Alright, now that I'm home and not on mobile devices anymore I can finally look up in the Fathers how they thought about the passages and ideas presented by the likes of He Is The Way. As always, a general disclaimer: I'm not saying that you have to agree with any of this, but seeing what the actual historical figures of the Church taught on the Holy Scriptures can provide for us a window into the various streams of thought in Christianity across the ages and in different parts of the world which are much closer to Christ's own time and context than we are, and so will hopefully put a stop to the "this must mean" kind of posting, wherein the Mormon theology is substituted for Christian theology, such as that which you find in the history of the Church, from her own most respected theologians (again, not always most agreed with; many spent long years banished from their sees for the sake of their faith).
All that said, we read in the commentary of our father HH St. Cyril of Alexandria, the foremost opponent of Nestorius in the East (notable in relation to this because of Nestorius' error concerning the nature of Christ), the following, in b
ook 11 of his commentary on the Gospel of St. John (I'm not sure if this is the exact same passage or just a slightly different translation than the one used in HITW's post, but in either case it addresses the same "that they may be one as we are one" language; the bolding is mine, just by the way):
He saith, then: Holy Father, keep them in Thy Name which Thou hast given Me; that they may be one, even as We are. He desires His disciples to be kept by the power and might of the Ineffable Divine Nature, well and suitably attributing the power of saving whomsoever He will, yea, and with ease, to the true and living God; and thereby, again, He glorifies no other nature than His own, as in the Person of the Father, from Whom He proceeded as God. Therefore He saith, Father, keep them in Thy Name which Thou hast given Me; that is, the Name of God. He says again, that the Name of God was not given unto Him as though He had not been God by Nature, and were now called from without to the dignity of Godhead. For then would He be created, and possess a spurious and elective glory and an adulterate nature, which it were impious for us to imagine. For thereby He would be mulcted of His inherent character of Sonship. But since, as the inspired writings prophesy, the Word became flesh, that is, man, He says that He received Divine attributes by gift; for clearly the title and actuality of Divine glory could not naturally attach to man. But consider, and attentively reflect, how He showed Himself the living and inherent Power of God the Father, whereby He doeth all things. For when, addressing His Father, He says, Keep them, He did not indeed suffice for them alone, but suitably brought in Himself as working for their preservation and being for that purpose also the power and instrument of His Father; for He says: Keep them in Thy Name which Thou hast given Me. Note how guarded the saying is. For allotting and attributing as suitable only to the Nature of God providential care over us, He declares at once that to Himself has been given the glory of Godhead, because of the form of manhood, saying that what was His by natural right was given to Him; that is, the Name which is above every name. Therefore also we say that this Name belongs to the Son by nature, as proceeding from the Father; but, so far as He is Man, those things are His by gift which He receives as Man, using herein the form of speech applicable to ourselves; for man is not God by nature, but Christ is God by nature, even though He be conceived of as Human because He was amongst us.
He wishes indeed the disciples to be kept in unity of mind and purpose, being blended, as it were, with one another in soul and spirit and the bond of brotherly love; and to be linked together in an unbroken chain of affection, so that their unity may be so far perfected as that their elective affinity may resemble the natural unity which exists between the Father and the Son; and, remaining undebased and invincible, may not be distorted by anything whatever that exists in the world, or by the lusts of the flesh, into dissimilarity of purpose; but rather preserving in the unity of true piety and holiness the power of love intact, which also came to pass. For, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles, the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and soul, in the unity that is of the Spirit. And this is what Paul himself also meant, when he said: One body and one Spirit; for we who are many are one body in Christ, for we all partake of the one bread, and we have all received the unction of one Spirit, that is, the Spirit of Christ. As, then, they were to be one body, and |515 to partake of one and the selfsame Spirit, He desires His disciples to be preserved in a unity of spirit which nothing could disturb, and in unbroken singleness of mind. And if any man suppose that after this manner the disciples are united even as the Father and the Son are One, not merely in Substance, but also in purpose (for the holy Nature of God has one Will, and one and the selfsame purpose altogether), let him so think. For He will not stray wide of the mark, since we can see identity of purpose among true Christians, though we have not consubstantiality as the Father and the Word That proceeded from Him, and is in Him.
And from his predecessor on the throne of St. Mark in Egypt, HH St. Athanasius the Apostolic, we read in
his third discourse against the Arians the following (bolding is again mine; sorry there's so much of it in this one, but really...this reads like it could've been written against the LDS theology today by a Christian theologian answering that, rather than the Arians -- and, no, for those of you paying attention to Mormon claims for a while, that should not be at all surprising!
):
The Arians, however, not even thus abashed, reply, 'Not as you say, but as we will ;' for, whereas you have overthrown our former expedients, we have invented a new one, and it is this:— So are the Son and the Father One, and so is the Father in the Son and the Son in the Father, as we too may become one in Him. For this is written in the Gospel according to John, and Christ desired it for us in these words, 'Holy Father, keep through Your own Name, those whom You have given Me, that they may be one, as We are (
John 17:11). And shortly after; 'Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe in Me through their Word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You have sent Me. And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one, even as We are one; I in them, and You in Me, that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You sent Me.'
Then, as having found an evasion, these men of craft add, 'If, as we become one in the Father, so also He and the Father are one, and thus He too is in the Father, how pretend you from His saying, I and the Father are One, and I in the Father and the Father in Me, that He is proper and like the Father's Essence? For it follows either that we too are proper to the Father's Essence, or He foreign to it, as we are foreign.' Thus they idly babble; but in this their perverseness I see nothing but unreasoning audacity and recklessness from the devil, since it is saying after his pattern, 'We will ascend to heaven, we will be like the Most High.'
For what is given to man by grace, this they would make equal to the Godhead of the Giver. Thus hearing that men are called sons, they thought themselves equal to the True Son by nature such. And now again hearing from the Saviour, 'that they may be one as We are (John 8:44),' they deceive themselves, and are arrogant enough to think that they may be such as the Son is in the Father and the Father in the Son; not considering the fall of their 'father the devil ,' which happened upon such an imagination.
I hate to sound repetitive, but the first bolded section about "these men of craft" is I'm pretty sure something that I have read from Mormons on this website before, and I know that the second section is, since it's the meat (if it can so be called) of the argument being made in this very thread right now by the Mormons! That "that they may be one as We are" applies to them/us, and hence they've 'trapped' us with this Bible verse so as to either renounce our own theology or embrace theirs -- as HITW wrote in another post "Awesome Now you believe we can have that same divinity. That is good news!" Is it really, though? Is it, when you have a man who lived and wrote and preached about 1500 years before your prophet was even born calling the arguments you are making today the product of "the fall of their father the devil, which happened upon such an imagination"? (read: they're Satanically-inspired theology)
I don't think that's awesome at all. Awesomely
heretical, maybe, but not awesome in the common sense of the word.
And from the Western fathers (I need to leave soon, but I wanted to include at least one, so that you don't think that this is purely an Egyptian phenomenon that I am agreeing with because these are theologians of my Church; this is not the case, and both saints are widely venerated outside of Coptic Orthodox Christianity, by Catholics, high-church Protestants, Eastern Orthodox, etc.), we can read such expositions as the following in St. Hilary of Poitier's work
De Trinitate ("
On The Trinity", c. late 350s-early 360s; again, bolding is mine):
Now seeing that heretics cannot deny these things because they are so clearly stated and understood, they nevertheless pervert them by the most foolish and wicked lies so as afterwards to deny them. For the words of Christ, I and the Father are one, they endeavour to refer to a mere concord of unanimity, so that there may be in them a unity of will not of nature, that is, that they may be one not by essence of being, but by identity of will. And they apply to the support of their case the passage in the Acts of the Apostles, Now of the multitude of them that believed the heart and soul were one, in order to prove that a diversity of souls and hearts may be united into one heart and soul through a mere conformity of will. Or else they cite those words to the Corinthians, Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one, to shew that, since They are one in Their work for our salvation, and in the revelation of one mystery, Their unity is an unity of wills. Or again, they quote the prayer of our Lord for the salvation of the nations who should believe in Him: Neither for these only do I pray, but for them also that shall believe on Me through their Word; that they all may be one; even as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be in Us, to shew that since men cannot, so to speak, be fused back into God or themselves coalesce into one undistinguished mass, this oneness must arise from unity of will, while all perform actions pleasing to God, and unite one with another in the harmonious accord of their thoughts, and that thus it is not nature which makes them one, but will.
Again, sounds suspiciously like Mormon arguments and Mormon theology, doesn't it? A unity not of nature, but of will. Hmmm.
Strange how all of these men, who did not necessarily directly know each other, and lived in diverse places and times (St. Hilary was from what is today France), came to the same conclusion about what "that they may be one as We are one" does not mean, and that this conclusion is 100% against Mormonism, to the point that its refutation sounds suspiciously like what could pass for a modern refutation of Mormonism.
And believe me, it's not a matter of me saying "Look how Orthodox I am! I agree with these three people!" because (1), I bet everyone reading these who is a self-identified Christian of any given Christian Church (not necessarily an Oriental Orthodox Church) will agree with them, and (2), they obviously wrote these things long before any of us, or Joseph Smith, or Brigham Young, or anyone who could possibly be involved in a conversation between a Christian and a Mormon ever existed. So how did they get it so on the nose concerning the heretics of their day and what they believed and why it was wrong?
It's quite simple, really: What Mormonism claims to be its own special 'restoration' of the early Christian Church
is a restoration -- either consciously or unconsciously (I can't pretend to read JS et al.'s minds) -- of what were in fact very ancient heresies, long rejected by all the Fathers of both East and West, because they are simply that antithetical to the very basics of the Christian religion.
So when Mormons say that they are the restored ancient Church, look hard at what the
actually preserved Church (not the fantasy one that Mormons say was 'taken from the earth', so as to conveniently have
no documentary evidence to be scrutinized in the way that we can read the thoughts of the above theologians who actually existed in their given eras and times) had to say. When you find something that looks like Mormonism (and you will; as the Holy Scriptures themselves tell us, there is nothing new under the sun), it will invariably be followed or preceded by "Some heretics say" or "Some heretics do" or something of that sort.
Mormonism is heresy. Pure heresy, Spiritual poison. The Fathers prove it, and nothing the Mormons can do short of leaving Mormonism will have any effect on this conclusion, because again, it was arrived at
centuries before JS was alive. (And, I should say, as an aside, that the works above were written within the time period when the BOM civilizations were said to have existed according to most Mormon-written timelines I have seen which end in the 420s AD, so if the Mormons are going to take all that as true even though there is not a shred of evidence for any of it, all the while maintaining that
these works which we still have and can read are false
based on their not conforming to a specifically Mormon theology which would not be expressed as it is now until about a millennia and a half after them...well...I don't even know what to say to that. The Roman Catholic concept of 'invincible ignorance' is looking
mighty good right about now, if it weren't for the fact that the presence of ex-Mormon, now-Christian folks like our dear sister Phoebe Ann shows that Mormonism-generated ignorance is not in fact invincible! Anything is possible with God!)
