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Revision as of 17:51, 14 July 2007

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Early Christianity &
Apostasy
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Apostasy

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This page is based on an answer to a question submitted to the FAIR web site, or a frequently asked question. This article is a draft. FairMormon editors are currently editing it. We welcome your suggestions on improving the content.

Question

Is there any evidence of the apostasy from materials from early Christian history besides the Bible? Do the Church Fathers throw any light on the matter?

Response

The Early Christian Fathers did probably not see themselves as part of an apostate Christianity or group. However, as we watch Christian debate, practice, belief, and doctrine alter as the years pass, it is difficult not to conclude that serious and substantial changes were at work once the apostles were gone.

Summaries from scholars

Scholarly quotes on the historical evidence for apostasy

This broad selection of quotations provides clear support for the idea that the doctrines and practice of the Early Church of the apostles had been altered dramatically within a few centuries at most:

  • Will Durant, "Christianity did not destroy paganism; it adopted it. The Greek mind, dying, came to a transmigrated [new] life in the theology and liturgy of the Church."[1]
  • Stuart Hall: “Fourth century orthodoxy is not the same as what Peter and Paul believed, any more than modern Roman Catholicism or Anglicanism is..."[2]
  • Thomas Jefferson, though surely not a cleric, was a great student of Christianity. Even he acknowledged the loss of the original gospel and said that he looked forward to "the prospect of a restoration of primitive Christianity. I must leave to younger athletes to encounter and lop off the false branches which have been engrafted into it by the mythologies of the middle and modern ages"[3]
  • Philip Smith: "The sad truth is that as soon as Christianity was generally diffused, it began to absorb corruptions from all the lands in which it was planted, and to reflect the complexion of all their systems of religion and philosophy."[4]
  • J.W.C. Wand (former Anglican Bishop of London) “[t]he new Christian church was frankly national. The people were converted en bloc; the temples were turned into churches and the priests were ordained into the Christian ministry.”[5]
  • Robert Wilken, professor of the history of Christianity at the University of Virginia, wrote “only a few enterprising intellectuals, and only after more than one hundred years of Christian history, had begun to take the risk of expressing Christian beliefs within the philosophical ideas current in the Greco Roman world. Most Christians were against to such attempts. As late as the third century, after the apologetic movement had introduced Greek ideas into Christian thinking, Christian preachers complained that the rank and file opposed such ideas.”[6]


Quotations from the Early Fathers

Hegesippus, a historian of the period immediately following apostolic times (110-180 A.D.), is quoted by Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical History as saying:

the church continued until then as a pure virgin and uncorrupt virgin: whilst if there were any at all attempted to

pervert the sound doctrine of the saving gospel, they were yet skulking in dark retreats; but when the sacred choir of apostles became extinct, and the generation of those that had been privileged to hear their inspired wisdom had passed away, then also the combination of impious errors arose by fraud and delusions of false teachers. These also, as there were none of the apostles left, henceforth attempted, without shame to preach their false doctrine against the gospel of truth. (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, vol. 3, chap. 32)

Cyril, who served as the bishop of Jerusalem between 349 and 387 A.D. said, after quoting 2 Thessalonians 2꞉3-10,

thus wrote Paul, and now is the falling away. For men have fallen from the right faith; and some preach the identity of the Son with the Father, and others dare to say that Christ was brought into being out of nothing. And formerly the heretics were manifest openly; but now the church is filled with heretics in disguise. For men have fallen away from the truth, and have itching ears...most have departed from right words, and rather choose the evil,

than desire the good. This, therefore, is the falling away.” (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 7:106-107)

Conclusion

A summary of the argument against the criticism.

Endnotes

  1. Will Durant, The Story of Civilization, Volume 3: Caesar and Christ, (1944), 595.
  2. Thomas Jefferson, cited in Norman Cousins, In God We Trust (Harper & Brothers, 1958), 162.
  3. Stuart Hall, Doctrine and Practice in the Early Church, (Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge; New edition, 2005), 36. ISBN 0281055092. ISBN 978-0281055098.
  4. Phillip Smith, History of the Christian Church during the first ten centuries (Kessinger Publishing, LLC, 2007[1886]), 1:49. ISBN 1430455985. ISBN 978-1430455981.
  5. J.W.C. Wand, A History of the Early Church to A.D. 500 (Methuen & Co Ltd, 1945), 244.
  6. Robert Louis Wilken, The Christians as the Romans Saw Them (Yale University Press, 2003), 79. ISBN 0300098391. ISBN 978-0300098396.
  7. [note] 

Further reading

FAIR wiki articles

The early Christian Church and the Great Apostasy


Jump to Subtopic:

Evidence of a total apostasy


Jump to Subtopic:

Biblical evidence of an apostasy after Christ


Jump to details:


Evidence of an apostasy after Christ from early Christian history other than the Bible

Summary: Do the Early Church Fathers and other post-Biblical documents shed any light on the apostasy?


Jump to details:


Visible evidence of the apostasy


Jump to details:


Extent of the apostasy


Jump to Subtopic:

Complete apostasy after Christ

Summary: Do other Christian denominations believe that no other church on earth is complete, or is this an arrogant belief assumed only by the "Mormons"?


Jump to details:


Apostasy and the "gates of hell"

Summary: Is Jesus' teaching about "the gates of hell" prevailing against "the rock" inconsistent with a belief in a universal apostasy?


Jump to details:


Priesthood on the earth during the apostasy


Jump to details:


Reasons why the apostasy occurred


Jump to Subtopic:

God permitted the apostasy to occur

Summary: If there were some people who would have accepted the Gospel as taught in Mormonism, why did God allow the earthly Church to pass from the earth?


Jump to details:


Relationship of Mormonism to other branches of Christianity

Summary: What does the apostasy doctrine mean with respect to the relationship of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to other branches of Christianity?


Jump to details:


The office of Apostle within the ancient Church of Jesus Christ


Jump to details:


Mormonism and priesthood


Jump to Subtopic:

Restoration of the priesthood


Jump to Subtopic:


Administration of priesthood authority


Jump to Subtopic:


Criticisms of the Mormon priesthood


Jump to Subtopic:


FAIR web site

Apostasy FairMormon articles on-line
  • Roger Keller, "The Apostasy," FAIR 2004 conference. FAIR link
    Dr. Keller is a former Presbyterian minister.

External links

Learn more about the Great Apostasy
Key sources
  • Noel B. Reynolds (editor), Early Christians in Disarray: Contemporary LDS Perspectives on the Christian Apostasy (Provo, Utah: FARMS, 2005), 1. ISBN 0934893020. off-site
FAIR links
  • Barry Bickmore, "Joseph Smith Among the Early Christians," Proceedings of the 2014 FAIR Conference (August 2014). link
  • John Gee, "The Corruption of Scripture in the Second Century," Proceedings of the 1999 FAIR Conference (August 1999). link
  • John Hall, "As Far as it is Translated Correctly: The Problem of Tampering with the Word of God in the Transmission and Translation of the New Testament," Proceedings of the 2007 FAIR Conference (August 2007). link
  • Roger Keller, "The Apostasy," Proceedings of the 2004 FAIR Conference (August 2004). link
  • Daniel C. Peterson, "What Has Athens to do with Jerusalem?: Apostasy and Restoration in the Big Picture," Proceedings of the 1999 FAIR Conference (August 1999). link
Online
  • David Stewart, Jr., "The Christian Apostasy," cumorah.com off-site
  • Roger D. Cook, "'How Deep the Platonism? A Review of Owen and Mosser's Appendix: Hellenism, Greek Philosophy, and the Creedal Straightjacket of Christian Orthodoxy'," FARMS Review 11/2 (2000). [265–299] link
  • Dallin H. Oaks, "Apostasy and Restoration," Ensign (May 1995): 84.off-site
  • Hoyt W. Brewster Jr., "I Have A Question: What Was There in the Creeds of Men that the Lord Found Abominable, as He Stated in the First Vision?”," Ensign (July 1987): 65–67. off-site
  • Hyde M. Merrill, "The Great Apostasy as Seen by Eusebius," Ensign (November 1972): 34.off-site
  • Kent P. Jackson, "Early Signs of the Apostasy," Ensign (December 1984): 8.off-site
  • Richard L. Anderson, "Clement, Ignatius, and Polycarp: Three Bishops between the Apostles and Apostasy," Ensign (August 1976): 51.off-site
  • Matthew L. Bowen, "'Unto the Taking Away of Their Stumbling Blocks': The Taking Away and Keeping Back of Plain and Precious Things and Their Restoration in 1 Nephi 13–15," Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 53/9 (7 October 2022). [145–170] link
  • William J. Hamblin and Daniel C. Peterson, "The Evangelical Is Our Brother (Review of How Wide the Divide? A Mormon and an Evangelical in Conversation)," FARMS Review 11/2 (2000). [178–209] link
Video
The Apostasy, Roger Keller (Former Presbyterian minister), 2004 FAIR Conference
Print
  • Hugh W. Nibley, "Evangelium Quadraginta Dierum," Vigiliae Christianae 20 (1966):1-24; reprinted in "Evangelium Quadraginta Dierum: The Forty-day Mission of Christ-The Forgotten Heritage," in Mormonism and Early Christianity (Vol. 4 of Collected Works of Hugh Nibley), edited by Todd Compton and Stephen D. Ricks, (Salt Lake City, Utah : Deseret Book Company ; Provo, Utah : Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1987),10–44. direct off-site
  • Matthew B. Brown, "Evidences of Apostasy," in All Things Restored, 2d ed. (American Fork, UT: Covenant, 2006),1–32. AISN B000R4LXSM. ISBN 1577347129.
Navigators

Printed material

Apostasy printed materials
  • Matthew B. Brown, "Evidences of Apostasy," in All Things Restored, 2d ed. (American Fork, UT: Covenant, 2006),1–32. AISN B000R4LXSM. ISBN 1577347129.
  • Noel B. Reynolds (editor), Early Christians in Disarray: Contemporary LDS Perspectives on the Christian Apostasy (Provo, Utah: FARMS, 2005), 1. ISBN 0934893020. off-site  (Key source)
  1. ↑ Will Durant, The Story of Civilization, Volume 3: Caesar and Christ, (1944), 595.
  2. ↑ Stuart Hall, Doctrine and Practice in the Early Church, (Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge; New edition, 2005), 36. ISBN 0281055092. ISBN 978-0281055098.
  3. ↑ Thomas Jefferson, cited in Norman Cousins, In God We Trust (Harper & Brothers, 1958), 162.
  4. ↑ Phillip Smith, History of the Christian Church during the first ten centuries (Kessinger Publishing, LLC, 2007[1886]), 1:49.
  5. ↑ .W.C. Wand, A History of the Early Church to A.D. 500 (Methuen & Co Ltd, 1945), 244.
  6. ↑ Robert Louis Wilken, The Christians as the Romans Saw Them (Yale University Press, 2003), 79. ISBN 0300098391. ISBN 978-0300098396.
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