PROPOSITION 17.
Many Learned Men Deny the Immortality of the Soul, and Show that It Came from a Heathen Source
Herodotus, the oldest historian, writes as follows:
The Egyptians say that Ceres (the goddess of corn). and Bacchus (the god of wine), hold the chief sway in the infernal regions; and the Egyptians also were the first who asserted the doctrine that the soul of man is immortal.-Herodotus, page 144.
Mosheim says:
It’s first promoters argued from that known doctrine of the Platonic school, which was also accepted by Origen. and his disciples, that the divine nature was diffused through all human souls. Ecclesiastical History, Volume 1, page 80.
Justin Martyr (150 A. D.) said:
For if you have conversed with some that are indeed called Christians and do not maintain these opinions but even dare to blaspheme the God of Abraham and the God Isaac and the God of Jacob, and say that there is no resurrection of the dead, but that the souls, as soon as they leave the body, are received up into heaven, TAKE CARE THAT YOU DO NOT LOOK UPON THESE. But I, and all those Christians that are really orthodox in every respect, do know that there will be a resurrection of the body and a thousand years in Jerusalem, when it is built again and adorned and enlarged, as Ezekiel and Esaias and the rest of the prophets declare.-Dialogue with Trypho, the Jew, section 80.
An extract from a canon which was passed under Leo X. by the Council of Lateran shows that the doctrine of an "immortal soul" that lives when the man is dead was supported in those days, as it Generally has been since, by the authority of creeds rather than the Word of God:
Some have dared to assert, concerning the nature of the reasonable soul, that it is mortal; we, with the approbation of the sacred council, do condemn and reprobate all such, seeing, according to the canon of Pope Clement the Fifth (not according to the Bible) the soul is immortal; and we strictly inhibit all from dogmatizing otherwise; and we decree that all who adhere to the like erroneous assertions shall be shunned as heretics.- Caranga, page 412, 1081.
Martin Luther, ironically responding to the decree of the Council of the Lateran held during the pontificate of Pope Leo, says:
"I permit the pope to make articles of faith for himself and his faithful-such as the soul is the substantial form of. the human body, the soul is immortal, with all those monstrous opinions to be found in the Roman dunghill of decretals." --Luther's Works, Volume 2 folio 107, Wittenberg, 1562.
In an old work printed in 1772, entitled Historical View of the Intermediate State", on page 348, when speaking of Martin Luther’s. belief in relation to the state of the dead between death and resurrection, it is said he held "that they lay in a profound sleep", in which opinion he followed many of the fathers of the ancient church.
William Tyndall declares that--
In putting departed souls in heaven, hell and purgatory-, you destroy the arguments wherewith Christ and Paul prove the resurrection. * * * The true faith putteth the resurrection, which we be warned to look for every hour. The heathen philosophers, denying that, did put that the souls did ever live. And the pope joineth the spiritual doctrine of Christ and the fleshly doctrine of philosophers together – things so contrary that they cannot agree. * * * And because the fleshly pope consenteth into HEATHEN DOCTRINE, therefore he corrupteth the Scriptures to establish it. * * * If the souls be in heaven, tell me why they be not in as good case as the angels be. And then what cause it there for the resurrection? This translator of the Scriptures into English suffered martyrdom in 1536.
Gibbon declares: "The doctrine of the immortality of the soul is omitted in the law of Moses." -Gibbon, Volume 1, page 530-1.
George Combs says: "No idea can be more erroneous than to suppose that man is an immortal being, on account of the substance of which he is composed." -System of Phrenology, page 595-7.
Parkhurst says: "As a noun nephesh hath been supposed to signify the spiritual part of man, or what we commonly call his soul, I must confess that I can find no passage where it hath undoubtedly this meaning." - Hebrew Lexicon.
Now we have given proof that even men highly esteemed among men deny and give good reasons for denying the theory of the souls immortality. Some, however, will turn to the word spirit, and claim that the Scripture use of this word will sustain that which they are forced to concede is not supported by the use of the word soul. So we will ask you to accompany us while we examine the subject under this heading.