse of potential being(s), but only
if every potential being is also recognized as an eternal and unchangeable thought in
the Divine Mind (Nous). ... The being of the Intelligence is its thought, and the
thought of the Intelligence is Being.

In Christian terms, God thinks but one thought, and that thought is Gods Son. Roman
Catholic archbishop Fulton J Sheen, after referring to Platos question, If there is only one
83

Also known as Ammonius of the Sack, he died between 240 and 245 CE. He was the first person to use the
term theosophy (von Krusenstierna 1977:28).
84
See Great Theosophists: Ammonius Saccas (Online).
85
See Great Theosophists: Ammonius Saccas (Online). Many assert that Ammonius Saccas was largely selftaught.
86
See Great Theosophists: Plotinus (Online).
87
Origen was another pupil or disciple of Ammonius Saccas.
88
See Great Theosophists: Plotinus (Online). It is said that Saccas started the Neoplatonic School in
Alexandria in 193 CE: See Great Theosophists: Ammonius Saccas (Online).
89
Others, such as Proclus, also played an important role in developing and perfecting the teachings of
Ammonius Saccas.
90
Plotinus also refers to the Intelligence as Being, God (theos), as well as the Demiurge (the latter being a more
Gnostic concept).

God, what does He think about, for if He is an intelligent being He must think of
something?, gave this as an answer in his book The Divine Romance:
God does not think one thought, or one word, one minute and another the next.
Thoughts are not born to die, and do not die to be reborn, in the mind of God. All is
present to Him at once. In Him there is only one Word. He has no need of another.
That Thought or Word is infinite and equal to Himself, hence a Person unique and
absolute, first-born of the spirit of God; a Word which tells what God is, a Word from
which all human words have been derived, and of which created things are but
merely the broken syllables or letters; a Word which is the source of all the wisdom
in the world.91

The wording and the thought forms employed by Fulton Sheen in many of his writings 92
show the influence of Platonic and Neoplatonic thought on Christian thought even within
mainsteam Christianity.
Plotinus was not a traditional theist nor a pantheist, and is probably best referred to as a
panentheist. He described the path of spiritual realization as a flight of the alone to the
Alone (Mehta [1955] 1957:12). As for the human soul itself, Plotinus saw it as being
comprised of two parts, namely a higher or divine part, which by its very nature is
unchangeable and eternal (cf the notion of the Self), and a lower part being the seat of the
personality (the false self, if you like, comprising the various Is and mes that give the
appearance of being the real person but which have no real existence in and of themselves
whatever). Plotinus concept of the One, which is entirely self-sufficient and omnipresent,
from which everything else emanates and has its being, is very eastern, and finds much
expression in and throughout the Liberal Catholic Liturgy. For example, in the service of the
Holy Eucharist, we find the following beautiful passage in the Prayer of Consecration
(Liturgy 215):
[W]e lift our hearts in adoration to thee, O God the Son, who art consubstantial
and coeternal with the Father, who, abiding unchangeable within thyself, didst
nevertheless in the mystery of thy boundless love and thine eternal sacrifice send
forth thine own divine life into the universe and thus didst offer thyself as the Lamb
slain from the foundation of the world, dying in very truth that we may live.
91

Sheen (1930:Online), viewed 5 May 2009, <http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?id=3782>.

See also Three to Get Married (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1951), in which Sheen writes
(1951:Online): The Trinity is the answer to the questions of Plato. If there is only one God, what does He think
about? He thinks an eternal thought: His Eternal Word, or Son. If there is only one God, whom does He love?
He loves His Son, and that mutual love is the Holy Spirit. What Sheen is either unable or unwilling to
acknowledge are the Greek roots of the Trinity, although he does state, rather patronisingly, that The great
philosopher [viz Plato] was fumbling about for the mystery of the Trinity ... [but] it was Jesus Christ, the Son of
God, Who revealed to us the inmost life of God.
92

Omnipotent, all-pervading, by that self-same sacrifice thou dost continually uphold all
creation, resting not by night or day, working evermore through that most august
hierarchy of thy glorious saints, who live but to do thy will as perfect servants of thy
wondrous power, to whom we ever offer heartfelt love and reverence.

All of the notable persons referred to above who were associated in one way or another
with the Alexandrian School of Theology were not content simply to believe. They wanted to
know. That should be our aim, both individually and as a Church, today. Despite censure,
hostility and charges of heresy and so forth, much of the mysticism of the Alexandrian
School, being part of what Besant ([1931] 2002) has referred to as an otherwise unbroken
and continuous Universal Wisdom Tradition,93 along with other associated ideas and
concepts such as theosis (or divinisation), finding the Hidden God in our very own lives,
and waking up to mystery, were absorbed into some forms and expressions of Christian
thinking, and can be found to this day in Christian churches such as the Maronite Catholic
Church, the Antiochian Orthodox Church94 - even though those two churches have their
origins in the Church of Antioch - and the Liberal Catholic Church. All these churches lay
special emphasis on the idea that the Son of God became man so that we might become
God. This is a very Eastern perspective. Regrettably, mainstream traditional Christianity
has, for the most part, moved in an altogether different direction. As the American Liberal
Catholic Bishop John M Tettemer ([1951] 1974:211) writes:
It is interesting to speculate on what would have been the development of
Christianity if the Arabs had not brought Aristotle to the Western World in the ninth
century, and if the Platonism of Augustine, or even the Neoplatonism of Plotinus,
had become the prevailing philosophy in Europe, during that period in which the
Churchs doctrines were to receive their final form.95

Sadly, as Hall (1945:172) pointed out:

Neoplatonism could not compete successfully with the rising tides of Christian
Aristotelianism, therefore it never became a popular school of thought. For some
93

The Wisdom Tradition (or the so-called Ancient Wisdom) can be traced in, inter alia, the Upanishads, the
writings of Lao-tze, The Book of the Dead of ancient Egypt, the Kabbalah, various Gnostic writings, the
Pythagorean, Platonic and Neoplatonic schools of philosophy (and, as regards the latter, especially Dionysius
the Areopagite, also known and more correctly referred to as Pseudo-Dionysius), Plotinus, the Rosicrucians, the
Knights Templar, Freemasonry, Scandinavian and Celtic folklore, the great Christian mystics such as Meister
Eckhart, St John of the Cross and Mother Julian of Norwith, Hawaiian Huna, Native American spirituality, Maori
traditions, Australian Aboriginal dreamtime stories, and so forth.
94
The Antiochian Orthodox Church (also known as The Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch and All the East) is
one of the five churches that comprised the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church before the East-West
Schism (the Great Schism). Over time, the rise in power of the See of Constantinople, and later Rome itself,
reduced the importance of the Church of Antioch, and much that was mystical in Christianity (in particular, early
Christianity) was lost as a result.
95
Re-Quest edition of I Was a Monk.

reason, the negative emotions and attitudes come easier to men than do the more
constructive impulses. It is easier to dislike than to like, and we are far more likely
to distrust than to trust. We hope for the best, but we prepare always for the worst.
We talk of the brotherhood of man, but develop elaborate systems to prove the
inequality of nations and the perfidy of individuals. We talk of the fatherhood of
God, and then preach of the gentile and the constant menace of heathenism. In
business there is much mouthing of such words as ethics, cooperation, and fairplay, but ceaseless practice of ruthless competition.

The literalist Christians in the Roman and later Protestant traditions ultimately won out. The
regrettable history of the Christian Church, at least in its so-called more traditional and
conventional forms, is one of increasing dogma, control and dependency. Creativity,
autonomy and freedom of belief on the part of the individual were progressively
discouraged. Dissent was not tolerated. Even the use of violence was justifiable if it
assisted in maintaining orthodoxy. For the most part Christian theology was systematized
along Aristotelian, as opposed to Platonic or Neoplatonic, lines, which was the best way to
achieve the desired result uniformity, consistency, fidelity to the one true faith ... and
obedience especially the latter. All of this is the very antithesis of Platonism and
Neoplatonism. Max Freedom Long, in What Jesus Taught in Secret, expressed it this way
(1983:113):
Christianity, once its basic pattern had been rather completely set, by about 400
[CE], became fixed, and, in a static condition, droned on and on through the Dark
Ages.

Douglas Lockhart in his book Jesus the Heretic explains how Christianity borrowed from
Greek philosophical thought and Gnosticism much of its doctrinal and ethical teaching,
before proceeding to literalise and carnalize it to the point of absurdity, thereby totally
distorting the religion of Jesus, that is, the religion which he taught and by which he lived his
life. Lockhart writes (1997:264):
The Church Fathers tell us that the doctrines of the Gnostics had their foundations
in Plato and Pythagoras, Aristotle and Heraclitus, and in the mysteries and
initiations of the surrounding nations in fact, in just about everything but Christ.
So was there no actual connection with Christianity? Was Gnosticism just a
parasitical body attached limpet-like to the body of the Faithful? Well, not quite. As
we have seen from our survey of Pauls interaction with the Samaritan gnosis, and
the evolution of his Christology in alignment with religious ideas from Samaria and
Arabia, the Christology eventually borrowed from Paul by the emerging orthodoxy
at Rome was replete with Gnostic images and conceptions which they timorously
interpreted back into absurd literalisms ... When merged with the heavily
camouflaged history surrounding Jesus life and teachings found in the gospels,
this muddle took on stupendous proportions and began to turn into the topsy-turvy
theological nightmare modern thinkers are still trying to make sense of. Having
popped Jesus physically into the sky, orthodoxy got rid of the primary influence on

Pauls conception of the mystic Christ, ended up believing its own manufactured
propaganda virtually by accident, and then made it anathema for anyone to
disagree with this cutely concocted system of compulsory beliefs. And it really cant
be argued that all of this was done in innocence that is academic foot-shuffling.96

The Liberal Catholic Church, as already mentioned, formally and proudly identifies itself,
from among the various schools of Christian thought, with the Platonic and Neoplatonic as
being those most closely attuned to the Wisdom Tradition97 which, as a Christian church,
the Liberal Catholic Church believes represents all that is true, valuable and original in
Christianity. Thus, the Liberal Catholic Church is therefore committed to preserving and
promulgating the truths contained in the Platonic and Neoplatonic philosophical and
theological traditions. It would not be overstating the point to assert that most Liberal
Catholics see subsequent theological developments (in particular, the theological writings of
Saint Thomas Aquinas - a person who was fundamentally an Aristotelian in philosophy
and whose writings laid the foundation for the development of Catholic Christianity in a
highly restrictive and regulative manner)98 in what may be termed mainstream or traditional
Christianity as constituting an aberration, indeed a corruption, of Christs original teachings
and principles. As one writer on early Christian history puts it:
Its rather odd, then, that a movement which likely started as a mystery religion
would eventually reject all of its own mystical content, and go after other faiths,
based on that rejection. This is one of many paradoxes that surround the origins of
Christianity. Unfortunately, later Christians destroyed many records of the period,
so we may never know precisely why this happened.
96

Emphasis in the original. Evidence of Pauls panentheistic and cosmic Christology can be found in
innumerable New Testament verses including but not limited to the following: In Christ were created all things in
heaven and on earth everything visible and everything invisible.... Before anything was created, he existed, and
he holds all things in unity (Col 1:15-17); In him we live, and move, and have our being.... We are his
offspring (Acts 17:28); For from him, and through him and to him are all things (Rom 8:36); There is one God
who is father of all, over all, through all and within all (Eph 4:6). See also the complementary Johannine version
of Christological panentheism: Through him all things came to be, not one thing had its being but through him.
All that came to be had life in him and that life was the light of men, a light that shines in the dark, a light that
darkness could not overpower (Jn 1:2-5); God is light, and in him is no darkness at all ( 1 Jn 1:5); God is love,
and anyone who lives in love, lives in God, and God in him (1 Jn 4:16).
97
Section 10 (Philosophical Background), [Final Draft] Statement of Principles & Summary of Doctrine, 9th ed
(London: St Alban Press, 2006). Neoplatonism, in its theology, is panentheistic. Plotinus taught that there was
an ineffable transcendent God (The One) of which subsequent realities were emanations. From the One
emanates the Divine Mind (Nous) the Cosmic Soul (Psyche), and the World (Cosmos), in contradistinction to
many Gnostic sects which held the inverse idea of panentheism. For them, matter was evil and ultimately
flawed, and thus not part of God. This resulted in a dualistic nature of the universe, seen most clearly, and
rigidly, in the teachings of Manichaeism. (Saint Augustine of Hippo passed through stages of Platonic philosophy
and Manichaen theology before embracing Catholic Christianity at the age of 32.)
98
Even though the Protestant Reformation broke with the natural law theology of St Thomas Aquinas, which had
been the ruling legal and moral ideology of Catholic Europe for many centuries, and replaced it with what is
known in law as legal positivism (which should not be confused with the philosophy known as logical
positivism), the Protestant reformers remained Aristotelians for the most part in their basic theological
orientation, despite their opposition to and fundamental break with Rome.

The reason for Christianitys victory is both obvious and simple: Politics. It so
happened that it became popular among the intelligentsia of the eastern imperial
cities especially in places such as Antioch, Alexandria, Nicaea, Carthage, etc.
These cities had managed to ride out the turbulence of the first three centuries of
the Empire. Roman Emperors, beginning with Constantine, needed the support of
the eastern cities, if they were to make the Empire work. So Constantine, in 313,
declared tolerance for Christianity, making it safe to be a Christian. Later Emperors
added even more favours to the young religion (with the exception of Julian the
Apostate who made an abortive attempt to make Mithras the state religion of
Rome).
Once they had Imperial favour, Christians began ruthlessly stamping out all other
religions. In other words, they did to others what had been done to them for nearly
three centuries! They coerced conversions, and destroyed texts and monuments
which were sacred to other religions. 99

At this juncture, it is appropriate to mention Nestorius (386-c451) who was Archbishop of

Constantinople from 428-431 CE. He was a disciple of the School of Antioch 100 which was
opposed to two so-called heresies, Arianism101 and Apollinarianism.102 However, Nestorius is
best remembered for a so-called heresy and Eastern Orthodox schismatic belief named
him, namely Nestorianism, even though it now seems that he probably never personally
held the actual belief.

99

See Christianity and the Mystery Religions (Online).

As previously mentioned, the Church of Antioch was the most ancient Christian church after that of
Jerusalem.
101
Arianism, being the belief attributed to Arius (c256-336 CE), held that the divine Jesus (God the Son) was not
co-eternal with, but was otherwise created by, God the Father. The schismatic belief, which had also been
opposed by Athanasius, was condemned at the Council of Nicea in 325 CE.
102
Also known as Apollinarism, this belief held that Christ had a human body and a human living principle, but
his divine nature (the Divine Logos) had taken the place of and otherwise supplied the functions of his nous
(thinking principle, soul, mind, higher self). Such a belief is monophysite in nature, but not exclusively so.
Monophysitism, an Eastern Orthodox schismatic belief condemned by the Council of Chalcedon held in 451 CE,
contended that Jesus had only one completely fused nature, which was divine, as opposed to two natures, one
human and the other divine. Monophysitism is not to be confused with Monothelitism, another Christological
doctrine and schismatic belief which was officially condemned at the Third Council of Constantinople in 680-681
CE, that some say nevertheless developed from the monophysite position, that affirmed that Jesus had two
natures but only one will. Maronites have been accused (wrongly, it would seem) of having once held
Monothelitism. If anything, the Christology of Maronites tended to be Miaphysite, holding firm to the teaching
and wording of Cyril of Alexandria - who spoke of one (mia) nature of the incarnate Logos (mia fusij tou qeou
Logou sesarkwmenh) - but taking the view that this one nature had both a divine character and a human
character whilst retaining all of the characteristics of both of those natures. Miaphysitism (also known as
henophysitism) has, for centuries, been the basic Christology of the communion of Christian Churches known
as the Oriental Orthodox Churches (also known as the Old Oriental Churches or the Non-Chalcedonian
(Orthodox) Chuches). Those Churches include the Armenian Apostolic Church, the Syriac Orthodox Church, the
Indian Orthodox Church, and the Coptic Orthodox Church but not the Antiochian Orthodox Church (although
the latter is in communion with the Syriac Orthodox Church). In recent years, there have been a number of
important agreed statements between representatives of the Oriental and Eastern Orthodox Churches on
various matters including Christology: see, eg, Middle Eastern Oriental Orthodox Common Declaration (2001),
[Online version] viewed 14 April 2009, <http://sor.cua.edu/Ecumenism/20010317oomtg4.html>.
100

Nestorianism, which had its roots in the Antiochene tradition, affirmed that Jesus had two
(that is, dual) natures such that there was the human Jesus, as well as the divine Jesus,
with both of these natures being real and of equal importance, but each totally independent
of the other in effect, tantamount to two persons living in the same body. 103 At first glance,
it would seem that the Christology 104 of the Liberal Catholic Church is Nestorian in nature,
what with its traditional emphasis on Jesus the man on the one hand, and the Living Christ
or World Teacher overshadowing and otherwise expressing himself through the personality
of Jesus on the other.
However, Nestorius refused to admit the existence of two Christs or two Sons, asserting, as
he often did, the union of the prosopon105 (person), and, upon a careful analysis of the
Treatise of Heracleides106 makes it clear that, if anything, his actual views were not
Nestorian as such (as that term has come to be understood and applied, for the most part
perjoratively by mainstream Christianity) but were otherwise very similar to those held by
many Christians in various traditions, especially Eastern and liberal ones, over the years.
Nestorius said of Christ, the same one is twofold, thus affirming his belief in a union of the
Divine Logos (God the Word) and the human nature or manhood (usia) of Jesus of
Nazareth. These two natures - the usia of God and that of Jesus - were said by Nestorius to
be alien to each other but otherwise formed a union in the one prosopon of Jesus Christ.
This was no ordinary union of prosopa, and ought not to be described or viewed as such,
but rather a communication idiomatum (a transfer of attributes) in which the Logos became
the prosopon of Jesus Christs human nature - a view that is not dissimilar to the early
103

Nestorianism, which also affirmed that Mary was the mother of the human Jesus (Christotokos) but not the
Mother of God (Theotokos), was officially rejected at the First Council of Ephesus held in 431 CE, which
officially declared that Jesus, although divine as well as human, was still only one person. The above mentioned
Council of Chalcedon held in 451 CE officially declared that Jesus had two complete natures, one human and
the other divine.
104
To the extent, that is, to which it truly can be said that the Liberal Catholic Church has a definite Christology.
See, in particular, Sections 3 (Overall Perspective) and 10 (Philosophical Background), [Final Draft] Statement
of Principles & Summary of Doctrine, 9th ed (London: St Alban Press, 2006). All teachings of the Liberal Catholic
may be said to partake of the nature of a theosophy ... [which] differs from theology in emphasising the
importance of each individuals quest for spiritual understanding based upon personal experience (gnosis or
sophia) as opposed to dogmatic imposition of particular interpretations of scripture, which may be limited by
mans knowledge of the world at any one time: Section 10 (Philosophical Background).
105
Nestorius used the word prosopon in two different but otherwise intertwined senses: first, to refer to the
external appearance of a person or thing, and secondly, in the sense in which we use the word person as a
distinct, individual natural person, with the end result being that there can be no separation of the name of a
person from the actual person himself or herself.
106
Also known as the Bazaar of Heracleides, this 16th century text was discovered in 1895.

Liberal Catholic teaching of Christ, admittedly as the World Teacher, uniting himself with
Jesus. Early Liberal Catholics and Theosophists who held this view of Christ (eg Besant
and Leadbeater) believed this union or overshadowing took place at the time of Jesus
baptism. Nestorius was of the view that the union, giving rise to the God-Man, took place at
and from the moment of conception, 107 with Mary subsequently giving birth to the incarnate
Christ as opposed to the Divine Logos which existed even before Mary and all other human
beings were conceived or born ... indeed, before time itself. Such a view is not the
Nestorianism that was declared schismatic, even heretical. Nestorius was correct
humanity and divinity are inseparable, such that Jesus, the embodiment of the power of
suffering love, was at his most divine when he was at his most human, living, as he did, a
life of selfless self-sacrifice a life which reached its culmination and fulfillment in his death
on the Cross. Hence, he that hath seen me hath seen the Father (Jn 14:9).108
Traditional Christians present a picture of early Christianity as being one of order, organization
and, for the most part, uniformity of doctrine and teaching, whilst acknowledging, of course,
that there were some sects and cults that tried, in vain, to present alternative but otherwise
heretical forms of Christianity. Nothing could be further from the truth, and we now know that
there were competing and discordant forms of Christianity, with their own respective
jurisdictions, schools and doctrinal authorities, during the first few centuries of the Christian
Church. Even The Catholic Encyclopedia quotes sources that make it clear that, for no less
than the first three centuries of its existence, the primitive church had no organization ... nor
had [the clergy] a special title.109 The Roman Catholic Church continues to assert its right to
have been the church formed by the Lord Jesus Christ himself when he reportedly spoke
those oft-cited words, And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will
build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it (Mt 16:18).110 However, the
New Testament scriptures do not give any sort of supremacy to Rome. For example, at the
107

See Anastos (1993:202-206), quoting from the Treatise of Heracleides.

On the other hand, a Nestorian would take the view that Jesus sacrificial, suffering love an act of Jesus in
his humanity but not in his deity (Grenz, Guretzhi and Nordling [1999] 2000:86).
109
See Van Hove (1907:Online).
110
Knight (1960:180; Online) writes: The post-Pauline author of Eph 2: 20 is well aware that the Church did not
begin with Peter. This we see in the following statement, We are built upon the foundation of the apostles and
prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief comer stone (cf Liturgy 224). Knight makes the point that
neither Apostolic Succession [in the Roman Catholic sense] nor Protestant individualism [in the form of ones
profession of faith in Christ] is to be discerned in the answer which our Lord gave to Peter (1960:178; Online).
The rock on which the Christian Church rests is, according to Knight, the faithfulness of God, the reliability, the
rocklike trustworthiness of God, onto which Peter steps, as when he was sinking in the Lake of Galilee
(1960:178; Online).
108

Apostolic Council of Jerusalem (see Acts 15:1-29) it was James, who is appropriately
considered the first bishop of Jerusalem, the mother church [of all Christendom] (Kushiner
1986:Online),111 was the presiding elder.
The First Council of Nicea held in 325 CE sanctioned the primacy of three dioceses, namely
Alexandria, Antioch and Rome. The bishop of Rome did not assume the title of Pope, at
least in the sense in which that title is used and understood today, until toward the end of
the 4th century (more precisely in 384 CE).112 The Roman diocese would later gain
prominence and preeminence for a number of reasons discussion of which goes beyond
the scope and purpose of this present thesis. However, it is sufficient, for present purposes,
to simply state that the early Christian churches in Asia Minor did not accept either the
primacy of Rome or the supremacy of the Roman bishops.
So, what went wrong with the Christian Church, a collection of churches none of which is in
full communion with all other churches, which for the most part has regrettably repudiated
its roots and carnalized the teachings of its founders? Lockhart sums it up as follows
(1997:352-353):
Circumstances favoured the growth of a predominantly Hellenistic viewpoint within
the late first-century and early second-century Church, and this viewpoint
eventually overcame the old Nazarene vision of Jesus as Jewish Messiah through
an astute use of Pauls Christological vision. Now the idea of Pauls vision being
usurped and made bend to orthodoxys utilitarian purposes will not be accepted by
Christian apologists in fact it will be cried down as a rank misinterpretation of
those events which led to the formation of the Catholic Church. ... With the benefit
of a false continuity set up between Nazarene, Petrine and Pauline viewpoints, the
Catholic Church has been able to legitimize all of its historical moves since roughly
the end of the first century.

W R Inge, sometime Dean of St Paul's, London, wrote, To become a popular religion, it is

only necessary for a superstition to enslave a philosophy. 113 Right at the very beginning of
the Liberal Catholic Church, when it became known as such, Annie Besant wrote that the new
church has in it the essence of the divine teaching for the people, freed from some of the
incongruities which have grown around the teaching of Christ and His message transmitted
111

Clement of Alexandria himself wrote that James the Just, as he was known, was chosen as bishop of
Jerusalem: see Kushiner (1986:Online).
112
There is historical evidence to show that the title Pope had been applied (albeit with a different
understanding from that generally held today) to bishops of Rome even in the 2 nd century CE, but that was also
the case with respect to the bishops of Jerusalem, Antioch and Alexandria who were also called Pope.
113
W R Inge, Outspoken Essays, 2nd ser, II:iii, The Idea of Progress.

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(Besant, as cited in Norton 1990:14-15). Leaving aside for the moment the last mentioned
reference to what was then and later referred to as the expected Coming (which did not
eventuate in the way some had imagined it would), Dr Besants words, sensibly construed,
remain appropriate for us today. The challenge for progressive Christians in todays world is to
present the true message transmitted to Jesus disciples without the distortions and
corruptions in theology, and the rewriting of Church history, that have occurred over the past
2,000 or so years.

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