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[Fair warning: In this thread I will be referring to an exclusively Oriental Orthodox saint, which is something I try not to do on this message board. I try to only argue from saints who are recognized in all major Christian confessions, so as to avoid arguments between Christians about particular figures or issues which obscure the actual topic. In this case I am breaking my own rule because I found the writings where I found them, they belong where they belong -- i.e., I can't make them be from some other writer -- and at any rate I don't see anything in the particular selections I have made that a Christian would argue over. If the words of this saint help you, then may God bless you in your understanding. If they do not, then I hope that some day they may, God-willing. May God bless us all in our own Christian lives.]
We often read here and elsewhere from Mormons about how non-LDS Christians don't "keep the commandments", or that the Great Apostasy happened because people became lax about keeping them, and so on, hence requiring Joseph Smith's religion to be established to restore what was lost when we Christians all suddenly or over time forgot what we were supposed to be doing. While I've never been able to nail any Mormon here down on when the Great Apostasy actually happened ("it was in full swing by 200 AD" is about the best I can recall ever hearing, regarding an actual date or range of dates), I'm going to assume for the sake of this thread that they would agree that the Great Apostasy was happening or had happened by the late fifth/early sixth century AD, because if it hadn't then the Christian groups existing by that time (the Chalcedonians, the non-Chalcedonians, and the Nestorians) could each plausibly claim to be the true existing Church, and since they're all still around, it would call into question why Mormonism even is a thing. And that can't be right, obviously.
With that in mind, I'd like to present to this board a figure that you all might not know: the Oriental Orthodox saint Mor* Philoxenos of Mabbug (440-523). In fact, I don't really know him exceptionally well myself, though he is one of the major saints of my own communion. I don't know him because he wrote in Syriac, and since he was an avowed non-Chalcedonian ('Oriental Orthodox' in modern terms; i.e., a member of the Syriac Orthodox Church), it is only fairly recently that his works have been available in English translation. His Discourses, primarily written about the monastic/ascetic life but applicable to everyone, were recently published by Cistercian Publications, who have made the introduction to that publication as well as the first Memre** from it available online as a sample of the larger book's content (and it's worked on me; I'm going to order it as soon as I can afford to).
From it, we see he is concerned with establishing and confirming the believer from the bottom up, so to speak, starting with the foundations of the Christian faith and building on them as I know we all often try to do in talking with Mormons. This is why the charge from Mormons that we do not "keep the commandments" (while LDS do, of course) seems to be something of a conversation-stopper, as that particular facet of the faith is seemingly so central to Mormons that our not having done so apparently invalidates anything we say, because they apparently do something we don't.
To that, I present some selections from the first Memre of Mor Philoxenos, which states as follows:
He further says on the state of the soul after death, concerning those who have died in a state of spiritual death:
This would seem to contradict the Mormon idea of the spirits of those who died without knowing God being able to choose to follow Mormonism after death. Keep in mind that this is written in probably the late fifth century, some fourteen centuries before Joseph Smith was even born, let alone could claim to have 'restored' anything.
Philoxenos continues in his earlier building metaphor, as an allusion to the maturing faith of the believer:
Interesting phrasing from Philoxenos here: "his promise and his covenant with God by which he promises to depart from the world and keep the commandments". Do not Mormons consider themselves a 'covenant-keeping' people? It would appear that in the fifth century, deep within the 'Great Apotasy' (according to LDS doctrine), this was taught as something we Christians ought to be at our base/the very foundation of our faith. Strange.
And concerning what is appropriate in the context of preparing for worship and service, Philoxenos writes (emphasis mine):
So a Christian bishop in a mixed Christian/Pagan environment would certainly recognize such an idea as a pagan concept, and reject it as the entire Church did (without respect to confession; the Chalcedonians and the Nestorians do not teach that we are made of preexisting matter either), as Philoxenos does here.
In his conclusion to the Memre, Philoxenos counsels:
With regard to the topic of "keeping the commandments", if they would obviously include such talk of physical restraint for the sake of spiritual health, can we say that Joseph Smith and others who had many, many wives as part of a 'revelation' given to JS followed such constancy as the above? Did they endeavor to kill the fleshly desires within themselves so as to desire the better spiritual life, and live their lives in the Spirit? If so, then why do we find such pleading letters as JS supposedly wrote to one of his polygamous (non-Emma) wives?
(Most relevant part begins at about 4:17, when he begins to read the letter that JS wrote)
Does this sound like a man who is not attached to the things of the world, who has fought or is fighting his passions? I would say no; it actually reads like it is written by a desperate and hormone-driven teenager trying to talk his girlfriend into coming over because his parents are out of town for the weekend. This is your prophet, by whom what was supposedly 'lost' was restored?
In conclusion, to both Mormons and non-Mormons, I have presented this to show in a few ways how the claims of Mormons that Christianity or Christians don't do XYZ are falsified by looking at the history of what is actually preserved of what Christians did and why. They (Mormons) say we don't keep the commandments, but we are taught here that keeping the commandments is part of making the first steps into the Christian life. Keeping covenants made is also important, again, according to this fifth/sixth century writer and bishop, writing well within the period of the 'Great Apostasy' when such teachings were supposedly not around to guide the people. And Mor Philoxenos cannot be made to be a 'Proto-Mormon' by all of these things, either, because I have also presented several passages within the same writing that flatly contradict Mormonism's central doctrines concerning the creation of mankind and the soul's ability to choose to follow the right path after death.
So it's almost as though the Great Apostasy did not happen, and several of the charges of the Mormons are easily refuted, but they make them anyway because they are completely ignorant of Christian history and choose to remain so that they can remain comfortable in their Mormon bubble where nothing that we present as being actually historical can pop it.
Yet I present these things so that those who have some sense of their own critical faculties separate from their allegiance to the LDS religion can think about them, and realize that if Christians are in fact instructed to keep the commandments, and are instructed to keep their covenants and all of this, then maybe, just maybe, the standard Mormon apologetics are faulty and they should at least familiarize themselves with some kind of outline of Christian history before claiming what they claim, without evidence. Because we, by contrast, have evidence of all of these things in sources like Philoxenos of Mabbug...and this is only one corner of the Christian world, and one particular confession, so if other Christians agree with it, as I suspect some will, then what? Where is the 'Great Apostasy' if we can look to the period well within it and find there straight teaching that shows that Mormonism was simply never needed to begin with?
May God guide us all to the truth and away from falsehood, not only in our religious journeys but also in evaluating the religions of others. If your religion can be defended of itself, it should not rely on inventing false histories and false events and thereby responding to them instead of true history and true events.
+++
Notes:
* Mor or Mar is the Syriac term of saints (for female saints, it is Mort or Mart, e.g., Mort Maryam for St. Mary, the Theotokos), which was borrowed into Arabic as Mar(i), e.g., Mari Mina (St. Menas), Mari Gerges (St. George), Mari Morqos (St. Mark), etc. The usage of this in the Coptic Orthodox Church, at least, is very inconsistent, i.e., it's clearly not only used for ethnically Syrian saints. St. Mark was a Hellenized Libyan Jew, not a Syrian.
** Memre is a Syriac term for homilies, specifically homilies written in verse format
*** At the source, we are told that this is an allusion to Matthew 22:12 and the wedding garment
We often read here and elsewhere from Mormons about how non-LDS Christians don't "keep the commandments", or that the Great Apostasy happened because people became lax about keeping them, and so on, hence requiring Joseph Smith's religion to be established to restore what was lost when we Christians all suddenly or over time forgot what we were supposed to be doing. While I've never been able to nail any Mormon here down on when the Great Apostasy actually happened ("it was in full swing by 200 AD" is about the best I can recall ever hearing, regarding an actual date or range of dates), I'm going to assume for the sake of this thread that they would agree that the Great Apostasy was happening or had happened by the late fifth/early sixth century AD, because if it hadn't then the Christian groups existing by that time (the Chalcedonians, the non-Chalcedonians, and the Nestorians) could each plausibly claim to be the true existing Church, and since they're all still around, it would call into question why Mormonism even is a thing. And that can't be right, obviously.
With that in mind, I'd like to present to this board a figure that you all might not know: the Oriental Orthodox saint Mor* Philoxenos of Mabbug (440-523). In fact, I don't really know him exceptionally well myself, though he is one of the major saints of my own communion. I don't know him because he wrote in Syriac, and since he was an avowed non-Chalcedonian ('Oriental Orthodox' in modern terms; i.e., a member of the Syriac Orthodox Church), it is only fairly recently that his works have been available in English translation. His Discourses, primarily written about the monastic/ascetic life but applicable to everyone, were recently published by Cistercian Publications, who have made the introduction to that publication as well as the first Memre** from it available online as a sample of the larger book's content (and it's worked on me; I'm going to order it as soon as I can afford to).
From it, we see he is concerned with establishing and confirming the believer from the bottom up, so to speak, starting with the foundations of the Christian faith and building on them as I know we all often try to do in talking with Mormons. This is why the charge from Mormons that we do not "keep the commandments" (while LDS do, of course) seems to be something of a conversation-stopper, as that particular facet of the faith is seemingly so central to Mormons that our not having done so apparently invalidates anything we say, because they apparently do something we don't.
To that, I present some selections from the first Memre of Mor Philoxenos, which states as follows:
Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ invited us through his living gospel to approach wisely the work of keeping his commandments and to establish in us the foundation of his discipline in an orderly fashion, so that the building of our ways of life may ascend straight up and true. Whoever does not know how to begin knowledgeably in the building of this tower that rises up to heaven is not able to finish and bring it to the perfection of wisdom. For knowledge and wisdom direct, order, and accomplish the beginning, completion, and nurturing of all these things. Whoever begins this way is called wise by our Savior’s word: “Everyone who hears these words of mine and does them is like the wise man who digs deeply and establishes his building upon a rock. The rain came down and the torrents came and the winds blew, and [though] they beat against that house it did not fall, for its foundations were established upon a rock. But whoever hears and does not do [these words] is like the foolish man who establishes his building upon the sand. Even if the elements beating against his building are weak, they will tear it down.”
You will note here that Philoxenos says in the beginning of the Christian life, our Lord Jesus Christ invites us to keep His commandments, so yes, this is basic to the Christian life. It would seem here that Mormons and Christians would then agree on this at least conceptually, if not in the details of what "keeping the commandments" means.
He further says on the state of the soul after death, concerning those who have died in a state of spiritual death:
For the soul dies from the recollection of God, and when it has died, all its faculties of discernment die with it, and thoughts on the reflection of heavenly things cease from it. While the soul lives according to its nature, it dies through its will. And while it is found in its form, it perishes in its free will. Then it is necessary for the disciple of God that the recollection of his teacher Jesus Christ become fixed in his soul, and he should meditate on him night and day.
This would seem to contradict the Mormon idea of the spirits of those who died without knowing God being able to choose to follow Mormonism after death. Keep in mind that this is written in probably the late fifth century, some fourteen centuries before Joseph Smith was even born, let alone could claim to have 'restored' anything.
Philoxenos continues in his earlier building metaphor, as an allusion to the maturing faith of the believer:
Who else would begin building the tower about which our Savior spoke, except the disciple who begins on the road of the Gospel of Christ? Here is the beginning of this disciple’s own building: his promise and his covenant with God by which he promises to depart from the world and keep the commandments, and to begin to run and accomplish, while gathering and bringing from every place the precious stones of excellent rules for the building of this tower that ascends to heaven.
Interesting phrasing from Philoxenos here: "his promise and his covenant with God by which he promises to depart from the world and keep the commandments". Do not Mormons consider themselves a 'covenant-keeping' people? It would appear that in the fifth century, deep within the 'Great Apotasy' (according to LDS doctrine), this was taught as something we Christians ought to be at our base/the very foundation of our faith. Strange.
And concerning what is appropriate in the context of preparing for worship and service, Philoxenos writes (emphasis mine):
Because our nature is created, and even though we did not exist, we live according to the will of the Creator and are able to acquire newly the learning of virtues. Just as we have come into being from nonbeing, so also from being sinful we become righteous. But when a person has completely taken off the world, then he clothes himself perfectly in the way of Christ. Until he takes off the dirty outer coat and purifies himself through tears of repentance from the stains of evil things, he is not able to put on the purple garments of the knowledge of Christ. For a person who is defiled by thoughts or by deeds of iniquity ought to heal his [own] bruises first, and cleanse the blemishes of his soul and of his body, and then come to the banquet hall of the divine mysteries, while putting on the spiritual outer garments [required for] this feast.***
Here the concept of our being created from preexisting matter is clearly rejected. That concept, while present in certain fathers (e.g., Justin Martyr), is rejected by the Church since very early on as being inconsistent with both the scriptures and with correct Christian theology drawn from the Holy Bible and the teachings of the apostles passed down through the fathers. Here we should understand that the earliest Christian converts would have included some of gentile/pagan backgrounds (recall here the Council held in Jerusalem about receiving such people, as recorded in Acts), such as the aforementioned St. Justin, but as time went on this was not as often the case anymore. Mor Philoxenos was born of Christian parents, for instance, though the area in which he served (Mabbug in Syriac, corresponding to modern Manbij, Syria) still had a large pagan population into the early centuries of Christianity. (See for instance the second century Greek treatise On the Syrian Goddess.)
So a Christian bishop in a mixed Christian/Pagan environment would certainly recognize such an idea as a pagan concept, and reject it as the entire Church did (without respect to confession; the Chalcedonians and the Nestorians do not teach that we are made of preexisting matter either), as Philoxenos does here.
In his conclusion to the Memre, Philoxenos counsels:
Therefore, all these [illnesses] and those like them are healed and cured by that which is opposite [to it]. Whoever desires spiritual things needs to renounce physical things. For until one [kind of] desire dies in us, the other [desire] will not live in us. That is, until a physical desire dies, a spiritual desire will not live in our thoughts. The death of each one of them gives life to its companion. When the body is alive in us with all of its lusts, the soul dies with all of its desires. When the soul shares in the life in the spirit, and all its parts live with it—that is, its thoughts—then a person rises up from the dead and is alive in the new life of the new world. Until we take off the old [physical] person, we are not able to put on the new spiritual person. But, when we put him on by grace, we do not perceive him.
With regard to the topic of "keeping the commandments", if they would obviously include such talk of physical restraint for the sake of spiritual health, can we say that Joseph Smith and others who had many, many wives as part of a 'revelation' given to JS followed such constancy as the above? Did they endeavor to kill the fleshly desires within themselves so as to desire the better spiritual life, and live their lives in the Spirit? If so, then why do we find such pleading letters as JS supposedly wrote to one of his polygamous (non-Emma) wives?
(Most relevant part begins at about 4:17, when he begins to read the letter that JS wrote)
Does this sound like a man who is not attached to the things of the world, who has fought or is fighting his passions? I would say no; it actually reads like it is written by a desperate and hormone-driven teenager trying to talk his girlfriend into coming over because his parents are out of town for the weekend. This is your prophet, by whom what was supposedly 'lost' was restored?
In conclusion, to both Mormons and non-Mormons, I have presented this to show in a few ways how the claims of Mormons that Christianity or Christians don't do XYZ are falsified by looking at the history of what is actually preserved of what Christians did and why. They (Mormons) say we don't keep the commandments, but we are taught here that keeping the commandments is part of making the first steps into the Christian life. Keeping covenants made is also important, again, according to this fifth/sixth century writer and bishop, writing well within the period of the 'Great Apostasy' when such teachings were supposedly not around to guide the people. And Mor Philoxenos cannot be made to be a 'Proto-Mormon' by all of these things, either, because I have also presented several passages within the same writing that flatly contradict Mormonism's central doctrines concerning the creation of mankind and the soul's ability to choose to follow the right path after death.
So it's almost as though the Great Apostasy did not happen, and several of the charges of the Mormons are easily refuted, but they make them anyway because they are completely ignorant of Christian history and choose to remain so that they can remain comfortable in their Mormon bubble where nothing that we present as being actually historical can pop it.
Yet I present these things so that those who have some sense of their own critical faculties separate from their allegiance to the LDS religion can think about them, and realize that if Christians are in fact instructed to keep the commandments, and are instructed to keep their covenants and all of this, then maybe, just maybe, the standard Mormon apologetics are faulty and they should at least familiarize themselves with some kind of outline of Christian history before claiming what they claim, without evidence. Because we, by contrast, have evidence of all of these things in sources like Philoxenos of Mabbug...and this is only one corner of the Christian world, and one particular confession, so if other Christians agree with it, as I suspect some will, then what? Where is the 'Great Apostasy' if we can look to the period well within it and find there straight teaching that shows that Mormonism was simply never needed to begin with?
May God guide us all to the truth and away from falsehood, not only in our religious journeys but also in evaluating the religions of others. If your religion can be defended of itself, it should not rely on inventing false histories and false events and thereby responding to them instead of true history and true events.
+++
Notes:
* Mor or Mar is the Syriac term of saints (for female saints, it is Mort or Mart, e.g., Mort Maryam for St. Mary, the Theotokos), which was borrowed into Arabic as Mar(i), e.g., Mari Mina (St. Menas), Mari Gerges (St. George), Mari Morqos (St. Mark), etc. The usage of this in the Coptic Orthodox Church, at least, is very inconsistent, i.e., it's clearly not only used for ethnically Syrian saints. St. Mark was a Hellenized Libyan Jew, not a Syrian.
** Memre is a Syriac term for homilies, specifically homilies written in verse format
*** At the source, we are told that this is an allusion to Matthew 22:12 and the wedding garment