LDS Priesthoods Not Found In The Writings Of The Early Church Fathers

[Ignatius the Kiwi]

I would like the Mormons here to explain to us Christians how, if the Roman emperor was the leader of the Church after 325 AD and made or arbitrated over all its major decisions, Christianity still existed after the most infamous Constantinian ruler, Emperor Julian, renounced Christianity and set about attempting to reestablish classical Greek paganism as the religion of the empire. Julian's rule was announced in early 360, long after the death of Constantine in 337.

I honestly think this fascination of critiquing Christianity's relationship with secular powers is a product of the enlightenment. It's an attempt to reduce Christianity's influence and drive it out of the public sphere by suggesting that as a religion it compromised itself when when it cooperated with state authorities. Sometimes it did and sometimes it didn't. Christians sometimes cooperated with state authorities when the Empire was against Christianity, by burning incense to Caesar or handing over holy books. It was a big enough problem for there be a schism (Novatian) over it within Christianity at the time.

Lest we forget that when Christianity became the religion of Empire under Theodosius this allowed Christians to have an influence in Roman law. For Christians to be represented by their Emperor and fight for their interests. We can point to abuses and have long since recognized them, but this attempt made restorationist sects (I also recall a lot of Atheists making this argument) to throw the whole Church out is simply madness. It's the suggestion ultimately that Christians have no right to govern themselves, no right set up laws which reflect their faith.

I'm left asking the same question to Mormons that I asked before. Given God's abandoning of us. What else were we supposed to do? God gave us no Prophets, he gave us no Apostles. He could have. Nothing was stopping him from giving his free gifts of the sacred rites to the world. Instead he deprived his people of these essential things, deprived them of these essential revelations.

 

[Ignatius the Kiwi]

We do believe in keeping the laws. That being said we do believe in keeping the commandments that Jesus gave to us. I worry that the inquisition may eventually happen again. I believe that many of the people killed were innocent of wrongdoing. I do not believe that people like king Ferdinand and Queen Isabella should have had the power to do what they did. Has God ever advocated torture?

It's an interesting case. God will judge Queen and King Isabella but I am not of the mind to condemn them entirely for the inquisition. As a means of controlling the state and ensuring disloyal elements would remain in check there is a political argument for why it was necessary, given the presence of false Muslims and Christians in the Spanish population. The edict of expulsion, while traumatic for the losers was the final repudiation of foreign influence in Spain by a population that simply could not be trusted. I do not think it wrong for the Spanish Monarchs to have kicked out the Muslims. They were a dangerous presence and to allow them to remain would only breed rebellion to a liberated Iberia.

That and I also think the numbers for the Inquisition have been wildly inflated in the popular imagination. Wikipedia says there were a total of 150,000 prosecutions. Out of those 3000 or 5000 were executed. When you look at some of the things the Inquisition targeted, like Sodomy for instance I'm frankly impressed by their efforts.

But your looking at the question wrongly. There will always be inquisitions. There will always be state authority meddling in the lives of ordinary people. At the moment we see a new kind of inquisition with China's social credit system or their outright holocaust of Uighur Muslims. An action I find abhorrent and stand opposed to. Politically it will reap a beneficial result in the future if the Uighyrs give into the CCP.

My recommendation, don't look at history from an American lens. It's not helpful.

 

[He is the way]

The king and queen were Catholic but not part of the leadership of the Catholic Church. However they controlled the church leaders during the inquisition:

"In the late 15th Century, King Ferdinand II and Queen Isabella of Spain believed corruption in the Spanish Catholic Church was caused by Jews who, to survive centuries of anti-Semitism, converted to Christianity.

Known as Conversos, they were viewed with suspicion by old powerful Christian families. Conversos were blamed for a plague and accused of poisoning peoples’ water and abducting Christian boys.

Ferdinand and Isabella feared that even trusted Conversos were secretly practicing their old religion; the royal couple was also afraid of angering Christian subjects who demanded a harder line against Conversos—Christian support was crucial in an upcoming crusade against Muslims planned in Granada.

Ferdinand felt an Inquisition was the best way to fund that crusade, by seizing the wealth of heretic Conversos.

Galileo on trial in 1633.

In 1545, the Spanish Index was created, a list of European books considered heretical and forbidden in Spain, based on the Roman Inquisition’s own Index Librorum Prohibitorum. In other nods to Rome’s concerns, the Spanish Inquisition focused on the rising population of Spanish Protestants in the 1550s.

Philip II ascended the Spanish throne. He had previously brought the Roman Inquisition to the Netherlands, where Lutherans were hunted down and burned at the stake.

Inquisition in the New World
As Spain expanded into the Americas, so did the Inquisition, established in Mexico in 1570. In 1574, Lutherans were burned at the stake there, and the Inquisition came to Peru, where Protestants were likewise tortured and burned alive.

In 1580 Spain conquered Portugal and began rounding up and slaughtering Jews that had fled Spain. Philip II also renewed hostilities against the Moors, who revolted and found themselves either killed or sold into slavery.

Philip II died in 1598 and his son, Philip III, dealt with the Muslim uprising by banishing them. From 1609 to 1615, 150,000 Muslims who had converted to Catholicism were forced out of Spain.

By the mid-1600s the Inquisition and Catholic dominance had become such an oppressive fact of daily life in Spanish territories that Protestants avoided those places altogether.

End of the Spanish Inquisition
In 1808, Napoleon conquered Spain and ordered the Inquisition there to be abolished.

After Napoleon’s defeat in 1814, Ferdinand VII worked to reinstate the Inquisition but was ultimately prevented by the French government, which helped Ferdinand overcome a fierce rebellion. Part of the agreement with France was to dismantle the Inquisition, which was defunct by 1834.

The last person to be executed by the Inquisition was Cayetano Ripoll, a Spanish schoolmaster hanged for heresy in 1826.

The Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition still exists, though changed its name a couple of times. It is currently called the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith."

More about this here:

Sources
God’s Jury: The Inquisition and the Making of the Modern World. Cullen Murphy.
Inquisito. University of Notre Dame.
The Spanish Inquisition. Cecil Roth.


History.com Editors

Website Name
HISTORY

URL
Inquisition

Access Date
December 5, 2020

Publisher
A&E Television Networks

Last Updated
August 21, 2018

Original Published Date
November 17, 2017

TAGS
RELIGION
HISTORY.COM EDITORS

 

[chevyontheriver]

We do believe in keeping the laws. That being said we do believe in keeping the commandments that Jesus gave to us. I worry that the inquisition may eventually happen again. I believe that many of the people killed were innocent of wrongdoing. I do not believe that people like king Ferdinand and Queen Isabella should have had the power to do what they did. Has God ever advocated torture?

And, as I explained before, the Spanish Inquisition was a kinder and gentler thing than the Spanish civil government. They kept excellent records, which is the way we can actually know what happened as opposed to the mythology. And the actual historical records indicate that common crooks caught by the Spanish civil authorities would then purposefully blaspheme so they had to be turned over to the Inquisition instead. The inquisition treated them better. The records show it. And what they show is that the Spanish Inquisition, although the worst of any of the inquisitions by far, was more moderate than the Spanish state.

I wonder. When the State tries to control the Church, bad things happen. When the Church tries to control the State, as in Mormon history, bad things happen too. It's always been a bit of a teeter-totter, but the balance has been maintained through most of the history of the Church. Is it an actual balance in Mormonism now, or not yet?

 

[chevyontheriver]

The king and queen were Catholic but not part of the leadership of the Catholic Church. However they controlled the church leaders during the inquisition:

They had influence on some Church leaders, particularly in Spain and Spanish colonies. They did not run the Church, neither the universal Church nor the Church in Spain, even if they had more influence than would be liked.

 

[Ignatius the Kiwi]

The king and queen were Catholic but not part of the leadership of the Catholic Church. However they controlled the church leaders during the inquisition:

I'm curious Peter. Was taking Granada from the Muslims an immoral action?

 

[dzheremi]

I honestly think this fascination of critiquing Christianity's relationship with secular powers is a product of the enlightenment.

I'd agree, but I wouldn't want the Mormons getting the impression that I'm saying that they're enlightened in any fashion.

Lest we forget that when Christianity became the religion of Empire under Theodosius this allowed Christians to have an influence in Roman law. For Christians to be represented by their Emperor and fight for their interests. We can point to abuses and have long since recognized them, but this attempt made restorationist sects (I also recall a lot of Atheists making this argument) to throw the whole Church out is simply madness. It's the suggestion ultimately that Christians have no right to govern themselves, no right set up laws which reflect their faith.

I suppose. I've always said in a modern American context in reply to those kinds of arguments that I can either vote my own conscience or vote theirs (whoever the person making the argument is), and seeing as how they already have their own vote with which to vote their own consciences, I'm not going to allow them to vote twice using an attempt to make me feel bad to make me go along with whatever they believe in instead.

I would say the exact same to Mormons who are pushing their bizarre anti-historical (it's not just ahistorical, as in untethered from the historical record, but actively against that same historical record which we've all shown them in this thread) narrative: you have a right to put out whatever garbage view you'd like to in lieu of recognizing historical facts, but you don't have any sort of right to subvert the actual history of people, places, and things as they are recorded in our respective histories by continuously pointing and exclaiming "oh, here was a bad guy, over there was another bad guy; here a Christian ruler did this bad thing, and over there another did another bad thing, etc.". Or, rather, just like in my strained voting analogy, you can certainly try, but you're not going to win me over by the strength of your belief in your alternate history, since I already have my own, and it actually corresponds to reality as preserved in sources that are uncontroversially accepted in history more generally. Anyone can read about the exiles of HH St. Athanasius the Apostolic even in secular encyclopedias like the Encyclopedia Britannica or any of the many, many histories of the Roman Empire. He's generally included somewhere in chapters on late Roman Egypt.

I'm left asking the same question to Mormons that I asked before. Given God's abandoning of us. What else were we supposed to do? God gave us no Prophets, he gave us no Apostles. He could have. Nothing was stopping him from giving his free gifts of the sacred rites to the world. Instead he deprived his people of these essential things, deprived them of these essential revelations.

I think it's pretty clear by now, Ignatius, that the only thing we're supposed to do is convert to Mormonism. Why our Mormon friends don't then make the case for Mormonism instead of making the case against Christianity, I don't know...

Oh. Wait. Yes I do. It's because if Christianity isn't actually irrecoverably 'apostate' and/or never went into 'total apostasy', there's no reason for Mormonism to ever exist. I forgot for a second about how Mormonism stands or falls on this charge. Silly me.

 

[Peter1000]

Your analysis of Constantine sort of makes my point about the Mormon view of history. Constantine was not an Apostle by anyone’s reckoning. Not in the terms of an official office, not in the terms of authority he had over the Church.

Constantine was not an apostles, that is true, but he took a leadership roll in the church as if he was. If Constantine said this, the church did this. If Constantine said that, the church did that. Perfect example is Athanasius of Alexandria, one of the great men of Alexandria, that the people loved and were devoted to, but yet Constantine said I do not want him as bishop of Alexandria, and so he wasn't, and was exhiled out of view. Why would the church allow this to happen, because the mighty men of the church depended upon their positions upon the real head of the church who just had an army to back him up. They did not want to lose their thrones, by disagreeing with the emperor. So Constantines authority over the church was complete, for he was able to exhile and replace one of the greatest bishops of his time. Of course he did not get into every decision, but the big ones he certainly did. And that was the case for hundreds of years after him, as the emperors dabbled in church affairs, some more than others.

Yes the church came out the other end, but was it the same church? Heads of governments were always pushing their noses into church affairs. European governments were essential to protestantism and ran the churches and secular buisness. It was all one big business.

Political authority was important for the strengthening of the Orthodox position

,
Yes it was, but when the emperor started to be the one that chose the patriarch, then God no longer had his had in it, and was replaced by the emperor and appointments were made for political purposes rather than for the good of the people of the church.

Still, I find it odd that God could not have raised up a Mormon Emperor.

He did not want an emperor type, he wanted an apostle and prophet type like in the bible. JS was the perfect modern apostle and prophet for God.

 

[chevyontheriver]

If Constantine said this, the church did this. If Constantine said that, the church did that.

Er ... no. Constantine called a whole ecumenical council to get a compromise between Arius and the Catholic bishops. He said "Compromise" and they didn't. Instead they came down hard against Arius and the Arians. Constantine said that, and the Church did otherwise,

Perfect example is Athanasius of Alexandria, one of the great men of Alexandria, that the people loved and were devoted to, but yet Constantine said I do not want him as bishop of Alexandria, and so he wasn't, and was exhiled out of view. Why would the church allow this to happen, because the mighty men of the church depended upon their positions upon the real head of the church who just had an army to back him up. They did not want to lose their thrones, by disagreeing with the emperor. So Constantines authority over the church was complete, for he was able to exhile and replace one of the greatest bishops of his time. Of course he did not get into every decision, but the big ones he certainly did. And that was the case for hundreds of years after him, as the emperors dabbled in church affairs, some more than others.

Sorry. The emperor used his civil authority to exile Athanasius. The Church didn't exile Athanasius. The Empire did. He was first deposed as bishop by the Arians, who had come to dominate after the council. At his civil trial he was found guilty of grain manipulation - a rather trumped up charge. His second exile was after Constantine died, and Athanasius found support with the pope. Athanasius had trouble with both the Emperors and the Arians. The council of Nicea stood up to both the Arians and the Emperor. It would have been easier for them to go along with the Emperor, but they didn't. In your view the Church went along with Constantine. In real history they didn't, and as a result they were almost overrun by the Arians and the Emperor had more sympathy with the Arians.

Athanasius of Alexandria - Wikipedia

 

[BigDaddy4]

Jesus told the apostles to go and preach his gospel to all the earth, and to baptize the believers in the name of the Father and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. He gave Peter the keys of the kingdom of heaven and the other 11 the power to bind and loose.

If they did not have the power to bind and loose, they would not be able to bind a person to the church through baptism. Since Christ could not be here to baptize new members, he must rely on men on the earth to perform this function, and if the function is not performed, the new member could not be saved.

Yes, Jesus needed the apostles and prophets and others to help him save people. If Jesus did not need the apostes etc, and the church, he would have never set them up with that authority.
He would have just said, wait until God, my Father entices you to believe in me, then I will send the Holy Ghost and you shall be baptized of fire and the Holy Spirit. You will then be mine, and no matter what you do after this until you die, I will lead you into my kingdom. Then nobody is needed to help Jesus. God and Jesus do it all and you are saved. The bible disputes this doctrine on every page.

According to Ephesians 4:11-14 Jesus and the church still need these men, and the true church will have them.

According to 1 Cor 1:13-17, Paul, an Apostle, showed little importance to personally baptizing the Corinthian believers. That, apparently, was left up to others. Who could those people have been? Did they have the "proper authority"? What other Apostles/prophets with the "proper authority" travelled to
Corinth? Your focus on "proper authority" is misguided.

13 Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized in the name of Paul? 14 I thank God that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius, 15 so no one can say that you were baptized in my name. 16 (Yes, I also baptized the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I don’t remember if I baptized anyone else.) 17 For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with wisdom and eloquence, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.

 

[dzheremi]

Yes the church came out the other end, but was it the same church? Heads of governments were always pushing their noses into church affairs. European governments were essential to protestantism and ran the churches and secular buisness. It was all one big business.

You know, Peter, this kind of criticism would sound a lot less hypocritical if every single thing you say against Christian churches wasn't also something that could be levied at your own religion in its formative years.

Remember how JS tried to start an 'anti-banking company'? Was that not at least meant to be a be a business? Or how about how JS invoked a revelation from God to get a hotel built for him? I don't remember when Constantine told the Church that God told him to build a hotel anywhere.

Yes it was, but when the emperor started to be the one that chose the patriarch

Which is irrelevant, since again the Church itself never gave into the various Arian usurpers.

then God no longer had his had in it, and was replaced by the emperor and appointments were made for political purposes rather than for the good of the people of the church.

You've already been told (by me, in this thread) that the response of the Church to the meddling of the Arians in the imperial court to get one of their own onto the throne of St. Mark was to hold a synod in Alexandria in 339-340 to affirm that they recognized no one other than HH St. Athanasius as the rightful bishop of the Alexandrian see (meaning, no Arian plant, no emperor -- only St. Athanasius).

And how, readers of this thread may wonder, did Mormonism handle the succession crisis that followed JS' death in 1844? Why, by holding a conference, of course, where the different claimants could hash out who should be regarded as the true successor!

But oh no! Christianity is bad and politically corrupted when it holds synods, while Mormonism with its conference is obviously perfect and preserved from all error by Goddddddd!

You might want to read the section above the linked part about the conference, too; I'm going to guess they called it "Campaigning after the death of Joseph Smith" because that verb is not an entirely inapt way of describing that activity. You know, campaigning...like politicians do. I particularly like this bit: "Young tried diligently to persuade the people that he alone held the rights to lead the Church. He even went so far as to ride through the streets on Smith's favorite horse named Joe Duncan."

Riding through the streets on horseback...like some kind emperor, perhaps?

Who's this in the drawing below? Is it Brigham Young riding JS' favorite horse Joe Duncan? Perhaps being shown some sign of favor in the sky concerning his claims to succeed JS?

Why, no! It's Emperor Constantine, in the famous vision of the cross in the sky that he saw before battle prior to his conversion, according to his assistant Lactantius (c. 240-320). I could see how a person could get the two confused, since they're both evvvvvillll politicians on hoooooorses, but it's pretty easy to tell them apart: we don't know what Constantine's horse's name was.

He did not want an emperor type, he wanted an apostle and prophet type like in the bible.

*cough*

MORMON COUNCIL OF FIFTY

*cough*

Sorry, I'm allergic to a complete disregard of the historical record.

 

[BigDaddy4]

You might want to read the section above the linked part about the conference, too; I'm going to guess they called it "Campaigning after the death of Joseph Smith" because that verb is not an entirely inapt way of describing that activity. You know, campaigning...like politicians do. I particularly like this bit: "Young tried diligently to persuade the people that he alone held the rights to lead the Church. He even went so far as to ride through the streets on Smith's favorite horse named Joe Duncan."

Riding through the streets on horseback...like some kind emperor, perhaps?

I think a fairly good argument could be made that the post JS take over of the LDS by Brigham Young and his followers makes them the apostates. The RLDS seems to have a better succession claim. But, I digress. Another topic for another thread...

 

[Ignatius the Kiwi]

Constantine was not an apostles, that is true, but he took a leadership roll in the church as if he was. If Constantine said this, the church did this. If Constantine said that, the church did that. Perfect example is Athanasius of Alexandria, one of the great men of Alexandria, that the people loved and were devoted to, but yet Constantine said I do not want him as bishop of Alexandria, and so he wasn't, and was exhiled out of view. Why would the church allow this to happen, because the mighty men of the church depended upon their positions upon the real head of the church who just had an army to back him up. They did not want to lose their thrones, by disagreeing with the emperor. So Constantines authority over the church was complete, for he was able to exhile and replace one of the greatest bishops of his time. Of course he did not get into every decision, but the big ones he certainly did. And that was the case for hundreds of years after him, as the emperors dabbled in church affairs, some more than others.

There are many things to say here. The first thing is that you are confusing the Spiritual authority of the Church with the secular power of the State. Constantine and any Roman Emperor technically always had a leadership role over the Church since the Emperor was the sovereign to whom Christians were expected to submit to. Jesus told as much.

Secondly, you accrue to Constantine a power and status which I think is undeserved. Did Constantine’s theological priorities prevail in the end or was it the theologians of the Church who continued to resist Imperial will while they were Arians and even Pagans that prevailed?

I’m willing to admit Emperors did dabble in Church affairs but by reducing it to a matter of state control you’re simplifying to a degree that doesn’t seem plausible. In any given society there will be power vacuums and they must be filled, be it by the state or the clergy or the rich or anyone. Your suggestion is that by the Emperor endorsing Christianity over another religion this has compromised the Church. I don’t know how you could make a cumulative case that ignores all the influence on the other end, of the Church influencing the state. That Rome itself became Christian. That worshipping of pagan gods was abandoned. That education began to include in the west a decent understanding of the bible. That law changed to reflect the Christian nature of the government (no more crucifixions for example).

It’s not that you’re necessarily wrong about the state being involved in the Church, it’s that you overestimate the influence the state had on the Church. You’re not pausing to consider that the Church also had an effect on secular society. That Europe went from a place of many gods to only one god. To instead of sacrificing people to Odin or whomever they now had the Eucharist.


What I fail to see is how if the situation we Christians were given were handed to you Mormons, how you would be any less affected. If Mormons had dominated the Americas by a miracle in the 18th century the USA would look like a radically different country today.

[QUOTE="Peter1000, post: 75574316, member: 382212] Yes the church came out the other end, but was it the same church? Heads of governments were always pushing their noses into church affairs. European governments were essential to protestantism and ran the churches and secular buisness. It was all one big business. [/QUOTE]

Well we can talk about the continuation of the Church if you like. I have a fairly standard Orthodox view. We all acknowledge the mutual breaks in the Church between the Oriental Orthodox, Catholics and Eastern Orthodox but I don’t fail to see a continuity between these groups and those who came before them. Each has a legitimate historical claim though I favour the Eastern Orthodox claim to continuity.

As a Mormon where you are left to draw the dividing line of continuation is limited. The second century Fathers represent a theological world at radical odds with the religion revealed to Joseph Smith. This could indicate that either the truths revealed to Joseph Smith were not revealed until he was around (this to me is the only plausible explanation for why second century Christendom doesn’t at all resemble 18th century Mormonism). Or that the apostasy was so sudden and rapid as to be done within two generations to such a degree as to change the very fundamentals of the faith. Polygamy was undone. Sacred marriage abandoned. True baptism abandoned. Temple services were abandoned. Apostles were abandoned. All the distinctive markers of Mormonism utterly disappeared, within two-three generations? The years 60-120? When Ignatius or Ireneaus or Justin Martyr describes the Church I don’t see Mormonism therein.

[QUOTE="Peter1000, post: 75574316, member: 382212] Yes it was, but when the emperor started to be the one that chose the patriarch, then God no longer had his had in it, and was replaced by the emperor and appointments were made for political purposes rather than for the good of the people of the church. [/QUOTE]

It depends on the Emperor and the Church leader doesn’t it? John Damascus wasn’t Patriarch but he was Bishop of Constantinople. He was chosen explicitly for his moral fibre and seriousness in the faith. It ultimately killed him in the end when he offended the Empress was sentenced to exile.

Orthodoxy doesn’t necessarily depend on who the Patriarch is in order to secure legitimacy. I think it was a Patriarch who helped to kill Maximos the Confessor through torture because he wouldn’t recant his theological opinions. It was Maximos the Confessor, a layman monk who has influenced Orthodoxy more so than the Patriarch. Though I’m not of the mind to condemn all the Patriarchs, like Gregory the V or Patriarch Jeremias II.

I’m by no means an expert and I suspect what you say is right about a good deal of the Patriarchs, especially in the heyday of the Byzantine Imperial authority. Yet it doesn’t provide a defeater for Orthodoxy because strangely enough it isn’t the Patriarchs in of themselves who are the driving force of Orthodoxy.

[QUOTE="Peter1000, post: 75574316, member: 382212] He did not want an emperor type, he wanted an apostle and prophet type like in the bible. JS was the perfect modern apostle and prophet for God.[/QUOTE]

I think Dezrhemi had the best response to this. Did your Church originally have theocratic aims? I’m not going to criticize it on that basis, it’s actually kind of based in my opinion. But it doesn’t reflect well on your previous criticism of Christians being involved in the secular world.

I simply look at the Christian participation in the secular world as a necessary thing. If Christians were continually gorwing it would only be natural that one day they would want to have as their King or ruler a Christian. That involves getting dirty. That involves a lot of sin but the alternative is chaotic anarchism which to my mind can never work. Despite what deranged libertarians say.

 

[chevyontheriver]

As a Mormon where you are left to draw the dividing line of continuation is limited. The second century Fathers represent a theological world at radical odds with the religion revealed to Joseph Smith. This could indicate that either the truths revealed to Joseph Smith were not revealed until he was around (this to me is the only plausible explanation for why second century Christendom doesn’t at all resemble 18th century Mormonism). Or that the apostasy was so sudden and rapid as to be done within two generations to such a degree as to change the very fundamentals of the faith. Polygamy was undone. Sacred marriage abandoned. True baptism abandoned. Temple services were abandoned. Apostles were abandoned. All the distinctive markers of Mormonism utterly disappeared, within two-three generations? The years 60-120? When Ignatius or Ireneaus or Justin Martyr describes the Church I don’t see Mormonism therein.

Boom. When Irenaeus or Justin Martyr describes the Church I can't find Mormonism therein either. Can ANYONE show me what we missed in the collected works of either of those two Fathers?

 

[dzheremi]

Boom. When Irenaeus or Justin Martyr describes the Church I can't find Mormonism therein either. Can ANYONE show me what we missed in the collected works of either of those two Fathers?

Or literally any other, of any particular time or place? It's also not found in the Desert Fathers or Mothers, the Syriac fathers, the Cappadocians, etc. It's not found anywhere, at any time prior to 1830.

 

[chevyontheriver]

Or literally any other, of any particular time or place? It's also not found in the Desert Fathers or Mothers, the Syriac fathers, the Cappadocians, etc. It's not found anywhere, at any time prior to 1830.

You would think, if Mormonism were true, that it would appear in the very first of the Fathers. That there would be at least echos of it later on.

Remember when Jimmy Swaggart got on his Church Fathers kick? He said the Church Fathers believed exactly as he did. He encouraged people to read the Fathers to confirm this. And some did. Lots of Catholics and Orthodox came out of that Swaggart blunder. If you read the Church Fathers it's hard not to become either Catholic or Orthodox.

 

[dzheremi]

\
I’m by no means an expert and I suspect what you say is right about a good deal of the Patriarchs, especially in the heyday of the Byzantine Imperial authority. Yet it doesn’t provide a defeater for Orthodoxy because strangely enough it isn’t the Patriarchs in of themselves who are the driving force of Orthodoxy.

Here's the thing to keep in mind, though: even if Peter1000 is right about patriarchs of the Chalcedonian Church in the heyday of Byzantine Imperial authority (obviously I'll take your word on this), you are still right about Christian participation in the secular world, so he's at best using the one thing he's apparently gotten right (to the limited degree that it is; the "heyday of Byzantine Imperial authority" was presumably an isolated time period, and did not result in Byzantine Imperial control over every Christian church on the planet) to make an ultimately untrue point, due to the overreaching involved in making the claim of total apostasy.

To that end, I'd like to draw the thread in general's attention to what we pray in the Coptic Orthodox Church concerning earthly political leadership, keeping in mind that the period of peace enjoyed for the Copts in Egypt likely did not extend much longer than at most 138 years in the entire history of Christianity in that country (down to today), since the last of the Christian persecutions didn't end until the death of Emperor Maximinus Daia in 313, Chalcedon happened in 451 and had a pretty immediate negative effect on the Coptic people and their Church (notwithstanding the fact that the split was not finalized until about 80 years later), and Byzantine rule passed over to Islamic rule, which, despite allowing our patriarch to return to his throne (showing that it was not just Christian emperors who knew how to meddle in preexisting conflicts), didn't really do anything else that could be considered good for the Church -- things like the forced labor/conscription of Copts (guess who made early Islamic Egypt a naval power? It wasn't the Arabs), the violation of Coptic women (which actually started even before the conquest in the 640s, when the Byzantine governor Muqawqis sent Muhammad a Coptic girl named Maria as a kind of tribute ), and the eventual suppression of Coptic culture and language bearing witness.

And yet still we pray, in the Liturgy of St. Basil (the liturgy for 'ordinary time'), "Remember, O Lord, the king of our land, Your servant, keep him in peace, justice and might." (From the priest's inaudible prayers)

And, "That which exists from one end of the world to the other; All peoples and all flocks do bless; the heavenly peace send down into our hearts even the peace of this life also, graciously grant unto us. The king, the armies, the chiefs, the counselors, the multitudes, our neighbors, our coming in and our going out, adorn them all with peace. O King of peace, grant us Your peace; for You have given us all things." (From the Litany of Peace)

Again, this is to be understood in the context of a Church that had no expectation that the king of the land would favor their Church (or even express any kind of fidelity to or appreciation of Christianity more generally, by a certain point), and yet we still pray it to this day, in Islamic Egypt and Sudan as much as in the United States or elsewhere, because this is part of our faith, too.

So you don't need to even recognize Byzantine Imperial power as a thing to be able to say that your Church (by which I of course mean in this case my particular Church) in some sense 'participates in politics'. It's right there in our prayers, and we're not going to stop saying them just because they haven't actually resulted in a political situation we actually like in the last 1,569 years.

@Peter1000 : That's 1,379 years longer than your religion has even been around, and of course it all started because we resisted the Byzantine Imperial definition of Christianity, and were found to be uncontrollable by the Empire. Would you care to enlighten us all as to how any of this (the prayers; the political situation either under the Chalcedonian Byzantines or the later Muslims, who likewise have not yet made us vanish or accept their definition of true faith, either) fits with your ideas about Christian history?

Maybe it's time that you reevaluate what you take to be the truth about Christianity.

 

[dzheremi]

You would think, if Mormonism were true, that it would appear in the very first of the Fathers. That there would be at least echos of it later on.

Remember when Jimmy Swaggart got on his Church Fathers kick? He said the Church Fathers believed exactly as he did. He encouraged people to read the Fathers to confirm this. And some did. Lots of Catholics and Orthodox came out of that Swaggart blunder. If you read the Church Fathers it's hard not to become either Catholic or Orthodox.

What's the saying that I've heard from you guys (not sure who originally said it)? "To be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant", or something like that? I'm not sure I agree with that 100%, as I think there are plenty of people who do read the Fathers and yet remain Protestant, but it does seem that the Fathers do at least open one's eyes to a wider, more complex view of Christian history. And that's good for everyone, whether they're Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant, Nestorian, Mormon, JW, Muslim, atheist, etc.

 

[chevyontheriver]

What's the saying that I've heard from you guys (not sure who originally said it)? "To be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant", or something like that? I'm not sure I agree with that 100%, as I think there are plenty of people who do read the Fathers and yet remain Protestant, but it does seem that the Fathers do at least open one's eyes to a wider, more complex view of Christian history. And that's good for everyone, whether they're Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant, Nestorian, Mormon, JW, Muslim, atheist, etc.

It was John Henry Cardinal Newman who said that. He delved deep into history and ended up Catholic. The Oxford Movement he was a part of made significant moves in the Catholic direction. Of course not everyone who reads the Fathers ceases to be Protestant, but lots do. Which is why it's dumb for Protestants to advocate reading the Fathers. You are so right that reading the Fathers does open people's eyes about Christian history, and for the better. I'd say that Christianity makes much less sense without the Fathers.

 

[Peter1000]

According to 1 Cor 1:13-17, Paul, an Apostle, showed little importance to personally baptizing the Corinthian believers. That, apparently, was left up to others. Who could those people have been? Did they have the "proper authority"? What other Apostles/prophets with the "proper authority" travelled to
Corinth? Your focus on "proper authority" is misguided.

13 Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized in the name of Paul? 14 I thank God that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius, 15 so no one can say that you were baptized in my name. 16 (Yes, I also baptized the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I don’t remember if I baptized anyone else.) 17 For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with wisdom and eloquence, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.

The apostles held all the keys of the kingdom of God, world-wide authority to do the work of the ministry.

Remember that when the apostle came into an area, they first ordained elders, and when there were enough elders, they ordained one of them to be a bishop. There eventually was deacons and priests, and teachers etc., etc., etc.
These people were given certain of the keys to do the work of the ministry, but only in a local area, not world-wide. Their keys of authority was only for that local area. Bishops could use the keys they received from the Apostles to ordain other elders and priests and deacons etc. These keys included the authority to baptize. So the apostles were not the only ones that could baptize, bishops, elders, and priests could also baptize, and bishops and elders could also give the gift of the Holy Ghost.

As soon as the bishop died, and apostle had to come and ordain another bishop, the congregation, or other bishops did not have the authority to ordain new bishops. That process happened until about 120 when the apostles were all killed and gone.