John Epps
Encyclopedia
Dr John Epps was best known as a "homoeopathic physician", although his influence was wider as he was involved in "the advancement of commercial, political or religious freedom".
), was born into a Calvinist family in Sevenoaks
, Kent
in 1805.
He became disillusioned with the religious atmosphere of his childhood and, after being educated at the Protestant Dissenters' Grammar School
, Mill Hill
(near Hendon
), served an apprenticeship
to a apothecary
of the name of Dury. In 1824, at the age of 18 he moved to Edinburgh
to study medicine
. While in Edinburgh he embraced the phrenology
of Franz Joseph Gall
and Johann Spurzheim
and became friends with the phrenologists George
and Andrew Combe
. In 1827, Epps graduated at the age of 21. He conceived of medicine as 'a tool of liberation for the poor and lower classes'.
Epps wrote a number of book
s during his life, starting before he attended university
with, among other things, a work titled A New Way of Teaching English Grammar.
(eventually settling in Great Russell Street
) where he began to practice (it is recorded that he was 'much liked by, and inspired great confidence in his patients') and also to lecture
(initially at the Aldersgate School of Medicine, and afterward at Westminster
) on 'chemistry, botany, and materia medica
' at the Hunterian School of Medicine. Here he published An Introduction to Botany, which was intended as a textbook
for his student
s, and two books on phrenology called Evidences of Christianity Deduced from Phrenology and Horae Phrenologicae.
In 1831 he married and became Medical Director of the Royal Jennerian and London Vaccine Institution, an institution which up to his death he supported.
Throughout his adult life he lectured publicly and extensively, particularly on phrenology and homoeopathy, both in London and in other large towns; when his health failed he continued to lecture in his own home. Epps was drawn to homoeopathy in about 1837 after reading the works of Dr Paul Francis Curie (his greatest influence in homoeopathy, apart from Curie, was Samuel Hahnemann
and his work The Organon of the Healing Art
), and his first essay
on homoeopathy appeared the following year.
In line with his political views (see Political involvement below), Dr Epps had a 'very large homoeopathic practice, especially among the lower middle and lower classes of society ', although he also had medical involvement with more well known people, such as Charlotte
and Emily Brontë
.
Dr Epps was a frequent contributor to The Lancet
until he adopted homoeopathy. In 1843 The Lancet refused to publish reports of homoeopathic treatment; Dr Epps took these rejected articles and published them in a pamphlet entitled Rejected Cases, which also contained a vigorous letter to the editor of the Lancet (his friend, T. Wakley).
Epps was also involved in a number of other journals
: He was for some time co-editor of the London Medical and Surgical Journal, and for a long period conducted the Christian Physician and Anthropological Magazine (1836-9), and The Journal of Health and Disease. He established a journal, Notes of a New Truth, for the propagation to nonprofessionals of the "new school" of homoeopathy, to which he contributed up to the time of his decease.
As with Notes of a New Truth, the majority of Epps' lectures were directed at nonprofessionals; however, he also lectured to medical professionals and was lecturer on materia medica at the Homoeopathic Hospital, Hanover Square
(c. 1861).
On 31 January 1869 Epps was 'attacked with paralysis' and, after a further 'attack of paralysis, aggravated by acute asthma, from cold' he died, at the age of 64, on February 12. He was interred at Kensal Green Cemetery
, February 10, 1869, in the presence of a large number of political, medical and personal friends.
and subjects like slavery
were dear to him from an early date. He wrote in his diary
'[I have] come to consider all creatures as being equally important in the scale of creation as myself; to regard the poor Indian slave as my brother'. He was involved in procuring the repeal of the Test Acts (1829) and, along with Francis Place
, W. J. Fox, Francis Burdett and others, with the passing the Reform Bill
of 1832. His campaigning
for social justice
also lead him to become a Chartist
(in 1847 he stood for parliament with Chartist backing), an active member of the Anti-Corn Law League
and joined organizations in favor of the Polish
, Italian
, Hungarian
, and American
nationalities.
It is evident from his extensive lecturing on phrenology and homoeopathy that Epps enjoyed giving public addresses, and the British Journal of Homoeopathy remarks that he was 'as keenly fond of making a speech denouncing tyrants anywhere in the world as of giving a lecture on phrenology or Homoeopathy'.
These frequent public appearances, and the active part Dr. Epps took against 'Church Rate
s [tax], war
, despots
, corn laws, and other old institutions', brought him into contact with many noted individuals, such as Joseph Hume
, Lady Byron
, George Wilson (president of the Anti-Corn Law League), Giuseppe Mazzini
, Thomas Slingsby Duncombe
, James Stansfeld, Lajos Kossuth
, and Robert Owen
.
family.
From an early age he declared himself an enemy to church establishments and a paid ministry, which can be seen in some of the parliamentary
reform
s he pushed for. Epps strongly opposed church rates. He denounced the larger Protestant churches as being the "harlot daughters of Rome [i.e. the Roman Catholic Church
]".
While in Edinburgh he joined the Nonconformist Scotch Baptists who had no fixed minister, but those who were moved spoke. In this environment, at the age of 19, Epps became a preacher
. However, when he returned to London he left the Scotch Baptists because there the sect was run more like the church systems he rejected. After this, regularly and for many years, he began preaching to mechanic
s at Dock Head Church.
church establishments, but he also rejected a number of the mainstream Christian doctrines
. He rejected the doctrine of the immortal soul
, emphasising instead resurrection
as the escape from death
. In this vein, the second coming
of Christ
is also emphasised. He taught that Hell
is the grave
, not the place of torment of mainstream Christianity. He also rejected the Trinity
, stating that Jesus
is the Son
of God, a human
by nature. He also spoke out against the glorification of war-heroes: "the honour of the British flag is a specious phrase which blinds men's eyes to right and wrong", he said.
(1842), though he was one of a long line of Dissenters to take this view stretching back through Simpson
(1804), Lardner (1742), Sykes
(1737), going back to the Dutch Anabaptist David Joris
(1540). According to Epps, references in the Bible
to the devil and Satan
are, in the main, to be understood as personifications of the lustful principle in man. In 1842 he anonymously published a work on this subject entitled The Devil: a Biblical exposition of the truth concerning that old serpent, the devil and Satan and a refutation of the beliefs obtaining in the world regarding sin and its source. The publication brought considerable opposition and, according to historian
Alan Eyre, 'a lecture given shortly afterward to the Tooting Institution at the Mitre Inn in ... London ... caused serious offence and led to widespread ostracism and hostility'. Similarity, a few years prior to this he delivered a series of lectures at the Dock Head Church to demonstrate that the devil is not a personal being and 'this bold assertion drew upon him a world of abuse, and some patients declined to be treated by one holding such heterodox views'.
John Epps' faith
stayed with him throughout his life; it is recorded that 'with his last breath he expressed his humble, yet confident faith in the power, wisdom, and goodness of the Great Father of all spirits'.
Early years and education
Epps, the eldest son of John Epps (see Epps familyEpps family
The Epps family was an English family, well known in commerce and medicine. In the second half of the 18th century they had been settled near Ashford, Kent, for some generations, claiming descent from an equerry of Charles II, but were reduced in circumstances, when John Epps rose to prosperity as...
), was born into a Calvinist family in Sevenoaks
Sevenoaks
Sevenoaks is a commuter town situated on the London fringe of west Kent, England, some 20 miles south-east of Charing Cross, on one of the principal commuter rail lines from the capital...
, Kent
Kent
Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...
in 1805.
He became disillusioned with the religious atmosphere of his childhood and, after being educated at the Protestant Dissenters' Grammar School
Grammar school
A grammar school is one of several different types of school in the history of education in the United Kingdom and some other English-speaking countries, originally a school teaching classical languages but more recently an academically-oriented secondary school.The original purpose of mediaeval...
, Mill Hill
Mill Hill
Mill Hill is a place in the London Borough of Barnet. It is a suburb situated 9 miles north west of Charing Cross. Mill Hill was in the historic county of Middlesex until it was absorbed by London...
(near Hendon
Hendon
Hendon is a London suburb situated northwest of Charing Cross.-History:Hendon was historically a civil parish in the county of Middlesex. The manor is described in Domesday , but the name, 'Hendun' meaning 'at the highest hill', is earlier...
), served an apprenticeship
Apprenticeship
Apprenticeship is a system of training a new generation of practitioners of a skill. Apprentices or protégés build their careers from apprenticeships...
to a apothecary
Apothecary
Apothecary is a historical name for a medical professional who formulates and dispenses materia medica to physicians, surgeons and patients — a role now served by a pharmacist and some caregivers....
of the name of Dury. In 1824, at the age of 18 he moved to Edinburgh
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
to study medicine
Medicine
Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....
. While in Edinburgh he embraced the phrenology
Phrenology
Phrenology is a pseudoscience primarily focused on measurements of the human skull, based on the concept that the brain is the organ of the mind, and that certain brain areas have localized, specific functions or modules...
of Franz Joseph Gall
Franz Joseph Gall
Franz Joseph Gall was a neuroanatomist, physiologist, and pioneer in the study of the localization of mental functions in the brain.- Life :...
and Johann Spurzheim
Johann Spurzheim
Johann Gaspar Spurzheim was a German physician who became one of the chief proponents of phrenology created approximately in 1800 by Franz Joseph Gall...
and became friends with the phrenologists George
George Combe
George Combe , was a Scottish lawyer and writer on phrenology and education. In later years, he devoted himself to the promotion of phrenology. His major work was The Constitution of Man .-Early life:...
and Andrew Combe
Andrew Combe
Andrew Combe , Scottish physician and phrenologist; was born in Edinburgh on the October 27, 1797, and was a younger brother of George Combe....
. In 1827, Epps graduated at the age of 21. He conceived of medicine as 'a tool of liberation for the poor and lower classes'.
Epps wrote a number of book
Book
A book is a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of hot lava, paper, parchment, or other materials, usually fastened together to hinge at one side. A single sheet within a book is called a leaf or leaflet, and each side of a leaf is called a page...
s during his life, starting before he attended university
University
A university is an institution of higher education and research, which grants academic degrees in a variety of subjects. A university is an organisation that provides both undergraduate education and postgraduate education...
with, among other things, a work titled A New Way of Teaching English Grammar.
Medical practice
Immediately after graduating he moved back to LondonLondon
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
(eventually settling in Great Russell Street
Great Russell Street
Great Russell Street is a street in Bloomsbury, central London, England. It is the location of the main entrance of the British Museum to the north. The Congress Centre of the Trades Union Congress is located at number 28...
) where he began to practice (it is recorded that he was 'much liked by, and inspired great confidence in his patients') and also to lecture
Lecture
thumb|A lecture on [[linear algebra]] at the [[Helsinki University of Technology]]A lecture is an oral presentation intended to present information or teach people about a particular subject, for example by a university or college teacher. Lectures are used to convey critical information, history,...
(initially at the Aldersgate School of Medicine, and afterward at Westminster
Westminster Hospital
Westminster Hospital was a hospital in London, England, founded in 1719. In 1834 a medical school attached to the hospital was formally founded....
) on 'chemistry, botany, and materia medica
Materia medica
Materia medica is a Latin medical term for the body of collected knowledge about the therapeutic properties of any substance used for healing . The term 'materia medica' derived from the title of a work by the Ancient Greek physician Pedanius Dioscorides in the 1st century AD, De materia medica libre...
' at the Hunterian School of Medicine. Here he published An Introduction to Botany, which was intended as a textbook
Textbook
A textbook or coursebook is a manual of instruction in any branch of study. Textbooks are produced according to the demands of educational institutions...
for his student
Student
A student is a learner, or someone who attends an educational institution. In some nations, the English term is reserved for those who attend university, while a schoolchild under the age of eighteen is called a pupil in English...
s, and two books on phrenology called Evidences of Christianity Deduced from Phrenology and Horae Phrenologicae.
In 1831 he married and became Medical Director of the Royal Jennerian and London Vaccine Institution, an institution which up to his death he supported.
Throughout his adult life he lectured publicly and extensively, particularly on phrenology and homoeopathy, both in London and in other large towns; when his health failed he continued to lecture in his own home. Epps was drawn to homoeopathy in about 1837 after reading the works of Dr Paul Francis Curie (his greatest influence in homoeopathy, apart from Curie, was Samuel Hahnemann
Samuel Hahnemann
Christian Friedrich Samuel Hahnemann was a German physician, known for creating an alternative form of medicine called homeopathy.- Early life :Christian Friedrich Samuel Hahnemann was born in Meissen, Saxony near Dresden...
and his work The Organon of the Healing Art
The Organon of the Healing Art
The Organon of the Healing Art by Samuel Hahnemann, 1810, laid the foundations of all theory and method of homeopathy...
), and his first essay
Essay
An essay is a piece of writing which is often written from an author's personal point of view. Essays can consist of a number of elements, including: literary criticism, political manifestos, learned arguments, observations of daily life, recollections, and reflections of the author. The definition...
on homoeopathy appeared the following year.
In line with his political views (see Political involvement below), Dr Epps had a 'very large homoeopathic practice, especially among the lower middle and lower classes of society ', although he also had medical involvement with more well known people, such as Charlotte
Charlotte Brontë
Charlotte Brontë was an English novelist and poet, the eldest of the three Brontë sisters who survived into adulthood, whose novels are English literature standards...
and Emily Brontë
Emily Brontë
Emily Jane Brontë 30 July 1818 – 19 December 1848) was an English novelist and poet, best remembered for her only novel, Wuthering Heights, now considered a classic of English literature. Emily was the third eldest of the four surviving Brontë siblings, between the youngest Anne and her brother...
.
Dr Epps was a frequent contributor to The Lancet
The Lancet
The Lancet is a weekly peer-reviewed general medical journal. It is one of the world's best known, oldest, and most respected general medical journals...
until he adopted homoeopathy. In 1843 The Lancet refused to publish reports of homoeopathic treatment; Dr Epps took these rejected articles and published them in a pamphlet entitled Rejected Cases, which also contained a vigorous letter to the editor of the Lancet (his friend, T. Wakley).
Epps was also involved in a number of other journals
Magazine
Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...
: He was for some time co-editor of the London Medical and Surgical Journal, and for a long period conducted the Christian Physician and Anthropological Magazine (1836-9), and The Journal of Health and Disease. He established a journal, Notes of a New Truth, for the propagation to nonprofessionals of the "new school" of homoeopathy, to which he contributed up to the time of his decease.
As with Notes of a New Truth, the majority of Epps' lectures were directed at nonprofessionals; however, he also lectured to medical professionals and was lecturer on materia medica at the Homoeopathic Hospital, Hanover Square
Hanover Square, London
Hanover Square, London, is a square in Mayfair, London W1, England, situated to the south west of Oxford Circus, the major junction where Oxford Street meets Regent Street....
(c. 1861).
On 31 January 1869 Epps was 'attacked with paralysis' and, after a further 'attack of paralysis, aggravated by acute asthma, from cold' he died, at the age of 64, on February 12. He was interred at Kensal Green Cemetery
Kensal Green Cemetery
Kensal Green Cemetery is a cemetery in Kensal Green, in the west of London, England. It was immortalised in the lines of G. K. Chesterton's poem The Rolling English Road from his book The Flying Inn: "For there is good news yet to hear and fine things to be seen; Before we go to Paradise by way of...
, February 10, 1869, in the presence of a large number of political, medical and personal friends.
Political involvement
John Epps Sr was a involved in radical politics and his son followed in his footsteps. Dr Epps was a LiberalLiberal Party (UK)
The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...
and subjects like slavery
Abolitionism
Abolitionism is a movement to end slavery.In western Europe and the Americas abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and set slaves free. At the behest of Dominican priest Bartolomé de las Casas who was shocked at the treatment of natives in the New World, Spain enacted the first...
were dear to him from an early date. He wrote in his diary
Diary
A diary is a record with discrete entries arranged by date reporting on what has happened over the course of a day or other period. A personal diary may include a person's experiences, and/or thoughts or feelings, including comment on current events outside the writer's direct experience. Someone...
'[I have] come to consider all creatures as being equally important in the scale of creation as myself; to regard the poor Indian slave as my brother'. He was involved in procuring the repeal of the Test Acts (1829) and, along with Francis Place
Francis Place
Francis Place was an English social reformer.-Early career and influence:Born in the debtor's prison which his father oversaw near Drury Lane, Place was schooled for ten years before being apprenticed to a leather-breeches maker. At eighteen he was an independent journeyman, and in 1790 was...
, W. J. Fox, Francis Burdett and others, with the passing the Reform Bill
Reform Act 1832
The Representation of the People Act 1832 was an Act of Parliament that introduced wide-ranging changes to the electoral system of England and Wales...
of 1832. His campaigning
Civil society campaign
A civil society campaign is one that is intended to mobilize public support and use democratic tools such as lobbying in order to instigate social change. Civil society campaigns can seek local, national or international objectives...
for social justice
Social justice
Social justice generally refers to the idea of creating a society or institution that is based on the principles of equality and solidarity, that understands and values human rights, and that recognizes the dignity of every human being. The term and modern concept of "social justice" was coined by...
also lead him to become a Chartist
Chartism
Chartism was a movement for political and social reform in the United Kingdom during the mid-19th century, between 1838 and 1859. It takes its name from the People's Charter of 1838. Chartism was possibly the first mass working class labour movement in the world...
(in 1847 he stood for parliament with Chartist backing), an active member of the Anti-Corn Law League
Anti-Corn Law League
The Anti-Corn Law League was in effect the resumption of the Anti-Corn Law Association, which had been created in London in 1836 but did not obtain widespread popularity. The Anti-Corn Law League was founded in Manchester in 1838...
and joined organizations in favor of the Polish
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
, Italian
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, Hungarian
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
, and American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
nationalities.
It is evident from his extensive lecturing on phrenology and homoeopathy that Epps enjoyed giving public addresses, and the British Journal of Homoeopathy remarks that he was 'as keenly fond of making a speech denouncing tyrants anywhere in the world as of giving a lecture on phrenology or Homoeopathy'.
These frequent public appearances, and the active part Dr. Epps took against 'Church Rate
Church Rate
The Church Rate was a tax formerly levied in each parish in England and Ireland for the benefit of the parish church. Out of these rates were defrayed the expenses of carrying on divine service, repairing the fabric of the church, and paying the salaries of the officials connected with it...
s [tax], war
War
War is a state of organized, armed, and often prolonged conflict carried on between states, nations, or other parties typified by extreme aggression, social disruption, and usually high mortality. War should be understood as an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political...
, despots
Despotism
Despotism is a form of government in which a single entity rules with absolute power. That entity may be an individual, as in an autocracy, or it may be a group, as in an oligarchy...
, corn laws, and other old institutions', brought him into contact with many noted individuals, such as Joseph Hume
Joseph Hume
Joseph Hume FRS was a Scottish doctor and Radical MP, born in Montrose, Angus.-Medical career:He studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh and moved to India in 1797...
, Lady Byron
Anne Isabella Byron, Baroness Byron
Anne Isabella Noel Byron, 11th Baroness Wentworth and Baroness Byron was the wife of the poet Lord Byron, and mother of Ada Lovelace, the patron and co-worker of mathematician Charles Babbage.-Name:Her names were unusually complex...
, George Wilson (president of the Anti-Corn Law League), Giuseppe Mazzini
Giuseppe Mazzini
Giuseppe Mazzini , nicknamed Soul of Italy, was an Italian politician, journalist and activist for the unification of Italy. His efforts helped bring about the independent and unified Italy in place of the several separate states, many dominated by foreign powers, that existed until the 19th century...
, Thomas Slingsby Duncombe
Thomas Slingsby Duncombe
Thomas Slingsby Duncombe was a Radical politician, who was a member of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for Hertford from 1826 to 1832 and for Finsbury from 1834 until his death. Duncombe was a tireless champion of radical causes in the 27 years he served the North East London borough of...
, James Stansfeld, Lajos Kossuth
Lajos Kossuth
Lajos Kossuth de Udvard et Kossuthfalva was a Hungarian lawyer, journalist, politician and Regent-President of Hungary in 1849. He was widely honored during his lifetime, including in the United Kingdom and the United States, as a freedom fighter and bellwether of democracy in Europe.-Family:Lajos...
, and Robert Owen
Robert Owen
Robert Owen was a Welsh social reformer and one of the founders of utopian socialism and the cooperative movement.Owen's philosophy was based on three intellectual pillars:...
.
Religious involvement
Epps was brought up in a CalvinistCalvinism
Calvinism is a Protestant theological system and an approach to the Christian life...
family.
From an early age he declared himself an enemy to church establishments and a paid ministry, which can be seen in some of the parliamentary
Parliament of the United Kingdom
The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom, British Crown dependencies and British overseas territories, located in London...
reform
Reform
Reform means to put or change into an improved form or condition; to amend or improve by change of color or removal of faults or abuses, beneficial change, more specifically, reversion to a pure original state, to repair, restore or to correct....
s he pushed for. Epps strongly opposed church rates. He denounced the larger Protestant churches as being the "harlot daughters of Rome [i.e. the Roman Catholic Church
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
]".
While in Edinburgh he joined the Nonconformist Scotch Baptists who had no fixed minister, but those who were moved spoke. In this environment, at the age of 19, Epps became a preacher
Preacher
Preacher is a term for someone who preaches sermons or gives homilies. A preacher is distinct from a theologian by focusing on the communication rather than the development of doctrine. Others see preaching and theology as being intertwined...
. However, when he returned to London he left the Scotch Baptists because there the sect was run more like the church systems he rejected. After this, regularly and for many years, he began preaching to mechanic
Mechanic
A mechanic is a craftsman or technician who uses tools to build or repair machinery.Many mechanics are specialized in a particular field such as auto mechanics, bicycle mechanics, motorcycle mechanics, boiler mechanics, general mechanics, industrial maintenance mechanics , air conditioning and...
s at Dock Head Church.
Views
Not only did Epps reject the orthodoxOrthodoxy
The word orthodox, from Greek orthos + doxa , is generally used to mean the adherence to accepted norms, more specifically to creeds, especially in religion...
church establishments, but he also rejected a number of the mainstream Christian doctrines
Christian theology
- Divisions of Christian theology :There are many methods of categorizing different approaches to Christian theology. For a historical analysis, see the main article on the History of Christian theology.- Sub-disciplines :...
. He rejected the doctrine of the immortal soul
Soul
A soul in certain spiritual, philosophical, and psychological traditions is the incorporeal essence of a person or living thing or object. Many philosophical and spiritual systems teach that humans have souls, and others teach that all living things and even inanimate objects have souls. The...
, emphasising instead resurrection
Resurrection of the dead
Resurrection of the Dead is a belief found in a number of eschatologies, most commonly in Christian, Islamic, Jewish and Zoroastrian. In general, the phrase refers to a specific event in the future; multiple prophesies in the histories of these religions assert that the dead will be brought back to...
as the escape from death
Death
Death is the permanent termination of the biological functions that sustain a living organism. Phenomena which commonly bring about death include old age, predation, malnutrition, disease, and accidents or trauma resulting in terminal injury....
. In this vein, the second coming
Second Coming
In Christian doctrine, the Second Coming of Christ, the Second Advent, or the Parousia, is the anticipated return of Jesus Christ from Heaven, where he sits at the Right Hand of God, to Earth. This prophecy is found in the canonical gospels and in most Christian and Islamic eschatologies...
of Christ
Christ
Christ is the English term for the Greek meaning "the anointed one". It is a translation of the Hebrew , usually transliterated into English as Messiah or Mashiach...
is also emphasised. He taught that Hell
Hell in Christian beliefs
Christian views on Hell vary, but in general traditionally agree that hell is a place or a state in which the souls of the unsaved suffer the consequences of sin....
is the grave
Grave (burial)
A grave is a location where a dead body is buried. Graves are usually located in special areas set aside for the purpose of burial, such as graveyards or cemeteries....
, not the place of torment of mainstream Christianity. He also rejected the Trinity
Trinity
The Christian doctrine of the Trinity defines God as three divine persons : the Father, the Son , and the Holy Spirit. The three persons are distinct yet coexist in unity, and are co-equal, co-eternal and consubstantial . Put another way, the three persons of the Trinity are of one being...
, stating that Jesus
Jesus
Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...
is the Son
Son
A son is a male offspring; a boy or man in relation to his parents. The female analogue is a daughter.-Social issues regarding sons:In pre-industrial societies and some current countries with agriculture-based economies, a higher value was, and still is, assigned to sons rather than daughters,...
of God, a human
Human
Humans are the only living species in the Homo genus...
by nature. He also spoke out against the glorification of war-heroes: "the honour of the British flag is a specious phrase which blinds men's eyes to right and wrong", he said.
The Devil
The most infamous of Epps' unorthodox views regards the devilDevil
The Devil is believed in many religions and cultures to be a powerful, supernatural entity that is the personification of evil and the enemy of God and humankind. The nature of the role varies greatly...
(1842), though he was one of a long line of Dissenters to take this view stretching back through Simpson
John Simpson (Unitarian)
John Simpson was an English Unitarian minister and religious writer, known as a biblical critic. Some of his essays were very well known in the nineteenth century....
(1804), Lardner (1742), Sykes
Arthur Ashley Sykes
-Life:Sykes was born in London in 1683 or 1684 and educated at St. Paul's School. In 1701 he was admitted to Corpus Christi College at Cambridge, where he received scholarship , B.A. , M.A. , and D.D....
(1737), going back to the Dutch Anabaptist David Joris
David Joris
David Joris was an important Anabaptist leader in the Netherlands before 1540.-Life:Joris was probably born in Flanders, the son of Marytje and Georgius Joris de Koman, an amateur actor and shopkeeper...
(1540). According to Epps, references in the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
to the devil and Satan
Satan
Satan , "the opposer", is the title of various entities, both human and divine, who challenge the faith of humans in the Hebrew Bible...
are, in the main, to be understood as personifications of the lustful principle in man. In 1842 he anonymously published a work on this subject entitled The Devil: a Biblical exposition of the truth concerning that old serpent, the devil and Satan and a refutation of the beliefs obtaining in the world regarding sin and its source. The publication brought considerable opposition and, according to historian
Historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...
Alan Eyre, 'a lecture given shortly afterward to the Tooting Institution at the Mitre Inn in ... London ... caused serious offence and led to widespread ostracism and hostility'. Similarity, a few years prior to this he delivered a series of lectures at the Dock Head Church to demonstrate that the devil is not a personal being and 'this bold assertion drew upon him a world of abuse, and some patients declined to be treated by one holding such heterodox views'.
John Epps' faith
Faith
Faith is confidence or trust in a person or thing, or a belief that is not based on proof. In religion, faith is a belief in a transcendent reality, a religious teacher, a set of teachings or a Supreme Being. Generally speaking, it is offered as a means by which the truth of the proposition,...
stayed with him throughout his life; it is recorded that 'with his last breath he expressed his humble, yet confident faith in the power, wisdom, and goodness of the Great Father of all spirits'.