The Great Apostacy

This is one of my favorite topics–I’ve posted about various early Christian movements on my blog. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of Gnostic Christianity–it is a competing form of Christianity that had some very unusual beliefs. Gnosticism is an umbrella term, much like Protestantism. Not all Protestants believe exactly the same things, but they do share some broad similarities. Gnosticism works the same way. Gnosis is a greek work that means “secret knowledge.” Gnostic Christians believe they had secret knowledge of Jesus.

For example, the Gospel of Judas was first mentioned by St Irenaeus in the 2nd century (100-200 AD). (The Egyptian version discovered by National Geographic isn’t quite that old–it dates to the 4th Century.) Irenaeus declared the Gospel of Judas a pungent heresy. In this gospel, Judas is seen as smarter than all the other apostles. Judas was asked by Jesus to betray him. Gnostics believe that the body and resurrection is a bad thing. Judas helped Jesus rid himself of his earthly, corruptible body. Gnostics believe in a good God (his name escapes me), and the bad god’s name is Jehovah. In Gnostic belief, Cain is good, because he slew Abel, Judas is good because he helped Jesus. According to the Jewish encyclopedia, Jewish Gnosticism predates Christianity. See http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=280&letter=G&search=gnosticism#ixzz0s7YSrPiH

The New Testament Canon wasn’t established until the 4th Century. Gnostic Christians rivaled Orthodox Christians in size. (There was no such thing as a Catholic Church until at least the 7th century, and the formal schism with the Orthodox Church occured in 1050 AD.) Constantine sided with the Orthodox Christians, and started persecuting Gnostic Christians. These Gnostic Christians existed until the 7th or 8th century AD. Constantine wanted the church to establish a canon. Prior to this, the New Testament did not exist, and there was much debate about what scriptures should be added.

The Gospel of John has gnostic elements. The Gospel of Judas and Gospel of Thomas are well-known gnostic Gospels. The Gospel of Thomas pre-dates all of the biblical gospels, and some scholars have wondered if it is the source Q. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all contain identical Greek translations of Jesus’ sayings, and these sayings bear striking resemblances to Thomas.

Furthermore, from my readings of Paul, it seems to me that Paul was referring to these “apostate” gnostic teachings. Some examples:

Galatians 1:8, “But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.”

2 Thess 2:3, “Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;”

This last scripture is a common missionary scripture to describe the apostasy, which we claim had already begun in Paul’s day. He seems to be addressing apostate teachings. Certainly Gnostics would be considered apostate teachings by Paul, especially if Gnosticism pre-dates Christianity. From my understanding of early Christian history, Gnosticism often encompasses beliefs from Jewish, Christian, and pagan religious sources.

Long answer to your question, but in short, the apostasy was well under way while the early apostles were all still living. I’d say it began at Jesus death. (Or I guess if you consider apostasy as any falling away, it can easily be traced to the time of Moses. Jews often had difficulty with polytheism. Heck, you could even start with Cain and Abel.)

Mormonheretic,

Thank you so much for taking the time to help me understand. I read the term Gnosticism in Karen Armstrong’s book but you have really helped me understand that term much better.

I find this all very fascinating. I still don’t understand why the need for the priesthood to be restored. Any takers on that one? If the apostasy was beginning while Paul was alive and had more to do with competing sects of Christianity, my mind has a difficult time following the logic that says that the priesthood was taken from the earth. Did Paul hold the priesthood?

I hope I am not showing my ignorance by asking these questions. Thanks again for spending the time needed to answer me.

Canadiangirl

However, Protestants, in rejecting Catholicism don’t believe that priesthood authority is necessary. If they did believe it was necessary, it would completely undercut all of their arguments.

Just to add a bit of depth and clarification about “pure Mormonism” as I see it:

Martin Luther and the other Protestant leaders of the Reformation realized very clearly that they did not have “The Priesthood” as it was understood to be at that time. In rejecting Catholicism, they also rejected the idea that God’s authority was vested exclusively and totally in a few people through an ordination process (who were the only people required to read and know the word of God, and, therefore, stood as intermediaries between the people and God [Jesus]) – replacing that concept with the idea that God’s authority was vested purely in His word (The Bible) and all true believers had the ability to read His word and act according to their own understanding of it (“the priesthood of believers”). Of course, this has been limited over time to be only those understandings of the Bible that don’t contradict their own interpretations – which is ironic, given the foundation of the Reformation. Thus, in their construction, all who are “true believers” (not Mormons, JW’s, Catholics, and other deluded cultists) have the right to act in God’s name (as true Christians), but God’s actual authority lies only in the Bible.

So, the overall Mormon view of authority is kind of a combination of Catholic and Protestant views – since we maintain a formal, capital “P” Priesthood for the performance of binding ordinances but couple it with the general idea of a lower case “p” priesthood of believers who can read and act according to God’s universal word, even though we don’t talk about it in those terms. The “additional” aspect within Mormonism is that it posits that “His universal word” includes more than just the Bible – that it includes whatever he has said to all (truly universally) – and that individual believers actually can receive His unique word to them, even if it contradicts, occasionally, His universal word to all.

Therefore, in a nutshell, the Great Apostasy as it is defined within Mormonism, began when the apostles no longer were able to gather and replace those who were being killed (to continue the ordinance-performing Priesthood) and was further entrenched when the priesthood of believers was eliminated by the Catholic Priesthood organization that removed from them the right and ability to read God’s word and interact with God directly within their own spheres. The Reformation addressed the foundation of the second of these issues (allowing regular believers to interact directly with God through exposure to His word), while the Restoration addressed the the extension of the second issue (re-establishing truly personal revelation as a universal right) and the first issue (re-establishing binding Priesthood ordinances) – a kind of “last shall be first, first shall be last” approach, if you will.

Maybe the Quakers have it, but they’re keeping quiet about it… 😆

What we know of today, the organizational structure of the priesthood, does NOT have to be consistent in the past. We don’t have to force the past to conform to our current view of how we expect it to be. It just hasn’t been that way in the past.

This is interesting to me for a couple of reasons. One is that was the basis of the lessons in the ’60s that the organization now was the same as existed in the primitive church which it wasn’t, not in the 1800’s and not now. The other is that the priesthood was lost as the teachings were corrupted and changed. But really, what were the teachings? There were the earliest gospels based on Mark and then the letters. Little or nothing about an organized theology and as to offices only deacons, priests and bishops. Nothing about eternal progression, exaltation. As to church groups for years they were house churches that met for a meal once a week and in that taught each other and remembered Jesus. A theology developed over time because there wasn’t one that was left by Jesus or taught by the apostles and even they couldn’t agree in life on everything. There had to be a restoration of authority because in JS’s teaching there was no one recognized to act for God, no church that was “true” and acceptable, and nothing that resembled the “primitive” church, a popular concept in the early 1800’s as people were searching for true Christianity with a capital “T” . If he was restoring the church there had to be the priesthood. Is it possible that the only authority to act for God in terms of ordinances rests solely with a group of 14 million people only a third of which even attend regularly out of the billions that live now? I guess I see it less as an apostasy that occurred in the early days of Christianity and more of a natural evolution of a religion that began in time of limited communication and freedom and has progressed naturally to our present day.

The other thing that occurred to me is why an apostasy had to occur in the first place. Why would all those people have to go without the “truth” and the savings ordinances and be subjected to what is supposed to be untruth and error? Anyway, more questions than answers, as usual.

Nothing about eternal progression, exaltation.

Sorry GBSmith, that isn’t exactly accurate. Just today at Mormon Matters, I posted some quotes by St Irenaeus and Athanasius from the 2nd and 4th Century.

Athanasius put it, ‘God became man, that man might become God.’

The Eastern Orthodox Church still believes in theosis, or deification. There are some striking similarities between theosis and exaltation.

See http://mormonmatters.org/2010/07/06/eastern-orthodoxy-theosisdeification/

I think there is an important East-West difference in the Mormon notion of Theosis versus the Eastern Orthodox version.

I am not an expert, but I am making this guess based on a lot of other readings in general on the cultural-religious differences. I would guess that the Eastern Orthodox version has its roots in the teachings of the Vedas, being closer in proximity to those influences, with a merging and oneness with God, a loss of ego (in Freudian terms). It is similar, but Mormons definitely don’t (in general) see exaltation as a loss of self identity like they do in the Hindu and Buddhist views.

Mormon sense of becoming one again with God seems a purely western, highly individualistic, ego-preserving process of theosis. This has its roots in Greek-Hebrew-Egyptian heritage. I don’t want to say that Joseph Smith “stole” this idea, but it has that distinct flavor, definitely NOT eastern. Mormon theosis takes this much further, to use becoming as God, the supreme being, AND maintaining our identity individually, even if I see a lot of verses also hinting at a merging of consciousness. There are hints that all Celestial beings having a shared consciousness, or in other words being completely open minds to each other, thus God being incapable of allowing other individual egos that are “defective” to be in His “presence” (sharing souls).