188 Jesus, Prophet of Islam
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The essence of God is most simple and absolutely one, and therefore it is a downright contradiction for one to generate another if they are three independent persons. And the poor little reasons of our adversaries to the con trary to prove that the Father had begot a son of His own substance are ridiculous andimpertinent '" Always till the times of the Nicene Council and sorne time later as appears by the writings of those who lived then, the Father alone was acknowledged for the true God, and those who were of the contrary mind, such as the Sabellians and the like were accounted heretics ... The spirit of the Anti-Christ hath not introduced more dangerous error into the Church of Christ than this doc trine which teaches that there are three distinct persons in the most simple essence of God each of which is itself God, and that the Father is not the only true God but that the Son and the Holy Ghost must be joined with Him. There is nothing more absurd or more impossible and more repugnant to rlght reason '" Also Christians believe that Jesus Christ died to merlt salvation for us and to satisfy the debts which we con tracted by our sins, yet this opinion is false, erroneous and most pernicious. 2. Socianus stated that one of the causes of the acceptance of the doc trine of Trinity was the influence of pagan philosophy, as this pas sage from Toland's The Nazarenes indicates: The Socians and the other Unitarians no less confidently assert that the Gentiles did likewise introduce into Chris tianity their former polytheism and deifying of dead men: thus retaining the name of Chrîstianity but quite altering the thing and suiting it as their interest or the necessity of their affairs required ta all the opinions and customs anywhere in vogue from that time ta this. :l5 It is clear why the writings of Socianus achieved such widespread acceptance. They not only took people back ta a more accurate pic ture of who Jesus was and what he came for, but helped also to destroy much of the power which the Church had over people.