University Library 
 University of California - Berkeley 
 
77/ 
 
 Great Apostasy 
 
 Considered in the Light of Scriptural 
 and Secular History 
 
 By 
 
 DR. JAMES E. TALMAGE 
 
 D. Sc. D., Ph. D., F. R. S. E. 
 
THE 
 
 GREAT APOSTASY 
 
 CONSIDERED IN THE LIGHT OF 
 
 SCRIPTURAL AND SECULAR 
 
 HISTORY 
 
 By JAMES E. fALMAGE 
 
 D. Sc. D., Ph. D., F. R. S. E. 
 
 Press of Zion's Printing and Publishing Company 
 Independence, Jackson County, Mo., U. S. A. 
 
Published by the Missions of the Church of Jesua Christ of Latter-day Saints 
 in America 
 
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( CD 0^0 -To F 
 
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 PREFACE. 
 
 The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints proclaims the restoration 
 of the Gospel and the re-establishment of the Church as of old, in this, the 
 Dispensation of the Fulness of Times. Such restoration and re-establishment, 
 with the modern bestowal of the Holy Priesthood, would be unnecessary and 
 indeed impossible had the Church of Christ continued among men with un- 
 broken succession of Priesthood and power, since the "meridian of time." 
 
 The restored Church affirms that a general apostasy developed during 
 and after the apostolic period, and that the primitive Church lost its power, 
 authority, and graces as a divine institution, and degenerated into an earthly 
 organization only. The significance and importance of the great apostasy, 
 as a condition precedent to the re-establishment of the Church in modern 
 times, is obvious. If the alleged apostasy of the primitive Church was not a 
 reality, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is not the divine in- 
 stitution its name proclaims. 
 
 The evidence of the decline and final extinction of the primitive Church 
 among men is found in scriptural record and in secular history. In the follow- 
 ing pages the author has undertaken to present a summary of the most im- 
 portant of these evidences. In so doing he has drawn liberally from many 
 sources of information, with due acknowledgment of all citations. This little 
 work has been written in the hope that it may prove of service to our mission- 
 ary elders in the field, to classes and quorum organizations engaged in the study 
 of theological subjects at home, and to earnest investigators of the teachings 
 and claims of the restored Church of Jesus Christ. 
 Salt Lake City, Utah, JAMES E. TALMAGE. 
 
 November 1, 1909. 
 
 PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 The first edition of "The Great Apostasy" was issued by the Deseret 
 News, Salt Lake City, in November, 1909, and comprised ten thousand copies. 
 The author has learned, with a pleasure that is perhaps pardonable, of the 
 favorable reception accorded the little work by the missionary elders of the 
 Church, and by the people among whom these devoted servants are called to 
 labor. The present issue of twenty thousand copies constitutes the second 
 edition, and is published primarily for use in the missionary field. The text 
 of the second edition is practically identical with that of the first. 
 Salt Lake City, Utah, JAMES E. TALMAGE. 
 
 February, 1910. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. . 
 
 Introduction-. The Establishment of the Church of Christ. 
 
 Conditions at beginning of Christian era. Religious systems, Jewish, Pagan, 
 and Samaritan. Jewish sects and parties. Law of Moses fulfilled and 
 superseded. Apostles chosen and ordained. Apostolic administration. 
 The Church established on the western hemisphere. The "meridian of 
 time." ...7 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The Apostasy Predicted. 
 
 The Church has not continued in unbroken succession. Divine fore-knowl- 
 edge. The divine purposes not thwarted. Apostasy from the Church 
 compared with the apostasy of the Church. Specific predictions con- 
 cerning the apostasy. The Law of Moses a temporary measure. Isaiah's 
 fateful prophecy. Predictions by Jesus Christ. By Paul. By Peter. 
 By Jude. By John the Revelator. Apostasy on the western hemi- 
 sphere predicted 18 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Early Stages of the Apostasy. 
 
 The apostasy recognized in apostolic age. Testimony of Paul. "Mystery 
 or iniquity." Summary of Paul's utterances concerning early apostasy. 
 Testimony of Jude. Of John the Revelator. Messages to the churches 
 of Asia. Nicolaitanes denounced. Testimonies of Hegesippus. Early 
 schisms in the Church. Declension of the Church before close of first 
 century. Apostasy on the western hemisphere. Destruction of Nephite 
 nation by the Lamanites 33 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Causes of the Apostasy. External Causes Considered. 
 
 Causes of the apostasy, external and internal. Persecution as an external 
 cause. Judaism and Paganism arrayed against the Church. Judaistic 
 persecution. Predictions of Judaistic opposition. Fulfillment of the 
 same. Destruction of Jerusalem - 43 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Causes of the Apostasy. External Causes, Continued. 
 
 Pagan persecution. Roman opposition to Christianity, explanation of. 
 Number of persecutions by the Romans. Persecution under Nero. 
 Under Domitian. Under Trajan. Under Marcus Aurelius. Later 
 persecutions. Persecutions under Diocletian. Extent of the Diocle- 
 tian persecution. Diocletian boast that Christianity was extinct. The 
 Church taken under state protection by Constantine the Great 50 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Causes of the Apostasy. Internal Causes. 
 
 Diverse effect of persecution. Imprudent zeal of some. Return to idolatry 
 by others. "Libels" attesting individual apostasy. Sad condition of 
 the Church in third century. Testimony as to conditions of apostasy 
 at this period. Decline of the Church antedates the conversion of Con- 
 stantine. Departure from Christianity. Specific causes of the growing 
 apostasy 63 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Internal Causes. Continued. 
 
 First specific cause: "The corrupting of the simple principles of the gospel 
 by the admixture of the so-called philosophic systems of the times." 
 Judaistic perversions. Admixture of Gnosticism with Christianity. 
 Gnosticism unsatisfying. New platonics. Doctrine of the Logos. 
 "The World." Sibellianism. Arianism. The Council of Nice and its 
 denunciation of Arianism. The Nicene Creed. The Creed of Athanasius. 
 Perverted view of life. Disregard for truth 73 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Internal Causes. Continued. 
 
 Second specific cause: "Unauthorized additions to the ceremonies of the Church, 
 and the introduction of vital changes in essential ordinances." Simpli- 
 city of early form of worship ridiculed. Formalism and superstition in- 
 crease. Adoration of images, etc. Changes in baptismal ordinance. 
 Time of its administration restricted. Ministrations of the exorcist in- 
 troduced. Immersion substituted by sprinkling. Infant baptism in- 
 troduced. Changes in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. Fallacy of 
 transubstantiation. Adoration of the "host." Proof of apostate con- 
 dition of the Church 84 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Internal Causes. Continued. 
 
 Third specific cause: "Unauthorized changes in church organization and 
 government." Early form of church government. Equality of the bish- 
 ops. Origin of synods or church councils. Bishops of Rome claimed 
 supremacy. Title of Pope assumed. Secular authority asserted by the 
 Pope. Indulgences or pardons. Infamous doctrine of supererogation. 
 The traffic in indulgences. Tetzel the papal agent. Copy of an indul- 
 gence. The .sin of blasphemy. Scripture-reading forbidden to the 
 people. Draper's arraignment of the papacy 96 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Results of the Apostasy. Its Sequel. 
 
 Revolts against the Church of Rome. John Wickliffe in England. John 
 Huss and Jerome of Prague. The Reformation inaugurated. Martin 
 Luther, his revolt; his excommunication; his defense at Worms. The 
 Protestants. Zwingle and Calvin. The Inquisition. Zeal of the re- 
 formers. Rise of the Church of England. Divine over-ruling in the events 
 of the Reformation. The "Mother Church" apostate. Fallacy of 
 assuming human origin of divine authority. Priestly orders of Church 
 of England declared invalid by "Mother Church." The apostasy ad- 
 mitted and affirmed. Wesley's testimony. Declaration by Church of 
 England. Divine declaration of the apostasy. The sequel. The Reve- 
 lator's vision of the Restoration. The Church re-established in the 
 nineteenth century 110 
 
 COPYRIGHT 
 
 by 
 
 JAMES E. TALMAGE. 
 1909. 
 
The Great Apostasy 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Introduction: The Establishment of the Church 
 of Christ. 
 
 1. A belief common to all sects and churches professing 
 Christianity is that Jesus Christ, the Savior and Redeemer of 
 the human race, established His Church upon the earth by 
 personal ministration in the meridian of time. Ecclesiastical 
 history, as distinguished from secular history, deals with the 
 experiences of the Church from the time of its establishment. 
 The conditions under which the Church was founded first 
 claim our attention. 
 
 2. At the beginning of the Christian era, the Jews, in 
 common with most other nations, were subjects of the Roman 
 empire. (See Note 1, end of chapter.) They were allowed a 
 considerable degree of liberty in maintaining their religious 
 observances and national customs generally, but their status 
 was far from that of a free and independent people. 
 
 3. The period was one of comparative peace, a time 
 marked by fewer wars and less dissension than the empire had 
 known for many years. These conditions were favorable for 
 the mission of the Christ, and for the founding of His Church 
 on earth. 
 
 4. The religious systems extant at the time of Christ's 
 earthly ministry may be classified in a general way as Jewish and 
 Pagan, with a minor system the Samaritan which was es- 
 sentially a mixture of the other two. The children of Israel 
 alone proclaimed the existence of the true and living God; they 
 alone looked forward to the advent of the Messiah, whom mis- 
 takenly they awaited as a prospective conqueror coming to 
 crush the enemies of their nation. All other nations, tongues, 
 and peoples bowed to pagan deities, and their worship com- 
 prised naught but the sensual rites of heathen idolatry. Pagan- 
 ism (See Note 2, end of chapter.) was a religion of form and 
 ceremony, based on polytheism a belief in the existence of a 
 
8 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 
 
 multitude of gods, which deities were subject to all the vices 
 and passions of humanity, while distinguished by immunity 
 from death. Morality and virtue were unknown as elements of 
 heathen service; and the dominant idea in pagan worship was 
 that of propitiating the gods, in the hope of averting their anger 
 and purchasing their favor. 
 
 5. The Israelites, or Jews, as they were collectively known, 
 thus stood apart among the nations as proud possessors of 
 superior knowledge, with a lineage and a literature, with a 
 priestly organization and a system of laws, that separated 
 and distinguished them as a people at once peculiar and ex- 
 clusive. While the Jews regarded their idolatrous neighbors 
 with abhorrence and contempt, they in turn were treated with 
 derision as fanatics and inferiors. 
 
 6. But the Jews, while thus distinguished as a people from 
 the rest of the world, were by no means a united people; on the 
 contrary, they were divided among themselves on matters of 
 religious profession and practice. In the first place, there was 
 a deadly enmity between the Jews proper and the Samaritans. 
 These latter were a mixed people inhabiting a distinct province 
 mostly between Judea and Galilee, largely made up of Assyrian 
 colonists who had intermarried with the Jews. While affirming 
 their belief in the Jehovah of the Old Testament, they practiced 
 many rites belonging to the paganism they claimed to have for- 
 saken, and were regarded by the Jews proper as unorthodox 
 and reprobate. 
 
 7. Then the Jews themselves were divided into many con- 
 tending sects and parties, among which the principal were the 
 Pharisees and the Sadducees; and beside these we read of 
 Essenes, Galileans, Herodians, etc. 
 
 8. The Jews were living under the Law of Moses, the out- 
 ward observance of which was enforced by priestly rule, while 
 the spirit of the law was very generally ignored by priest and 
 people alike. That the Mosaic law was given as a preparation 
 for something greater was afterward affirmed by Paul, in his 
 epistle to the saints at Galatia: "Wherefore the law was our 
 schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ." (Galatians 3:24.) 
 And the fact that a higher law was to supersede the lower is 
 abundantly shown in the Savior's own teachings: "Ye have 
 heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; 
 
THE CHURCH ESTABLISHED. 9 
 
 and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment: 
 But I say unto you, that whosoever is angry with his brother 
 without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: * * * Ye 
 have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not 
 commit adultery: But I say unto you that whosoever looketh on 
 a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her 
 already in his heart. * * * Again, ye have heard that it hath 
 been said by them of old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself 
 but shall perform unto the Lord thine oaths: But I say unto you, 
 swear not at all. * * * Ye have heard that it hath been said, An 
 eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, 
 that ye resist not evil. * * * Ye have heard that it hath been 
 said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy. But 
 I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, 
 do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which de- 
 spitefully use you and persecute you." (Matthew 5:21-44; 
 read the entire chapter.) 
 
 9. These teachings, based on love, so different from the 
 spirit of retaliation to which they had been accustomed under 
 the law, caused g.reat surprise among the people ; yet in affirma- 
 tion of the fact that the law was not to be ignored, and could 
 only be superseded by its fulfillment, the Master said: "Think 
 not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am 
 not come to destroy but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, 
 Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise 
 pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. (Matt. 5:17, 18.) 
 
 10. It is very evident the Master had come with a greater 
 doctrine than was then known, and that the teachings of the day 
 were insufficient. "For I say unto you, that except your right- 
 eousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Phari- 
 sees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven." 
 (Verse 20.) 
 
 11. Jesus Himself was strict in complying with all rightful 
 requirements under the law; but He refused to recognize an ob- 
 servance of the letter alone, however rigidly required, as a sub- 
 stitute for compliance with the spirit of the Mosaic injunction. 
 
 12. The excellent teachings and precepts of true morality 
 inculcated by the Christ prepared the minds of those who be- 
 lieved His words for the introduction of the gospel in its purity, 
 
10 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 
 
 and for the establishment of the Church of Christ as an earthly 
 organization. 
 
 13. From among the disciples who followed Him, some of 
 whom had been honored by preliminary calls, He chose twelve 
 men, whom He ordained to the apostleship: "And He ordained 
 twelve, that they should be with Him, and that He might send 
 them forth to preach." (Mark 3:14.) Again: "And when it 
 was day, he called unto him his disciples: and of them he chose 
 twelve .whom also he named apostles." (Luke 6:13; compare 
 Matt. 10:1, 2.) The twelve special witnesses of Him and His 
 work were sent out to preach in the several cities of the Jews. 
 On this, their first mission, they were instructed to confine their 
 ministrations to the house of Israel, and the burden of their 
 message was "The kingdom of heaven is at hand." (Matt. 
 10:7; study the entire chapter.) They were told to use the 
 power with which they had been invested by ordination, in 
 preaching, in healing the sick, in raising the dead even, and in 
 subduing evil spirits; the Master's admonition was, "Freely ye 
 have received, freely give." They were to travel without money 
 or provisions, relying upon a higher power to supply their needs 
 through the agency of those to whom they would offer the mes- 
 sage of truth; and they were warned of the possible hardships 
 awaiting them and of the persecution which sooner or later 
 would surely befall them. 
 
 14. At a later date Christ called others to the work of the 
 ministry, and sent them out in pairs to precede Him and pre- 
 pare the people for His coming. Thus we read of "the seventy" 
 who were instructed in terms almost identical with those of the 
 apostolic commission. (Luke 10; compare with Matt. 10.) 
 That their investiture was one of authority and power and no 
 mere form is shown by the success attending their administra- 
 tions; for, when they returned they reported triumphantly, 
 "Lord, even the devils are subject to us through thy name." 
 (Luke 10:17.) 
 
 15. The specific commission given unto the apostles at the 
 time of their ordination was afterward emphasized. They were 
 the subjects of the particularly solemn ordinance spoken of as 
 the washing of feet, so necessary that in reply to Peter's objec- 
 tion the Lord said: "If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with 
 me." (John 13:4-9.) And unto the eleven who had remained 
 
THE CHURCH ESTABLISHED. 11 
 
 faithful, the Risen Lord delivered His parting instructions, 
 immediately before the ascension: "Go ye into all the world, 
 and preach the gospel to every creature." After our Lord's 
 departure the apostles entered upon the ministry with vigor: 
 "And they went forth, and preached every where, the Lord 
 working with them, and confirming the word with signs follow- 
 ing." (Mark 16:14-20; compare Matt. 28:19, 20.) 
 
 16. These scriptures indicate the authority of the apostles 
 to administer the affairs of the Church after the ascension of 
 the Resurrected Messiah. That Peter, the senior member of the 
 apostolic council, was given a position of presidency, appears 
 from the Savior's special admonition and charge on the shores 
 of the Tiberian sea." (John 21:15-17.) 
 
 17. That the apostles realized that though the Master had 
 gone He had left with them authority and command to build up 
 the Church as an established organization, is abundantly proved 
 by scripture. They first proceeded to fill the vacancy in the pre- 
 siding council or "quorum" of twelve, a vacancy occasioned by 
 the apostasy and death of Judas Iscariot; and the mode of pro- 
 cedure in this official act is instructive. The installation of a 
 new apostle was not determined by the eleven alone; we read 
 that the disciples (or members of the Church) were gathered 
 together about a hundred and twenty in number. To them 
 Peter presented the matter requiring action, and emphasized 
 the fact that the man to be chosen must be one who had personal 
 knowledge and testimony of the Lord's ministry, and who was 
 therefore qualified to speak as a special witness of the Christ, 
 which qualification is the distinguishing feature of the apostle- 
 ship. "Wherefore," said Peter, "of these men which have com- 
 panied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out 
 among us, beginning from the baptism of John, unto that same 
 day that he was taken up from us, must one be ordained to be 
 a witness with us of his resurrection." (Acts 1:21, 22; read 
 verses 15-26 inclusive.) We are further informed that two men 
 were nominated, and that the divine power was invoked to 
 show whether either, and if so, which, was the Lord's choice. 
 Then the votes were cast "and the lot fell upon Matthias; and 
 he was numbered with the eleven apostles." 
 
 18. It is evident that the apostles considered their council or 
 quorum as definitely organizedwith a membership limit of twelve; 
 
12 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 
 
 and that the work of the Church required that the organization 
 be made complete. Nevertheless, we read of none others sub- 
 sequently chosen to fill vacancies in the council of twelve. Paul, 
 who previous to his conversion was known as Saul of Tarsus, 
 received a special manifestation, in which he heard the voice of 
 the Risen Lord declaring "I am Jesus whom thou persecutest," 
 (Acts 9:5; read verses 1-22) and thereby he became a special 
 witness of the Lord Jesus, and as such was in truth an apostle, 
 though we have no definite scriptural record that he was ever 
 made a member of the council of twelve. As showing the im- 
 portance of ordination to office under the hands of duly consti- 
 tuted authorities, we have the instance of Paul's ordination. 
 Though he had conversed with the Resurrected Jesus, though 
 he had been the subject of a special manifestation of divine 
 power in the restoration of his sight, he had nevertheless to be 
 baptized; and later he was commissioned for the work of the 
 ministry by the authoritative imposition of hands.- (Acts 13:1-3.) 
 
 19. Another instance of official action in choosing and set- 
 ting apart men to special office in the Church arose soon after the 
 ordination of Matthias.lt appears that one feature of the Church 
 organization in early apostolic days was a common ownership 
 of material things, distribution being made according to need. 
 As the members increased, it was found impracticable for the 
 apostles to devote the necessary attention and time to these 
 temporal matters, so they called upon the members to select 
 seven men of honest report, whom the apostles would appoint 
 to take special charge of these affairs. These men were set 
 apart by prayer and by the laying on of hands. (Acts 6:1-7.) 
 The instance is instructive as showing that the apostles realized 
 their possession of authority to direct in the affairs of the Church 
 and that they observed with strict fidelity the principle of com- 
 mon consent in the administration of their high office. They 
 exercised their priestly powers in the spirit of love, and with due 
 regard to the rights of the people over whom they were placed 
 to preside. 
 
 20. Under the administration of the apostles, and others 
 who labored by their direction in positions of lesser authority, 
 the Church grew in numbers and in influence. (See Note 3, end 
 of chapter.) For ten or twelve years after the ascension of 
 Christ, Jerusalem remained the headquarters of the Church, 
 
THE CHURCH OF THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE. 13 
 
 but branches, or, as designated in the scriptural record, separate 
 "churches," were established in the outlying provinces. As 
 such branches were organized, bishops, deacons, and other offi- 
 cers were chosen, and doubtless ordained by authority, to min- 
 ister in local affairs. (See Philip.l :1 ; compare I Tim.3 :1,2,8,10. ) 
 
 21. That the commission of the Lord Jesus to the apostles, 
 instructing them to preach the gospel widely, was executed with 
 promptness and zeal, is evident from the rapid growth of the 
 Church in the early apostolic times. (Acts 6:7;12:24;19:20.) 
 Paul, writing about A. D. 64 approximately thirty years after 
 the ascension declares that the gospel had already been car- 
 ried to every nation "preached to every creature under heaven' ' 
 
 (Col. 1:23; compare verse 6) by which expression the apostle 
 doubtless means that the gospel message had been so generally 
 proclaimed, that all who would might learn of it. 
 
 22. Details as to the organization of the Church in apos- 
 tolic days are not given with great fulness. As already shown, 
 the presiding authority was vested in the twelve apostles; and 
 furthermore, the special calling of the seventies has received 
 attention; but besides these there were evangelists, pastors, and 
 teachers; (Eph. 4:11) and in addition, high priests, (Heb. 
 5:1-5) elders, (Acts 14:23;25:6; I Peter 5:1) bishops, (I Tim. 
 3:1; Titus 1:7) etc. The purpose of these several offices is ex- 
 plained by Paul to be: "For the perfecting of the saints, for 
 the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ." 
 
 (Eph. 4:12; read also verses 13-16.) The Church with its 
 graded offices and its spiritual gifts has been aptly compared to a 
 perfect body with its separate organs and its individual mem- 
 bers, each necessary to the welfare of the whole, yet none in- 
 dependent of the rest. As in the human organism so in the Church 
 of Christ, no one with propriety can say to another, "I have no 
 need of thee." (See I Cor. 12. See note 4, end of chapter.) 
 
 The Church of Christ on the Western Hemisphere. 
 
 23. We have seen, on the evidence of the Jewish scriptures, 
 how the Church was established and made strong in Asia and 
 Europe in and immediately following the meridian of time. The 
 scriptures cited are such as appeal to all earnest Christians; the 
 authority is that of the New Testament. We have now to con- 
 
14 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 
 
 sider the establishment of the Church amongst those who con- 
 stituted another division of the house of Israel a people in- 
 habiting what is now known as the American continent. 
 
 24. For the benefit of those who are unfamiliar \vith the 
 Nephite scriptures published to the world as the Book of Mor- 
 mon, a brief historical summary is here presented. (See Note 
 5, end of chapter.) In the year 600 B. C., in the reign of King 
 Zedekiah, a small colony was led from Jerusalem by an inspired 
 prophet named Lehi. These people were brought by divine 
 assistance to the shores of the Arabian Sea, where they con- 
 structed a vessel in which they crossed the great waters to the 
 western coast of South America. They landed 590 B. C. The 
 people were soon divided into two parties, led respectively by 
 Nephi and Laman, sons of Lehi; and these factions grew into 
 the opposing nations known in history as Nephites and Laman- 
 ites. The former developed while the latter retrograded in the 
 arts of civilization. Nephite prophets predicted the earthly 
 advent of the Messiah, and foretold His ministry, crucifixion, 
 and resurrection. 
 
 25. The record states that the Messiah appeared in person 
 among the Nephites on the western continent. This was subse- 
 quent to His ascension from the Mount of Olives. A foreshadow- 
 ing of this great event was given by Christ in a declaration made 
 while yet He lived on earth. Comparing Himself to the good 
 shepherd who giveth his life for the sheep, He said: "And other 
 sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, 
 and they shall hear my voice, and there shall be one fold, and one 
 shepherd." (John 10:16; read verses 1-18 inclusive. Compare 
 III Nephi 15:21.) 
 
 26. According to the Nephite record, certain predicted 
 signs of the Savior's death had come to pass. Destructive earth- 
 quakes and other dread convulsions of nature had taken place 
 in the west, while the supreme tragedy was being enacted on 
 Calvary. The people of the land Bountiful, comprising the 
 northern portion of South America, were still marveling over 
 the great convulsions that had terrified them a few weeks earlier, 
 and on a certain occasion, were gathered together discussing the 
 matter, when they heard a voice as from the heavens saying: 
 "Behold my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, in whom 
 I have glorified my name: hear ye him." (III Nephi 11:7; read 
 
NOTES. 15 
 
 the entire chapter.) Looking up, they beheld a man descend- 
 ing. He was clothed in a white robe, and as He reached the 
 earth He said: "Behold, I am Jesus Christ, whom the prophets 
 testified shall come into the world. * * * Arise and come forth 
 unto me, that ye may thrust your hands into my side, and also 
 that ye may feel the prints of the nails in my hands and in my 
 feet, that ye may know that I am the God of Israel, and the 
 God of the whole earth, and have been slain for the sins of the 
 world." (Verses 10:14.) 
 
 27. Having thus declared Himself, Christ proceeded to in- 
 struct the people in the plan of the gospel as He had preached 
 it, and in the constitution of the Church as He had established 
 it in the east. He visited the Nephite people on subsequent 
 occasions, taught them many of the precepts previously given 
 to the Jews; emphasized the doctrine of baptism and other 
 ordinances essential to salvation; instituted the sacrament in 
 commemoration of His atoning death; chose and commissioned 
 twelve apostles, on whom He conferred authority in the Church; 
 explained the importance of designating the organization by its 
 proper name the Church of Christ; and announced the ful- 
 filment of the law of Moses and the fact that it was thenceforth 
 superseded by the gospel embodied within the Church as es- 
 tablished by Himself. In plan of organization, in doctrine and 
 precept, and in prescribed ordinances, the Church of Christ in 
 the west was the counterpart of the Church in Palestine. 
 
 28. Thus in the meridian of time the Church of God was 
 founded on both sides of the earth. In its pristine simplicity 
 and beauty it exhibited the majesty of a divine institution. It 
 is now our saddening duty to consider the decline of spiritual 
 power within the Church, and the eventual apostasy of the 
 Church itself. 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 1. Conditions at the Beginning of the Christian Era. "At the birth of Christ 
 this amazing federation of the world into one great monarchy had been finally 
 achieved. Augustus, at Rome, was the sole power to which all nations looked. 
 * No prince, no king, no potentate of any name could break the calm 
 which such a universal dominion secured. * * * It was in such a unique era 
 that Jesus Christ was born. The whole earth lay hushed in profound peace. 
 All lands lay freely open to the message of mercy and love which He came to 
 
16 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 
 
 announce. Nor was the social and moral condition of the world at large, at 
 the birth of Christ, less fitting for His advent than the political. The prize of 
 universal power struggled for through sixty years of plots and desolating civil 
 wars, had been won at last by Augustus. Sulla and Marius, Pompey and 
 Caesar, had led their legions against each other, alike in Italy and the provinces, 
 and had drenched the earth with blood. Augustus himself had reached the 
 throne only after thirteen years of war, which involved regions wide apart. 
 The world was exhausted by the prolonged agony of such a strife; it sighed for 
 repose." (Cunningham Geikie, "The Life and Works of Christ," New York, 
 1894; vol. 1, p. 25.) 
 
 "The Roman empire, at the birth of Christ, was less agitated by wars and 
 turmoils than it had been for many years before. For though I cannot assent 
 to the opinion of those who, following the account of Orosius, maintain that the 
 temple of Janus was then shut, and that wars and discords absolutely ceased 
 throughout the world, yet it is certain that the period in which our Savior 
 descended upon earth may be justly styled the 'pacific age,' if we compare it 
 with the preceding times. And indeed the tranquillity that then reigned was 
 necessary to enable the ministers of Christ to execute with success their sub- 
 lime commission to the human race." (Mosheim, "Ecclesiastical History," 
 Cent. I, Part I; ch. 1:4). 
 
 2. Paganism at the Beginning of The Christian Era. "Every nation then 
 had its respective gods, over which presided one more excellent than the rest; 
 yet in such a manner that this supreme deity was himself controlled by the 
 rigid empire of the fates, or what the philosophers called 'external necessity.' 
 The gods of the east were different from those of the Gauls, the Germans, and 
 the other northern nations. The Grecian divinities differed widely from those 
 of the Egyptians, who deified plants, animals, and a great variety of the pro- 
 ductions both of nature and art. Each people also had their own particular 
 manner of worshipping and appeasing their respective deities, entirely different 
 from the sacred rites of other countries. * * * One thing, indeed, which at 
 first sight appears very remarkable, is, that this variety of religions and of gods 
 neither produced wars nor dissensions among the different nations, the Egyp- 
 tians excepted. Nor is it perhaps necessary to except even them, since their 
 wars undertaken for their gods cannot be looked upon with propriety as wholly 
 of a religious nature. Each nation suffered its neighbors to follow their own 
 method of worship, to adore their own gods, to enjoy their own rites and cere- 
 monies, and discovered no sort of displeasure at their diversity of sentiments 
 in religious matters. There is, however, little wonderful in this spirit of mutual 
 toleration, when we consider that they all looked upon the world as one great 
 empire, divided into various provinces, over every one of which a certain order 
 of divinities presided^ and that therefore none could behold with contempt 
 the gods of other nations, or force strangers to pay homage to theirs. The 
 Romans exercised this toleration, in the amplest manner. For, though they 
 would not allow any changes to be made in the religions that were publicly 
 professed in the empire, nor any new form of worship to be openly introduced, 
 yet they granted to their citizens a full liberty of observing in private the sacred 
 rites of other nations, and of honoring foreign deities (whose worship contained 
 nothing inconsistent with the interests and laws of the republic) with feasts, 
 
NOTES. 17 
 
 temples, consecrated groves and such like testimonies of homage and respect." 
 (Mosheim, "Eccl. Hist.," Cent. I, Part I; ch. 1:7-8.) 
 
 3. Rapid Growth of the Church. Eusebius, who wrote in the early part 
 of the fourth century, speaking of the first decade after the Savior's ascension, 
 says: 
 
 "Thus, then, under a celestial influence, and co-operation, the doctrine 
 of the Savior, like the rays of the sun, quickly irradiated the whole world. Pres- 
 ently, in accordance with divine prophecy, the sound of His inspired evangelists 
 and apostles had gone throughout all the earth, and their words to the ends of 
 the world. Throughout every city and village, like a replenished barn floor, 
 churches were rapidly abounding and filled with members from every people. 
 Those who, in consequence of the delusions that had descended to them from 
 their ancestors, had been fettered by the ancient disease of idolatrous super- 
 stition, were now liberated by the power of Christ, through the teachings and 
 miracles of His messengers." (Eusebius, "Ecclesiastical History," Book I, 
 ch. 3.) 
 
 4. Divine Instrumentality in the Apostolic Ministry. "When we consider 
 the rapid progress of Christianity among the Gentile nations, and the poor and 
 feeble instruments by which this great and amazing event was immediately 
 effected, we naturally have recourse to an omnipotent and invisible hand, as 
 its true and proper cause. For, unless we suppose here a divine interposition, 
 how was it possible that men, destitute of all human aid, without credit or 
 riches, learning, or eloquence, could, in so short a time, persuade a considerable 
 part of mankind to abandon the religion of their ancestors? How was it pos- 
 sible, that an handful of apostles, who, as fishermen and publicans, must have 
 been contemned by their own nation, and as Jews must have been odious to 
 all others, could engage the learned and mighty, as well as the simple and those 
 of low degree, to forsake their favorite prejudices, and to embrace a new re- 
 ligion which was an enemy to their corrupt passions? And, indeed, there were 
 undoubted marks of a celestial power perpetually attending their ministry. 
 Their very language, an incredible energy, an amazing power of sending light 
 into the understanding and conviction into the heart." (Mosheim, "Ecclesias- 
 tical History," Cent. I, Part 1, ch. 4:8.) 
 
 5. Nephites and Lamanites. The progenitors of the Nephite nation "were 
 led from Jerusalem 600 B. C, by Lehi, a Jewish prophet of the tribe of Man- 
 asseh. t His immediate family, at the time of their departure from Jerusalem, 
 comprised his wife Sariah, and their sons Laman, Lemuel, Sam, and Nephi; 
 at a later stage of the history, daughters are mentioned, but whether any of 
 these were born before the family exodus we are not told. Beside his own 
 family, the colony of Lehi included Zoram and Ishmael, the latter an Israelite 
 of the tribe of Ephraim. Ishmael, with his family, joined Lehi in the wilder- 
 ness; and his descendants were numbered with the nation of whom we are 
 speaking. The company journeyed somewhat east of south, keeping near the 
 borders of the Red Sea; then changing their course to the eastward, crossed 
 the peninsula of Arabia ^and there, on the shores of the Arabian Sea, built 
 and provisioned a vessel in which they committed themselves to Divine care 
 upon the waters. Their voyage carried them eastward across the Indian Ocean, 
 
18 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 
 
 then over the south Pacific Ocean to the western coast of South America, 
 whereon they landed (590 B. C.) * * * The people established themselves 
 on what to them was the land of promise; many children were born, and in the 
 course of a few generations a numerous posterity held possession of the land. 
 After the death of Lehi, a division occurred, some of the people accepting as 
 their leader Nephi, who had been duly appointed to the prophetic office; while 
 the rest proclaimed Laman, the eldest of Lehi's sons, as their chief. Hence- 
 forth the divided people were known as Nephites and Lamanites respectively. 
 At times they observed toward each other fairly friendly relations; but gen- 
 erally they were opposed, the Lamanites manifesting implacable hatred and 
 hostility toward their Nephite kindred. The Nephites advanced in the arts 
 of civilization, built large cities, and established prosperous commonwealths; 
 yet they often fell into transgression; and the Lord chastened them by making 
 their foes victorious. They spread northward, occupying the northern part of 
 South America; then, crossing the Isthmus, they extended their domain over 
 the southern, central, and eastern portions of what is now the United States of 
 America. The Lamanites, while increasing in numbers, fell under the curse of 
 darkness; they became dark in skin and benighted in spirit, forgot the God of 
 their fathers, lived a wild nomadic life, and degenerated into the fallen state 
 in which the American Indians, their lineal descendants, were found by 
 those who re-discovered the western continent in later times." (The Author, 
 "Articles of Faith," Lect. 14:7, 8;) 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 The Apostasy Predicted. 
 
 1. In proceeding with our present inquiry we accept as 
 demonstrated facts the establishment of the Church of Christ 
 under the Savior's personal administration and the rapid growth 
 of the Church in the early period of the apostolic ministry. 
 
 2. A question of the utmost importance is: Has the Church 
 of Christ, thus authoritatively established, maintained an organ- 
 ized existence upon the earth from the apostolic age to the pres- 
 ent? Other questions are suggested by the first. If the Church 
 has continued as an earthly organization, where lies the proof 
 or evidence of legitimate succession in priestly authority, and 
 which among the multitude of contending sects or churches of 
 the present day is the actual possessor of the holy priesthood 
 originally committed to the Church by the Christ, its founder? 
 
THE APOSTASY PREDICTED. 19 
 
 3. Again, have the spiritual gifts and graces by which the 
 early Church was characterized and distinguished been manifest 
 on earth through the centuries that have passed since the merid- 
 ian of time; and if so, in which of the numerous churches of these 
 modern times do we find such signs following the professed 
 believers? (See Mark 16:17.) 
 
 4. We affirm that with the passing of the so-called apostolic 
 age the Church gradually drifted into a condition of apostasy, 
 whereby succession in the priesthood was broken; and that the 
 Church, as an earthly organization operating under divine 
 direction and having authority to officiate in spiritual ordi- 
 nances, ceased to exist. 
 
 5. If therefore the Church of Christ is to be found upon 
 the earth to-day it must have been re-established by divine 
 authority; and the holy priesthood must have been restored to 
 the world from which it was lost by the apostasy of the Primi- 
 tive Church. (See Note 1, end of chapter.) 
 
 6. We affirm that the great apostasy was foretold by the 
 Savior Himself while He lived as a Man among men, and by 
 His inspired prophets both before and after the period of His 
 earthly probation. And further, we affirm that a rational inter- 
 pretation of history demonstrates the fact of this great and 
 general apostasy. 
 
 7. Before we take up in detail the specific predictions re- 
 ferred to, and the evidence of their dread fulfilment, we may 
 profitably devote brief attention to certain general considera- 
 tions. 
 
 8. Respecting the foreknowledge of God, let it not be said 
 that divine omniscience is of itself a determining cause whereby 
 events are inevitably brought to pass. A mortal father who 
 "knows the weaknesses and frailties of his son may by reason of 
 that knowledge sorrowfully predict the calamities and suffer- 
 ings awaiting his wayward boy. He may foresee in that son's 
 future a forfeiture of blessings that could have been won, loss 
 of position, self-respect, reputation and honor; even the dark 
 shadows of a felon's cell and the night of a drunkard's grave may 
 appear in the saddening visions of that fond father's soul; yet, 
 convinced by experience of the impossibility of bringing about 
 that son's reform, he foresees the dread developments of the 
 future, and he finds but sorrow and anguish in his knowledge. 
 
20 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 
 
 Can it be said that the father's foreknowledge is a cause of the 
 son's sinful life? The son, perchance, has reached his maturity; 
 he is the master of his own destiny; a free agent unto himself. 
 The father is powerless to control by force or to direct by ar- 
 bitrary command; and while he would gladly make any effort 
 or sacrifice to save his son from the fate impending, he fears for 
 what seems to be an awful certainty. But surely that thoughtful, 
 prayerful, loving parent does not contribute to the son's way- 
 wardness because of his knowledge. To reason otherwise would 
 be to say that a neglectful father, who takes not the trouble to 
 study the nature and character of his son, who shuts his eyes 
 to sinful tendencies, and rests in careless indifference as to the 
 probable future, will by his very heartlessness be benefiting his 
 child, because his lack of forethought cannot operate as a 
 contributory cause to dereliction. 
 
 9. Our Heavenly Father has a full knowledge of the nature 
 and dispositions of each of His children, a knowledge gained 
 by long observation and experience in the past eternity of our 
 primeval childhood; a knowledge compared with which that 
 gained by earthly parents through mortal experience with their 
 children is infinitesimally small. By reason of that surpassing 
 knowledge, God reads the future of child and children, of men 
 individually and of men collectively as communities and nations; 
 He knows what each will do under given conditions, and sees 
 the end from the beginning. His foreknowledge is based on in- 
 telligence and reason; He foresees the future as a state which 
 naturally and surely will be; not as one which must be because 
 He has arbitrarily willed that it shall be. 
 
 10. But, it may be argued that in the illustrative instance 
 given above that of the earthly parent and the wayward son, 
 the father had not the power to change the sad course of sin 
 whereby his son is hastening to ignominy and destruction; while 
 the omnipotent Father can save if He will. In reply this is to be 
 said: The Father of souls has endowed His children with the 
 divine birthright of free agency; He does not and will not con- 
 trol them by arbitrary force; He impels no man toward sin; 
 He compels none to righteousness. Unto man has been given 
 freedom to act for himself; and, associated with this indepen- 
 dence, is the fact of strict responsibility and the assurance of 
 individual accountability. In the judgment with which we shall 
 
THE APOSTASY PREDICTED. 21 
 
 be judged, all the conditions and circumstances of our lives shall 
 be considered. The inborn tendencies due to heredity, the effect 
 of environment whether conducive to good or evil, the whole- 
 some teachings of youth, or the absence of good instruction 
 these and all other contributory elements must be taken into 
 account in the rendering of a just verdict as to the soul's guilt 
 or innocence. Nevertheless, the divine wisdom makes plain 
 what will be the result with given conditions operating on known 
 natures and dispositions of men; while every individual is free 
 to choose good or evil within the limits of the many conditions 
 existing and operative. (See Note 2, end of chapter.) 
 
 11. Another matter worthy of thought in the present con- 
 nection is this: Is the fact of the great apostasy, the virtual 
 overthrow and destruction of the Church established by Jesus 
 Christ, to be regarded as an instance of failure in the Lord's 
 plans? Is it a case of defeat in which Satan was victor over Christ? 
 Consider the following. What mortal has yet measured the 
 standard by which Omniscience gages success or failure? Who 
 dares affirm that what man hails as triumph or deplores as de- 
 feat will be so accounted when tested by the principles of eternal 
 reckoning? 
 
 12. The history of the world abounds with instances of the 
 temporary triumph of evil, of justice seemingly miscarried, of 
 divine plans for the time being frustrated, of God's purposes 
 opposed and their consummation delayed. 
 
 13. We read of the Lord's covenant with Israel. Unto 
 Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob He declared that their descendants 
 should be a people chosen for His special service among the na- 
 tions. Through that lineage the Savior of mankind was to be 
 born; in the posterity of Abraham all nations of the earth were 
 to be blessed. Blessings beyond the heart of man to conceive, 
 beyond the mind of man to comprehend, were promised on con- 
 dition of loyal allegiance to Him who proclaimed Himself their 
 God and their King. Moreover the Lord predicted calamity 
 and suffering, and individual affliction and national disgrace, if 
 Israel departed from the service of Jehovah and yielded to the 
 enticements of their heathen neighbors who knew not God. 
 Think you that the Lord was ignorant of the course His people 
 would choose? Did He fail to foresee that Israel would 
 follow the evil way, forfeiting the blessings and reaping the 
 
22 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 
 
 harvest of sorrow? Jehovah's plans failed not, though the 
 realization of the blessings so abundantly promised has been 
 long delayed. Equally forceful with the prediction of calamity 
 in case of sin, was the promise of eventual restoration to favor. 
 The dispersion of Israel already accomplished, was to be followed 
 by the gathering of Israel now in progress. (See the Author's 
 "Articles of Faith," lectures 17 and 18.) 
 
 14. What would have been the world's verdict as to the suc- 
 cess or failure of the mission of the Christ, had a vote been 
 taken at the time of the crucifixion? Seemingly His enemies 
 had triumphed; He who proclaimed Himself the Messiah, the 
 Son of God, the resurrection and the life, over whom death 
 could not prevail, had suffered the fate of malefactors, and His 
 body was in the tomb. But the verdict of the centuries, which 
 is the verdict of the eternities to come, acclaims that "failure" 
 as the greatest triumph of the ages, the victory of victories. 
 
 15. Even so with the Church. For a season the powers of 
 /" evil triumphed, and the spirit of apostasy ruled. But beyond 
 
 the darkness of the spiritual night the glorious dawn of the 
 restoration was seen in prophetic vision, and both the night 
 with its horrors, and the awakening day with its splendor, were 
 foreseen and foretold. 
 
 16. In our study of the predictions of the apostasy as em- 
 bodied in scripture and of their realization as attested by later 
 history, we shall recognize two distinct phases or stages of the 
 progressive falling aw r ay as follows: 
 
 ,. (1) Apostasy from the Church; and 
 
 II (2) The apostasy of the Church. 
 
 17. In the first stage we have to deal with the forsaking of 
 the truth and severance from the Church by individuals, at 
 times few, at other times many. Such conditions can scarcely 
 be considered otherwise than as natural and inevitable. History 
 fails to present any example of great undertakings upon which 
 multitudes enter with enthusiasm, and from which many do 
 not desert. Unless such cases of individual abandonment are 
 so numerous as to show the operation of some vital cause of 
 disaffection, we would not need the authority of divine predic- 
 tion and inspired prophecy to explain the occurrence. We find, 
 however, that apostasy from the Primitive Church was wide- 
 
THE APOSTASY PREDICTED. 23 
 
 spread and general, and that the causes leading to such a con- 
 dition were of vital significance. 
 
 18. In the second of the two stages already specified we are 
 confronted with conditions of far greater import than those at- 
 tending individual secession from the Church; for here we find 
 the Church sinking to the degraded level of a human institution, 
 with plan of organization and mode of operation foreign to the 
 constitution of the original, without priesthood or authority to 
 officiate in spiritual ordinances, and devoid of the gifts and 
 graces with which the Savior endowed His Church at the time 
 of its establishment. In short, we find the Church itself apos- 
 tate, boasting of temporal power, making its own laws, teach- 
 ing its own dogmas, preserving only a form of godliness, while 
 denying the power thereof. (See II Tim. 3:1-6.) 
 
 Specific Predictions of the Apostasy. 
 
 19. The Lord foresaw the great and general departure from 
 the principles of righteousness, and from the beginning knew 
 that men would set up their own forms of worship, wrongfully 
 claiming divine authority for the same. Through the mouths 
 of His chosen prophets He has repeatedly predicted the in- 
 evitable event. (See note 3, end of chapter.) 
 
 20. Among the prophecies antedating the birth of Christ 
 the following may be noted. Isaiah beheld in vision the con- 
 dition of the earth in the era of spiritual darkness, a period in 
 which all classes would be involved in a general condition of 
 unrighteousness, a time when the world of mankind would be 
 in a helpless and practically hopeless condition. He pictures 
 the earth mourning and languishing in desolation and assigns 
 the reason for the sad condition as follows: "The earth also is de-j 
 filed under the inhabitants thereof; because they have trans-j 
 gressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlastJ 
 
 've.) J 
 
 ingcpvenant.'' (Isaiah 24:5; read verses 1 to 6 inclusive.) J ' 
 21. It may be thought that this prophecy has reference to 
 a violation of the law of Moses under which ancient Israel 
 lived. Let it be remembered, however, that the Mosiac law is 
 nowhere called an everlasting covenant. The covenant between 
 the Lord and Abraham antedated the giving of the law by four 
 hundred and thirty years, and, as pointed out by Paul (Gala- 
 tians 3:17; read the entire chapter.) In his epistle to the 
 
24 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 
 
 Galatians, whom he designates as foolish because of their con- 
 fusing the law of Moses and the gospel of Christ, the law could 
 not nullify the earlier covenant the fulfillment of which could 
 come only through Christ. The "law," by which the inspired 
 apostle plainly means the Mosaic statutes, was but a prepara- 
 tion for the "faith," by which latter expression the gospel as 
 revealed by Christ is clearly intended. "But before faith came," 
 says Paul, "we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith 
 which should afterwards be revealed. Wherefore the law was 
 our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be 
 justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we are no 
 longer under a schoolmaster. For ye are the children of God 
 by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been 
 baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew 
 nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male 
 (nor female: for ye are all one in Jesus Christ. And if ye be 
 Christ's then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to 
 the promise." (Verses 23-29.) 
 
 22. It is evident from the tenor of the entire chapter, that 
 while the gospel was preached unto Abraham, and covenant 
 made with him relating to the coming of the Messiah through 
 his posterity, the gospel did not abide with Israel, and this be- 
 cause of transgression; (Verse 19.) but in lieu thereof the 
 Mosaic law was instituted as a disciplinary measure, temporary 
 in character, destined to be superseded by the gospel of Christ, 
 and assuredly not an everlasting^ovenant. On the other hand, 
 the blood of Christ, through the^sHedHmg of which the atoning 
 sacrifice was wrought, is distinctively called "the blood of the 
 everlasting covenant," (Hebrews 13:20.) 
 
 23. It is evident then that Isaiah's fateful prophecy relating 
 to the breaking of the everlasting covenant could have no refer- 
 ence to a departure from the Mosaic requirements, but must 
 refer to a then future condition of apostasy following the es- 
 tablishment of the everlasting covenant. Moreover, part of 
 the great prediction, referring to the burnings and widespread 
 calamities, (See Isaiah 24:6.) yet awaits its complete ful- 
 fillment. 
 
 24. Another prediction applicable to the period when there 
 should be no Church of Christ to be found, and when, in con- 
 sequence there should be lamentation and suffering, is that of 
 
X 
 
 THE APOSTASY PREDICTED. 25 
 
 vT Amos. "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I 
 / will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a 
 | thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord: And 
 \ they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to 
 the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, 
 \jind shall not find it." (Amos 8:li, 12.) 
 
 25. Christ instructed His followers in terms at once direct 
 and conclusive, as to the apostasy then impending. In reply to 
 certain inquiries concerning the signs by which His second 
 advent would be heralded, He said: "Take heed that no man \{j 
 deceive you. For many shall come in my name, saying, I arnj 
 Christ; and shall deceive many." (Matt. 24:4, 5.) Then He 
 
 ^_told of approaching wars and political disturbances, and added: 
 ~""And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, 
 and shall hate one another. And many false prophets shall rise 
 and shall deceive many. And because iniquity shall abound, 
 the love of many shall wax cold. But he that shall endure unto 
 the end, the same shall be saved." (Verses 10-13. See note 4, 
 end of chapter.) 
 
 26. Further specifying the conditions incident to the 
 growing apostasy, Christ declared to His disciples: "Then shall 
 they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye 
 shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake." (Verse 9.) 
 And again: "Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is 
 Christ, or there; believe it not. For there shall arise false Christs, 
 and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; 
 insomuch that if it were possible, they shall deceive the very] 
 elect. Behold, I have told you before. Wherefore if they shall 
 say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert; go not forth; behold, 
 he is in the secret chambers; believe it not." (Verses 23-26^ 
 
 27. After the departure of Christ from earth His apostles 
 continued to warn the people of the darkness to come. In that 
 memorable address to the elders of Ephesus, when, as he told 
 them, they were looking upon his face for the last time, Paul 
 reminded his hearers of the instructions he had previously 
 
 iven them, and then charged them with this solemn warning: 
 'For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves 
 enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own 
 selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away 
 
 ' "'7 
 
 e is S 
 ists, f 
 ters: I 
 
26 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 
 
 disciples after them." (Acts 20:29, 30; read verses 17 to 31 
 incl.) 
 
 28. Not only would outsiders ingratiate themselves with 
 the saints for purposes of selfish gain wolves entering in, and 
 not sparing the flock, but schisms and divisions were immi- 
 nent; and these dissensions were to come through some then 
 present men who would aspire to leadership, and who would 
 set up their own doctrines, thus drawing disciples away from the 
 Church and unto themselves. 
 
 29. The same apostle warns Timothy of the approaching 
 apostasy, and refers to some of the erroneous teachings that 
 would be impressed upon misguided people, teachings which 
 he calls "doctrines of devils." He admonishes Timothy to put 
 the brethren in remembrance of these things, as is becoming 
 in a good minister of Christ, "nourished up in the words of 
 
 ^faith and of good doctrine." Note the inspired prediction: 
 ''Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times 
 some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, 
 and doctrines of devils; speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their 
 conscience seared with a hot iron; forbidding to marry, and 
 commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created 
 Vto be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and 
 > (know the truth." (I Tim. 4:1-3. SeeJSFote 5, end of chapter.) 
 
 30. In a second" epistle to his ^beloved Timothy, while 
 laboring under the premonition that his martyrdom was near 
 at hand, Paul urges zeal and energy in the preaching of the gos- 
 pel; for the shadows of the apostasy were gathering about the 
 Church. His admonition is pathetic in its earnestness: "I 
 charge thee therefore, before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, 
 who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and 
 lis kingdom; Preach the word; be instant in season, out of 
 season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and dec- 
 line. For the time will come when they will not endure sound 
 doctrine ; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves 
 teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their 
 ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables." (II 
 Tim. 4:1-4.) 
 
 sTTln addressing the Thessalonian saints, Paul warns 
 them against the error strongly advocated by some that the day 
 of Christ's second advent was then near at hand. It appears 
 
^K 
 
 THE APOSTASY PREDICTED. 27 
 
 that deception was being practiced, and that even forgery was 
 suspected, for the apostle instructs the people that they be not 
 deceived ^bv word nor bv letter as from us." The admonition 
 is forceful: "Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of 
 our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto Him, 
 That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by 
 spirit, nor by word, nor bv letter as from us. as that the day of 
 Christ is at hand. 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; who 
 opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or 
 is worshiped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of 
 God, shewing himself that he is God." ( II Thess. 1:2-14.) 
 e shall see how painfully literal has been the fulfilment of 
 this prophecy in the blasphemous assumptions of the apostate 
 church, centuries later. 
 
 32. The Apostle Peter prophesied in language so plain 
 that none may fail to comprehend, concerning the heresies 
 that would be preached as doctrine in the period of the apostasy; 
 and He reminds the people that there were false teachers in 
 olden times, even as there would be in times then future: 
 "But there were false prophets also among the people, even as 
 there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring 
 in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, 
 and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall 
 follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of 
 truth shall be evil spoken of. And through covetousness shall 
 they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose 
 judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation 
 slumbereth not." (II Peter 2:1-3. Read the entire chapter, 
 noting the description of conditions existing in the world today. ) 
 
 33. Jude, the brother of James, in his general epistle to the 
 saints, reminds them of earlier warnings: "But, beloved, 
 remember ye the words which were spoken before of the apos- 
 tles of our Lord Jesus Christ; How that they told you there 
 should be mockers in the last time, who should walk after their 
 own ungodly lusts." (Jude 17.JJLA- 
 
 34. John, who is called the Revelator. saw in vision the 
 state of the world in the days ^henfuturep Describing the spirit 
 of unrighteousness as<e hideous^beastTami its author, Satan, as 
 
28 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 
 
 the dragon, he says: "And they worshiped the dragon which 
 gave power unto the beast: and they worshiped the beast, 
 saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war 
 with him? * * * And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against 
 God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that 
 dwell in heaven. And it was given unto him to make war with 
 the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him 
 over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations. And all that dwell 
 upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written 
 in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the 
 world. If any man have an ear, let him hear." (Rev. 13:4,6-9.) 
 357 Note another prophecy based on the vision of John the 
 Revelator. Again referring to latter-day conditions he declares: 
 "And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the 
 everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, 
 and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, 
 Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for 
 the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made 
 heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of water." 
 (Rev. 14:6, 7.) 
 
 36. While it is true that the scripture last quoted does not 
 specifically predict the apostasy, the breaking up of the Church is 
 treated as an event actually accomplished. The Revelator 
 ^.looked beyond the period of disruption and saw the brighter day 
 of the restoration of the gospel a re-establishment of the 
 Church through the ministry of an angel. It is illogical to 
 assume that the gospel was to be brought to earth by a 
 heavenly messenger if that gospel was still extant upon the 
 earth. Equally unreasonable is it to say that a restoration or 
 re-establishment of the Church of Christ would be necessary 
 or possible had the Church continued with rightful succession 
 of priesthood and power. If the gospel had to be brought 
 again from the heavens, the gospel must have been taken from 
 the earth. (Thus the prophecy of a restoration is proof of an 
 apostasy general and complete. ~) 
 
 Apostasy on the Western Hemisphere Predicted. 
 
 37. In the preceding chapter it was shown that the Church 
 of Christ was established by the Risen Lord among the Nephites 
 of the western world. It was foreseen that the powers of evil 
 
THE APOSTASY PREDICTED. 29 
 
 would be permitted to prevail in the west as in the east. Con- 
 sider the fateful words of the prophet Alma addressed to his 
 son Helaman: "Behold, I perceive that this very people, the 
 Nephites, according to the spirit of revelation which is in me, 
 in four hundred years from the time that Jesus Christ shall 
 manifest himself unto them, shall dwindle in unbelief; Yea, and 
 then shall they see wars and pestilence, yea, famines and blood- 
 shed, even until the people of Nephi shall become extinct; Yea, 
 and this because they shall dwindle in unbelief, and fall into the 
 works of darkness, and lasciviousness, and all manner of in- 
 iquities; yea, I say unto you, that because they shall sin against 
 so great light and knowledge; yea, I say unto you, that from that 
 day, even the fourth generation shall not pass away, before this 
 great iniquity shall come." (Alma 45:10-12.) 
 
 38. An earlier prophecy relating to the degradation of the 
 surviving remnant of Lehi's descendants, was uttered by 
 Nephi, as a result of a revelation communicated to him through 
 angelic visitation. He thus describes his vision of the future: 
 "I beheld and saw that the seed of my brethren did contend 
 against my seed, according to the word of the angel; and be- 
 cause of the pride of my seed, and the temptations of the devil, 
 
 I beheld that the seed of my brethren did overpower the people 
 of my seed. And it came to pass that I beheld and saw the 
 people of the seed of my brethren, that they had overcome my 
 seed; and they went forth in multitudes upon the face of the 
 land. And I saw them gathered together in multitudes; and I 
 saw wars and rumors of wars among them; and in wars and 
 rumors of wars, I saw many generations pass away. And the 
 angel said unto me, Behold these shall dwindle in unbelief. And 
 it came to pass that I beheld after they had dwindled in un- 
 belief, they became a dark, and loathsome, and filthy people, 
 full of idleness and all manner of abominations." (I Nephi 
 12:19-23. For other Book of Mormon predictions of spiritual de- 
 cline on the western continent, see II Nephi 27:1; read also 
 
 II Nephi 26:19-22, and chapter 29.) The degraded state of the 
 North American Indians, descendants of a prophet-father 
 is a striking realization of this prophetic declaration. 
 
 39. The scriptures cited are sufficient to show that wide- 
 spread apostasy from the Church was foreseen; that the cor-* 
 
30 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 
 
 ruption of the Church itself was likewise foreknown; and that 
 on both hemispheres a general apostasy was foretold. 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 1. The Church, Primitive and Restored. The Church of Jesus Christ of 
 Latter-day Saints declares by its name a distinction from the Primitive Church 
 as established by Christ and His early apostles. The essential designation of 
 the restored Church is the Church of Jesus Christ; its authorized name is the 
 Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the final phrase being added to 
 distinguish the Church as established in the present dispensation from the 
 Church as organized by the Savior during the period of His earthly ministry. 
 This distinction is shown in one of our Articles of Faith: "We (the Church of 
 today) believe in the same organization that existed in the Primitive Church." 
 
 2. Man's Free Agency. The teachings of the restored Church respecting 
 individual freedom of action are thus summarized: "The Church holds and 
 teaches as a strictly scriptural doctrine, that man has inherited among the 
 inalienable rights conferred upon him by his divine Father, absolute freedom to 
 choose the good or the evil in life as he may elect. This right cannot be guarded 
 with more jealous care than is bestowed upon it by God Himself; for in all His 
 dealings with man, He has left the mortal creature free to choose and to act, 
 with no semblance of compulsion or restraint, beyond the influences of paternal 
 counsel and loving direction. True, He has given commandments, and has 
 established statutes, with promises of blessings for compliance and dire penalties 
 for infraction; but in the choice of these, God's children are untrammeled. In 
 this respect, man is no less free than are the angels and the Gods, except as he 
 has fettered himself with the bonds of sin, and forfeited his power of will and 
 force of soul. The individual has a full measure of liberty to violate the laws of 
 health, the requirements of nature, and the commandments of God in matters 
 both temporal and spiritual, as he has to obey all such; in the one case he brings 
 upon himself the sure penalties that belong to the broken law; as in the other he 
 inherits the specific blessings and the added freedom that attend a law-abiding 
 life. Obedience to law is the habit of the free man; 'tis the transgressor who 
 fears the law, for he brings upon himself deprivation and restraint, not because 
 of the law, which would have protected him in his freedom, but because of his 
 rejection of law. The predominant attribute of justice, recognized as part of 
 Divine nature, forbids the thought that man should receive promises of re- 
 ward for righteousness, and threats of punishment of evil deeds, if he possessed 
 no power of independent action. It is no more a part of God's plan to compel 
 men to work righteousness, than it is His purpose to permit evil powers to force 
 His children into sin. In the days of Eden, the first man had placed before 
 him commandment and law, with an explanation of the penalty which would 
 follow a violation of that law. No law could have been given him in righteous- 
 ness, had he not been free to act for himself. 'Nevertheless, thou mayest choose 
 for thyself, for it is given unto thee; but remember that I forbid it,' said the 
 Lord God to Adam. Concerning His dealings with the first patriarch of the 
 race, God has declared in this day, 'Behold I gave unto him that he should be 
 an agent unto himself.' " (The Author, "Articles of Faith," Lecture 3:1, 2.) 
 
NOTES. 31 
 
 3. The Testimony of Prophecy to the Apostasy. "What is prophecy but 
 history reversed? Nothing. Prophecy is a record of things before they trans- 
 pire. History is a record of them after they have occurred; and of the two 
 prophecy is more to be trusted for its accuracy than history: for the reason that 
 it has for its source the unerring inspiration of Almighty God; while history 
 except in the case of inspired historians is colored^by the favor or prejudice of 
 the writer, depends for its exactness upon the point of view from which he 
 looks upon the events; and is likely to be marred in a thousand ways by the 
 influences surrounding him party considerations, national interest or prejudice; 
 supposed influence upon present conditions and future prospects all these 
 things may interfere with history; but prophecy is free from such influences. 
 Historians are self-constituted, or appointed by men; but prophets are chosen 
 of God. Selected by divine wisdom, and illuminated by that Spirit which shows 
 things that are to come, prophets have revealed to them so much of the future 
 as God would have men to know, and the inspired writers record it for the 
 enlightenment or warning of mankind, without the coloring or distortion so 
 liable to mar the work of the historian. Thus Moses recorded what the history 
 of Israel would be on condition of their obedience to God: and what it would 
 be if they were disobedient. Israel was disobedient, and historians have ex- 
 hausted their art in attempts to tell of their disobedience and suffering; but 
 neither in vividness nor accuracy do the histories compare with the prophecy. 
 So with the prophecy of Daniel in respect to the rise and succession of the great 
 political powers that should dominate the earth, and the final triumph of the 
 Kingdom of God. So with well-nigh all of the prophecies." (B. H. Roberts, 
 "A New Witness for God," pp. 113, 114.) 
 
 4. Christ's Prediction of the Apostasy. The forceful prophecy, couched in 
 terms of vivid description, uttered by our Lord in response to inquiries by His 
 disciples, has been the subject of diverse opinion and varied comment, particu- 
 larly as regard the time to which the prediction refers. As recorded in the 
 
 iU twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew, a significant sign of the progress of events 
 it to precede the second coming of Christ was stated as follows: "And this gospel \ 
 
 **^ of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; ) 
 and then shall the end come." (Verse 14.) It is claimed by many that tfte- y 
 "end" referred to in the passage quoted is not necessarily the close of the final 
 dispensation, not what is commonly spoken of as the end of the world, but the 
 closing up of the gospel dispensation then current; and in support of this in- 
 terpretation it is urged that following the utterance quoted Christ proceeded 
 to predict the calamities then awaiting Jerusalem. That during the period 
 covered by the earthly ministry of the apostles, the gospel was preached in all 
 the civilized nations of the Eastern hemisphere, is evident alike from scripture 
 and from the uncanonical writings of repute relating to that period. Paul speaks 
 of the Gospel as having been carried in his day to the world, and as having been 
 preached to every creature under heaven (see Colos. 1:6, 23; compare Romans 
 10:18; see also Note 3, following chapter I of this work, page 15.) 
 
 In Joseph Smith's version of the twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew the 
 paragraph relating to the preaching of the gospel in all the world as one of the 
 signs specified by Jesus Christ, is transposed so as to apply more directly to 
 the modern or last dispensation. (See Pearl of Great Price, Writings of Joseph 
 
32 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 
 
 Smith, 1.) The scripture under consideration has direct application to the 
 conditions characteristic of present times the period now current and im- 
 mediately precedent to the second advent of the Christ. This fact, however, 
 does not necessarily nullify its application to the earlier period as well. His- 
 tory repeats itself in many instances in this, "the dispensation of the fulness 
 of times;" indeed, the very name is expressive of a summarizing or gathering 
 together of things past, and this involves recurrence of earlier conditions and 
 re-enactment of laws. The prediction of world-wide evangelization is not the 
 only instance of a general prophecy having more than a single limited horizon 
 of fulfillment. In the apostolic period the gospel was carried to all nations 
 known to the Lord's ministers; a similar work is in progress today, on a scale 
 greatly exceeding that of the past, for the world, as measured by human oc- 
 cupancy, is vastly greater than of old. 
 
 5. Scriptures Relating to the Apostasy. That the application of the scrip- 
 tures cited in the text is proof of the predicted apostasy is not peculiar to the 
 Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is shown by the tact that these 
 predictions are similarly interpreted by theologians of other churches. Thus, 
 in his "Bible Commentary," Dr. Adam Clarke annotates Paul's admonition 
 to Timothy as below. First note the passage: "Now the Spirit speaketh ex- 
 pressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed 
 ^to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; speaking lies in hypocrisy;" etc. Dr. 
 Clarke says: 
 
 " 'In the latter times -.This does not necessarily imply the last ages of the 
 world; but any times consequent (subsequent) to those in which the church 
 then lived." 
 
 "Depart from the faith'. They will apostatize from the faith, i. e. from 
 Christianity, renouncing the whole system in effect by bringing in doctrines 
 which render its essential truths null and void; or denying and denouncing such 
 doctrines as are essential to Christianity as a system of salvation. A man may 
 hold all the truths of Christianity, and yet render them of none effect, by hold- 
 ing other doctrines, which counteract their influence; or he may apostatize by 
 denying some essential doctrine, though he bring in nothing heterodox." 
 
 "Speaking lies in hypocrisy: Persons pretending not only to divine in- 
 spiration, but also to extraordinary degrees of holiness, self-denial, mortifica- 
 tion, etc., in order to credit the lies and false doctrines which they taught. Mul- 
 titudes of lies were framed concerning miracles wrought by the relics of departed 
 saints as they were termed." 
 
EARLY STAGES. 33 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 Early Stages of the Apostasy. 
 
 1. As shown in the preceding chapter a general apostasy 
 from the Primitive Church was both foreseen and foretold. 
 Prophet who lived centuries before the time of Christ predicted 
 the great event, as did also the Savior Himself and the apostles 
 who continued the work of the ministry after His resurrection 
 and ascension. We are now to inquire as to the fulfillment of 
 these predictions. 
 
 2. Evidence that the apostasy occurred as had been pre- 
 dicted is found in the sacred scriptures and in the records of 
 history other than scriptural. From certain utterances of the 
 early-day apostles it is made plain to us that the great ' 'falling 
 away" had begun even while those apostles were living. The 
 preachinlfoTfalse doctrines and the rise of unauthorized teachers 
 were referred to as conditions then actually existing in the 
 Church, and not as remote developments of the distant future. 
 (See Note 1, end of chapter.) 
 
 3. Scarcely had the gospel seed been committed to the 
 soil before the enemy came, and by night sowed tares amongst 
 the wheat; and so intimate was the growth. of the two that any 
 attempt to forcibly uproot the weeds would have threatened 
 the life of the grain. (Study the parable of wheat and tares, 
 Matt. 13 :24-30. See Note 2, end of chapter. ) 
 
 Paul recognized the fact that the people amongst whom 
 he labored were losing the faith they had professed, and were 
 becoming victims of the deception practiced by false teachers. 
 In his letter to the churches of Galatia he wrote: "I marvel that 
 ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of 
 Christ unto another gospel: Which is not another; but there be 
 some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ." 
 And then, to emphasize the sin of those who thus sought to 
 "pervert the gospel of Christ," he continued: "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. 
 As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any 
 other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be ac- 
 cursed." (Galatians 1:6-9; read the entire chapter. See 
 Note 3, end of chapter.) 
 
 (]M 
 
34 
 
 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 
 
 5. Thelcontext of the passages just quoted shows the nature 
 of the error pnto which "the churches of Galatia" were in danger 
 of falling. (They were embroiled in a discussion as to whether 
 they were bound by certain requirements of the law oLMoses. 
 notably that respecting circumcision. The apostle instructs 
 them to the effect that the gospel of Christ was superior to the 
 law; and that, moreover, they were inconsistent in contending 
 for one item of the law and neglecting the rest. We have here 
 indication/of the effort so persisted in even by those who had 
 joined the; Church, to modify and change the simple require- 
 
 ments of 
 
 /the gospel by introducing the elements nf 
 
 It must be remembered that even among the apostles some dif- 
 ference oi opinion had existed as to the necessity of circumcision; 
 but this had been settled by their prayerful efforts to learn the 
 
 1 in the matter; and those who sought to foment 
 on this or any other matter of authoritative doctrine 
 red to be enemies to the Church, seeking to "pervert 
 of Christ." 
 his second epistle to the "church of the Thessalon- 
 
 Lord's w 
 dissensioi 
 were decl 
 the gosp 
 
 6. In 
 
 ians" Pau declares that the spirit of iniquity was then already 
 operative \ After predicting the rise of the apostate church, 
 with its blasphemous assumptions of power, as a condition 
 antecedent \othe second coming of Christ, the apostle continued 
 as follows: '^Tpr-tfae mystery of iniquity doth already work^ 
 only he who now ietteth wilHet until he be taken out o the' 
 way. And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord 
 shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy 
 with the brightness of his coming." (II Thess. 2:7, 8.) 
 
 7. The seemingly obscure expression, "he who now letteth 
 will let," may be more readily understood by remembering that 
 in the older style of English "let had the meaning of "restrain" 
 or "hinder." (An example of this old-time use of the verb 
 "let" is found in Shakespeare^ Hamlet is made to say, "Un- 
 hand me, gentlemen. By heaven I'll make a ghost of him who 
 lets me." i. e., of him who restrains or hinders me.) The pas- 
 sage therefore may be understood as a declaration that the 
 spirit of iniquity was already active though restrained or hin- 
 dered for a time; and that later even this restraint would be 
 removed and the evil -one would be in power. In the Revised 
 Version of the New Testament this passage is rendered thus: 
 
EARLY ST^s. 35 
 
 "lawlessness doth .-already work: only there is one that 
 restraineth now, imttL^e-be taken out of the way." 
 
 8. Just who or^what is referred to as exercising a restraint 
 on the powers of iniquity at that time has given rise to dis- 
 cussion. Some writers hold that the presence of the apostles 
 operated in this way, while others believe that the restraining 
 power of the Roman government is referred to. It is known that 
 the Roman policy was to discountenance religious contention, 
 and to allow a large measure of liberty in forms of worship as 
 long as the gods of Rome were not maligned nor their shrines 
 dishonored. As Roman supremacy declined "the mystery of 
 iniquity"embodied in the apostate church operated practicall 
 without restraint. 
 
 9. The expression "mystery of iniquity" as used by Pau 
 is significant. (See Note 1, end of chapter. ) Prominent among 
 the early perverters of the Christian faith were those who 
 assailed its simplicity and lack of exclusiveness. This simplicity 
 was so different from the mysteries of Judaism and the myster- 
 ious rites of heathen idolatry as to be disappointing to many; and 
 the earliest changes in the Christian form of worship were 
 marked by the introduction of mystic_cerempnies. 
 
 10. Paul's zeal as a missionary and a proselyter is abun- 
 dantly shown in scripture; he was equally zealous in seeking to 
 maintain the faith of those who had accepted the truth. The 
 Pauline epistles abound in admonitions and pleadings against 
 the increasing influence of false doctrines, and in expressions 
 of sorrow over the growth of apostasy in the Church. His 
 words addressed to Timothy are both emphatic and pathetic. 
 
 'Hold fast the form of sound words, which thou hast heard of 
 | me, in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus. That good thing 
 which was committed unto thee keep by the Holy Ghost, which 
 dwelleth _in _us. This thou knowest, that all they which are in 
 Asia be Turned away from me." (II Timothy 1:13-15; italics 
 introduced; compare 4:10, 16.) 
 
 11. An excellent summary of important utterances by the 
 Apostle Paul relating to the beginning of the apostasy as a fact 
 in the early apostolic age, has been made by one of the latter- 
 day apostles, Orson Pratt. He writes as follows: "The great 
 apostasy of the Christian Church commenced in the first cen- 
 tury; while there were yet inspired apostles and prophets in 
 
THE GREAT APOSTASY. 
 
 midst; hence Paul, just previous to his martyrdom, enum- 
 erates a great number who had 'made shipwreck of their 
 faith,' and 'turned aside unto vain jangling;' teaching 'that the 
 resurrection was already past,' 'giving heed to fables and endless 
 genealogies^ 'doubting about questions and strifes of words 
 
 whereof came envyings, railings, evil surmisings, perverse dis- 
 putings of men of corrupt minds and destitute of the truth, 
 supposing that gain is godliness.' This apostasy had become so 
 general that Paul declares to Timothy, 'that all they which are 
 in Asia be turned away from me;' and again he says, 'at my 
 first answer no man stood with me, but all men forsook me;' 
 he further says that 'there are many unruly ; and vain talkers 
 and deceivers, teaching things which they ought not, for filthy 
 lucre's sake.' These apostates, no doubt, pretended to be very 
 righteous; for, says the apostle, 'they profess that they know 
 God; but in works they deny him, being abominable, and dis- 
 obedient, and unto every good work reprobate.' ' 
 
 12. Jude admonished the saints to be on their guard 
 nst men who were in the service of Satan seeking to corrupt 
 
 the Church. Addressing himself "to them that are sanctified 
 by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ," he said: 
 It was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that 
 ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once de- 
 livered unto the saints. For there are certain men crept in un- 
 awares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, 
 ungodbs men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, 
 and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ." 
 (Jude 3, 4. See Note 5, end of chapter.) It is plain 
 that Jude considered "the faith which was once delivered 
 unto the saints" as in danger; and he urges the faithful to con- 
 tend for it and openly defend it. He reminds the saints that 
 they had been told "there should be mockers in the last time, 
 who should walk after their own ungodly lusts;" and adds 
 "These be they who separate themselves, sensual, having not 
 the Spirit." (Verses 18, 19.) Clearly he is referring to the 
 apostates of such time, who, because of sensual appetites and 
 lustful desires, have separated themselves from the Church. 
 
 13. During the banishment of John the Revelator on the 
 Isle of Patmos, when nearly all the apostles had been taken 
 from the earth, many of them having suffered martrydom, the 
 
EARLY STAGES. 37 
 
 apostasy was so widespread that only seven "churches," i. e., 
 branches of the Church, remained in such condition as to be 
 considered deserving of the special communication John was 
 instructed to give. In a marvelous vision he beheld the seven 
 churches typified by seven golden candlesticks, with seven 
 stars representing the presiding officers of the several churches; 
 and in the midst of the golden .candlesticks, with the stars in 
 his hand, stood "one like unto the Son of Man." 
 
 14. The church at Ephesus was approved for its good 
 works, specifically for its rejection of the yicolaitean heresies; 
 nevertheless reproof was administered for disaffection and neg- 
 lect, thus: "thou hast left thy first love. Remember therefore 
 from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; 
 or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy can- 
 dlestick out of his place, except thou repent." (Rev. 2:4,5.) 
 
 15. To the church at Pergamos John was commanded to 
 write, denouncing the false doctrines of certain sects and teach- 
 ers, "which thing I hate," said the Lord. (See verses 12-16.) 
 The church of the Laodiceans was denounced as "lukewarm," 
 "neither hot nor cold," and as priding itself as rich and not in 
 need, whereas it was in reality "wretched, and miserable, and 
 poor, and blind, and naked." (Rev. 3; see verses 14-21.) 
 
 16. The foregoing scriptures are ample as proof that even 
 before the ancient apostles had finished their earthly ministry, 
 apostasy was growing apace. The testimony of the early 
 
 Christian fathers" who wrote in the period immediately fol- 
 lowing the passing of the apostles, is to the same effect. Ac- 
 cording to the generally accepted chronology, the prophetic 
 message of John the Revelator to the churches of Asia was 
 given in the last years of the first century. (Probably about 
 A. D. 96; see Oxford Bible, margin.) 
 
 17. Among the historians of that period whose writings are 
 not regarded as canonical or scriptural, but which are never- 
 theless accepted as genuine and reliable, was Hegesippus, who 
 "flourished nearest the days of the apostles." Writing of the 
 conditions marking the close of the first century and the be- 
 ginning of the second, _EllSfiiuus cites the testimony of the 
 earlier writer as follows: "The same author, [Hegesippus] 
 relating the events of the times, also says, that the Church 
 continued until then as a pure and uncorrupt virgin; whilst if 
 
 put 
 
 ] bef 
 _apc 
 
38 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 
 
 there were any at all that attempted to pervert the sound doc- 
 trine of the saving gospel, they were yet skulking in dark re- 
 treats; 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 combina- 
 tions of impious error arose by the 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. Such is the statement 
 of Hegesippus." (Eusebius, "Ecclesiastical History," Book 
 III, chapter 32.) 
 
 18. There can be little doubt that the false teachers referred 
 in the testimony last cited, were professed adherents of the 
 
 Church, and not outside opponents, inasmuch as they were re- 
 strained by the influence and authority of the apostles, and 
 waited the passing of the authorized leaders as an opportunity 
 to corrupt the Church by evil teachings. 
 
 19. A later writer, commenting on the schisms and dissen- 
 sions by which the Church was rent in the latter part of the 
 first century the period immediately following that of the 
 apostolic ministry, says: "It will easily ^be imagined that unity 
 and peace could not reign long in the Church, since it was com- 
 posed of Jews and Gentiles, who regarded each other with the 
 
 jf bitterest aversion. Besides, as the converts to Christianity 
 
 * * could not extirpate radically the prejudices which had been 
 
 ^/^ formed in their minds by education, and confirmed by time, 
 
 f they brought with them into the bosom of the Church more or 
 
 \ less of the prrprg njMJTpir^fnrrTTP^ Thus the seeds of 
 
 discord and controversy were easily sown, and could not fail to 
 spring up soon into animosities and dissensions, which accord- 
 ingly broke out and divided the Church." (Mosheim, "Eccl. 
 History," Cent. I, Part II; chap. 3:11. See Note 4, end of 
 chapter. ) 
 
 20. Another recognized authority on ecclesiastical history, 
 and one whose avowed purpose was to present the truth re- 
 specting the Church in its most favorable light, is Joseph Milner., 
 author of a comprehensive "History of the Churcrf^xF Christ. 
 He comments on the state of the Church at the close of the 
 first century in this wise: "Let us keep in view what that 
 [the spirit of the gospel] really is. The simple faith of Christ 
 
EARLY STAGES. 39 
 
 as the only Savior of lost sinners, and the effectual influences 
 of the Holy Ghost in recovering souls altogether depraved by 
 sin these are the leading ideas. When the effusion of the Holy 
 Ghost first took place, these things were taught with power; 
 and no sentiments which militated against them could be sup- 
 ported for a moment. As, through the prevalence of human 
 corruption and the crafts of Satan, the love of truth was 
 lessened, heresies and various abuses of the gospel appeared; 
 and in estimating them we may form some idea of the de- 
 clension of true religion toward the end of the [first] century." 
 The same writer continues: "Yet a gloomy cloud hung over 
 the conclusion of the first century. The first impressions 
 made by the effusion of the Spirit are generally the strongest 
 and the most decisively distinct from the spirit of the world. 
 But human depravity, overborne for a time, arises afresh, 
 particularly in the next generation. Hence the disorders of 
 schism and heresy. Their tendency is to destroy the pure work 
 of God." (Milner, "Church History," Cent. I, ch. 15.) 
 
 21. The purpose of this chapter has been that of demon- 
 strating the early beginning of the apostasy, so soon to become 
 general, and later, universal. The specific causes directly con- 
 tributing to the degradation of the Church, are reserved for 
 future consideration. 
 
 The Growth of Apostasy on the Western Hemisphere. 
 
 22. Now let us see what was the condition of the Church 
 established by the Resurrected Lord among the descendants of 
 Lehi on the American Continent. In this undertaking we shall 
 not restrict ourselves to the beginning of the disruption alone. 
 Inasmuch as the course of apostasy among the Nephites was so 
 rapid, and the period intervening between the establishment of 
 the Church and the destruction of the nation was so brief, we 
 shall consider the history of the Church to its close, and thus 
 obviate the necessity of recurring to the subject in later chapters. 
 We read that the Church had prospered until about 200 A. D. 
 Then apostasy became general, as evidence of which note the 
 following: 
 
 23. "And now in this two hundred and first year, there 
 began to be among them those who were lifted up in pride. 
 
 * * * And they began to be divided into classes, and they began 
 
40 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 
 
 to build up churches unto themselves, to get gain, and began to 
 deny the true Church of Christ. And it came to pass that when 
 two hundred and ten years had passed away there were many 
 churches in the land; yea, there were many churches which pro- 
 fessed to know the Christ, and yet they did deny the more 
 parts of his gospel, insomuch that they did receive all manner 
 of wickedness, and did administer that which was sacred unto 
 him to whom it had been forbidden, because of unworthiness. 
 And this church did multiply exceedingly, because of iniquity, 
 and because of the power of Satan, who did get hold upon their 
 hearts. And again, there was another church which denied the 
 Christ; and they did persecute the true Church of Christ be- 
 cause of their humility, and their belief in Christ; and they did 
 despise them because of the many miracles which were wrought 
 among them." (IV Nephi 1:24-29; read the entire chapter.) 
 
 24. The Book of Mormon record is definite in its specifica- 
 tions of the immediate reasons for, or causes of the great aposta- 
 sy on the western hemisphere. While the members of the Church 
 remained faithful to their covenants and obligations, they as in- 
 dividuals and the Church as an organization prospered; and 
 their enemies were unable to prevail against them. With 
 prosperity, however, came pride and class distinctions, the 
 rich dominated the poor, and earthly gain became the object 
 of life. (See IV Nephi 1:2-7 and compare with verses 25, 26.) 
 Secret organizations of evil purpose flourished, (Verse 42.) 
 the people were divided into two opposing factions, those who 
 still professed a belief in Christ being known as Nephites and 
 their enemies as Lamanites, without regard to actual descent or 
 family relationship. With the growth of pride and its attendant 
 sins, the Nephites became as wicked as the non-professing 
 Lamanites; (Verse 45.) and in their wickedness these people 
 sought each other's destruction. Consider the pathos and dire 
 tragedy expressed in the words of Moroni, the solitary survivor 
 of a once blessed and mighty nation: 
 
 25. "Behold, four hundred years have passed away since 
 the coming of our Lord and Savior. And behold, the Laman- 
 ites have hunted my people, the Nephites, down from city to 
 city, and from place to place, even until they are no more; 
 and great has been their fall; yea, great and marvelous is the 
 destruction of my people, the Nephites. And behold, it is the 
 
NOTES. 41 
 
 hand of the Lord which hath done it. And behold also, the 
 Lamanites are at war one with another; and the whole face of 
 this land is one continual round of murder and bloodshed; 
 and no one knoweth the end of the war. And now behold, I 
 say no more concerning them, for there are none, save it be the 
 Lamanites and robbers that do exist upon the face of the. land; 
 and there are none that do know the true God, save it be the 
 disciples of Jesus, (See III Nephi 28:1-7.) who did tarry 
 in the land until the wickedness of the people was so great, that 
 the Lord would not suffer them to remain with the people; and 
 whether they be upon the face of the land no man knoweth."- 
 (Mormon 8:6-10.) 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 1. The Early Apostasy Recognized. The fact of the early beginning of the 
 apostasy is generally recognized by theologians and authorities on biblical 
 interpretation. Clarke's commentary on the declaration of Paul as to the 
 "mystery of iniquity" then at work (See II Thess. 2:7) is as follows: 
 
 "For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: There is a system of cor- 
 rupt doctrine which will lead to the general apostasy, already in existence ; but 
 it is a mystery; it is as yet hidden; it dare not show itself because of that which 
 hindereth or withholdeth. But when that which now restraineth is taken out 
 of the way, then shall that wicked one be revealed; it will then be manifest who 
 he is and what he is." 
 
 2. Early Dissensions in the Church. As instances of the disagreements and 
 differences that troubled and disturbed the Church even in apostolic days 
 Mosheim says: "The first of these controversies, which was set on foot in the 
 church of Antioch, regarded the necessity of observing the law of Moses, and 
 its issue is mentioned by St. Luke in the Acts of the Apostles (chap. 15). This 
 controversy was followed by many others, either with the Jews who were 
 violently attached to the worship of their ancestors, or with the votaries of a 
 wild and fanatical sort of philosophy, or with such as, mistaking the true 
 genius of the Christian religion, abused it monstrously to the encouragement of 
 their vices, and their indulgence of the appetites and passions. St. Paul and 
 the other apostles have in several places of their writings, mentioned these 
 controversies, but with such brevity that it is difficult at this distance of time 
 to come at the true state of the question in these various disputes. The most 
 weighty and important of all these controversies was that which certain Jewish 
 doctors raised at Rome, and in other Christian Churches concerning the means 
 of justification and acceptance with God, and the method of salvation pointed 
 out in the word of God. The apostles, wherever they exercised their ministry, 
 had constantly declared all hopes of acceptance and salvation delusive, except 
 such as were > founded on Jesus the Redeemer, and His all-sufficient merits; 
 while the Jewish doctors maintained the works of the law to be the true efficient 
 cause of the soul's eternal salvation and felicity. This latter sentiment not 
 t-nly led to many other errors extremely prejudicial to Christianity but was 
 
42 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 
 
 also injurious to the glory of the divine Savior." (Mosheim, "Ecclesiastical 
 History," Cent. I, Part II, 11-12.) 
 
 3. Unauthorized Writings in the Apostolic Age. Paul's reference to "an- 
 other gospel" in his epistle to the Galatians (1:6) suggested to Dr. Adam Clarke 
 the following commentary on the passage: 
 
 "Another gospel: It is certain that in the very earliest ages of the Christian 
 Church, there were several spurious gospels in circulation; and it was the mul- 
 titude of these false or inaccurate relations that induced St. Luke to write his 
 own (see Luke 1 :1 ). We have the names of more than seventy of these spurious 
 narratives still on record, and in ancient writers many fragments of them re- 
 main; these have been collected and published by Fabricius in his account of 
 the apocryphal books of the New Testament (3 vols, 8 vo.) In some of these 
 gospels the necessity of circumcision and subjection to the Mosaic law, in 
 unity with the gospel, were strongly inculcated." (Clarke, "Bible Commen- 
 tary.") 
 
 4. Some Authorities on Ecclesiastical History. Among the authorities 
 cited in the text are those named below. A brief note as to each may be of 
 interest. 
 
 Eusebius: Eusebius Pamphilus, bishop of Caesarea in Palestine. He lived 
 from about 260 to about 339 A. D., though there is some uncertainty as to the 
 exact time of his death. He was an eye witness of and a participant in some of 
 the sufferings incident to heathen persecution of the Christians, and has been 
 called the "Father of Church History." He was the author of several works, 
 among them one of the earliest on "Ecclesiastical History." The quotations 
 from this work by Eusebius, as given in the text, are from the version translated 
 from the Greek by C. F. Cruse. 
 
 Mosheim: Dr. J. L. von Mosheim, chancellor of the University of Got- 
 tingen; a German writer, noted for his contributions to church history. He is 
 the author of an exhaustive work on "Ecclesiastical History" (6 vols.), dated 
 1755. The excerpts from Mosheim's "Ecclesiastical History" given in the text 
 are taken from the version translated into English by Dr. Archibald Maclaine, 
 .dated 1764. 
 
 Milner: Rev. Joseph Milner. An English authority on church history, 
 and author of a comprehensive "History of the Church of Christ" (5 vols.) 
 from which the excerpts in the text are taken. 
 
 5. Commentary on the Passage from Jude: The passage quoted in the 
 text "For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old or- 
 dained to this condemnation, ungodly men." etc. (Jude 4), has given rise to 
 discussion, the question at issue being as to whether the principles of pre-ap- 
 pointment or fore-ordination is here involved. A hasty and casual reading of 
 the passage may suggest the inference that the "ungodly men" referred to had 
 been appointed or "ordained" in the providence of God to sow the seeds of dis- 
 cord and dissension in the Church. A careful study of this scripture shows that 
 no such inference is warranted. The "ungodly men" "who were before of old 
 ordained to this condemnation" were men who had already, i. e., previously, 
 been denounced, proscribed and condemned for the very heresies which now 
 they were endeavoring to perpetuate in the Church, they having crept in un- 
 awares, or in other words, they having become members of the Church by false 
 
EXTERNAL CAUSES. 43 
 
 pretenses and profession, and being able because of their membership, to spread 
 their false teachings more effectively. Dr. Adam Clarke, in his Bible Com- 
 mentary, thus treats the passage under consideration: 
 
 "For there are certain men crept in unawares." They have got into the 
 church under specious pretenses, and when in, began to sow their bad seed. 
 
 "Before of old ordained: Such as were long ago proscribed and condemned 
 in the most public manner; this is the import of the [original] word in his 
 place, and there are many examples of this use of it in the Greek writers." 
 
 "To this condemnation: To a similar punishment to that about to be men- 
 tioned. 
 
 "In the sacred writings all such persons, false doctrines and impure prac- 
 tices have been most openly proscribed and condemned, and the apostle im- 
 mediately produces several examples, viz., the disobedient Israelites, the un- 
 faithful angels, and the impure inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah. This is 
 most obviously the apostle's meaning, and it is as ridiculous as it is absurd, to 
 look into such words for a decree of reprobation, etc., such a doctrine being as 
 far from the apostle's mind as from that of Him in whose name he wrote." 
 (Clarke, "Bible Commentary," Jude 4.) 
 
 In the Revised Version.of the New Testament the passage is rendered thus: 
 "I was constrained to write unto you exhorting you to contend earnestly for 
 the faith which was once for all delivered unto the saints. For there are cer- 
 tain men crept in privily, even they who were of old set forth unto this con- 
 demnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of pur God into lasciviousness, and 
 denying our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 Causes of the Apostasy. External Causes Considered. 
 
 1. We are now to consider some of the principal causes con- 
 tributing to apostasy from the Primitive Church and leading 
 later to the apostasy of the Church as an earthly institution; and 
 we are to study the manner in which those causes have operated. 
 
 2. In the scriptures before cited as proof of the early begin- 
 ning of the apostasy, many of the contributing causes are indi- 
 cated, such as the rise of false teachers, the spread of heretical 
 doctrines, and the growth of the power of Satan in general. 
 These may be classed as internal causes, originating within the 
 
44 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 
 
 Church itself. In contrast with these there were other condi- 
 tions operating upon the Church from without; and such may be 
 classed as external causes. For convenience in study we shall 
 consider the subject in the following order of treatment: (1) 
 External causes; (2) Internal causes. 
 
 External Causes of the Great Apostasy. 
 
 3. External conditions operating against the Church, tend- 
 ing to restrict its development and contributing to its decline 
 may be designated by the general term, persecution. It is a 
 matter of history, undisputed and indisputable, that from the 
 time of its inception to that of its actual cessation, the Church 
 established by Jesus Christ was the object of bitter persecu- 
 tion, and the victim of violence. The question as to whether 
 persecution is to be regarded as an element tending to produce 
 apostasy is worthy of present consideration. Opposition is not 
 always destructive; on the contrary it may contribute to growth. 
 Persecution may impel to greater zeal, and thus prove itself a 
 potent factor of advancement. A proverb still in favor declares 
 that "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church." But 
 proverbs and adages, aphorisms and parables, while true as 
 generalities, are not always applicable to special conditions. 
 
 4. Undoubtedly the persistent persecution to which the 
 early Church was subjected caused many of its adherents to re- 
 nounce the faith they had professed and to return to their 
 former allegiances, whether Judaistic or pagan. Church 
 membership was thusjliminished ; but such instances of apostasy" 
 from the Church may be regarded as individual desertions and 
 of comparatively little importance in its effect upon the Church 
 as a body. The dangers that affrighted some would arouse the 
 determination of others; the ranks deserted by disaffected 
 weaklings would be replenished by zealous converts. Let it be 
 repeated that apostasy from the Church is insignificant as com- 
 pared with the apostasy of the church as an institution. Perse- 
 cution as a cause of apostasy has operated indirectly but none 
 the less effectively upon the Church of Christ. -(See Notes 
 
 1 and 2, end of chapter.) 
 
 5. We have considered briefly the testimony of early 
 church historians showing that schisms, contention, and per- 
 version of doctrine invaded the Church immediately after the 
 
EXTERNAL CAUSES. 45 
 
 passing of the apostles; we have seen how wolves had awaited 
 the departure of the shepherds that they might the more 
 effectively worry the flock. It cannot be denied that the early 
 persecutions were directed most particularly against the leaders 
 of the people; the sharpest shafts were aimed against the officers 
 of the Church. In the fierce battle between Christianity and 
 its allied foes Judaism and heathendom the strong men 
 who stood for Christ were the. first to fall. And with their 
 fall, the traitors within the Church, the ungodly and the rebel- 
 lious, those who had crept in unawares, and whose sinister 
 purpose it was to pervert the gospel of Christ, were relieved of 
 restraint, and found themselves free to propagate their heresies 
 and to undermine the foundations of the Church. Persecution, 
 operating from without, and therefore essentially an external 
 cause, served to set in motion the enginery of disruption with- 
 in the Church, and therefore must be treated as an effective 
 element contributing to the great apostasy. 
 
 6. A further purpose in introducing here a brief summary of 
 the persecutions of which the early Church was the victim, is 
 that of affording a basis of ready comparison between such and 
 the persecutions waged by the apostate church itself in later 
 centuries. We shall find that the sufferings of the Church in 
 the days of its integrity, are surpassed by the cruel inflictions 
 perpetrated in the name of Christ. Moreover, a study of the 
 early persecutions will enable us to contrast the conditions 
 of opposition and poverty with those of ease and affluence as 
 affecting the integrity of the Church and the devotion of its 
 adherents. 
 
 7. The persecution to which the Primitive Church was sub- 
 jected was two-fold; viz., Judaistic and pagan. It must be re- 
 membered that the Jews were distinguished from all other 
 nations of antiquity by their belief in the existence of a living 
 
 The rest of the world before and at the time of Christ was 
 
 ^ 
 
 idolatrous and pagan, professedly believing in a host of deities, 
 yet with no recognition of a Supreme Being as a living personage. 
 The Jews were bitter in their opposition to Christianity, which 
 they regarded as a rival religion to their own; and moreover, 
 they recognized the fact that if Christianity ever came to be 
 generally accepted as the truth, their nation would stand con- 
 victed of having put to death the Messiah. 
 
46 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 
 
 Judaistic Persecution. 
 
 (See Note 3, end of Chapter.) 
 
 8. Opposition to Christianity on the part of those who be- 
 longed to the House of Israel was rather Judaistic than Jewish. 
 The conflict was between systems, not between peoples or 
 nations. Christ was a Jew: His apostles were Jews, and the 
 disciples who constituted the body of the Church at its establish- 
 ment and throughout the early years of its existence were 
 largely Jews. Our Lord's instructions to the chosen twelve on 
 their first missionary tour restricted their ministry to the 
 House of Israel; (See Matt. 10:5, 6.) and when the time was 
 propitious for extending the privileges of the gospel to the 
 Gentiles, a miraculous manifestation was necessary to convince 
 the apostles that such extension was proper. (See Acts, 
 v chapters 10 and 11.) The Church was at first exclusively and 
 for a long time pre-eminently Jewish in membership. Judaism, 
 the religious system founded on the law of Moses, was the 
 great enemy of Christianity. When therefore we read of the 
 Jews opposing the Church, we understand that Judaistic Jews 
 are meant defenders of Judaism as a system, upholders of the 
 law and enemies of the gospel. With this explanation of the 
 distinction between the Jews as a people and Judaism as a 
 system we may employ the terms "Jews" and "Jewish" accord- 
 ing to common usage, keeping in mind, however, the true signi- 
 fication of the terms. 
 
 9. Judaistic opposition to the Church was predicted. While 
 Jesus ministered in the flesh He specifically and repeatedly 
 warned the apostles of the persecution they would have to meet. 
 In answering certain inquiries Christ said to Peter and others: 
 "But take heed to yourselves: for they shall deliver you up to 
 
 / councils, and in the synagogues ye shall be beaten: and ye shall 
 be brought before rulers and kings for my sake, for a testimony 
 against them." (Mark 13:9; compare Matt. 10:16-18; 24: 
 9-13; Luke 21:12.) 
 
 10. Shortly before His betrayal the Lord repeated the 
 warning with solemn impressiveness, citing the persecutions 
 to which He had been subject, and declaring that His disciples 
 could not escape: "If the world hate you, ye know that it 
 hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world the world 
 
(W-^X^lxO^- 
 
 JUDAISTIC PERSECUTION. 47 
 
 would love his own; but because ye are not of the world, but 
 I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth 
 you. Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant 
 is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me they 
 will also persecute you." (John 15:18-20.) 
 
 11. The extreme of depravity to which the bigoted persecu- 
 tors would sink is set forth in these further words of the Savior: 
 "They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time * 
 cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth 
 God service. And these things will they do unto you, because 
 they have not known the Father, nor me." (John 16:2, 3; 
 compare 9:22, and 12:42.) 
 
 12. These predictions had speedy and literal fulfilment. 
 From the time of the crucifixion, Jewish malignity and hatred 
 were directed against all who professed a belief in the divinity 
 of Jesus Christ. In the early stages of their ministry several of 
 the apostles were imprisoned (Acts 5:18; compare 4:3.) and 
 the priestly leaders sought to take their lives. (Acts 5:33.) 
 
 _Stephen was stoned to death because of his testimony; (See 
 Acts 6:8-15; 7:54-60.) and the persecution against the Church 
 became general. (See Acts 8:1.) James, the son of Zebedee, 
 was slain by order of Herod, (Acts~l2:l, 2.) and Peter was 
 saved from a similar fate only by a miraculous intervention. 
 (Verses 3:10.) The scriptural record informs us as to the ulti- 
 mate fate of but few of the apostles; and secular history is 
 likewise incomplete. That Peter would be numbered with the 
 martyrs was made known by the resurrected Lord. (See 
 John 21:18, 19.) Paul sets forth the fact that the apostles 
 lived in the very shadow of death (I Cor. 4:9.) and that 
 persecution was their heritage. (Verses 11-13; see also II Cor. 
 4:8, 9; 6:4, 5.) 
 
 13. Not only did the Jews wage relentless persecution 
 against those of their number who professed Christ, but they 
 sought to stir up opposition on the part of the Romans, and to 
 accomplish this end charged that the Christians were plotting 
 treason against the Roman government. Even during the 
 personal ministry of the early apostles, persecution of the saints 
 had spread from Jerusalem, throughout Palestine and into the 
 adjacent provinces. In this evil work the Jews sought to in- 
 cite their own people living in the outlying parts, and also to 
 
48 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 
 
 arouse the opposition of the officers and rulers of the Roman 
 dominions. As evidence of this phase of the persecution, 
 partly Jewish and partly pagan, instigated by Jews and partic- 
 ipated in by others, the following quotation from Mosheim 
 may suffice: 
 
 14. "The Jews who lived out of Palestine, in the Roman 
 ^provinces, did not yield to those of Jerusalem in point of 
 
 Cruelty to the innocent disciples of Christ. We learn from the 
 history of the Acts of the Apostles, and other records of un- 
 questionable authority, that they spared no labor, but zealous- 
 ly seized every occasion of animating the magistrates against 
 the Christians, and setting on the multitude to demand their 
 destruction. The high priest of the nation and the Jews who 
 dwelt in Palestine were instrumental in inciting the rage of 
 these foreign Jews against the infant Church, by sending 
 messengers to exhort them, not only to avoid all intercourse 
 with the Christians, but also to persecute them in the most 
 vehement manner. For this inhuman order they endeavored to 
 find out the most plausible pretexts; and therefore, they gave out, 
 that the Christians were enemies to the Roman emperor, 
 since they acknowledged the authority of a certain person whose 
 name was Jesus, whom Pilate had punished capitally as a male- 
 factor by a most righteous sentence, and on whom, neverthe- 
 less, they conferred the royal dignity." (Mosheim, "Ec- 
 clesiastical History," Cent. I, Part I, 5:2.) 
 
 15. In the latter half of the first century, the scene of 
 Judaistic persecution of the Church had shifted from Jeru- 
 salem to the outlying provinces; and the cause of this was the 
 general exodus of Christians from the city whose destruction 
 had been decreed. (See Note 4, end of chapter.) Our Lord's 
 predictions as to the fate of Jerusalem and His warnings to the 
 people (See Luke 21:5-9, 20-24.) had been very generally 
 heeded. Eusebius (Eusebius, "Ecclesiastical History," Book 
 III, ch. 5.) informs us that the body of the Church had moved 
 from Jerusalem into the provinces beyond the Jordan, and thus 
 largely escaped the calamities of the Jews who remained. 
 
NOTES. 49 
 
 1. Persecution in Different Dispensations. It may be argued that, judging 
 from the history of the re-established Church in the present dispensation, may 
 tend to strengthen rather than to weaken the Church, and that therefore 
 violent opposition in earlier times cannot be considered a true cause leading to 
 final disruption. In reply it may be said that the present is the dispensation 
 of the fulness of times, a period in which the Church shall triumph, and during 
 which the powers of evil are limited and restrained in their opposition; whereas 
 the period of the apostasy was one of temporary victory for Satan. Our belief 
 
 Jn the eventual triumph of good over evil must not blind us to the fact that evil 
 is frequently allowed a short-lived success-, and a seeming victory. The perman- 
 ency of the Latter-day Church has been not less surely predicted than was the 
 temporary duration of the Primitive Church. Satan was given power to over- 
 come the saints in former days, and the persecutions he waged against them 
 and the officers of the Church contributed to his passing success. It has been 
 decreed that he shall not have power to destroy the Church in the last dispen- 
 sation, and his persecution of the saints today will be futile as a means of bring- 
 ing about a general apostasy in these latter times. 
 
 2. Persecution as a Possible Cause of Apostasy. "Let it not be a matter of 
 surprise that I class those persecutions as among the means through which the 
 church was destroyed. The force of heathen rage was aimed at the leaders 
 and strong men of the body religious; and being long-continued and relentlessly 
 cruel, those most steadfast in their adherence to the Church invariably become 
 its victims. These being stricken down, it left none but weaklings to contend 
 for the faith, and made possible those subsequent innovations in the religion 
 of Jesus which a pagan public sentiment demanded, and which so completely 
 changed both the spirit and form of the Christian religion as to subvert it 
 utterly. Let me further ask that no one be surprised that violence is permitted 
 to operate in such a case. The idea that the right is always victorious in this 
 world, that truth is always triumphant and innocence always divinely protected, 
 are old, fond fables with which well-meaning men have amused credulous mul- 
 titudes; but the stern facts of history and actual experience in life correct the 
 pleasing delusion. Do not misunderstand me. I believe in the ultimate victory 
 of the right, the ultimate triumph of truth, the final immunity of innocence 
 from violence. These innocence, truth and the right will be at the last more 
 than conquerors; they will be successful in the war, but that does not prevent 
 them from losing some battles. It should be remembered always that God has 
 given to man his agency; and that fact implies that one man is as free to act 
 wickedly as another is to do righteousness. Cain was as free to murder his 
 brother as that brother was to worship God; and so the pagans and Jews were 
 as free to persecute and murder the Christians as the Christians were to live 
 virtuously and worship Christ as God. The agency of man would not be worth 
 the name if it did not grant liberty to the wicked to fill the cup o f their iniquity, 
 as well as liberty to the virtuous to round out the measure of their righteous- 
 ness^ Such perfect liberty or agency God has given man; and it is only so 
 
 --Variously modified as not to thwart His general purposes." (B. H. Roberts, 
 "A New Witness for God," pp. 47, 48.) 
 
 3. Early Persecutions by the Jews. "The innocence and virtue that dis- 
 tinguished so eminently the lives of Christ's servants, the apostles, the purity 
 
50 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 
 
 of the doctrine they taught, were not sufficient to defend them against the viru- 
 lence and malignity of the Jews. The priests and rulers of that abandoned 
 people not only loaded with injuries and reproach the apostles of Jesus and their 
 disciples, but condemned as many of them as they could to death, and executed 
 in the most irregular and barbarous manner their decrees. The murder of 
 Stephen, of James the son of Zebedee, and of James surnamed the Just, bishop 
 of Jerusalem, furnished dreadful examples of the truth of what we here advance. 
 This odious malignity of the Jewish doctors against the heralds of the gospel, 
 was undoubtedly owing to a secret apprehension that the progress of Chris- 
 tianity would destroy the credit of Judaism, and bring on the ruin of their 
 pompous ceremonies." In a footnote to the foregoing, references appear as 
 follows. "The martyrdom of Stephen is recorded in the Acts of the Apostles 
 7:55; and that of James the son or Zebedee, Acts 12:1, 2, and that of James the 
 Just, bishop of Jerusalem, is mentioned by Josephus in his Jewish Antiquities, 
 book XX, chap. 8; and by Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical History, book II, 
 chap. 23." Mosheim, "Ecclesiastical History," Cent. I, Part I, 5:1.) 
 
 4. Destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans. "A rebellious disturbance 
 among the Jews gave a semblance of excuse for a terrible chastisement to be 
 visited upon them by their Roman masters, which culminated in the destruction 
 of Jerusalem, A. D. 71. The city fell after a six months' siege before the Roman 
 arms led by Titus, son of the Emperor Vespasian. Josephus, the famous his- 
 torian, to whom we owe most of our knowledge as to the details of the struggle, 
 was himself a resident in Galilee and was carried to Rome among the captives. 
 From his record we learn that nearly a million Jews lost their lives through the 
 famine incident to the siege; many more were sold into slavery, and uncounted 
 numbers were forced into exile. The city was utterly destroyed, and the site 
 upon which the temple had stood was plowed up by the Romans in their 
 search for treasure. Thus literally were the words of Christ fulfilled, There 
 shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down. 
 (Matt. 24:1, 2; see also Luke 19:44.)" (The Author, "The Articles of Faith," 
 Lecture 17:18.) 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 Causes of Apostasy. External Causes, Continued. 
 
 1. As already pointed out, it is convenient to study the 
 causes leading to the great apostasy as belonging to two 
 classes, external and internal, or (1) causes due to conditions 
 operating against the Church from without; and (2) causes 
 arising from dissension and heresy within the Church itself. 
 
PAGAN PERSECUTION. 51 
 
 We have summarized external causes under the general term 
 persecution; and we have drawn a distinction between Juda- 
 istic and pagan persecution waged against the Church. Having 
 dealt with the opposition suffered by the early Christians at 
 the hands of the Jews or through Jewish instigation, we have 
 now to consider the persecution brought upon the believers in 
 Christ by pagan nations. 
 
 Pagan Persecution. 
 
 2. The term "pagan" as here used may be taken as a 
 synonym of "heathen," and is to be understood as referring to 
 persons or peoples who did not believe in the existence of the 
 living God, and whose worship was essentially idolatrous. 
 The motives impelling non-believing Jews to oppose the estab- 
 lishment and spread of Christianity may readily be understood, 
 in view of the fact that the religion taught by Christ appeared as 
 a rival of Judaism, and that the growth and spread of one 
 meant the decline if not the extinction of the other. The im- 
 mediate motive leading to bitter and widespread persecution of 
 the Christians by heathen peoples is not sq easy to perceive, 
 since there was no uniform system of idolatrous worship 
 in any single nation, but a vast diversity of deities and cults 
 of idolatry, to no one of which was Christianity opposed more 
 than to all. Yet we find the worshipers of idols forgetting their 
 own differences and uniting in opposition to the gospel of 
 peace, in persecution waged with incredible ferocity and in- 
 describable cruelty. (See Note 1, end of chapter.) 
 
 3. Unfortunately, historians differ widely in their records 
 of persecution of Christians, according to the point of view 
 from which each writer wrote. Thus, in a general way, Christian 
 authors have given extreme accounts of the sufferings to which 
 the Church and its adherents individually were subjected; 
 while non-Christian historians have sought to lessen and mini- 
 mize the extent and severity of the cruelties practiced against 
 the Christians. There are facts, however, which neither party 
 denies, and to which both give place in their separate records. 
 To make a fair interpretation of these facts, drawing just 
 and true inferences therefrom, should be our purpose. 
 
 4. Among pagan persecutors of the Church, the Roman 
 empire is the principal aggressor. This may appear strange in 
 
52 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 
 
 view. of the general tolerance exercised by Rome toward her 
 tributary peoples; indeed, the real cause of Roman opposition 
 to Christianity has given rise to many conjectures. It is 
 probable that intolerant zeal on the part of the Christians 
 themselves had much to do with their unpopularity among 
 heathen nations. This subject is conservatively summed up 
 by Mosheim as follows: 
 
 5. "A very natural curiosity calls us to inquire, how it hap- 
 pened that the Romans, who were troublesome to no nation on 
 account of their religion, and who suffered even the Jews to live 
 under their own laws, and follow their own methods of worship, 
 treated the Christians alone with such severity. This important 
 question seems still more difficult to be solved, when we con- 
 sider, that the excellent nature of the Christian religion, and its 
 admirable tendency to promote both the public welfare of 
 the state, and the private felicity of the individual, entitled it, 
 in a singular manner, to the favor and protection of the reign- 
 ing powers. One of the principal reasons of the severity with 
 which the Romans persecuted the Christians, notwithstanding 
 these considerations, seems to have been the abhorrence and 
 Contempt with which the .latter_jjegarded the religion nf ffrp 
 empire, which was so intimately connected with the form, and 
 ideed, with the very essence of its political constitution. For, 
 ;hough the Romans gave an unlimited toleration to all religions 
 h had nothing in their tenets dangerous to the common- 
 jwealth, yet they would not permit that of their ancestors, 
 'which was established by the laws of the state, to be turned 
 into derision nor the people to be drawn away from their attach- 
 ment to it. These, however, were the two things which the 
 Christians were charged with, and that justly, though to their 
 honor. They dared to ridicufe the absurdities of the pagan 
 superstition, and they were ardent and assiduous in gaining 
 proselytes to the truth. Nor did they only attack the religion of 
 Rome, but also all the different shapes and forms under which 
 superstition appeared in the various countries where they exer- 
 cised their ministry. From this the Romans concluded, that the 
 Christian sect was not only insupportably daring and arrogant, 
 but, moreover, an enemy to the public tranquillity, and every 
 way proper to excite civil wars and commotions in the empire. 
 It is probably on this account that Tacitus reproaches them 
 
PAGAN PERSECUTION. 53 
 
 with the odious character of haters of mankind, and styles the 
 religion of Jesus as destructive superstition; and that Sueton- 
 ious speaks of the Christians, and their doctrine in terms of the 
 same kind. 
 
 6. "Another circumstance that irritated the Romans 
 against the Christians, was the simplicity of their worship, 
 which resembled in nothing the sacred rites of any other people. 
 The Christians had neither sacrifices, nor temples, nor images, 
 nor oracles, nor sacerdotal orders; and this was sufficient to 
 bring upon them the reproaches of an ignorant multitude, 
 who imagined that there could be no religion without these. "- 
 (Mosheim, "Eccl. Hist., " Cent. 1, Part 1, ch. 5:6, 7.) 
 
 7. Persecution of the Church by Roman authority may b 
 said to have begun in the reign of Nero (A. D/^T)) and to have 
 continued to the close of Diocletian's rei^n (A. DT305. ) Within 
 this range of time there were many periods of diminished severi- 
 ty, if not of comparative tranquillity; nevertheless, the Church 
 was the object of heathen oppression for about two and a half 
 centuries. Attempts have been made by Christian writers to 
 segregate the persecutions into ten distinct and separate on- 
 slaughts; and some profess to find a mystic relation between 
 the ten persecutions thus classified, and the ten plagues of 
 Egypt, as also an analogy with the ten horns mentioned by 
 John the Revelator. (See Rev. 17:14.) As a matter of fact 
 attested by history, the number of persecutions of unusual 
 severity was less than ten; while the total of all, including local 
 and restricted assaults, would be much greater. (See Note 2, 
 end of chapter.) 
 
 8. Persecution under Nero. The first extended and 
 notable persecution of Christians under the official edict of a 
 Roman emperor was that instigated by Nero, A. D. 64. As 
 students of history know, this monarch is remembered mostly 
 for his crimes. During the latter part of his infamous reign, a 
 large section of the city of Rome was destroyed by fire. He 
 was suspected by some of being responsible for the disaster; 
 and, fearing the resentment of the infuriated people, he sought 
 to implicate the unpopular and much-maligned Christians as 
 the incendiaries, and by torture tried to force a confession from 
 them. As to what followed the foul accusation, let us consider 
 
54 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 
 
 the words of a non-Christian writer, Tacitus, whose integrity 
 as a historian is held in esteem. |g ^ 
 
 9. "With this view, he (Nero) inflicted the most exquisite *\ 
 tortures on those men who, under the vulgar appellation of 
 Christians, were already branded with deserved infamy. They 
 derived their name and origin from Christ, who, in the reign 
 of Tiberius had suffered death by the sentence of the procura- 
 tor Pontius Pilate. For a while this dire superstition was checked 
 but it again burst forth; and not only spread itself over Judea, 
 the first seat of this mischievous sect, but was even introduced 
 into Rome, the common asylum which receives and protects 
 whatever is impure, whatever is atrocious. The confessions 
 of those that were seized discovered a great multitude of their 
 accomplices, and they were all convicted, not so much for the 
 crime of setting fire to the city, as for their hatred of human 
 kind. They died in torments, and their torments were embitter- 
 ed by insults and derision. Some were nailed on crosses; others 
 sewn up in the skins of wild beasts and exposed to the fury 
 of dogs; others, again, smeared over with combustible materials, 
 were used as torches to illuminate the darkness of the night. 
 The gardens of Nero were destined for the melancholy spec- 
 tacle, which was accompanied with a horse-race, and honored 
 with the presence of the emperor, who mingled with the popu- 
 lace in the dress and attitude of a charioteer. The guilt of the 
 Christians deserved indeed the most exemplary punishments, 
 but the public abhorrence was changed into commiseration, 
 from the opinion that those unhappy wretches were sacrificed, 
 not so much to the public welfare as to the cruelty of a jealous 
 tyrant." (Tacitus, Annals, Book 15, ch. 44.) 
 
 10. There is some disagreement among historians as to 
 whether the Neronian persecution is to be regarded as a local 
 infliction, practically confined to the city of Rome, or as general 
 throughout the provinces. (See Note 3, end of chapter. ) The 
 consensus of opinion favors the belief that the provinces fol- 
 lowed the example of the metropolis, and that the persecution 
 was common throughout the Church. 
 
 11. This, the first persecution by Roman edict, practically 
 ended with the death of the tyrant Nero, A. D. 68. According 
 to tradition handed down from the early Christian writers, the 
 Apostles Paul and Peter suffered martyrdom at Rome, the form- 
 
PAGAN PERSECUTION. 55 
 
 er by beheading, the latter by crucifixion, during this per- 
 secution; and it is further stated that Peter's wife was put to 
 death shortly before her husband; but the tradition is neither 
 confirmed nor disproved by authentic record. 
 
 12. Persecution under Domitian. The second officially ap- 
 pointed persecution under Roman authority began 93 or 94 
 A. D. in the reign of Domitian. Both Christians and Jews 
 came under this prince's displeasure, because they refused to 
 reverence the statues he had erected as objects of adoration. 
 A further cause for his special animosity against Christians, as 
 affirmed by early writers, is as follows. The emperor was per- 
 suaded that he was in danger of losing his throne, in view of a 
 reputed prediction that from the family to which Jesus be- 
 longed there would arise one who would weaken if not over- 
 throw the power of Rome. With this as his ostensible excuse, 
 this wicked ruler waged terrible destruction on an innocent 
 people. Happily, the persecution thus started was of but few 
 years duration. Mosheim and others aver that the end of the 
 persecution was caused by the emperor's untimely death; though 
 Eusebius, who wrote in the fourth century, quotes an earlier 
 writer as declaring that Domitian had the living descendants of 
 the Savior's family brought before him, and that after question- 
 ing them he became convinced that he was in no danger from 
 them; and thereupon dismissed them with contempt and ordered 
 the persecution to cease. It is believed that while the edict JL. 
 of Domitian was in force the Apostle John suffered banishment^/ ^ 
 to the isle of Patmos. 
 
 ^. 13. Persecution under Trajan. What is known in ecclesias- 
 
 tic tical history as the third persecution of the Christian Church 
 took place in the reign of Trajan, who occupied the imperial 
 throne from 98 to 117 A. D. He was and is regarded as one of 
 the best of the Roman emperors, yet he sanctioned violent 
 persecution of the Christians owing to their "inflexible ob-^ 
 stinacy" in refusing to sacrifice to Roman gods. History has 
 _ frresefved to us a very important letter asking instructions from 
 the emperor, by the younger Jgligy^ who was governor of 
 Pontus, and the emperor's reply fhereto. This corres- 
 pondence is instructive as showing the extent to which 
 Christianity had spread at that time, and the way in which 
 believers were treated by the officers of the state. 
 
56 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 
 
 14. Pliny inquired of the emperor as to the policy to be 
 pursued in dealing with the Christians within his jurisdiction. 
 Were young and old, tender and robust, to be treated alike, or 
 should punishment be graded? Should opportunity be given 
 the accused to recant, or was the fact that they had once pro- 
 fessed Christianity to be considered an unpardonable offense? 
 Were those convicted as Christians to be punished for their 
 religion alone, or only for specific offenses resulting from their 
 membership in the Christian Church? After propounding such 
 queries the governor proceeded to report to the emperor what 
 he had done in the absence of definite instructions. In reply 
 the emperor directed that the Christians were not to be hunted 
 nor sought after vindictively, but if accused and brought before 
 the judgment seat, and if then they refused to denounce their 
 faith, they were to be put to death. (See Note 4, end of 
 chapter. ) 
 
 15. Persecution under 'Marcus Aurelius. Marcus Aurelius 
 reigned from 161 to 180 A. D. He was noted as one who sought 
 the greatest good of his people; yet under his government the 
 Christians suffered added cruelties. Persecution was most severe 
 in Gaul (now France). Among those who met the martyr's fate at 
 that time, were Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, and Justin Mar- 
 tyr, known in history as the philosopher. With reference to the 
 seeming anomaly that even the best of rulers permitted and 
 even prosecuted vigorous opposition to Christian devotees, as 
 exemplified by the acts of this emperor, a modern writer has 
 said: "It should be noted that the persecution of the Christians 
 under the pagan emperors sprung from political rather than 
 religious motives, and that is why we find the names of the 
 best emperors, as well as those of the worst, in the list of perse- 
 
 It was believed that the welfare of the state was bound 
 with the careful performance of the rites of the national 
 worship ; and hence, while the Roman rulers were usually very 
 tolerant allowing all forms of worship among their subjects, 
 still they required that men of every faith should at least 
 recognize the Roman gods, and burn incense before their statues. 
 This the Christians steadily refused to do. Their neglect of the 
 service of the temple, it was believed, angered the gods, and 
 endangered the safety of the state, bringing upon it drought, 
 pestilence, and every disaster. This was the main reason of 
 
END OP PAGAN PERSECUTION. 57 
 
 their persecution by the pagan emperors." (General History 
 by P. V. N. Myers, edition of 1889, p. 322.) 
 
 16. Later Persecutions. With occasional periods of 
 partial cessation, the Christian believers continued to suffer at 
 the hands of heathen opponents throughout the second and 
 third centuries. A violent persecution marked the reign of 
 SP^PJMIS (193-211 A. D.) in the first decade of the third cen- 
 tury; another characterized the reign of Maximin. (235-238 
 A. D.) A period of unusual severity in persecution and suffer- 
 ing befell the Christians during the short reign of Decius 
 known also as Decius Trajan. (219-251 A. D.) The persecu- 
 tion under Decius is designated in ecclesiastical history as the 
 seventh persecution of the Christian Church. Others followed 
 in rapid succession. Some of these periods of specific oppression 
 we pass over and come to the consideration of the 
 
 17. iy.nd.t>.ti L n.n Persecution, which is spoken of as the 
 tenth, and happily the last. Diocletian reigned from 284 to 
 305 A. D. At first he was very tolerant toward Christian 
 
 i belief and practice; indeed it is of record that his wife and daugh- 
 JLter were Christians, though "in some sense, secretly." Later, 
 f* ' nowever, he turned against the Church and undertook to bring 
 about a total suppression of the Christian religion. To this 
 end he ordered a general destruction of Christian books, and 
 decreed the penalty of death against all who kept such works 
 in their possession. 
 
 18. Fire broke out twice in the royal palace at Nicomedia, 
 and on each occasion the incendiary act was charged against 
 the Christians with terrible results. Four separate edicts, each 
 surpassing in vehemence the earlier decrees, were issued 
 against the believers; and for a period of ten years they were 
 the victims of unrestrained .rapine, spoliation and torture. 
 At the end of the decade of terror the Church was in a scattered 
 and seemingly in a hopeless condition. Sacred records had been 
 burnt; places of worship had been razed to the ground; thou- 
 sands of Christians had been put to death; and every possible 
 effort had been made to destroy the Church and abolish Chris- 
 tianity from the earth. Descriptions of the horrible extremes 
 to which brutality was carried are sickening to the soul. A 
 single example must suffice. Eusebius, referring to the perse- 
 cutions in Egypt, says: "And such too was the severity of the 
 
58 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 
 
 struggle which was endured by the Egyptians, who wrestled 
 gloriously for the faith at Tyre. Thousands, both men, and 
 women and children, despising the present life for the sake of our 
 Savior's doctrine, submitted to death in various shapes. Some, 
 after being tortured with scrappings and the rack, and the most 
 dreadful scourgings, and other innumerable agonies which 
 one might shudder to hear, were finally committed to the flames ; 
 and some plunged and drowned in the sea, others voluntarily 
 offering their own heads to their executioners, others dying 
 in the midst of their torments, some wasted away by famine, 
 and others again fixed to the cross. Some, indeed, were executed 
 as malefactors usually were; others, more cruelly, were nailed 
 with the head downwards, and kept alive until they were de- 
 stroyed by .starving on the cross itself." (Eusebius, "Eccl. 
 Hist.," Book8, ch. 8.) 
 
 19. A modern writer, whose tendency ever was to minimize 
 the extent of Christian persecution, is Edward |T?bboii. 
 His account of the conditions prevailing during this period of 
 Diocletian outrage is as follows: "The magistrates were com- 
 manded to employ every method of severity which might re- 
 claim them from their odious superstition, and oblige them to 
 return to the established worship of the gods. This rigorous 
 order was extended, by a subsequent edict, to the whole body 
 of Christians, who were exposed to a violent and general perse- 
 cution. Instead of those salutary restraints which had required 
 the direct and solemn testimony of an accuser, it became the 
 duty as well as the interest of the imperial officers to discover, 
 to pursue, and to torment the most obnoxious among the faith- 
 ful. Heavy penalties were denounced against all who should 
 presume to save a proscribed sectary from the just indignation 
 of the gods and of the emperors. (Gibbon, "Decline and Fall 
 of the Roman Empire," ch. XVI.) 
 
 20. So general was the Diocletian persecution, and so 
 destructive its effect, that at its cessation the Christian Church 
 was thought to be forever extinct. Monuments were raised to 
 commemorate the emperor's zeal as a persecutor, notably two 
 pillars erected in Spain. On one of them is an inscription extol- 
 ling the mighty Diocletian "For having extinguished the name V 
 of Christians who brought the Republic to ruin." A second pillar 
 commemorates the reign of Diocletian, and honors the imperator 
 
END OF PAGAN PERSECUTION. 3 If 59 
 
 "for having everywhere abolished the superstition of Christ- for 
 having extended the worship of the gods." A medal struck in 
 honor of Diocletian bears the inscription "The name of Christian 
 being extinguished." (Milner, "Church History," Cent. IV, 
 ch. 1:38.) To the fallacy of these assumptions subsequent 
 events testify. 
 
 21. The Diocletian oppression was the last of the great per- 
 secutions brought by pagan Rome against Christianity as a 
 whole. A stupendous change, amounting to a revolution, now 
 appears in the affairs of the Church. Constantine. known in 
 history as Constantine the Great, became emperor of Rome 
 A. D. 306, and reigned 31 years. Early in his reign he espoused 
 the hitherto unpopular cause of the Christians, and took the 
 Church under official protection. A legend gained currency 
 that-the emperor's conversion was due to a supernatural mani- 
 festation, whereby he saw a luminous cross appear in the 
 heavens with the inscription, "By this sign, conquer." The 
 genuineness of this alleged manifestation is doubtful, and the 
 evidence of history is against it. The incident is here mentioned 
 to show the means devised to make Christianity popular at the 
 time. 
 
 22. It is held by many judicious historians that Constan- 
 tine's so-called conversion was rather a matter of policy than a 
 sincere acceptance of the truth of Christianity. The emperor 
 himself remained a catechumen, that is, an unbaptized believer, 
 until shortly before his Heath T when he became a member by 
 
 T)aptism. But, whatever his motives may have been, he made 
 Christianity the religion of state, issuing an official decree to 
 this effect in 313. "He made the cross the royal standard; and 
 the Roman legions now for the first time marched beneath the 
 emblem of Christianity." (Myers.) 
 
 23. Immediately following the change there was a great 
 competition for church preferment. The office of a bishop came 
 to be more highly esteemed than the rank of a general. The 
 emperor himself was the real head of the Church! ItTbecame 
 unpopular and decidedly disadvantageous in a material sense 
 to be known as a non-Christian. Pagan temples were transform- 
 ed into churches, and heathen idols were demolished. We 
 read that twelve thousand men and a proportionate number of 
 women and children were baptized into the Church of Rome 
 
 7 
 
60 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 
 
 alone within a single year. Constantine removed the capital 
 of the empire from Rome to Byzantium, which city he re-named 
 after himself, Constantinople^ This, the present capital of 
 Turkey, became headquarters of the state Church. 
 
 24. How empty and vain appears the Diocletian boast 
 that Christianity was forever extinguished! Yet how different 
 was the Church under the patronage of Constantine from the 
 Church as established by Christ and as built up by His apostles! 
 The Church had already become apostate as judged by the 
 standard of its original constitution. 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 1. Cause of Pagan Opposition to Christianity. "The whole body of Chris- 
 tians unanimously refused to hold any communion with the gods of Rome, of 
 the empire, and of mankind. It was in vain that the oppressed believer asserted 
 the inalienable rights of conscience and private judgment. Though his situa- 
 tion might excite the pity, his arguments could never reach the understanding, 
 either of the philosophic or of the believing part of the pagan world. To their 
 apprehensions, it was no less a matter of surprise that any individuals should 
 entertain scruples against complying with the established mode of worship, 
 than if they had conceived a sudden abhorrence to the manners, the dress, or 
 the language of their native country. The surprise of the pagans was soon 
 succeeded by resentment; and the most pious of men were exposed to the unjust 
 but dangerous imputation of impiety. Malice and prejudice concurred in 
 representing the Christians as a society of atheists, who, by the most daring 
 attack on the religious constitution of the empire, had merited the severest 
 animadversion of the civil magistrate. They had separated themselves (they 
 gloried in the confession) from every mode of superstition which was received 
 in any part of the globe by the various temper of polytheism; but it was not 
 altogether so evident what deity or what form of worship they had substituted 
 to the gods and temples of antiquity. The pure and sublime Mea which the^rl 
 entertained of the Supreme Being escaped the gross conceptionof the pagan 1 
 multitude, who were at a loss to discover a spiritual and solitary God, that was I 
 neither represented under any corporeal figures or visible symbol, nor was adored I 
 with the accustomed pomp of libations and festivals, of altars and sacrifices." J 
 (Gibbon, "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," chap. XVI.) 
 
 2. As to the Number of Persecutions by the Romans. "The Romans are 
 said to have pursued the Christians with the utmost violence in ten persecutions, 
 but this number is not verified by the ancient history of the church. For if, 
 by these persecutions, such only are meant as were singularly severe and uni- 
 versal throughout the empire, then it is certain that these amount not to the 
 number above mentioned. And, if we take the provincial and less remarkable 
 persecutions into the account, they far exceed it. In the fifth century, certain 
 Christians (were) led by some passages of the holy scriptures and by one es- 
 pecially in the Revelations (Rev. 17:14), to imagine that the church was to 
 suffer ten calamities of a most grievous nature. To this notion, therefore, they 
 
NOTES. 61 
 
 endeavored, though not all in the same way, to accommodate the language of 
 history, even against the testimony of those ancient records, from whence 
 alone history can speak with authority." (Mosheim, "Ecclesiastical History," 
 Cent. I, Part I; ch. 5:4.) 
 
 Speaking on the same subject, Gibbon says: "As often as any occasional 
 severities were exercised in the different parts of the empire, the primitive 
 Christians lamented and perhaps magnified their own sufferings; but the cele- 
 brated number of ten persecutions has been determined by the ecclesiastical 
 writers of the fifth century, who possessed a more distinct view of the prosper- 
 ous or adverse fortunes or the church from the age of Nero to that of Diocletian. 
 The ingenious parallels of the ten plagues of Egypt and of the ten horns of the 
 Apocalypse first suggested this calculation of their minds; and in their appli- 
 cation of the faith of prophecy to the truth of history they were careful to select 
 those reigns which were indeed the most hostile to the Christian cause." (Gib- 
 bon, "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," ch. XVI.) 
 
 3. Extent of the Neronian Persecution. "Learned men are not entirely 
 agreed concerning the extent of this persecution under Nero. Some confine it 
 to the city of Rome, while others represent it as having raged throughout the 
 whole empire. The latter opinion, which is also the most ancient, is undoubted- 
 ly to be preferred; as it is certain that the laws enacted against the Christians 
 were enacted against the whole body, and not against particular churches, and 
 were consequently in force in the remotest provinces." (Mosheim, "Ecclesias- 
 tical History," Cent. I. Part I, 5:14.) 
 
 4. Correspondence ^Between Pliny and Trajan. The inquiry of the younger 
 Pliny, governor of Pontus, addressed to Trajan, emperor of Rome, and the 
 imperial reply thereto, are of such interest as to be worthy of reproduction in 
 full. The version here given is that of Milner as appears in his "History of the 
 Church of Christ," edition of 1810, Cent. II, ch. 1.) 
 
 "Pliny to Trajan, Emperor: 
 
 "Health. It is my usual custom, Sir, to refer all things, of which I harbor 
 any doubts, to you. For who can better direct my judgment in its hesitation, 
 or instruct my understanding in its ignorance? I never had the fortune to be 
 present at any examination of Christians, before I came into this province. 
 I am therefore at a loss to determine what is the usual object either of inquiry 
 or of punishment, and to what length either of them is to be carried. It has 
 also been with me a question very problematical, whether any distinction 
 should be made between the young and the old, the tender and the robust; 
 whether any room should be given for repentance, or the guilt of Christianity 
 once incurred is not to be expiated by the most unequivocal retraction; 
 whether the name itself, abstracted from any flagitiousness of conduct, or the 
 crimes connected with the name, be the object of punishment. In the mean- 
 time, this has been my method, with respect to those who were brought before 
 me as Christians. I asked them whether they were Christians: if they pleaded 
 guilty, I interrogated them twice afresh with a menace of capital punishment. 
 In case of obstinate perseverance I ordered them to be^ executed. For of this 
 I had no doubt, whatever was the nature of their religion, that a sudden and 
 obstinate inflexibility called for the vengeance of the magistrate. Some were 
 infected with the same madness, whom, on account of their privilege of citizen- 
 
62 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 
 
 ship, I reserved to be sent to Rome, to be referred to your tribunal. In the 
 course of this business, informations pouring in, as is usual when they are en- 
 couraged, more cases occurred. An anonymous libel was exhibited, with a 
 catalogue of names of persons, who yet declared that they were not Christians 
 then, nor ever had been; and they repeated after me an invocation of the gods 
 and of your image, which, for this purpose, I had ordered to be brought with 
 the images of the deities. They performed sacred rites with wine and frank- 
 incense, and execrated Christ, none of which things I am told a real Christian 
 can ever be compelled to do. On this account I dismissed them. Others 
 named by an informer, first affirmed, and then denied the charge of Christian- 
 ity; declaring that they had been Christians, but had ceased to be so some three 
 years ago, others even longer, some even twenty years ago. All of them wor- 
 shiped your image, and the statues of the gods, and also execrated Christ. And 
 this was the account which they gave of the nature of the religion they had once 
 professed, whether it deserves the name of crime or error, namely that they 
 were accustomed on a stated day to meet before daylight, and to repeat among 
 themselves a hymn to Christ as to a god, and to bind themselves by an oath, 
 with an obligation of not committing any wickedness; but on the contrary, 
 of abstaining from thefts, robberies, and adulteries; also of not violating their 
 promise or denying a pledge; after which it was their custom to separate, 
 and to meet again at a promiscuous harmless meal, from which last practice 
 they however desisted, after the publication of my edict, in which, agreeably 
 to your order, I forbade any societies of that sort. On which account I judged 
 it the more necessary to inquire, by torture, from two females, who were said 
 to be deaconesses, what is the real truth. But nothing could I collect except 
 a depraved and excessive superstition. Deferring, therefore any farther in- 
 vestigation, I determined to consult you. For the number of culprits is so 
 great as to call for serious consultation. Many persons are informed against 
 of every age and of both sexes; and more still will be in the same situation. The 
 contagion of the superstition hath spread not only through cities, but even 
 villages and the country. Not that I think it impossible to check and correct it. 
 The success of my endeavors hitherto forbids such desponding thoughts; for 
 the temples, almost once desolate, begin to be frequented, and the sacred 
 solemnities, which had long been intermitted, are now attended afresh; and the 
 sacrificial victims are now sold everywhere, which once could scarcely find a 
 purchaser. Whence I conclude that many might be reclaimed were the hope 
 of impunity, on repentance, absolutely confirmed." 
 
 The emperor's reply follows: 
 "Trajan to Pliny: 
 
 "You have done perfectly right, my dear Pliny, in the inquiry which you 
 have made concerning Christians. For truly no one general rule can be laid 
 down, which will apply itself to all cases. These people must not be sought 
 after. If they are brought before you and convicted, let them be capitally 
 punished, yet with this restriction, that if any one renounce Christianity, and 
 evidence his sincerity by supplicating our gods, however suspected he may be 
 for the past, he shall obtain pardon for the future, on his repentance. But 
 anonymous libels in no case ought to be attended to; for the precedent would 
 be of the worst sort, and perfectly incongruous to the maxims of my govern- 
 ment." 
 
INTERNAL CAUSES. 63 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 Causes of the Apostasy. Internal Causes. 
 
 1. The cruel persecution to which the adherents of Chris- 
 tianity and the Church as an organized body were subjected 
 during the first three centuries of our era have been treated as 
 external causes, contributing at least indirectly to the general 
 apostasy. Details of Judaistic and heathen opposition have been 
 given with sufficient fulness to show that the unpopular Church 
 had a troubled existence, and that such of its members as re- 
 mained faithful to the tenets and principles of the gospel were 
 martyrs in spirit if not in fact. 
 
 2. As would naturally be expected, the immediate effect 
 of persistent persecution on those who professed a belief in the 
 divinity of the Lord Jesus was diverse and varied; indeed it 
 ranged from unrestrained enthusiasm expressed in frenzied 
 clamoring for martyrdom, to ready and abject apostasy with 
 ostentatious display of devotion in idolatrous service. 
 
 3. Many of the Christian devotees developed a zeal 
 amounting to mania, and, disregarding all prudence and discre- 
 tion, gloried in the prospect of winning the martyr's crown. 
 Some who had been left unassailed felt themselves aggrieved, 
 and became their own accusers; while others openly committed 
 acts of aggression with intent to bring resentment upon them- 
 selves. (See Note 1, end of chapter.) These extravagances 
 were doubtless encouraged by the excessive veneration accorded 
 the memories and the bodily remains of those who had fallen as 
 victims in the cause. The reverential respect so rendered devel- 
 oped later into the impious practice of martyr woi 
 
 4. Commenting on the imprudent enthusiasm of the early 
 Christians, Gibbon says: "The Christians sometimes supplied 
 by their voluntary declaration the want of an accuser, rudely 
 disturbed the public service of paganism, and, rushing in 
 
64 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 
 
 crowds round the tribunal of the magistrates, called upon them 
 to pronounce and to inflict the sentence of the law. The be- 
 havior of the Christians was too remarkable to escape the notice 
 of the ancient philosophers; but they seem to have received it 
 with much less admiration than astonishment. Incapable of 
 conceiving the motives which sometimes transported the forti- 
 tude of believers beyond the bounds of prudence and reason, 
 they treated such an eagerness to die as the strange result of 
 obstinate despair, of stupid insensibility or of superstitious 
 frenzy." (Gibbon, "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," 
 ch. XVI.) 
 
 5. But there is another side to the picture. While impru- 
 dent zealots invited dangers from which they might have re- 
 mained exempt, others, affrighted at the possibility of being 
 included among the victims, voluntarily deserted the Church 
 and returned to heathen allegiances. Milner, speaking of con- 
 ditions existing in the third century, and incorporating the 
 words of Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, who lived at the time of 
 the incident described, says: "Vast numbers lapsed into idolatry 
 immediately. Even before men were accused as Christians, 
 many ran to the forum and sacrificed to the gods as they were 
 ordered; and the crowds of apostates were so great, that the 
 magistrates wished to delay numbers of them till the next day, 
 but they were importuned by the wretched suppliants to be 
 allowed to prove themselves heathens that very night." (Mil- 
 ner, "Church History," Cent. Ill, ch. 8.) 
 
 6. In connection with this individual apostasy of Church 
 members under the pressure of persecution, there arose among 
 the provincial governors a practice of selling certificates or 
 "libels" as these documents were called, which "attested that 
 the persons therein mentioned had complied with the laws and 
 sacrificed to the Roman deities. By producing these false dec- 
 larations, the opulent and timid Christians were enabled to 
 silence the malice of an informer, and to reconcile, in some meas- 
 ure, their safety with their religion." (Gibbon, "Decline and 
 Fall of the Roman Empire," ch. XVI.) A modification of this 
 practice of quasi-apostasy consisted in procuring testimonials 
 from persons of standing certifying that the holders had abjured 
 the gospel; these documents were presented to the heathen 
 magistrates, and they, on receipt of a specified fee, granted 
 
INTERNAL CAUSES. 65 
 
 exemption from the requirement of sacrificing to the pagan 
 gods. (See Milner, "Church History," Cent. Ill, ch. 9.) As 
 a result of these practices, whereby under favorable circum- 
 stances the wealthy could purchase immunity from persecution, 
 and at the same time maintain a semblance of standing in the 
 Church, much dissension arose, the question being as to whether 
 those who had thus shown their weakness could ever be re- 
 ceived again into communion with the Church. 
 
 7. Persecution at most was but an indirect cause of the de- 
 cline of Christianity and the perversion of the saving principles 
 of the gospel of Christ. The greater and more immediate dangers 
 threatening the Church must be sought within the body itself. 
 Indeed, the pressure of opposition from without served to re- 
 strain the bubbling springs of internal dissension, and actually 
 delayed the more destructive eruptions of schism and heresy. 
 
 (See Note 2, end of chapter. ) A general review of the history 
 of the Church down to the end of the third century shows that 
 the periods of comparative peace were periods of weakness and 
 decline in spiritual earnestness, and that with the return of per- 
 secution came an awakening and a renewal in Christian devo- 
 tion. Devout leaders of the people were not backward in de- 
 claring that each recurring period of persecution was a time of 
 natural and necessary chastisement for the sin and corruption 
 that had gained headway within the Church. (See Note 3, 
 end of chapter.) 
 
 8. As to the condition of the Church in the middle of the 
 third century, Cyprian, the bishop of Carthage, thus speaks: 
 "If the cause dl^our rmseries be investigated, the cure of the 
 wound may be found. The Lord would have his family to be 
 tried. And because long peace had corrupted the discipline 
 divinely revealed to us, the heavenly chastisement hath raised 
 up our faith, which had lain almost dormant: and when, by our 
 sins, we have deserved to suffer still more, the merciful Lord so 
 moderated all things, that the whole scene rather deserves the 
 name of a trial than a persecution. Each had been bent on im- 
 proving his patrimony; and had forgotten what believers had 
 done under the apostles, and what they ought always to do: 
 they were brooding over the arts of amassing wealth: the 
 pastors and the deacons each forgot their duty: Works of mercy 
 were neglected, and discipline was at the lowest ebb. Luxury 
 
66 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 
 
 and effeminacy prevailed: Meretricious arts in dress were cul- 
 tivated: Frauds and deceit were practiced among brethren. 
 Christians could unite themselves in matrimony with unbe- 
 lievers; could swear not only without reverence, but even without 
 veracity. With haughty asperity they despised their ecclesiasti- 
 cal superiors: They railed against one another with outrageous 
 acrimony, and conducted quarrels with determined malice: 
 Even many bishops, who ought to be guides and patterns to the 
 rest, neglecting the peculiar duties of their stations, gave them- 
 selves up to secular pursuits: They deserted their places of 
 residence and their flocks: They traveled through distant pro- 
 vinces in quest of pleasure and gain; gave no assistance to the 
 needy brethren; but were insatiable in their thirst of money: 
 They possessed estates by fraud and multiplied usury. What 
 have we not deserved to suffer for such conduct? Even the 
 divine word hath foretold us what we might expect. 'If his 
 children forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments, I will 
 visit their offenses with the rod, and their sin with scourges.' 
 These things had been denounced and foretold, but in vain. 
 Our sins had brought our affairs to that pass, that because we 
 had despised the Lord's directions, we were obliged to undergo 
 a correction of our multiplied evils and a trial of our faith by 
 severe remedies." (As quoted by Milner, "Church History," 
 Cent. Ill, ch. 8. ) 
 
 9. Milner, who quotes approvingly the severe arraignment 
 of the Church in the third century as given above, cannot be 
 charged with bias against Christian institutions, inasmuch 
 as his declared purpose in presenting to the world an additional 
 "History of the Church of Christ" was to give due attention to 
 certain phases of the subject slighted or neglected by earlier 
 authors, and notably to emphasize the piety, not the wickedness, . 
 of the professed followers of Christ. This author, avowedly 
 friendly to the Church and her votaries, admits the growing de- 
 pravity of the Christian sects, and declares that toward the end 
 of the third century the effect of the Pentecostal outpouring of 
 the Holy Spirit had become exhausted, and that there remained 
 little proof of any close relationship between Christ and the 
 Church. 
 
 10. Note his summary of conditions: "The era of its 
 actual declension must be dated in the pacific part of 
 
 
INTERNAL CAUSES. 67 
 
 Diocletian's reign. During this whole century the work of God, 
 in purity and power, had been tending to decay. The connection 
 with philosophers was one of the principal causes. Outward 
 peace and secular advantages completed the corruption. 
 Ecclesiastical discipline,which had been too strict,was now relax- 
 ed exceedingly; bishops and people were in a state of malice. 
 Endless quarrels were fomented among contending parties, and 
 rambition and covetousness had in general gained the ascendency 
 (Jn the Christian Church. * * * The faith of Christ itself appeared 
 now an ordinary business; and here terminated, or nearly so, 
 as far as appears, the first great effusion of the Spirit of God, 
 which began at the day of Pentecost. Human depravity effect- 
 ed throughout a general decay of godliness; and one generation 
 of men elapsed with very slender proofs of the spiritual presence 
 of Christ with His Church." (Milner, "Church History," 
 Cent. Ill, ch. 17.) 
 
 11. If further evidence be wanted as to the fires of 
 tion smoldering within the Church, and so easily fanned into 
 destructive flame, let the testimony of Eusebius be considered 
 with respect to conditions characterizing the second half of the 
 third century. And, in weighing his words, let it be remember- 
 ed that he had expressly recorded his purpose of writ- 
 ing in defense of the Church, and in support of her 
 institutions. He bewails the tranquillity preceding the Dio- 
 cletian outbreak, because of its injurious effect upon both 
 officers and members of the Church. These are his words: 
 "But when by excessive liberty we have sunk into indolence and 
 sloth, one envying and reviling another in different ways, and 
 we were almost, as it were, on the point of taking up arms 
 against each other, and were assailing each other with words, 
 as with darts and spears, prelates inveighing against prelates, 
 and people rising up against people, and hypocrisy and dis- 
 simulation had arisen to the greater heights of malignity, then 
 the divine judgment, which usually proceeds with a lenient 
 hand, whilst the multitudes were yet crowding into the Church, 
 with gentle and mild visitations began to afflict its episcopacy; 
 the persecution having begun with those brethren that were in 
 the army. * * * But some that appeared to be our pastors, 
 deserting the lav/ of piety, were inflamed against each other with 
 mutual strifes, accumulating quarrels and threats, rivalry, 
 
68 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 
 
 hostility, and hatred to each other, only anxious to assert the 
 government as a kind of sovereignty for themselves. "- 
 (Eusebius, ' 'Ecclesiastical History," Book VIII, ch. 1. See 
 note 4, end of chapter.) 
 
 12. As further illustrative of the decline of the Christian 
 spirit toward the end of the third century, Milner quotes the fol- 
 lowing observation of Eusebius, an eye-witness of the condi- 
 tions described: "The heavy hand of God's judgment began 
 softly, by little and little, to visit us after His wonted manner; 
 
 * * * but we were not at all moved with His hand, nor took any 
 pains to return to God. We heaped sin upon sin, judging like 
 careless Epicureans, that God cared not for our sins, nor would 
 ever visit us on account of them. And our pretended shepherds, 
 laying aside the rule of godliness, practiced among themselves 
 contention and division." He adds that the "dreadful perse- 
 cution of Diocletian was then inflicted on the Church as a just 
 punishment, and as the most proper chastisement for their 
 iniquities." (Milner, "Church History," Cent. Ill, ch. 17.) 
 
 13. It will be remembered that the great change whereby 
 the Church was raised to a place of honor in the state, occurred 
 in the early part of the fourth century. It is a popular error 
 to assume that the decay of the Church as a spiritual institution 
 dates from that time. The picture of the Church declining as 
 to spiritual power in exact proportion to her increase of tempor- 
 al influence and wealth has appealed to rhetoricians and writers 
 of sensational literature; but such a picture does not present 
 the truth^^The Church was saturated with the spirit of apostasy 
 long "Be^re_Constantine took it under his powerful protection 
 
 "By according it official standing in the state. In support of this 
 statement, I quote again from Milner, the avowed friend of the 
 Church: "I know it is common for authors to represent the 
 great declension of Christianity to have taken place only after 
 its external establishment under Constantine. But the evidence 
 of history has compelled me to dissent from this view of things. 
 In fact, we have seen that for a whole generation previous 
 to the [Diocletian] persecution, few marks of superior piety 
 appeared. Scarce a luminary of godliness existed; and it is not 
 common in any age for a great work of the Spirit of God to be 
 exhibited but under the conduct of some remarkable saints, 
 pastors, and reformers. This whole period as well as the whole 
 
INTERNAL CAUSES. 69 
 
 scene of the persecution is very barren in such characters. 
 * * * Moral and philosophical and monastical instructions will 
 not effect for men what is to be expected from evangelical 
 doctrine. And if the faith of Christ was so much declined (and 
 its decayed state ought to be dated from about the year 270), 
 we need not wonder that such scenes as Eusebius hints at with- 
 out any circumstantial details, took place in the Christian 
 world. * * * He speaks also of the ambitious spirit of many^-ixu 
 aspiring to the offices of the Churchrthe ill judged and unlawful^ 
 ordinations, the quarrels among confessors themselves, and the 
 excited by young demagogues in the very relics of 
 
 the persecuted Church, and the multiplied evils which their 
 vices excited among Christians. How sadly must the Christian 
 world have declined which could thus conduct itself under the 
 very rod of divine vengeance? Yet let not the infidel or the 
 profane world triumph. It was not Christianity, but the depart- 
 ure from it, which brought on these evils." (Milner, "Church 
 History," Cent. IV, ch. I. The italics are introduced by the 
 present writer. See also Note 5, end of chapter.) 
 
 14. The foregoing embodies but a few of the many evi- 
 dences that could be cited in demonstration of the fact that dur- 
 ing the period immediately following the apostolic ministry the 
 period covered by the persecutions of the Christians by the 
 heathen nations, the Church was undergoing internal deter- 
 ioration, and was in a state of increasing perversion. Among the 
 more detailed or specific causes of this ever widening departure 
 from the spirit of the gospel of Christ, this rapidly growing 
 apostasy, the following may be considered as important ex- 
 amples : 
 
 (1). The corrupting of the simple principles of the gospel 
 by the admixture of the so-called philosophic systems of the 
 times. 
 
 (2). Unauthorized additions to the ceremonies of the 
 Church, and the introduction of vital changes in essential or- 
 dinances. 
 
 (3). Unauthorized changes in Church organization and 
 government. 
 
 15. We shall consider in due order each of the three causes 
 here enumerated. It may appear that the conditions set forth 
 in these specifications are more properly to be regarded as 
 
70 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 
 
 effects or results, than as causes, incident to the general apos- 
 tasy, that they are in the nature of evidences or proofs of a 
 departure from the original constitution of the Church, rather 
 than specific causes by which the fact of apostasy is to be ex- 
 plained or accounted for. Cause and effect, however, are some- 
 times very intimately associated, and resulting conditions may 
 furnish the best demonstration of causes in operation. Each of 
 the conditions given above as a specific cause of the progressive 
 apostasy was, at its inception, an evidence of existing unsound- 
 ness, and an active cause of the graver results that followed. 
 Each succeeding manifestation of the spirit of apostasy was 
 at once the result of earlier disaffection, and the cause of later 
 and more pronounced developments. 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 1. Inordinate Zeal Manifested by Some of the Early Christians'. "The 
 sober discretion of the present age will more readily censure than admire, but 
 can more easily admire than imitate, the fervor of the first Christians; who, 
 according to the lively expression of Sulpicius Severus, desired martyrdom with 
 more eagerness than his own contemporaries solicited a bishopric. The epistles 
 which Ignatius composed as he was carried in chains through the cities or Asia, 
 breathe sentiments the most repugnant to the ordinary feelings of human 
 nature. He earnestly beseeches the Romans that when he should be exposed 
 in the amphitheatre, they would not by their kind but unreasonable intercession, 
 deprive him of the crown of glory, and he declares his resolution to provoke and 
 irritate the wild beasts which might be employed as the instruments of his 
 death. Some stories are related of the courage of martyrs who actually per- 
 formed what Ignatius had intended: who exasperated the fury of the lions, 
 pressed the executioner to hasten his office, cheerfully leaped into the fires which 
 were kindled to consume them, and discovered a sensation of joy and pleasure 
 in the midst of the most exquisite torture." (Gibbon, "Decline and Fall of 
 the Roman Empire," ch. XVI. ) 
 
 2. Internal Dissensions During Time of Peace. As stated in the text, the 
 early part of Diocletian's reign the period immediately preceding the outburst 
 of the last great persecution to which the Christians were subjected was a 
 time of comparative freedom from opposition, and this period was character- 
 ized by internal disturbances and dissensions within the Church. Illustrative 
 of the tolerance shown by the emperor before he became hostile to the Church, 
 and the accompanying decline of spiritual earnestness among the Christians 
 themselves, Gibbon says: "Diocletian and his colleagues frequently conferred 
 the most important offices on those persons who avowed their abhorrence of 
 the worship of the gods, but who had displayed abilities proper for the service 
 of the state. The bishops held an honorable rank in the respective provinces, 
 and were treated with distinction and respect, not only by the people, but by 
 the magistrates themselves. Almost in every city the ancient churches were 
 
NOTES. 71 
 
 found insufficient to contain the increasing multitudes of proselytes; and in 
 their place more stately and capacious edifices were erected for the public wor- 
 ship of the faithful. The corruption of manners and principles so forcibly 
 lamented by Eusebius, may be considered not only as a consequence, but as a 
 proof, of the liberty which the Christians enjoyed and abused under the reign 
 of Diocletian. Prosperity had relaxed the nerves of discipline. Fraud, envy, 
 and malice prevailed in every congregation. The presbyters aspired to the 
 episcopal office, which every day became an object more worthy of their am- 
 bition. The bishops who contended with each other for ecclesiastical pre- 
 eminence, appeared by their conduct to claim a secular and tyrannical power 
 in the church; and the lively faith which still distinguished the Christians from 
 the Gentiles, was shown much less in their lives than in their controversial 
 writings." (Gibbon, "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," ch. XVI.) 
 
 3. The Effect of Peace on the^ Early Church. "Disastrous as the persecu- 
 tions of the early Christian centuries were, still more mischievous to the Church 
 were those periods of tranquillity which intervened between the outbursts of 
 rage which prompted them. Peace may have her victories no less renowned 
 than those of war; and so, too, she has her calamities, and they are not less 
 destructive than those of war. War may destroy nations, but ease and luxury 
 mankind corrupt the body and the mind. Especially is peace dangerous to 
 the church. Prosperity relaxes the reins of discipline; people feel less and less 
 the need of a sustaining providence; but in adversity the spirit of man feels 
 after God, and he is correspondingly more devoted to the^service of ^ religion. 
 We shall find the early Christians no exception to the operation of this influence 
 of repose. Whenever it was accorded them, either through the mercy or the 
 indifference of the emperors, internal dissensions, the intrigues of aspiring pre- 
 lates, and the rise of heresies, characterized those periods." (B. H. Roberts, 
 "A New Witness for God," p. 70.) 
 
 4. Schisms and Heresies in the Early Church. Eusebius, whose writings 
 date from the early part of the fourth century, cites the writings of Hegesippus, 
 who lived in the first quarter of the second century, as follows: "The same au- 
 thor [Hegesippus] also treats of the beginning of the heresies that arose about 
 this time, in the following words: 'But after James the Just had suffered mar- 
 tyrdom, as our Lord had for the same reason, Simeon, the son of Cleophas, our 
 Lord's uncle, was appointed the second bishop [of Jerusalem] whom all 
 proposed as the cousin of our Lord. Hence they called the Church as yet a 
 virgin, for it was not yet corrupted by vain discourses. Thebuthis made a 
 beginning, secretly to corrupt it on account of his not being made bishop. He 
 was one of those seven sects among the Jewish people. Of these also was 
 Simeon, whence sprang the sect of Simonians; also Cleobius, from whence came 
 the Cleobians; also Dositheus, the founder of the Dositheans. From these also 
 sprung the Gortheonians from Gortheoeus; and also Masbotheans from Mas- 
 bothoeus. Hence also the Meandrians, the Marcionists, and Carpocratians 
 and Valentinians, and Basilidians, and the Saturnillians, every one introducing 
 his own peculiar opinions, one differing from the other. From these sprung the 
 false Christs and the false prophets and false apostles, who divided the unity 
 of the Church by the introduction of corrupt doctrines against God and against 
 His Christ." (Eusebius, "Ecclesiastical History," Book IV, ch. 22.) 
 
72 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 
 
 5. Early Decline of the Church: Milner, summing up the conditions at- 
 tending the Church at the end of the second century, says: "And here we close 
 the view of the second century, which, for the most part exhibited proofs of 
 divine grace, as strong, or nearly so, as the first. We have seen the same un- 
 shaken and simple faith of Jesus, the same love of God and of the brethren; 
 and that in which they singularly excelled modern Christians the same 
 heavenly spirit and victory over the world. But a dark shade is enveloping 
 these divine glories. The Spirit of God is grieved already by the ambitious 
 intrusions of self-righteous, argumentative refinements, and Pharisaic pride; 
 and though it be more common to represent the most sensible decay of godli- 
 ness as commencing a century later, to me it seems already begun." (Milner, 
 "Church History," Cent. II, ch. 9.) 
 
 Mosheim, writing of conditions attending the closing years of the third 
 century, says: "The ancient method of ecclesiastical government seemed in 
 general still to subsist, while, at the same time, by imperceptible steps, it varied 
 from the primitive rule and degenerated toward the form of a religious mon- 
 archy. * * * This change in the form of ecclesiastical government was soon 
 followed by a train of vices, which dishonored the character and authority of 
 those to whom the administration of the Church was committed. For, though 
 several yet continued to exhibit to the world illustrative examples of primitive 
 piety and Christian virtue, yet many were sunk in luxury and voluptuousness, 
 puffed up with vanity, arrogance and ambition, possessed with a spirit of con- 
 tention and discord, and addicted to many other vices that cast an undeserved 
 reproach upon the holy religion of which they were the unworthy professors and 
 ministers. This is testified in such an ample manner by the repeated com- 
 plaints of many of the most respectable writers of this age, that truth will not 
 permit us to spread the veil, which we should otherwise be desirous to cast over 
 such enormities among an order so sacred. The bishops assumed in many 
 places a princely authority, particularly those who had the greatest number of 
 churches under their inspection, and who presided over the most opulent as- 
 semblies. They appropriated to their evangelical function the splendid ensigns 
 of temporal majesty. A throne, surrounded with ministers, exalted above his 
 equals the servant of the meek and humble Jesus; and sumptuous garments 
 dazzled the eyes and the minds of the multitude into an ignorant veneration 
 of their arrogated authority. The example of the bishops was ambitiously 
 imitated by the presbyters, who, neglecting the sacred duties of their station, 
 abandoned themselves to the indolence and delicacy of an effeminate and luxur- 
 ious life. The deacons, beholding the presbyters deserting thus their func- 
 tions, boldly usurped their rights and privileges, and the effects of a corrupt 
 ambition were spread through every rank of the order sacred." (Mosheim, 
 "Ecclesiastical History," Cent. Ill, Part II, ch. 2:3, 4.) 
 
JUDAISTIC PERVERSIONS. 73 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 Internal Causes. Continued. 
 
 1. First among the specific causes of disturbance operating 
 within the Church, and contributing to its apostasy, we have 
 named: "The corrupting of the simple principles of the gospel by 
 the admixture of the so-called philosophic systems of the times." 
 
 2. The attempted grafting of foreign doctrines on the true 
 vine of the gospel of Christ was characteristic of the early years 
 of the apostolic period. We read of the sorcerer ^Simon, who pro- 
 fessed belief and entered the Church by baptism, but who was so 
 devoid of the true spirit of the gospel that he sought to purchase 
 by money the authority and power of the priesthood. (See 
 Acts 8:9, 13, 18-24.) This man, though rebuked by Peter, and 
 apparently penitent, continued to trouble the Church, by incul- 
 cating heresies and winning disciples within the fold. His 
 followers were distinguished as a sect or cult down to the fourth 
 century; and, writing at that time, Eusebius says of them: 
 "These, after the manner of their founder, insinuating them- 
 selves into the Church, like a pestilential and leprous disease, 
 infected those with the greatest corruption, into whom they 
 were able to infuse their secret, irremediable, and de- 
 structive poison." (Eusebius, "Ecclesiastical History," Book 
 II, ch. 1.) This Simon, known in history as 
 
 referred to by early Christian writers, as the founder of heresy, 
 owing to his persistent attempts to combine Christianity with 
 Gnosticism. It is with reference to his proposition to purchase 
 spiritual authority that all traffic in spiritual offices has come 
 to be known as simony. 
 
 3. Through the mouth of the Revelator, the Lord reproved 
 certain of the churches for their adoption or toleration of doc- 
 trines and practices alien to the gospel. Notably is this the case 
 with respect to the Nicolaitanes, and the followers of the doc- 
 trines of Balaam. (See Rev. 2:15; compare verse 6; see also 
 verse 20. See Note 1, end of chapter.) 
 
 4. The perversion of true theology thus developed within 
 the Church is traceable to the introduction of both Judaistic and 
 pagan fallacies. (See Note 2, end of chapter.) Indeed, at the 
 opening of the Christian era and for centuries thereafter, Juda- 
 ism was more or less intimately mixed with pagan philosophy, 
 
 Xl^rW+jL** -- 
 
74 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 
 
 and contaminated with heatnen ceremonies. There were num- 
 erous sects and parties, cults and schools, each advocating rival 
 theories as to the constitution of the soul, the essence of sin, the 
 nature of Deity, and a multitude of other mysteries. The 
 Christians were soon embroiled in endless controversies among 
 themselves. 
 
 5. Judaistic converts to Christianity sought to modify and 
 adapt the tenets of the new faith so as to harmonize them with 
 tfieir inherited love of Judaism, and the result was destructive 
 to both. Our Lord had indicated the futility of any such at- 
 tempts to combine new principles with old systems, or to 
 patch up the prejudices of the past with fragments of new doc^ 
 trine. (_^No man/' said He,' "putteth a piece of new cloth unto 
 
 ^^ an old garment, for that which is put in to fill it up taketh from, 
 the garment, and the rent is made worse. Neither do men put 
 new wine into old bottles: else the bottles break, and the wine 
 runneth out, and the bottles perish: but they put new wine into . 
 new bottles, and both are preserved." (Matt. 9:16, 17.) / 
 The gospel came as a new revelation, marking the fulfilment of 
 the law, it was no mere addendum, nor was it a simple re- 
 enactment of past requirements; it embodied a new and an 
 everlasting covenant. Attempts to patch the Judaistic robe 
 with the new fabric of the gospel could result in nothing more 
 sightly than a hideous rent. The new wine of the covenant could 
 not be bottled in the time-eaten leathern containers of Mosaic 
 libations. Judaism was belittled and Christianity perverted by 
 the incongruous association. 
 
 6. Among the early and most pernicious adulterations of 
 Christian doctrine is the introduction of the teachings of the 
 Gnostics. These self-styled philosophers put forth the boastful 
 claim that they were able to lead the human mind to a full com- 
 
 / ^/prehension of the Supreme Being, and a knowledge of the true 
 A^/relationship between Deity and mortals. They said in effect 
 jY that a certain being had existed from all eternity, manifested 
 JJ/ as aj^dianj; light diffused throughout space, and this they called 
 
 f tl! 
 
 Pleroma^\ "The eternal nature, infinitely perfect and infin- 
 ^ itely happy, having dwelt from everlasting in a profound soli- 
 tude,' and in a blessed tranquillity produced at length from it- 
 self, two minds of a different sex, which resembled their supreme 
 parent in the most perfect manner. From the prolific union of 
 
JUDAISTIC PERVERSIONS. \ 75 
 
 these two beings, others arose, which were also jollowed by suc- 
 ceeding generations; so that in process of lime a celestial 
 family was formed in the Pleroma. This div/ne progeny, im- 
 mutable in its nature, and above the power/of mortality, was 
 called, by the philosophers, Aeon- a term/which signifies, in 
 the Greek language, an eternal nature. How many in number 
 these Aeons were was a point much controverted among the 
 oriental sages." (Mosheim, "Ecclesiastical History," Cent. I, 
 Part II, 1:7.) 7 
 
 7. Then one of the Aeons, distinctively called the Demi- 
 urge, created this world, ano^/arrogantly asserted dominion 
 over the same, denying absolutely the authority of the supreme 
 parent. The Gnostic dopfcfme declares man to be a union of the 
 body, which, being^tkecreation of the Demiurge, is essentially 
 evil, and a spirijU^hich. being derived from Deity, is character- 
 istically gpj0d7 The spirits thus imprisoned in evil bodies will 
 be finally liberated, and then the power of the Demiurge will 
 cease^ and the earth will be dissolved into nothingness. 
 / 8. Our justification for introducing here this partial sum- 
 /mary of Gnosticism is the fact that early efforts were made to 
 / accommodate the tenets of this system to the demands of Chris- 
 tianity; and that Christ and the Holy Ghost were declared to 
 V belong to the-famjly of Aeons provided for in this scheme. This 
 Xd to the i^traVagant absurdity of denying that Jesus had a 
 bb4jLeyen whIIe~He lived as a man; and that His appearance as 
 a corporeal being was a deception of the senses wrought by His 
 supernatural power. (See Note 3, end of chapter.) 
 
 9. That the doctrines of the Gnostics were unsatisfying 
 even to those who professed to believe therein is evident from 
 the many cults and parties that came into existence as subdivi- 
 sions of the main sect ; and it is interesting to note that in modern 
 times certain free-thinkers have prided themselves in assuming 
 a title expressing the full antithesis of the name Gnostics, viz. 
 Agnostics. 
 
 10. The practical effect of the principles of Gnosticism in 
 the lives of its adherents is strangely diverse. One division of the 
 sect followed a life of austerity; embracing rigorous self-denial, 
 and bodily torture, in the vain belief that the malignant body" 
 could thus be subdued, while the spirit would be given added 
 power and increased freedom. Another cult sought to mini- 
 
76 , THE GREAT APOSTASY. 
 
 mize the fundamental difference between right and wrong; by 
 denying the element of morality in human life; and these 
 abandoned themselves to the impulses of the passions and the 
 frailties of the bodily nature without restraint, on the assump- 
 tion that there was no such relation between body and soul as 
 would cause injury to the latter through bodily indulgences 
 and excesses. 
 
 11. Another sect or school whose doctrines were in a meas- 
 ure amalgamated with those of Christianity was that of the 
 New Platonics. The ancient sects of Platonists or Platonics 
 were allied in some points of doctrine with the Epicureans, and 
 were rivals if not opponents of the Stoics,. The early Platonics 
 held that unorganized matter has existed from all eternity, and 
 that its organizer, God, is similarly eternal. As God is eternal, 
 so also His will or intelligence is without beginning, and this 
 eternal intelligence existing as the will or intent of Deity, was 
 called the LOCJOS. Such precepts had been taught long before 
 the Christian era, and the philosophy professed by some of the 
 contending sects among the Jews in the time of Christ had been 
 influenced thereby. 
 
 12. As the principles of Christianity became generally 
 known, certain leaders in the sect of Platonics found in the new 
 doctrine much to study and admire. By this time, however, 
 Platonism itself had undergone much change, and the more 
 liberal adherents had formed a new organization and distin- 
 guished themselves by the appellation New Platonics. These 
 professed to find in Jesus Christ the incarnation of the Logos, 
 and accepted with avidity the declaration of St. John: "In the 
 beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the 
 Word was God. * * * And the Word was made flesh/ and dwelt 
 among us." (John 1:1, 14.) According to the Eclectic or 
 New Platonic philosophy, the "Word" referred to by St. John 
 was the "Logos" described by Plato. 
 
 13. The Platonic conception of the Godhead as consisting 
 of the Deity and the Logos, was enlarged in accordance with 
 Christian tenets to embrace three members, the Holy Ghost be- 
 ing the third. Thence arose bitter and lasting dissension as to 
 the relative powers of each member of the Trinity, particularly 
 the position and authority of the Logos or Son. The many dis- 
 putes incident to the admixture of Platonic theory with Chris- 
 
PLATONISM. 77 
 
 tian doctrine continued through the centuries, and in a sense 
 may be said to trouble the minds of men even in this modern 
 age. 
 
 14. It is wholly beyond our purpose to classify or describe 
 the hybrid offspring resulting from the unnatural union of pagan 
 philosophy and Christian truth; nor shall we attempt to follow in 
 detail the dissensions and quarrels on theological points and 
 questions of doctrine. Our purpose is achieved when by state- 
 ment of fact and citation of authority, the reality of thje_aos^ 
 tasy is established. We shall consider therefore only the most 
 important o'l the dissensions by which the Church was troubled. 
 
 (See Note 4, end of chapter.) 
 
 15. About the middle of the third century, Sibellius. a pres- 
 byter or bishop of the church in Africa, strongly advocated the 
 doctrine of "trinity in unity " as characterizing the Godhead. 
 He claimed that the divine nature of Christ was no distinct nor 
 personal attribute of the man Jesus, but merely a portion of the 
 divine energy, an emanation from the Father, with which the 
 
 "Son was temporarily endowed; and that in like manner the Holy 
 Ghost was a part of the divine Father. These views were as 
 vigorously opposed by some as defended by others, and the 
 disagreement was rife when Constantine so suddenly changed 
 the status of the Church, and brought to its support the power of 
 the state. Early in the fourth century the dispute assumedji 
 threatening aspect in a bitter contention between (STexan< 
 bishop of Alexandria, andQAriuj^ une uf Ifre'subordinate officers 
 of the same church. Alexander proclaimed that the Son was in 
 all respects the equal of the Father, and also of the same sub- 
 stance or essence. Arius insisted that the Son had been created 
 by the Father, and therefore could not be co-eternal with His 
 divine Parent; that the Son was the agent through whom the 
 will of the Father was executed, and that for this reason also 
 the Son was inferior to the Father both in nature and dignity. 
 In like manner the Holy Ghost was inferior to the other mem- 
 bers of the Godhead. 
 
 16.[Arianism^ as the doctrine came to be known, was 
 preached with vigor and denounced with energy; and the dis- 
 sension thus occasioned threatened to rend the Church to its 
 foundation. At last the emperor, Constantine, was forced to 
 intervene in an effort to establish peace among his contending 
 
78 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 
 
 churchmen. He summoned a council of church dignitaries 
 which assembled in the year_325._and which is known from 
 its place of session as the Council of Nice. This council con- 
 demned the doctrine of Arius, and pronounced sentence of 
 banishment against its author. What was declared to be the 
 orthodox doctrine of the universal or Catholic church respecting 
 the Godhead was promulgated as follows: 
 
 17. "We believe in one God, the Father, Almighty, the 
 maker of all things visible and invisible; and in one Lord, Jesus 
 Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the Father, only begotten, 
 (that is) of the substance of the Father; God of God, Light of 
 Light; Very God of Very God; begotten not made; of the same 
 substance with the Father, by whom all things were made, that 
 are in heaven and that are in earth: who for us men, and for our 
 salvation, descended and was incarnate, and became man; 
 suffered and rose again the third day, ascended into the heavens 
 and will come to judge the living and the dead; and in the Holy 
 Spirit. But those who say there was a time when he [the Son] 
 was not, and that he was not before he was begotten, and that he 
 was made out of nothing, or affirm that he is of any other sub- 
 stance or essence, or that the Son of God was created, and 
 mutable, or changeable, the Catholic Church doth pronounce 
 accursed." 
 
 18. This is the generally accepted version of the Nicene 
 Creed as originally promulgated. In form it was somewhat modi- 
 fied, though left practically unchanged as to essentials, by the 
 council held at Constantinople half a century later. What is 
 regarded as arestatement of the Nicene Creed has been attribut- 
 ed toffithanasiuSijone of the chief opponents of Arianism, though 
 his rights to be considered the author is questioned by many 
 and emphatically denied by some authorities on ecclesiastical 
 history. Nevertheless, the statement referred to has found a 
 place in literature as the "Creed of Athanasius," and whether 
 rightly or wrongly named it persists as a declaration of belief 
 professed by some Christian sects today. It has a present place 
 in the prescribed ritual of the Church of England. The "Creed 
 of Athanasius" reads as follows: 
 
 /*"" 19. "We worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity, 
 / neither confounding the persons, nor dividing the substance. 
 ( For there is one person of the Father, another of the Son, and 
 
THE NICENE CREED. 79 
 
 another of the Holy Ghost. But the Godhead of the Father, 
 Son, and Holy Ghost, is all one: the glory equal, the majesty 
 co-eternal. Such as the Father is, such is the Son; and such is 
 the Holy Ghost. The Father uncreate, the Son uncreate and the 
 Holy Ghost uncreate. The Father incomprehensible, the Son 
 incomprehensible and the Holy Ghost incomprehensible. The 
 Father eternal, the Son eternal, the Holy Ghost eternal. 
 And yet there are not three eternals; but one eternal. As also 
 there are not three incomprehensibles, nor three uncreated; 
 but one uncreated, and one incomprehensible. So likewise the 
 Father is Almighty, the Son Almighty, and the Holy Ghost 
 Almighty; and yet there are not three Almighties, but one 
 Almighty. So the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy 
 Ghost is God, and yet they are not three Gods but one God." 
 "" 20. The Council of Nice is known in ecclesiastical history 
 as one of the most famous and important gatherings ever assem- 
 bled as an official body concerned with church administration. 
 Not only was the Arian dispute disposed of, so far as ecclesiasti- 
 cal decree could dispose of a question vitally affecting the in- 
 divio!uat^cbnscience,_but many other subjects of controversy /\ / 
 were similarly quieted for the time. Thus the long-standing dis- 
 pute as to the time of eel ebratingJE aster was settled by vote, as 
 was also the question agitated by"Rovalus and his followers 
 as to the propriety of re-admitting repentant apostates to the 
 Church; and the schism caused by Meletius, a bishop of Upper 
 Africa, who had refused to recognize the superior authority of 
 the bishop of Alexandria. From the number arid diversity of the 
 questions brought before the Nicene Council for adjudication, 
 we may safely conclude that the newly enthroned Church was 
 not characterized by unity of purpose nor harmony of action. 
 However, compared with the bitter contentions that follow, the 
 dissensions in the reign of Constantine were but as the begin- 
 nings of trouble. 
 
 21. The moral effect of the potent spirit of apostasy oper- 
 ating through the first three centuries of the Church's existence 
 and nourished by the contributions of heathen philosophy, 
 proved, as was inevitable, highly injurious and evil. Some of the 
 most pernicious of these effects it becomes our duty to consider. 
 
 22. Perverted Views of Life. One of the heresies of early 
 origin and rapid growth in the Church was the doctrine of antag- 
 
80 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 
 
 onism between body and spirit, whereby the former was re- 
 garded as an incubus and a curse. From what has been said this 
 will be recognized as one of the perversions derived from the 
 alliance of Gnosticism with Christianity. A result of this graft- 
 ing in of heathen doctrines was an abundant growth of hermit 
 practices, by which men sought to weaken, torture, and subdue 
 their bodies, that their spirits or ' 'souls" might gain greater 
 freedom. Many who adopted this unnatural view of human 
 existence retired to the solitude of the desert, and there spent 
 their time in practices of stern self-denial and in acts of frenzied 
 self-torture. Others shut themselves up as voluntary prisoners, 
 seeking glory in privation and self-imposed penance. It was this 
 unnatural view of life that gave rise to the several orders of 
 recluses, hermits and monks. 
 
 23. Think you not that the Savior had such practices in 
 mind, when, warning the disciples of the false claims to sanctity 
 
 ..that would characterize the times then soon to follow, He said: 
 "Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold he (Christ) is 
 Jt/Jl in the desert; go not forth: behold, he is in the secret chambers; 
 believe it not." (Matt. 24:26.) 
 
 24. When the Church came into the favor of the state under 
 Constantine in the fourth century, there sprang up many orders 
 of recluses who "maintained that communion with God was to 
 be sought by mortifying sense, by withdrawing the mind from 
 all external objects, by macerating the body with hunger and 
 labor, and by a holy sort of indolence, which confined all the 
 activity of the soul to a lazy contemplation of things spiritual 
 and external." Mosheim, the author just quoted, continues: 
 "The Christian church would never have been disgraced by 
 this cruel and unsocial enthusiasm, nor would any have been 
 subjected to those keen torments of mind and body to which it 
 gave rise, had not many Christians been unwarily caught by 
 the specious appearance and the pompous sound of that maxim 
 of the ancient philosophy: 'That in order to the attainment of 
 true felicity and communion with God, it was necessary that the 
 soul should be separated from the body, even here below; and 
 that the body was to be macerated and mortified for this pur- 
 pose.' "(Mosheim, "Eccl. Hist.," Cent. IV, Part II, ch. 3:12, 
 13.) 
 
 25. The fruit of this ill-sowing was the growth of numer- 
 
NOTES. 81 
 
 ous orders of monks, and the maintenance of monasteries. 
 Celibacy was taught as a virtue, and came to be made a require- 
 ment ol the clergy, as it is in the Roman Catholic church to-day. 
 An unmarried clergy, deprived of the elevating influences of 
 home life, fell into many excesses, and the corruption of the 
 priests has been a theme of reproach throughout the centuries. 
 "The Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; 
 I will make him an help meet .for him," (Gen. 2:18.) and V 
 again, "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, ' 
 and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. "- 
 (Verse 24.) His inspired apostle proclaimed: "Neither is the 
 man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, 
 ^ in the Lord." (I Cor. 11:11. Compare I Tim. 4:3.) Never- Y 
 Vtheless an apostate church decrees that its ministers shall be 
 1 lorbidden to follow the law of God. 
 
 26. Disregard for Truth. As early as the fourth century, cer- 
 tain pernicious doctrines embodying a disregard for truth gained ^ 
 currency in the Church. Thus, it was taught "that it was an 
 act of virtue to deceive and lie, when by that means the interests , 
 of_thp o.hiirch might be promoted." (Mosheim, "Eccl. HTst., 7 ' 
 Cent. IV, Part II, ch. 3:16.) Needless to say, sins other than 
 those of falsehood and deceit were justified when committed 
 in the supposed interests of church advancement, and crime was 
 condoned under the specious excuse that the end justifies 
 the means. Many of the fables and fictitious stories relating to 
 the lives of Christ and the apostles, as also the spurious accounts 
 of supernatural visitations and wonderful miracles, in which the^L 
 literature of the early, centuries aDouna, are traceable to this 4 
 infamous doctrine that lies are acceptable unto God if perpe- 
 trated in a cause that man calls good. (See Note 5, end of 
 chapter. ) 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 1. The Nicolaitanes. This sect is mentioned specifically in the divine com- 
 munication wherein John the Revelator was instructed to write to the churches 
 of Asia (Rev. 2:6, 15); and the reference proves the abhorrence with which the 
 Lord regarded the teachings and practices of the cult. The attempt to corrupt 
 Christianity by the introduction of Nicolaitan ceremonies was a real danger 
 threatening the Church. The following extract from Smith's Bible Dictionary 
 is instructive: 
 
 "The sect itself comes before us as presenting the ultimate phase of a 
 
82 V THE GREAT APOSTASY. 
 
 great controversy, which threatened at one time to destroy the unity of the 
 Church, and afterward to taint its purity. The controversy itself was inevitable 
 as soon as the Gentiles were admitted in any large numbers into the Church of 
 Christ Were the new converts to be brought into subjugation to the whole 
 "Mosaic law? The apostles and elders at Jerusalem met the question calmly 
 and wisely. The burden of the Law was not to be imposed on the Gentile 
 disciples. They were to abstain, among other things, from 'meats offered to 
 idols,' and from 'fornication' (Acts 15:20, 29), and this decree was welcomed 
 as the great charter of the Chul'Lh'i) TiLcduiih- Strange as the close union of the 
 moral and positive commands may seem to us, it did not seem so to the synod 
 at Jerusalem. The two sins were very closely allied, often even in the closest 
 proximity of time and place. The messages to the churches of Asia, and the 
 later Apostolic Epistles (II Peter, and Jude,) indicate that the two evils ap- 
 peared at that period also in close alliance. The teachers of the Church brand- 
 ed them with a name that expressed their true character. The men who did 
 and taught such things were followers of Balaam (II Peter 2:15; Jude II.) 
 They, like the false prophet of Pethor, united brave words with evil deeds. 
 In a time of persecution, when the eating or not eating of things sacrificed to 
 idols was more than ever a crucial test of faithfulness, they persuaded men 
 more than ever that it was a thing indifferent (Rev. 2:13, 14). This .was bad 
 enough, but there was a yet worse evil. Mingling themselves in the orgies of 
 idolatrous feasts, they brought the impurities of those feasts into the meetings 
 of the Christian Church. And all this was done, it must be remembered, not 
 simply as an indulgence of appetite, but as part of a system supported by a 
 'doctrine,' accompanied by the boast of a prophetic illumination (II Peter 2:1)." 
 
 i 2. Imitation of Heathen Mysteries, and the Result. The worship of God by 
 
 /the early Christians was decried and ridiculed because of its simplicity and the 
 
 absence of mystic ceremonies. True, the zeal of persecutors soon made neces- 
 
 sary a prudent secrecy in religious service and worshipping assemblies, but, 
 
 aside from sudTnecessity, there was a voluntary effort to 
 
 ___ 
 
 was uncalled for. On this point Gibbon remarks as follows: "The precautions 
 with which the disciples of Christ performed the offices of religion were at first 
 dictated by fear and necessity; but they were continued from choice. By 
 imitating the awful secrecy of the Eleusinian mysteries, the Christians had 
 flattered themselves that they shoulcf render tneir sacred institutions more re- 
 spectable in the eyes of the pagan world. But the event, as it often happens 
 to the operations of subtle policy, deceived their wishes and their expectations. 
 It was concluded that they only concealed what they would have blushed to 
 disclose. Their mistaken prudence afforded an opportunity for malice to invent, 
 and for suspicious credulity to believe, the horrid tales which described the 
 Christians as the most wicked of human kind, who practiced in their dark 
 recesses every abomination that a depraved fancy could suggest, and who 
 solicited the favor of their unknown God by the sacrifice of every moral virtue. 
 There were many who pretended to confess or to relate the ceremonies of this 
 abhorred society." (Gibbon, "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," chap. 
 XVI.) 
 
 3. Ebionites and Gnostics. "Beside the general design of fixing on a per- 
 petual basis the divine honors of Christ, the most ancient and respectable of 
 the ecclesiastical writers have ascribed to the evangelic theologian [St. John] 
 
NOTES. 83 
 
 a particular intention to confute two opposing heresies, which disturbed the 
 peace of the primitive Church. I. The faith of the EbiojiiteSr- perhaps of the 
 Nazarenes, was gross and imperfect. They revered Jesus as the greatest of the 
 prophets, endowed with supernatural virtue and power. They ascribed to His 
 person and to His future reign all the predictions of the Hebrew oracles which 
 relate to the spiritual and everlasting kingdom of the promised Messiah. Some 
 of them might confess that He was born of a virgin; but they obstinately re- 
 jected the preceding existence and divine perfections of the Logos, or Son of 
 y God, which are so clearly defined in the Gospel of St. John. ***!!. The 
 Gnostics, who were distinguished by the epithet of Docetes, deviated into the 
 
 i, contrary extreme, and betrayed the human while they asserted the divine, 
 nature of Christ. Educated in the school of Plato, accustomed to the sublime 
 
 L- idea of the Logos, they readily conceived that the brightest Aeon or Emana- 
 tion of Deity, might assume the outward shape and visible appearance of a 
 mortal; but they vainly pretended that the imperfections of matter, are in- 
 compatible with the purity of a celestial substance. While the blood of Christ 
 yet smoked on Mount Calvary, and the Docetes invented the impious and ex- 
 travagant hypothesis that, instead of issuing from the womb of the Virgin, he 
 had descended on the banks of the Jordan in the from of perfect manhood; 
 that he had imposed on the senses of His enemies and of His disciples, and that 
 the ministers of Pilate had wasted their impotent rage on an airy phantom, who 
 seemed to expire on the Cross, and, after three days, to rise from the dead." 
 (Gibbon, "Decline and Fall or the Roman Empire," ch. XXI.) 
 
 fo .jr* 4. Admixture of Pagan Doctrines With Christianity. The following state- 
 i/' laments by modern writers as to the effect of pagan "philosophy" on the Church 
 .yb are worthy of attention. Summarizing conditions prevailing in the latter part 
 Er of the second century, Milner says: "We have hitherto found it no hard matter 
 to discover, in the teachers and writers of Christianity, the vital doctrines of 
 Christ. We shall now perceive that the most precious truths of the gospel begin 
 to be less attended to, and less brought to view. Even Justin Martyr, before 
 the period of eclectic corruption, by his fondness for Plato, adulterated the 
 gospel in some degree, as we have observed particularly in the article of free will. 
 Tatian, his scholar, went bolder lengths, and deserved the name of' heretic. 
 He dealt largely in the merits of continence and chastity; and these virtues, 
 pushed into extravagant excesses, under the notion of superior purity, became 
 great engines of^ self-righteousness and superstition; obscured men's views of 
 the faith of Christ, and darkened the whole face of Christianity. Under the 
 fostering hand of Ammonius and his followers, this fictitious holiness disguised 
 under the appearance of eminent sanctity, was formed into a system; and it 
 soon began to generate the worst of evils. * * * St. Paul's caution against 
 philosophy and vain deceit, it appears, was now fatally neglected by the Chris- 
 tians. I False humility, 'Will-worship,' (curious and proud refinements, bodily 
 austerities mixed ^witn High, selr-righteous prehensions, ignorance of Christ 
 and of the true life of faith in Him, miserably superseded by ceremonies and 
 superstitions, all these things are divinely delineated in the second chapter 
 to the Colossians; and, so far as words can do it, the true defense against them 
 is powerfully described and enforced." (Milner, "Church History," Cent. 
 II, ch. 9.) 
 
 "The schisms and commotions that arose in the church, from a mixture 
 
84 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 
 
 of the oriental and Egyptian philosophy with the Christian religion were, in 
 the second century, increased by those Grecian philosophers who embraced the 
 doctrine of Christ. The Christian doctrine, concerning the Father, Son, and 
 Holy Ghost, and the two natures united in our blessed Savior, were by no means 
 reconcilable with the tenets of the sages and doctors of Greece, who therefore 
 endeavored to explain them in such a manner as to render them comprehensible. 
 _Praxeas, a man of genius and learning, began to propagate these explications 
 aFKome, and was severely persecuted for the errors they contained. He denied 
 any real distinction between the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; and maintained 
 that the Father, sole Creator of all things7"had uniteTT to""Himself the human 
 nature of Christ. Hence his followers were called Monarchians^ because of 
 their denying a plurality of persons in the Deity; and also Patropassians, be- 
 cause, according to Tertullian's account, they believed that tKe ather Was so 
 intimately united with the man Christ, His Son, that He^ suffered with Him the 
 anguisLof an afflicted life and the torments of an[^^mimousjcleath. However 
 ready many may have been to embrace this erfoneous" doctrine, it does not 
 appear that this sect formed to themselves a separate place of worship, or re- 
 moved themselves from the ordinary assemblies of Christians." (Mosheim, 
 "Ecclesiastical History," Cent. II, Part II, ch. 5:20.) 
 
 5. Spurious Writings in the Apostolic Period. "Not long after Christ's 
 ascension into heaven, several histories of His life and doctrines, full of pious 
 frauds and fabulous wonders, were composed by persons whose intentions, per- 
 haps, were not bad, but whose writings discovered the greatest superstition 
 and ignorance. Nor was this all: productions appeared which were imposed 
 upon the world by fraudulent men, as the writings of the holy apostles. These 
 apocryphal and spurious writings must have produced a sad confusion, and ren- 
 dered both the history and the doctrine of Christ uncertain, had not the rulers 
 of the church used all possible care and diligence in separating the books that 
 were truly apostolical and divine from all that spurious trash." (Mosheim, 
 "Ecclesiastical History," Cent. I, Part II, ch. 2:17.) 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 Internal Causes, Continued. 
 
 1. As one of the effective causes leading to the apostasy of 
 the Primitive Church we have specified: Unauthorized addi- 
 tions to the ceremonies of the Church, and the introduction of vital 
 changes in essential ordinances. 
 
 2. The ridicule heaped upon the early Church by the pagans 
 
6 y 
 
 INTERNAL CAUSES. 85 
 
 on account of the simplicity of Christian worship has already re- 
 ceived mention. This cause of reproach was none the less em- 
 phasized by Judaistic critics, to whom rituals and ceremony, 
 formalism and prescribed rites, figured as essentials of religion. 
 Verylarly in its history, the Church manifested a tendency to 
 supplant the pristine simplicity of its worship by elaborate 
 ceremonies, patterned after Judaistic ritual and heathen idol- 
 atries. 
 
 3. As to such innovations, Mosheim writes as follows, with 
 reference to conditions existing in the second century: "There 
 is no institution so pure and excellent which the corruption and 
 folly of man will not in time alter for the worse, and load with 
 additions foreign to its nature and original design. Such in a 
 particular manner was the fate of Christianity. In this century 
 many unnecessary rites and ceremonies were added to the Chris- 
 tian worship, the introduction of which was extremely offensive 
 to wise and good men. These changes, while they destroyed the 
 beautiful simplicity of the gospel, were naturally pleasing to the 
 gross multitude, who are more delighted with the pomp and 
 splendor of external institutions than with the native charms of 
 rational and solid piety, and who generally give little attention 
 to any objects but those which strike their outward senses." 
 (Mosheim, "Eccl. Hist.," CentJiPart II, ch. 4.) The author 
 
 ^ jnslfcited explains thaLOhe"JBishop^of that day increased the 
 ceremonies and sought to givefhenfsplendor "by way of accom- 
 modation to the infirmities and prejudices of both Jews and 
 heathen." (See Note 1, end of chapter. ) S^/P 
 
 4. To more effectually reconcile the gospel requiremefits^/T 
 with Jewish prejudice, which still clung to the letter of the 
 Mosaic law, the officers of the Church in the first and second 
 centuries took to themselves the ancient titles; thus, bishops 
 styled themselves ^i^Prie&ts, and deacons, Levites. "In 
 like manner," says I^osHeim, "the comparisoiTof the Christian 
 oblation with the Jewish victim and sacrifice, produced a mul- 
 titude of unnecessary rites, and was the occasion of introducing 
 that erroneous notion of the eucharist, which represents it as a 
 real sacrifice, and not merely as a commemoration of that great 
 offering that was once made upon the cross for the sins of mor- 
 tals." (Mosheim, "Eccl. Hist.," Cent. II, Part II, ch. 4:4.) ' 
 
 5. In the fourth century we find the Church still more hope- 
 
THE GREAT APOSTASY. 
 
 lessly committed to formalism and superstition. The decent 
 respect with which the remains of the early martyrs had been 
 honored degenerated or grew into a superstitious reverence 
 amounting to worship. This practice was allowed in deference 
 to the heathen adoration paid to deified heroes. Pilgrimages to 
 the tombs of martyrs became common as an outward form oF 
 religious devotion; and the asji^s of martyrs as well as dust 
 and earth brought from places said to have been made holy by 
 some uncommon occurrence were sold as sovereign remedies^ 
 against disease and as means of protection against the assaults" 
 of malignant spirits. 
 
 6. The form of public worship was so changed during the 
 second and third centuries as to bear little resemblance to the 
 simplicity and earnestness of that of the early congregations. 
 Philosophic discourses took the place of fervent testimony bear- 
 ing and the arts of the rhetorician and controversial debater 
 supplanted the true eloquence of religious conviction. Applause^ 
 was allowed and expected as evidence of the preacher's popu- 
 larity. The burning incense, at first abhorred by Christian 
 assemblies because of its pagan origin and heathen significance, 
 had become common in the Church before the end of the third 
 century. 
 
 7. In the fourth century the adoration of images, pictures, 
 and effigies, had been given a place in the so-called Christian^ 
 worship ; and the practice became general in the century follow- 
 ing. An effort to check the abuses arising from this idolatrous 
 practice in the eighth century, actually led to civil war. (See 
 Mosheim, "Eccl. Hist.," Cent. VIII, Part II, ch. 3:9, 10.) 
 
 8. In considering such evidences of pagan ceremonial and 
 superstitious rites taking the place of the simple procedure inci- 
 dent to genuine worship characteristic of the Church in the days 
 of its integrity, who can question the solemn and awful fact of 
 actual apostasy? (See Note 2, end of chapter.) But more 
 important yet, more significant still than mere additions to the 
 ritualistic ceremonial, are the perversions and changes intro- 
 duced into the most sacred and essential ordinances of Christ's 
 Church. As it is common with ecclesiastical authorities to con- 
 sider the most essential ordinances of the gospel originally es- 
 tablished by Christ and maintained by His apostles, as com- 
 prising baptism and the sacrament of the Lord's supper, we 
 
BAPTISMAL ORDINANCE CHANGED. f 87 J 
 
 shall examine into these alone as examples of the unauthorized 
 alterations now under consideration. In this restriction of our 
 illustrative examples we do not admit that baptism and the 
 sacrament named were the only ordinances characterizing the 
 Church; indeed, there is abundant proof to the contrary. Thus, 
 the authoritative imposition of hands for the bestowal of the 
 Holy Ghost in the case of baptized believers was equally es- 
 sential with baptism itself, (See Acts 8:5-8, 12, 14-17; also 
 19:1-7; see also 2:38; Matt. 3:11; and Mark 1:8.) and was as- 
 suredly regarded as a vital ordinance from the first. (See Matt. 
 3:11.) Furthermore, ordination in the priesthood, whereby men 
 were commissioned by divine * authority was indispensable to 
 the maintenance of an organized Church. The examples selected, 
 however,will be sufficient for the purposes of our present inquiry. 
 
 The Ordinance of Baptism Changed. 
 
 9. First, then, as to baptism, in what did the ordinance 
 originally consist, as to purpose and mode of administration, 
 and what changes did it undergo in the course of progressive 
 apostasy through which the Church passed? That baptism is 
 essential to salvation calls for no demonstration here; this has 
 been generally held by the Christian Church in both ancient 
 and modern times. (For a concise treatment of this subject, 
 see the author's "Articles of Faith," Lecture 6:8-29.) The pur- 
 pose of baptism was and is the obtaining of a remission of sins; 
 compliance with the requirement has been from the first the 
 sole means of securing admission to the Church of Christ. 
 (See Mark 1:4 and Luke 3:3; also Acts 2:38; I Peter 3:21; and 
 Acts 22:16. Compare II Nephi 31:17.) 
 
 10. In the early Church, baptism was administered on pro- 
 fession of faith and evidence of repentance, and was performed 
 by immersion (See Note 3, end of chapter) at the hands of one 
 invested with the requisite authority of priesthood. There was 
 no delay in administering the ordinance after the eligibility of 
 the candidate had been shown. As instances we may cite the 
 promptness with which baptism was administered to the believ- 
 ers on that eventful day of Pentecost; (Acts 2:37-41) the 
 baptism administered by Philip to the Ethiopian convert im- 
 mediately following due profession of faith; -(Acts 8:26-39) 
 the undelayed baptism of devout Cornelius and his family; 
 
88 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 
 
 (Acts 10:47, 48) and the speedy baptism of the converted jailer 
 by Paul, his prisoner. (Acts 16:31-33.) 
 JJ 11. In the second century, however, priestly mandate had 
 
 ^/restricted the baptismal ordinance to the times of the two 
 Church festivals, Easter and Whitsuntide, the first being the 
 anniversary of Christ's resurrection, and the second the time 
 of Pentecostal celebration. A long and tedious course of prep- 
 aration was required of the candidate before his eligibility 
 was admitted; during this time he was known as a catechumen, 
 or novice in training. According to some authorities a three 
 year's course of preparation was required in all but exceptional 
 cases. (Schlegel, Book VIII, ch. 32.) 
 
 12. During the second century the baptismal symbolism of 
 a new birth was emphasized by many additions to the ordi- 
 nance; thus the newly baptized were treated as infants and were 
 fed milk_and honey in token of their immaturity. As baptism 
 was construed To^Be a ceremony of liberation from the slavery of 
 Satan, certain formulas used in the freeing of slaves were added. 
 Anointing with oil was also made a part of the ceremony. In the 
 ttnrd century the simple ordinance of baptism was further in- 
 cumbered and perverted by the ministrations of an_exorcis_L, 
 This official indulged in "menacing and formidable shouts and 
 declamation" whereby the demons or evil spirits with which the 
 candidate was supposed to be afflicted were to be driven away. 
 
 ^ "The driving out of this demon was now considered as an es- 
 sential preparation for baptism, after the administration of 
 which the candidates returned home, adorned with crowns, and 
 arrayed in white garments, as sacred emblems, the former of 
 their victory over sin and the world; the latter of their inward 
 purity and innocence." Mosheim,"Eccl. Hist., "Cent. Ill, part 
 II, ch. 4:4.) It is not difficult to see in this superstitious cere- 
 mony the evidence of pagan adulteration of the Christian re- 
 ligion. In the fourth century it became the practice to place 
 _j=salt in the mouth of the newly baptized member, as a symbol 
 or purification, and the actual baptism was both preceded and 
 followed by an anointing with? oil. 
 
 /13. The form or mode of baptism also underwent a radical 
 change during the first half of the third century, a change 
 whereby its essential symbolism was destroyed. Immerson, 
 (See Note 3, end of chapter) typifying death followed by resur- 
 
7 
 
 ^ 
 BAPTISMAL ORDINANCE CHANGED. 89 
 
 rection, was no longer deemed an essential feature, and sprink- 
 ling with water was allowed in place thereof. No less an author- 
 ity than Cyprian, the learned bishop .of Harthagp, advocated 
 the propriety ol sprinkling in lieu of immersion in cases of 
 physical weakness; and the practice thus started, later became 
 general. The first instance of record is that of Novatus. a heretic 
 who requested baptism when he thought death was near. (As 
 to the scriptural doctrine of baptism, the mode of its adminis- 
 tration and the symbolism thereof, see the author's "Articles 
 of Faith," Lecture 7.) L 
 
 14. Not only was the form of the baptismal rite radicanyV' 
 changed, but the application of the ordinance was perverted. TheixH. 
 practice of administering baptism to infants was recognized as 
 orthodoxin the third_century,and was doubtless of earlier origin. 
 
 ~Th a prolonged disputation as to whether it was safe to post- 
 pone the baptism of infants until the eighth day after birth 
 in deference to the Jewish custom of performing circumcision 
 on that day it was gravely decided that such delay would be 
 dangerous, as jeopardizing the future well-being of the child 
 should it die before attaining the age of eight days, and that 
 baptism ought to be administered as soon after birth as possible. 
 -(See Milner, "Church History," Cent. Ill; ch. 13.) A more 
 infamous doctrine than that of the condemnation of unbaptized 
 infants can scarcely be imagined, and a stronger proof of the 
 heresies that had invaded and corrupted the early Church need 
 not be sought. Such a doctrine is foreign to the gospel and to 
 the Church of Christ, and its adoption as an essential tenet is 
 proof of apostasy. (For a discussion of infant baptism, see the 
 author's "Articles of Faith," Lecture 6. See Note 4, end of 
 chapter. ) 
 
 Changes in the Ordinance of the Sacrament of the 
 __, Lord's Supper. 
 
 15. The sacrament of the Lord's Supper has been regarded 
 as an essential ordinance from the time of its establishment 
 in the Church by Jesus Christ. Yet in spite of its sanctity it has 
 undergone radical alteration both as to its symbolism and its 
 accepted purpose. The sacrament, as instituted by the Savior 
 and as administered during the days of the apostolic ministry, 
 was as simple as it was sacred and solemn. Accompanied by the 
 
90 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 
 
 true spirit of the gospel, its simplicity was sanctifying; as inter- 
 preted by the spirit of apostasy its simplicity became a reproach. 
 Hence we find that in the third century, long sacramental 
 prayers were prescribed, and much pomp was introduced. 
 ^Vessels of gold and silver were used by such congregations as 
 ^coultKafford them, and this with ostentatious display. Npn- 
 
 members and members" who were in a penitential state" were 
 
 excluded from the sacramental service in imitiation of the 
 exclusiveness accompanying heathen mysteries. Disputation 
 and dissension arose as to the proper time of administering the 
 sacrament morning, noon, or evening ; lihd as to the frequency 
 with which the ordinance should be celebrated. (See Note 5, 
 end of chapter. ) 
 
 16. At a later date the doctrine of Transubstantiation was 
 ' established as an essential tenet of the Roman Church. This 
 briefly summarized, is to the effect that the species i. e., the 
 bread and wine used in the sacrament lose their character as 
 mere bread and wine, and become in fact the flesh and blood of 
 the crucified Christ. The transmutation is assumed to take 
 place in such a mystical way as to delude the senses; and so, 
 though actual flesh and actual blood, the elements^till appear 
 to be bread and wine. This view, so strongly defended and 
 earnestly reverenced by orthodox members of the Roman 
 Church, is vehemently denounced by others as "an absurd 
 tenet," (Milner) and a "monstrous and unnatural doctrine." 
 -^Mosheim.) 
 
 '. There has been much discussion as to the origin of this 
 [bctrine, (See Note 6, end of chapter.) the Roman Catholics 
 claiming for it a great antiquity, while their opponents insist 
 that it was an innovation of the eighth or ninth century. Ac- 
 cording to Milner it was openly taught in the ninth century; 
 (Milner, "Church History," Cent. IX, ch. 1.) was formally es- 
 tablished as a dogma of the Church by the Council of Placentia 
 A. D. 1095, (The same, Cent. XI, ch. 1) and was made an 
 essential article of creed, belief in which was required of all by 
 action of the Roman ecclesiastical court about 1160. (The 
 same, Cent. XIII, ch. 1.) An official edict of the pope, Innocent 
 III, confirmed the dogma as a binding tenet and requireinenlruf" 
 Church in 1215; Mosheim, "Eccl. Hist.," Cent. XIII, Part 
 II, ch. 3:2.) and it remains practically in force in the Roman 
 
THE SACRAMENT PERVERTED. 91 
 
 Catholic Church today. The doctrine was adopted by the Greek 
 Church in the seventeenth century. (The same. Cent. XVII, 
 Part II, ch. 2:3.) 
 
 18. The consecrated emblems, or "host," being regarded 
 as the actual flesh and blood of Christ, were adored as of them- 
 selves divine. Thus, "a very pernicious practice of idolatry was 
 connected with the reception of this doctrine. Men fell down 
 before the consecrated host, and worshipped it as God; and the 
 novelty, absurdity, and impiety of this abomination very much 
 
 | struck the minds of all men who were not dead to a sense of 
 
 I true religion." (Milner, "Church History," Cent. XIII, ch. 1.) 
 The "elevation of the host," i. e., the presentation of the con- 
 secratecf emblems before the congregation for adoration, is a 
 feature of the present day ritual of worship in the Roman > 
 Catholic Church. The celebration of the mass is taught to be '^* 
 an actual though mystic sacrifice^ in wmcn the Son of God is c; 
 daily offered up anew as a constantly recurring atonement for 
 the present sins of the assembled worshippers. A further perver- 
 sion of the sacrament occurred in the administration of bread 
 alone, instead of both bread and wine as originally required. 
 
 * 19. Thus was the plain purpose and assured efficacy of the 
 
 sacrament hidden beneath a cloud of mystery and ceremonial 
 display. Contrast such with the solemn simplicity of the or- 
 dinance as instituted by our Lord, He took bread and wine, 
 blessed them and gave to His disciples and said, "This do in re- 
 membrance of me." (Luke 22:19, 20; compare Matt. 26:27, 
 28.) Of the bread He said, "Thisjs my body of the wine, 
 
 J'This is my blood;" yet at that" time His body was unpierced, 
 His blood" was unshed. The disciples ate bread, not flesh of a 
 living man, and drank wine, not blood; and this they were com- 
 manded to do in remembrance of Christ. (For a general 
 treatment of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, see the 
 author's "Articles of Faith," Lecture 9. ) The perversion of the 
 sacrament is evidence of departure from the spirit of the gospel 
 of Christ, and when made an essential dogma of a church is 
 proof of the apostate condition of that church. 
 
 20. Behold, "they have transgressed the laws, changed the or- 
 dinance, broken the everlasting covenant." (See Isaiah 24:4-6.) 
 
92 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 1. Ceremonies Added as a Compromise. "Both Jews and heathens were 
 accustomed to a vast variety of pompous and magnificent ceremonies in their 
 religious ^service. And as they considered these rites as an essential part of 
 religion, it was but natural that they should behold with indifference, and even 
 with contempt, the simplicity of the Christian worship, which was destitute of 
 those idle ceremonies that rendered their service so specious and striking. To 
 remove then, in some measure, this prejudice against Christianity, the bishops 
 thought it necessary to increase the number of rites and ceremonies, and thus 
 to render the public worship more striking to the outward senses. This addi- 
 tion of external rites was also designed to remove the approbrious calumnies 
 which the Jewish and pagan priests cast upon the Christians on account of the 
 simplicity of their worship, esteeming them little better than atheists, because 
 they had no temples, altars, victims, priests, nor anything of that external 
 pomp in which the vulgar are so prone to place the essence of religion. The 
 rulers of the Church adopted, therefore, certain external ceremonies, that thus 
 they might captivate the senses of the vulgar, and be able to refute the re- 
 
 ? roaches of their adversaries." (Mosheim, "Ecclesiastical History." Cent. 
 I, Part II, ch. 4:2, 3.) 
 
 A note appended to the foregoing excerpt by the translator, Dr. Archi- 
 bald Maclaine, reads as follows: 
 
 "A remarkable passage in the life of Gregory, surnamed Thaumaturgus, 
 i. e., the wondeV worker, will illustrate this point in the clearest manner. The 
 passage is as follows: 'When Gregory perceived that the ignorant multitude 
 persisted in their idolatry, on account of the pleasures and sensual gratifications 
 which they enjoyed at the pagan festivals, he granted them a permission to 
 indulge themselves in the like pleasures, in celebrating the memory of the holy 
 martyrs, hoping that in process of time, they would return of their own accord 
 to a more virtuous and regular course of life.' There is no sort of doubt, but 
 that by this permission Gregory allowed the Christians to dance, sport, and 
 feast at the tombs of the martyrs upon their respective festivals, and to do 
 everything which the pagans were accustomed to do in their temples during 
 the feasts celebrated in honor their gods." 
 
 The Gregory referred to in the note last quoted flourished about the middle 
 of the third century. He acquired the title Thaumaturgus from his fame as a 
 worker of miracles, the genuineness of which achievements is disputed by many 
 authorities. He was bishop of New Caesarea, and a man of great influence 
 in the Church. His sanction of ceremonies, patterned after pagan rites, was 
 doubtless of far-reaching effect. 
 
 2. Church Ceremonial in the Fifth Century. "The sublime and simple 
 theology of the primitive Christians was gradually corrupted, and the Mon- 
 archy of heaven, already clouded by metaphysical subtleties, was degraded 
 by the introduction of a popular mythology, which te'nded to restore the reign 
 of polytheism. As the objects of religion were gradually reduced to the standard 
 of the imagination, the rites and ceremonies were introduced that seemed most 
 powerfully to affect the senses of the vulgar. If, in the beginning of the fifth 
 century, Tertullian or Lactantius had been suddenly raised from the dead, to 
 assist at the festival of some popular saint or martyr, they would have gazed 
 
NOTES. 93 
 
 with astonishment and indignation on the profane spectacle, which had suc- 
 ceeded to the pure and spiritual worship of a Christian congregation. As soon as 
 the doors of the Church were thrown open they must have been offended by the 
 smoke ofjncense, the perfume of flowers, and the glare of lamps and tapers, 
 which dirrusecl, at noonday, a gaudy, superfluous, and, in their opinion a sacri- 
 ligious light. If they approached the balustrade of the altar, they made their 
 way through the prostrate crowd, consisting for the most part, of strangers and 
 pilgrims, who resorted to the city on the vigil of the feast; and who already felt 
 the strong intoxication of fanaticism, and perhaps of wine. Their devout kisses 
 were imprinted on the walls and pavements of the sacred edifice; and their 
 fervent prayers were directed, whatever might be the language of their church, 
 to the bones, the blood, or the ashes of the saints, which were usually concealed 
 by a linen or silken veil from the eyes of the vulgar. The Christians frequented 
 the tombs of the martyrs, in the hope of obtaining, from their powerful inter- 
 cession, every sort of spiritual, but more especially of temporal blessings. * 
 The same uniform original spirit of superstition might suggest, in the most dis- 
 tant ages and countries, the same methods of deceiving the credulity, and of 
 affecting the services, of mankind; but it must ingeniously be confessed that the 
 ministers of the Catholic Church imitated the profane model which they were 
 impatient to destroy. The most respectable bishops had persuaded themselves 
 that the ignorant rustics would more cheerfully renounce the superstitions of 
 Paganism, if they found some resemblance, some compensation, in the bosom of 
 Christianity. The religion of Constantine achieved, in less than a century, the 
 final conquest of the Roman empire; but the victors themselves were insensibly 
 subdued by the arts of their vanquished rivals." (Gibbon, "Decline and Fall 
 of the Roman Empire," ch. XXVIII.) 
 
 3. Early Form of Christian Baptism. History furnishes ample proof that 
 in the first century after the death of Christ, baptism was administered solely 
 by immersion. Tertullian thus refers to the immersion ceremony common in 
 his day: "There is no difference whether one is washed in a sea or in a pool, in 
 a river or in a fountain, in a lake or in a channel; nor is there any difference 
 between those whom John dipped in Jordan, and those whom Peter dipped in 
 the Tiber. * * * We_a_re immersed in the water." 
 
 Justin Martyr 'describes the ceremony as practiced by himself. First 
 describing the preparatory examination of the candidate, he proceeds: "After 
 that they are led by us to where there is water, and are born again in that kind 
 of new birth by which we ourselves were born again. For in the name of God, 
 the Father and Lord of all, and of Jesus Christ, our Savior, and of the Holy 
 Spirit, the immersion in water is performed; because the Christ hath also said, 
 'Except*a man be born again, he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven.' 
 
 Bishop Bennet says concerning the practices of the early Christians: 'They 
 led them into the water and laid them down in the water as a man is laid in a 
 grave; and then they said those words, *j baptize (or wash) thee in the name of 
 the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost;' then they raised them up again, and clean 
 garments were put on them; from whence came the phrases_of being baptized 
 into Christ's death, of being buried with Him by baptism into death, of our 
 being risen with Christ, and of our putting on the Lord Jesus Christ, of putting 
 off the old man, and putting on the new." 
 
 "That the apostles immersed whom they baptized there is no doubt. * * * 
 
94 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 
 
 And that the ancient church followed their example is very clearly evinced by 
 innumerable testimonies of the fathers." (Vossius.) 
 
 "Burying as it were the person baptized in the water, and raising him out 
 again, without question was anciently the more usual method." (Archbishop 
 Seeker. ) 
 
 "Immersion was the usual method in which baptism was administered in 
 the early Church. * * * Immersion was undoubtedly a common mode of 
 administering baptism, and was not discontinued when infant baptism pre- 
 vailed. * * * Sprinkling gradually took the place of immersion without 
 any formal renunciation of the latter." (Canon Farrar.) 
 
 4. Historical Notes on Infant Baptism. "The baptism of infants, in the 
 first two centuries after Christ, was altogether unknown. * * * The custom of 
 baptizing infants did not begin before the third age after Christ was born. In 
 the former ages no trace of it appears; and it was introduced without the com 
 mand of Christ." (Curcullaeus.) 
 
 "It is certain that Christ did not ordain infant baptism. * * * We can- 
 not prove that the apostles ordained infant baptism. From those places where 
 baptism of a whole family is mentioned (as in Acts 16:33; I Cor. 1:16) we can 
 draw no such conclusion, because the inquiry is still to be made, whether there 
 were any children in the families of such an age that they were not capable of 
 any intelligent reception of Christianity; for this is the only point on which the 
 case turns. * * * As baptism was cktselv united with a conscious entrance on 
 Christian communion, tfiaith and bapHjsmiwere always connected with one an- 
 other; and thus it is in the highest degree probable that baptism was performed 
 only in instances where both could meet together, and that the practice of in- 
 fant baptism was unknown at this (the apostolic) period. * * * That not till 1 
 so late a period as (at least 'certainly not earlier than) Irenaeus, a trace of infant 
 baptism appears; and that it first became recognized as an "apostolic traditior; 
 in the course of the third century, is evidence rather against than for the ad- ' 
 mission of its apostolic origin.' (Johann Neander, a German theologian who 
 f flourished in the first half of the nineteenth century.) 
 
 *T "Let them therefore come when they are grown up when they can under- 
 
 \y stand when they are taught whither they are to come. Let them become 
 
 /T Christians when they can know~Christ." (Tertullian, one of the Latin "Chris- 
 
 y tian Fathers;" he lived from 150 to 220 A. D.) Tertullian's almost violent 
 
 p opposition to the practice of pedo-bap_tisjn is cited by Neander as 'a proof that 
 
 it was then not usually considered an ap5stolic ordinance; for in that case he 
 
 would hardly have ventured to speak so strongly against it." 
 
 Martin Luther, writing in the early part of the sixteenth century declared: 
 "It cannot be proven by the sacred scriptures that infant baptism was instituted 
 by Christ, or begun by the first Christians after the apostles." 
 
 "By tekna the Apostle understands, not infants, but posterity; in which 
 significance the word occurs in many places of the New Testament (see among 
 others John 8:39); whence it appears that the argument which is very com- 
 monly taken from this passage for the baptism of infants, is of no force, and 
 good for nothing." (Limborch, a native of Holland, and a theologian of repute; 
 he lived 1633-1712.) 
 
 5. Summary of Changes in the Sacrament as an Ordinance. "Errors con- 
 cerning the sacrament, and its signification, and the manner of administering 
 
NOTES. 95 
 
 it, grew rapidly in the professed Christian churches during the early centuries 
 of the Christian era. As soon as the power of the priesthood had departed, 
 much disputation arose in matters of ordinance, and the observance of the 
 sacrament became distorted. Theological teachers strove to foster the idea 
 that there was much mystery attending this naturally simple and most im- 
 pressive ordinance; that all who were not in full communion with the Church 
 should be excluded, not only from participation m the ordinance, which was 
 justifiable, but from the privilege of witnessing the service, lest they profane 
 the mystic rite by their unhallowed presence. Then arose the heresy of jran- 
 substantiation, which held that the sacramental emblems by the ceremony of 
 consecration lost their natural character of simple bread and wine, and became 
 in reality flesh and blood, actually parts of the crucified body of Christ. Ar- 
 guments against such dogmas is useless. Then followed the veneration of the 
 emblems by the people, the bread and wine regarded as part of Christ's 
 tabernacle, being elevated in the mass for the adoration of the people; and later, 
 the custom of suppressing half of the sacrament was introduced. By the in- 
 novation last mentioned, omy the bread was administered, the dogmatic as- 
 sertion being that both the body and the blood were represented in some 
 mystical way in one of the "elements." Certain it is, that Christ required His 
 disciples to both eat and drink in remembrance of Him." (The Author, 
 "Articles of Faith," Lecture 9, Note 4.) 
 
 6. As to the Antiquity of the Doctrine of Transubstantiation. As stated in 
 the text, the date of origin of the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation has 
 been debated. The following summary is instructive. "Protestants combat- 
 ting the Catholic idea of the real presence of the flesh and blood in the eucharist 
 transubstantiation have endeavored to prove that this doctrine was not of 
 earlier origin than the eighth century. In this, however, the evidence is against 
 them. Ignatius, bishop ot Antioch, writing early in the second century, says 
 of certain supposed heretics: "They do not admit of eucharists and oblaTions, 
 because they do not believe the eucharist to be the flesh of our Savior Jesus 
 Christ, who suffered for our sins.' (Epistle of Ignatius to the Smyrneans.) 
 So Justin Martyr, also writing in tne first half of the second century: 'We do 
 not receive them" [the bread and the wine] as ordinary food or ordinary drink 
 but as by the word of God, Jesus Christ, our Savior, was made flesh and took 
 upon him both flesh and blood for our salvation, so also the food which was 
 blessed by the prayer of the word which proceeded from Him, and from which 
 our flesh and blood, by transmutation, receive nourishment, is, we are taught, 
 both the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh.' (Justin's Apology 
 to Emperor Antoninus.) After Justin's time the testimony of the fathers is 
 abundant. There can be no doubt as to the antiquity of the idea of the real 
 presence of the body and blood of Jesus in the eucharist; but that proves as 
 we said of infant baptism not that the doctrine is true, but that soon after 
 the apostles had passed away, the simplicity of the gospel was corrupted or 
 else entirely departed from." (B. H. Roberts, "Outlines of Ecclesiastical I/ 
 History," p. 133.) ~^\ 
 
96 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 Internal Causes. Continued. 
 
 1. Among the controlling causes leading to the general 
 apostasy of the Church, we have specified as third in the series: 
 
 Unauthorized changes in Church organization and government. 
 
 2. A comparison between the plan of organization on which 
 the Primitive Church was founded and the ecclesiastical 
 system which took its place will afford valuable evidence as to 
 the true or apostate condition of the modern Church. The 
 ^Primitive Church was officered by apostles, pastors, high priests, 
 
 venties, elders, bishops, priests, teachers, and deacons. 
 ee Luke 6:13 and Mark 3:14; Eph. 4:11; Heb. 5:1-5; Luke 
 10:1-11; Acts 14:23; 15:6; I Peter 5:1; I Tim. 3:1; Titus 1:7; 
 Rev. 1 :6 ; Acts 13-1 ; I Tim. 3 :8-12. ) We have no evidence that 
 the presiding council of the Church, comprising the twelve 
 apostles, was continued beyond the earthly ministry of those 
 who had been ordained to that holy calling during the life of 
 Christ or soon after His ascension. Nor is there record of any 
 ordination of individuals to the apostleship, irrespective of 
 membership in the council of twelve, beyond those whose call- 
 ing and ministry are chronicled in the New Testament, which, 
 as a historical record, ends with the first century. 
 
 3. Ecclesiastical history other than the holy scriptures in- 
 forms us', however, that wherever a branch, or church, was or- 
 ganized, a feishop or an elder (presbyter) was placed in charge. 
 There is no doubt that while the apostles lived, they were recog- 
 nized and respected as the presiding authorities of the Church. 
 As they established branches or churches, they selected the 
 bishops, and submitted their nominations to the vote of the 
 members. As already stated, the principle of self-government, 
 or common consent, was respected in apostolic days with a 
 care amounting to sacred duty. We read that the bishops were 
 assisted in their local administration by presbyters and deacons. 
 
 4. After the apostles had gone, bishops and other officers 
 were nominated by, orat the instance of, the existing authorities. 
 The affairs of each church or branch were conducted and regu- 
 lated by the local officers, so that a marked equality existed 
 
THE BISHOPS OF ROME. 97 
 
 among the several churches, none exercising or claiming suprem- 
 acy except as to the deference voluntarily paid to those 
 churches that had been organized by the personal ministry of the 
 apostles. Throughout the first and the greater part of the 
 second century, "the Christian churches were independent of 
 each other; nor were they joined together by association, con- 
 federacy, or other bonds but those of charity. Each Christian 
 assembly was a little state, governed "By" its l>wn laws, which 
 were either enacted, or, at least, approved by the society. "- 
 (Mosheim, "Eccl. Hist.," Cent. II, Part II, ch. 2:2.) 
 
 5. As with the churches, so with their bishops, there was a 
 recognized equality among them. Late in the second, and 
 throughout the third century, however, marked distinctions 
 and recognitions of rank arose among the bishops, those of 
 large and wealthy cities assuming authority and dignity above 
 that accorded by them to the bishops of the country provinces. 
 The bishops of the largest cities or provinces, took to themselves 
 the distinguishing title of .J^etropolitans, (See Mosheim, 
 "Eccl. Hist.," Cent. II, ParT"ll f ch. 2:3; also Cent. 
 IV, Part II, ch. 2:3, and compare Cent. I, Part II, ch. 2:14.) 
 and assumed a power of presidency over the bishops of more 
 limited jurisdiction. 
 
 ^-6. The second century was marked by the custom of hold- 
 ing synodsor church councils; the practice originated among the 
 churches in Greece, and thence became general. These councils 
 grew rapidly in power, so that in the third century we find them 
 legislating for the churches, and directing by edict and command 
 in matter which formerly had been left to the vote of the peo- 
 ple. Needless to say that with such assumptions of authority 
 came arrogance and tyranny in the government of the Church. 
 As the form of church government changed more and more, 
 many minor orders of clergy or church officers arose; thus in 
 the third century we read of sub-deacons, acolytes, ostiars, 
 j*eadefpe = x~orcists, and ^opiates. As an inst&nce~6f the pride of 
 "office, it is worthy of note That a sub-deacon was forbidden to 
 sit in the presence of a deacon without the latter' s express con- 
 sent. 
 
 7. Rome, so long the "mistress of the world" in secular 
 affairs, arrogated to herself a pre-eminence in church matters, 
 
98^ THE GREAT APOSTASY. 
 
 and the bishop of Rome claimed supremacy. It is doubtless 
 true that the church at Rome was organized by Peter and Paul. 
 Tradition, founded on error, said that the apostle Peter was the 
 first bishop of Rome; and those who successively were acknowl- 
 edged as bishops of the metropolis claimed to be, in fact, lineal 
 successors of the presiding apostle. The high but none the less 
 false claim is made by the Catholic Church in this day, that the 
 present pope is the last lineal successor not alone to the bish- 
 opric but to the apostleship. 
 
 8. The rightful supremacy of the bishops of Rome, or 
 Roman pontiffs as they came to be known, was early questioned; 
 and when Constantine made Byzantium, or Constantinople, 
 the capitafof the empire, the bishop of Constantinople claimeor 
 equality. The dispute divided the Church, and for five hundred 
 years the dissension increased, until the ninth century (855 
 A. D.) it developed into a great disruption, in consequence of 
 which the bishop of Constantinople, known distinctively as the 
 patriarch, disavowed all further allegiance to the bishop of 
 Rome, otherwise known as the Roman pontiff. This disrup- 
 tion is marked today by the distinction between Roman 
 Catholics. 
 
 9. The election of pontiff, or bishop of Rome, was long 
 left to the vote of the people and clergy; later the electorial 
 function was vested in the clergy alone; and in the eleventh 
 
 i^/O century the power was lodged|in the college of cardinals, where 
 it remains vested today. The Roman pontiffs strove with un- 
 remitting zeal to acquire temporal as well as spiritual authority; 
 and their influence had become so great that in the eleventh 
 century we find them claiming the right to direct princes, kings, 
 and emperors in the affairs of the several nations. It was at 
 this, the early period of their greatest temporal power, that the^ 
 pontitfg^took the title of pope, the word meaning literally papa 
 OT~fa~ther, and applied in TiKef sense of universal parent. The 
 power of the popes was increased during the twelfth century, 
 and may be said to have reached its height in the thirteenth 
 century. 
 
 10. Not content with assumed supremacy in all church 
 affairs, the popes "carried their insolent pretensions so far as to 
 
THE BISHOPS OF ROME. 99 
 
 give themselves out for lords of the universe, arbiters of the 
 fate of kingdoms and empires, and supreme rulers over the 
 kings and princes of the earth." (Mosheim, "Eccl. Hist.," 
 Cent. XI, Part II, ch. 2 :2. ) They claimed the right to authorize 
 and direct in the internal affairs of nations, and to make lawful 
 the rebellion of subjects against their rulers if the latter failed 
 to keep favor with the papal power. 
 
 11. Compare this arrogant and tyrannical church of the 
 world with the Church of Christ. Unto Pilate our Lord de- 
 clared, "My kingdom is not of this world." (John 18:36.) 
 and on an earlier occasion, when the people would have pro- 
 claimed Him king with earthly dominion, (John 6:15.) He 
 ) departed from them. Yet the Church that boasts of its divine 
 origin as founded by the Christ, who would not be a king, lifts 
 itself above all kings and rulers, and proclaims itself the supreme 
 power in the affairs of nations. 
 
 I 12. In the fourth century the Church had promulgated 
 
 I what has been since designated as an infamy, viz.: that "errors 
 I in religion, when maintained and adhered to after proper 
 / admonition, were punishable with civil penalties, and corporal 
 tartures." (Mosheim, "Eccl. Hist.," Cent. IV, Part II, ch. 
 3:16.) The effect of this unjust rule appeared as more and more 
 atrocious with the passage of the years, so that in the eleventh 
 century, and later, we find the Church imposing punishment of 
 fine, imprisonment, bodily torture, and even death, as penalties 
 for infraction of church regulations, and, more infamous still, 
 providing for mitigation or annulment of such sentences on 
 payment of money. This led to the shocking practice of selling 
 indulgences or pardons, which custom was afterwards carried 
 tt> the awful extreme of issuing such before the commission of 
 the specific offense, thus literally offering for sale licenses to 
 sin, with assurance of temporal and promise of spiritual im- 
 munity. 
 
 13. The granting of indulgences as exemptions from 
 temporal penalties was at first confined to the bishops and their 
 agents, and the practice dates as an organized traffic from about 
 the middle of the twelfth century. It remained for the popes, 
 however, to go to the blasphemous extreme of assuming to 
 
100 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 
 
 remit the penalties of the hereafter on payment of the sums pre- 
 scribed. Their pretended justification of the impious assump- 
 tion was as horrible as the act itself, and constitutes the dreadful 
 doctrine of supererogation. 
 
 14. As formulated in the thirteenth century, this doctrine 
 was thus set forth: "That there actually existed an immense 
 treasure of merit, composed of the pious deeds and virtuous 
 actions which the saints had performed beyond what was neces- 
 sary for their own salvation, and which were therefore applicable 
 to the benefit of others; that the guardian and dispenser of this 
 precious treasure was the Roman pontiff, and that .of conse- 
 quence he was empowered to assign to such as he thought 
 proper a portion of this inexhaustible source of merit, guitable 
 to their respective guilt, and sufficient to deliver them from the 
 punishment due to their crimes." (As cited by Mosheim; 
 see "Eccl. Hist.," Cent. XII, Part II, ch. 3:4.) 
 
 15. The doctrine of supererogation is as unreasonable as it 
 is unscriptural and untrue. Man's individual responsibility 
 for his acts is as surely a fact as is his agency to act for himself. 
 He will be saved through the merits and by the atoning sacri- 
 fice of our Redeemer and Lord; and his claim upon the salvation 
 provided is strictly dependent on his compliance with the 
 principles and ordinances of the gospel as established by Jesus 
 Christ. Remission of sins and the eventual salvation of the 
 human soul are provided for; but these gifts of God are not to 
 be purchased with money. Compare the awful fallacies of 
 supererogation and the blasphemous practice of assuming to 
 remit sins of one man in consideration of the merits of another, 
 
 f_with the declaration of the one and only Savior of mankind: 
 
 * ] "But I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, 
 r 1 they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment." (Matt. 
 
 [^12:36.) His inspired apostles, seeing in prophetic vision 
 the day of awful certainty, solemnly testifies, "And I saw the 
 dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were 
 opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of 
 life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were 
 written in the books, according to their works. And the sea 
 gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered 
 up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every 
 
/y 
 
 PAPAL INDULGENCES. 101 
 
 wan according to their works." (Rev. 20:12, 13. Italics Intro.) 
 
 16. The scriptures proclaim the eternal fact of individual 
 accountability ; (For a concise treatment of the doctrine of 
 man's responsibility see the author's "Articles of Faith, "Lecture 
 3.) the Church in the days of its degeneracy declares that the 
 merit of one may be bought by another and paid for in worldly 
 coin. Can such a Church be in any measure the Church of 
 Christ? 
 
 17. In illustration of the indulgences as sold in Germany 
 in the sixteenth century, we have the record of the doings of 
 
 _ John Tetzel, agent of the pope, who traveled about selling 
 forgiveness of sins. Says Milner: "Myconius assures us that 
 he himself heard Tetzel declaim with incredible effrontery 
 concerning the unlimited power of the pope and the efficacy of 
 indulgences. The people believed that the moment any person 
 had paid the money for the indulgence he became certain of 
 his salvation; and that the souls for whom the indulgences 
 were bought were instantly released out of purgatory. * * * 
 John Tetzel boasted that he had saved more souls from hell 
 by his indulgences than St. Peter had converted to Christianity 
 by his preaching. He assured the purchasers of them, their 
 crimes, however enormous, would be forgiven; whence it be- 
 came almost needless for him to bid them dismiss all fears con- 
 cerning their salvation. For, remission Of sins being fully obtain- 
 ed, what doubt could there be of salvation?" (Milner, 
 "History of the Church," Cent. XVI, ch. 2.) 
 
 18. A copy of an indulgence written by the hand of Tetzel 
 the vendor of popish pardons, has been preserved to us as fol- 
 lows: "May our Lord, Jesus Christ, have mercy upon thee anc 
 absolve thee by the merits of His most holy passion. And I, 
 by His authority, that of His Apostles Peter and Paul, and oj 
 the most holy pope granted and committed to me in these parts, 
 do absolve thee, first from all ecclesiastical censures, in what- 
 ever manner they have been incurred; and then from all the 
 sins, transgressions, and excesses, how enormous soever they 
 may be, ev^en for such as are reserved for the cognizance of the 
 holy se; and as far as the keys of the holy church extend, I 
 remit to thee all the punishment which thou deservest in 
 
102 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 
 
 purgatory on their account; and I restore thee to the holy 
 sacraments of the church, to the unity of the faithful, and to 
 that innocence and purity which thou possessedst at baptism; 
 so that when thou diest, the gates of punishment shall be shut, 
 and the gates of the paradise of delight shall be opened; and if 
 thou shalt not die at present, this grace shall remain in full 
 force when thou art at the point of death. In the name of the 
 Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost." (Milner, 
 "Church History," Cent. XVI, ch. 2.) 
 
 19. By way of excuse or defense, it has been claimed for 
 the Roman Catholic Church that a profession of contrition or 
 repentance was required of every applicant for indulgence, and 
 that the pardon was issued on the basis of such penitence, and 
 not primarily for money or its equivalent; but that recipients 
 of indulgences, at first voluntarily, and later in compliance with 
 established custom, made a material offering or donation to the 
 Church. It is reported, moreover, that some of the abuses 
 with which the selling of indulgences had been associated were 
 disapproved by the Council of Trent, about the middle of the 
 sixteenth century. Nevertheless, the dread fact remains that 
 for four hundred years the Church had claimed for its pope the 
 power to remit all sins, and that the promise of remission had 
 been sold and bought. (See Note 1, end of chapter.) 
 
 20. The awful sin of blasphemy consists in taking to one's 
 self the divine prerogatives and powers. Here we find the pope 
 of Rome, the head of the only church recognized at the time, 
 assuming to remit the punishment due in the hereafter for sins 
 committed in mortality. A pope assuming to sit in judgment 
 as God Himself! Is this not a fulfilment of the dread conditions 
 of apostasy foreseen and foretold as antecedent to the second 
 advent of Christ? Read for yourselves: "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; who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that 
 is called God, or that is worshipped: so that he as God sitteth in the 
 temple of God, shewing himself that he is God." (Thess. 2:3, 4. 
 Italics introduced. See Note 4, end of chapter.) 
 
 21. Another abuse perpetrated by the councils through 
 which assemblies the supreme pontiffs exercised their auto- 
 
SCRIPTURE READING FORBIDDEN. 1 103 
 
 cratic powers, is seen in the restrictions placed on the reading 
 and interpretation of scripture. The same Council of Trent, 
 which had disclaimed authority or blame for the acts of church 
 officials regarding the scandalous traffic in indulgences, pre- 
 scribed most rigid regulations forbidding the reading of the 
 scriptures by the people. Thus: "A severe and intolerable law 
 was enacted, with respect to all interpreters and expositors of 
 the scriptures, by which they were forbidden to explain the 
 sense of these divine books, in matters of faith and practice, in 
 such a manner as to make them speak a different language 
 from that of the church and the ancient doctors. The same 
 law further declared that the church alone (i. e., its ruler, the 
 Roman pontiff ) had the right of determining the true meaning 
 and signification of scripture. To fill up the measure of these 
 tyrannical and iniquitous proceedings, the church of Rome 
 persisted obstinately in affirming, though not always with the 
 same imprudence and plainness of speech, that the holy scriptures 
 were not composed for the use of the multitude, but only for that of 
 their spiritual teachers; and, of consequence, ordered these divine 
 records to be taken from the people in all places where it was 
 allowed to execute its imperious demands." (Mosheim, 
 "Eccl. Hist.," Cent. XVI, Part I, ch. 1:25. The italics are 
 introduced by the present writer.) 
 
 22. Is it possible that a church teaching such heresies can 
 be the Church established by Jesus Christ? The Lord Jesus S 
 commanded all: (( Search the scriptures', for in them ye think ye / 
 have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."-- JL 
 (John 5:39; compare verse 46; also Isaiah 8:20; Luke 16:29; 
 and Acts 17:11.) 
 
 23. Surely a pall of darkness had fallen upon the earth. 
 The Church of Christ had long since ceased to exist. In place 
 of a priesthood conferred by divine authority, a man-created 
 papacy ruled with the iron hand of tyranny and without re- 
 gard to moral restraint. In a scholarly work Dr. J. W. Draper 
 gives a list of pontiffs who had stood at the head of the Church 
 from the middle of the eighth to the middle of the eleventh 
 centuries, with biographical notes of each. (See Note 3, end 
 of chapter.) And what a picture is there outlined! To win the 
 papal crown no crime was too great, and for a period of centuries 
 
104 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 
 
 the immoralities of many of the popes and their subordinates 
 are too shocking for detailed description. It may be claimed 
 that the author last cited, and whose words are given below, 
 was an avowed opponent of the Roman Catholic Church, and 
 that, therefore, his judgment is prejudiced; in reply let it be 
 said that the attested facts of history support the dread arraign- 
 ment. In commenting on the facts set forth, Dr. Draper says: 
 
 24. "More than a thousand years had elapsed since the 
 birth of our Savior, and such was the condition of Rome. Well 
 may the historian shut the annals of those times in disgust. 
 Well may the heart of the Christian sink within him at such a 
 catalogue of hideous crimes. Well may we ask, Were these 
 the vicegerents of God upon earth these, who had truly 
 reached the goal beyond which the last effort of human wicked- 
 ness cannot pass? Not until several centuries after these events 
 did public opinion come to the true and philosophical 
 conclusion the total rejection of the divine claims of the 
 papacy. For a time the evils were attributed to the manner of 
 the pontifical election, as if they could by any possibility 
 influence the descent of a power which claimed to be super- 
 natural and under the immediate care of God. * * * No one 
 can study the development of the Italian ecclesiastical power 
 without discovering how completely it depended on human 
 agency, too often on human passion and intrigue; how complete- 
 ly wanting it was of any mark of the divine construction and 
 care the offspring of man, not of God, and therefore bearing 
 upon it the lineaments of human passions, human virtues, and 
 human sins." (Draper, "Intellectual Development of 
 Europe;" Vol. 1, p. 382.) 
 
 25. By increasing changes and unauthorized alterations in 
 organization and government, the earthly establishment known 
 as "the Church," with popes, cardinals, abbots, friars, monks, 
 exorcists, acolytes, etc., lost all semblance to the Church as 
 established by Christ and maintained by His apostles. The 
 Catholic argument that there has been an uninterrupted suc- 
 cession of authority in the priesthood from the Apost\e p e ter to 
 the present occupant of the papal throne, is untenable in the 
 light of history, and unreasonable in the light of fact. Authority 
 to speak and act in the name of God, power to officiate in the 
 
NOTES. 105 
 
 saving ordinances of the gospel of Christ, the high privilege of 
 serving as a duly commissioned ambassador of the court of 
 Heaven, these are not to be had as the gifts of princes, nor 
 are they to be bought for money, nor can they be won as trophies 
 of the bloody sword. The history of the papacy is the condem- 
 nation of the Church of Rome. (See Notes 2 and 3, end of 
 chapter. ) 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 1. The Roman Church Responsible for the Traffic in "Indulgences" In 
 view of the claim asserted by some defenders of the Roman Church, to the effect 
 that the shameful traffic in indulgences was not sanctioned by the church, and 
 that the church cannot be held accountable for the excesses to which its sub- 
 ordinates may go in their alleged official acts, the following remarks by Milner, 
 the judicious authority on Church History (Cent. XVI, chap. 2.), may be of 
 interest: "It does not appear that the rulers of the hierarchy ever found the 
 least fault with Tetzel as exceeding his commission, till an opposition was 
 openly made to the practice of indulgences. Whence it is evident, that the 
 protestants have not unjustly censured the corruption of the court of Rome 
 in this respect. * * The indulgences were farmed to the highest bidders, 
 and the undertakers employed such deputies to carry on the traffic as they 
 thought most likely to promote their lucrative views. The inferior officers 
 concerned in this commerce were daily seen in public houses enjoying themselves 
 in riot and voluptuousness (Maimbourg, p. 11 ). In fine, whatever the greatest 
 enemy of popery could have wished, was at that time exhibited with the most 
 undisguised impudence and temerity, as if on purpose to render that wicked 
 ecclesiastical system infamous before all mankind." 
 
 The author proceeds to comment on the graded prices by which these in- 
 dulgences were placed within the pecuniary reach of all classes, and finds in 
 the wholesale traffic proof of profound ignorance and dire superstition, and then 
 points out the need of a new gospel dispensation as follows: This, however, was 
 the very situation of things which opened the way for the reception of the gospel. 
 But who was to proclaim the gospel in its native beauty and simplicity? The 
 princes, the bishops, and the learned men of the times saw all this scandalous 
 traffic respecting the pardon of sins; but none was found who possessed the 
 knowledge, the courage, and the honesty, necessary to detect the fraud, and to 
 lay open to mankind the true doctrine of salvation by the remission of sins / / 
 through Jesus Christ." jMlnerfinds the inauguration of a new era in jthe "ref- J (^} 
 _Qrmation!i-duri ng the sixTeelifh^century. tt is sufficient~for~6uT 'present pur- 
 pose to know that he recognized the need of preparation whereby the way would 
 be opened "for the reception of the gospel." (Milner, "Ch. Hist." Cent. XVI, 
 ch. 2; italics introduced.) 
 
 2. Three Popes at One Time. "One of the severest blows given both the 
 temporal and the spiritual authority of the popes, was the removal, in 1309, 
 through the influence of the French king, Philip the Fair, of the papal chair 
 from Rome to Avignon, in Provence, near the frontier of France. Here it 
 remained for a space of about seventy years, an era known in church history 
 
106 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 
 
 as the Babylonian Captivity. While it was established here, all the popes were 
 French, and of course all their policies were shaped and controlled by the 
 French kings. * * The discontent awakened among the Italians by the 
 situation of the papal court at length led to an open rupture between them and 
 the French party. In 1378 the opposing factions each elected a pope, and thus 
 were two heads of the church, one at Avignon and the other at Rome. The 
 spectacle of two rival popes, each claimmg^to be the rightful successor of St. 
 Peter, and the sole infallible head of the church, very naturally led men to 
 question the claims and infallibility of both. It gave the reverence which the 
 world had so generally held for the Roman See a rude shock, and one from which 
 it never recovered. Finally, in 1409, a general council of the church assembled 
 at Pisa, for the purpose of composing the shameful quarrel. The council de- 
 posed both popes, and elected Alexander V as the supreme head of the church. 
 But matters, instead of being mended hereby, were only made worse; for neither 
 of the deposed pontiffs would lay down his authority in obedience to the de- 
 mands of the council, and consequently there were now three popes instead of two. 
 In 1414 another council was called, at Constance, tor the settlement of the grow- 
 ing dispute. Two of the claimants were deposed and one resigned. A new pope 
 was then elected Pope Martin V. In his person the Catholic world was again 
 united under a single spiritual head. The schism was outwardly healed, but 
 the wound had been too deep not to leave permanent marks upon the church." 
 (P. V. N. Meyers, "Gen. Hist.," pp. 457, 458. Italics introduced.) 
 
 The rupture between the French and Italian factions, referred to by Meyers 
 in the quotation given above, is known in history as the Great Schism. It may 
 be regarded as the decisive beginning of decline in the temporal power of the 
 popes. 
 
 3. The Papacy Condemns Itself. The line of succession in the papacy for 
 a limited period, as referred to in the text, is given by Draper as follows: 
 
 "To some it might seem, considering the interests of religion alone, de- 
 sirable to omit all biographical reference to the popes; but this cannot be done 
 with justice to the subject. The essential principle of the papacy, that the 
 Roman pontiff is the vicar of Christ upon earth, necessarily obtrudes his per- 
 sonal relations upon us. How shall we understand his faith unless we see it 
 illustrated in his life? Indeed, the unhappy character of those relations was 
 the inciting cause of the movements in Germany, France, and England, ending 
 in the extinction of the papacy as an actual political power, movements to be 
 understood only through a sufficient knowledge of the private lives and opin- 
 ions of the popes. It is well, as far as possible, to abstain from burdening sys- 
 tems with the imperfections of individuals. In this case they are inseparably 
 interwoven. The signal peculiarity of the. papacy is that, though its history 
 may be imposing, its biography is infamous. I shall, however, forbear to speak 
 of it in this latter respect more than the occasion seems necessarily to require; 
 shall pass in silence some of those cases which would profoundly shock my re- 
 ligious reader, and therefore restrict myself to the ages between the middle of 
 the eighth and the middle of the eleventh centuries, excusing myself to the im- 
 partial critic by the apology that these were the ages with which I have been 
 chiefly concerned in this chapter. 
 
 "On the death of Pope Paul I, who had attained the pontificate A. D. 757, 
 the Duke of Nepi compelled some bishops to consecrate Constantine, one of his 
 
NOTES. 107 
 
 brothers, as pope; but more legitimate electors subsequently, A. D. 768, choos- 
 ing Stephen IV, the usurper and his adherents were severely punished; the eyes 
 of Constantine were put out; the tongue of the Bishop Theodorus was am- 
 putated, and he was left in a dungeon to expire in the agonies of thirst. The 
 nephews of Pope Adrian seized his successor, Pope Leo III, A. D. 79, in the 
 street, and, forcing him into a neighboring church, attempted to put out his 
 eyes and cut out his tongue; at a later period, this pontiff, trying to suppress a 
 conspiracy to depose him, Rome became the scene of rebellion, murder and 
 conflagration. His successor, Stephen V, A. D. 816, was ignominiously driven 
 from the city; his successor, Paschal I, was accused of blinding and murdering 
 two ecclesiastics in the Lateran Palace; it was necessary that imperial com- 
 missioners should investigate the matter, but the pope died, after having ex- 
 culpated himself by oath before thirty bishops. John VIII, A. D. 872, unable 
 to resist the Mohammedans, was compelled to pay them tribute; the Bishop 
 of Naples, maintaining a secret alliance with them, received his share of the 
 plunder they collected. Him John excommunicated, nor would he give him 
 absolution unless he would betray the chief Mohammedans and assassinate 
 others himself. There was an ecclesiastical conspiracy to murder the pope; 
 some of the treasures of the church were seized; and the gate of St. Pancrazia 
 was opened with false keys, to admit the Saracens into the city. Formosus, 
 who had been engaged in these transactions, and excommunicated as a con- 
 spirator for the murder of John, was subsequently elected pope, A. D. 891; he 
 was succeeded by Boniface VI, A. D. 896, who had been deposed from the dia- 
 conate, and again from the priesthood, for his immoral and lewd life. By 
 Stephen VII, who followed, the dead body of Formosus was taken from the 
 grave, clothed in the papal habilaments, propped in a chair, tried before a coun- 
 cil, and the preposterous and indecent scene completed by cutting off three of 
 the fingers of the corpse and casting it into the Tiber; but Stephen himself was 
 destined to exemplify how low the papacy had fallen: he was thrown into 
 prison and strangled. In the course of five years, from A. D. 896 to A. D. 900, 
 five popes were consecrated. Leo. V, who succeeded in A. D. 904, was in less 
 than two months thrown into prison by Christopher, one of his chaplains, who 
 usurped his place, and who, in his turn, was shortly expelled from Rome by 
 Sergius III, who, by the aid of a military force, seized the pontificate, A. D. 
 905. This man, according to the testimony of the times, lived in criminal inter- 
 course with the celebrated prostitute Theodora, who, with her daughters 
 Marozia and Theodora, also prostitutes, exercised an extraordinary control 
 over him. The love of Theodora was also shared by John X: she gave him first 
 the archbishopric of Ravenna, and then translated him to Rome, A. D. 915, as 
 pope. John was not unsuited to the times; he organized a confederacy which 
 perhaps prevented Rome from being captured by the Saracens, and the world 
 was astonished and edified by the appearance of this warlike pontiff at the head 
 of his troops. By the love of Theodora, as was said, he had maintained himself 
 in the papacy for fourteen years; by the intrigues and hatred of her daughter 
 Marozia he was overthrown. She surprised him in the Lateran Palace; killed 
 his brother Peter before his face; threw him into prison, where he soon died, 
 smothered, as was asserted, with a pillow. After a short interval Marozia 
 made her own son pope as John XI, A. D. 931. Many affirmed that Pope 
 Sergius was his father, but she herself inclined to attribute him to her husband, 
 Alberic, whose brother Guido she subsequently married. Another of her sons, 
 
108 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 
 
 Alberic, so called from his supposed father, jealous of his brother John, cast 
 him and their mother Marozia into prison. After a time Alberic's son was 
 elected pope, A. D. 956; he assumed the title of John XII, the amorous Marozia 
 thus having given a son and a grandson to the papacy. John was only nineteen 
 years old when he thus became the head of Christendom. His reign was charac- 
 terized by the most shocking immoralities, so that the Emperor Otho I was 
 compelled by the German clergy to interfere. A synod was summoned for his 
 trial in the Church of St. Peter, before which it appeared that John had received 
 bribes for the consecration of bishops; that he had ordained one who was but 
 ten years old, and had performed that ceremony over another in a stable; he 
 was charged with incest with one of his father's concubines, and with so many 
 adulteries that the Lateran Palace had become a brothel; he put out the eyes of 
 one ecclesiastic, and castrated another, both dying in consequence of their in- 
 juries; he was given to drunkenness, gambling and the invocation of Jupiter 
 and Venus. When cited to appear before the council, he sent word that 'he 
 had gone out hunting;' and to the fathers who remonstrated with him, he threat- 
 eningly remarked 'that Judas, as well as the other disciples, received from his 
 Master the power of binding and loosing, but that as soon as he proved a 
 traitor to the common cause, the only power he retained was that of binding 
 his own neck." Hereupon he was deposed, and Leo VIII elected in his stead, 
 A. D. 963; but subsequently getting the upper hand, he seized his antagonists, 
 cut off the hand of one, the nose, finger, tongue of others. His life was eventu- 
 ally brought to an end by the vengeance of a man whose wife he had seduced. 
 "After such details it is almost needless to allude to the annals of succeed- 
 ing popes: to relate that John XIII was strangled in prison; that Boniface VII 
 imprisoned Benedict VII and killed him by starvation; that John XIV was 
 secretly put to death in the dungeons of the Castle of St. Angelo; that the 
 corpse of Boniface was dragged by the populace through the streets. The 
 sentiment of reverence for the sovereign pontiff, nay, even of respect, had be- 
 come extinct in Rome; throughout Europe the clergy were so shocked at the 
 state of things, that, in their indignation, they began to look with approbation 
 on the intention of the Emperor Otho to take from the Italians their privilege 
 of appointing the successor of St. Peter, and confine it to his own family. But 
 his kinsman Gregory V, whom he placed on the pontifical throne, was very soon 
 compelled by the Romans to fly; his excommunications and religious thunders 
 were turned into derision by them; they were too well acquainted with the true 
 nature of those terrors; they were living behind the scenes. A terrible punish- 
 ment awaited the Anti-Pope John XVI. Otho returned into Italy, seized him, 
 put out his eyes, cut off his nose and tongue, and sent him through the streets 
 mounted on an ass, with his face to the tail, and a winebladder on his head. 
 It seemed impossible that things could become worse, yet Rome had still to 
 see Benedict IX, A. D. 1033, a boy of less than twelve years, raised to the apos- 
 tolic throne. Of this pontiff, one of his successors, Victor III, declared that his 
 life was so shameful, so foul, so exercrable, that he shuddered to describe it. 
 He ruled like a captain of banditti rather than a prelate. The people at last, 
 unable to bear his adulteries, homicides, and abominations any longer, rose 
 against him. In despair of maintaining his position, he put the papacy up at 
 auction. It was bought by a presbyter named John, who became Gregory VI, 
 A. D. 1045." (J. W. Draper, "Intellectual Development of Europe," Vol. 1, 
 ch. XII, pp. 378-381.) 
 
NOTES. 109 
 
 4. Commentary on the Passage from II Thess. 2:3, 4. It should be remem- 
 bered that the application of Paul's declaration as to the apostasy made in the 
 text, is the one generally made by theologians of Protestant denominations. 
 It is in no way peculiar to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Let 
 us read the passage again: "Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day 
 [the day of Christ's promised advent] shall not come except there come a 
 falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; who 
 opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; 
 so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God." 
 
 In his Bible Commentary, Dr. Adam Clarke says of this scripture: "The 
 general run of Protestant writers understand the whole as referring to the 
 popes and church of Rome, or the whole system of the papacy. * * * Bishop 
 Newton has examined the whole prophecy with his usual skill and judgment. 
 * * * The principal part of modern commentators follow his steps. He applies 
 the whole to the Romish church: the apostasy, its defection from the pure 
 doctrines of Christianity; and the 'man of sin,' etc., the general succession of 
 the popes of Rome." An abridgment of Bishop Newton's interpretation is 
 then added; this, in part, is as follows: 
 
 "For that day shall not come except, etc. The day of Christ shall not come 
 except there come the apostasy first. The apostasy here described is plainly 
 not of a civil, but of a religious nature; not a revolt from the government, but 
 a defection from the true religion and worship. * 
 
 "So that he as God sitteth in the temple, etc. By the temple of God the apostle 
 could not well mean the temple of Jerusalem, because that, he knew, would be 
 destroyed within a few years. After the death of Christ, the temple of Jeru- 
 salem is never called the temple of God; and if, at any time, they make mention 
 of the house or temple of God, they mean the church in general or every par- 
 ticular believer. Whoever will consult I Cor. 3:16, 17; II Cor. 6:16; I Tim. 3:15; 
 Rev. 3:12, will want no examples to prove that under the gospel dispensation, 
 the temple of God is the Church of Christ; and the man of sin's sitting implies 
 his ruling and presiding there. * * * 
 
 "Upon this survey, there appears little room to doubt of the general sense 
 and meaning of the passage. The Thessalonians, (as we have seen from some 
 expressions in the former epistle,) were alarmed as if the end of the world was 
 at hand. The apostle, to correct their mistake and dissipate their fears, assures 
 them that a great apostasy or defection of the Christians from the true faith 
 and worship must happen before the coming of Christ. This apostasy, all the 
 concurrent marks and characters will justify us in charging upon the church 
 of Rome. The true Christian worship is the worship of the only true God, 
 through the one only Mediator, the man Jesus Christ, and from this worship 
 the church of Rome has most notoriously departed, by substituting other media- 
 tors, and invoking and adoring saints and angels; nothing is apostasy if idolatry 
 be not. * * * If the apostasy be rightly charged upon the church of Rome, it 
 follows, of consequence, that the 'man of sin' is the pope, not meaning any 
 pope in particular, but the pope in general, as the chief head and supporter of 
 this apostasy." 
 
 The opinion of Dr. MacKnight is also cited with approval by Clarke. In 
 
110 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 
 
 his "Commentary and Notes" (Vol. Ill, p. 100, etc.) MacKnight says: 
 "As it is said, the man of sin was to be revealed in his season, there can be little 
 doubt that the dark ages, in which all learning was overturned by the irrup- 
 tion of the northern barbarians, were the season allotted to the man of sin for 
 revealing himself. Accordingly we know, that in these ages, the corruptions 
 of Christianity, and the usurpations of the clergy, were carried to the greatest 
 height. In short, the annals of the world cannot produce persons and events 
 to which the things written in this passage can be applied with so much fitness 
 as to the bishops of Rome." 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 Results of the Apostasy. Its Sequel. 
 
 1. The thoroughly apostate and utterly corrupt condition 
 of the Church of Rome as proclaimed by its history down to the 
 end of the fifteenth century, (See Note 1, end of chapter.) 
 was necessarily accompanied by absence of all spiritual sanctity 
 and power, whatever may have been the arrogant assumptions 
 of the Church as to authority in spiritual affairs. Revolts 
 against the Church, both as rebellion against her tyranny and 
 in protest against her heresies, were not lacking. The most 
 significant of these anti-church agitations arose in connection 
 with the awakening of intellectual activity which began in the 
 latter part of the fourteenth century. The period from the tenth 
 century onward to the time of the awakening has come to be 
 known as the dark ages characterized by stagnation in the pro- 
 gress of the useful arts and sciences as well as of fine arts and 
 letters, and by a general condition of illiteracy and ignorance 
 among the masses. 
 
 2. Ignorance is a fertile soil for evil growths, and the des- 
 potic government and doctrinal fallacies of the Church during 
 this period of darkness were nourished by the ignorance of the 
 
REVOLTS AGAINST THE CHURCH. Ill 
 
 times. With the change known in history as "the revival of 
 learning" came the struggle for freedom from churchly tyranny. 
 
 3. One of the early revolts against the temporal and spirit- 
 ual despotism of the papal church was that of the Albifeenses in /B 
 France during the thirteenth century. This uprising nad been 
 crushed by the papal autocracy with much cruelty and blood- 
 shed. The next notable revolt was that of John Wickliffejn the 
 fourteenth century. Wickliffe was a professor in Oxford universi- 
 ty, England. He boldly assailed the evergrowing and greatly 
 abused power of the monks, and denounced the corruption of 
 the Church and the prevalence of doctrinal errors. He was par- 
 ticularly emphatic in his opposition to the papal restrictions as 
 
 to the pouplar study of the scriptures, and gave to the world an 
 English version of the Holy Bible translated from the Vulgate.^ 
 In spite of persecution and sentence, he died a natural deathT 
 but years afterward the Church insisted on revenge, and in con- 
 sequence, his bones were exhumed and burned, and the ashes 
 scattered to the winds. 
 
 4. On the continent of Europe the agitation against the 
 Church was carried on by John_Huss and by Jerome of Prague, 
 both of whom reaped martyrdom as the harvest of their right- " 
 eous zeal. These instances are cited to show that though the 
 Church had long been apostate to the core, there were men ready 
 to sacrifice their lives in what they deemed to be the cause of 
 truth. 
 
 5. Conditions existing at the opening of the sixteenth cen- 
 tury have been concisely summarized by a modern historian as 
 follows: "Previous to the opening of the sixteenth century there 
 had been comparatively few though there had been some, like 
 the^Albigenses in the south of France, the Wickliffites^jn Eng- 
 Iand7 and the iiussites, in Bohemia who denied thesupreme 
 and infallible auttTorTEy" of thlTETshop of Rome in all matters 
 touching religion. Speaking in very general manner it would 
 be correct to say that at the close of the fifteenth century all the 
 nations of Western Europe professed the faith of the Latin or 
 Roman Catholic Church and yielded obedience to the Papal 
 See." (Myers, "Gen. Hist.," p. 520.) 
 
 The Reformation. 
 
 6. The next notable revolt against the papal Church oc- 
 
112 _- THE GREAT APOSTASY. 
 
 cured in the sixteenth century, and assumed such proportions 
 as to be designated the Reformation. The movement began in 
 Germany about 1517, wfieiTMartin Luther, a monk of the Au- 
 gustmian order and an instructor in thellniversity of Wittenberg, 
 publicly opposed and strongly denounced Tetzel, the shameless 
 agent of papal indulgences. Luther was conscientious in his 
 conviction that the whole system of church penances and in- 
 dulgences was contrary to scripture, reason, and right. In line 
 with the academic custom of the day to challenge discussion 
 and debate on disputed questions Luther wrote his famous 
 ninety-five theses against the practice of granting indulgences, 
 and a copy~of these he nailed to the door of Wittenberg o.Vmroli, 
 inviting criticism thereon from all scholars. The news spread, 
 and the theses were discussed in all the scholastic centers of 
 Europe. Luther then attacked other practices and doctrines of 
 the Roman Church, and the pope, Leo X, issued a "Bull" or 
 papal decree against him, demanding an unconditional recanta- 
 tion on pain of excommunication from the Church. Luther 
 publicly burned the pope's document, and thus declared his 
 open revolt. The sentence of excommunication was pronounced. 
 
 7. We cannot follow here in detail the doings of this bold 
 reformer. Suffice it to say, he was not long left to fight single- 
 handed. Among this able supporters was Phillip Melancthon, a 
 professor in Wittenberg. Luther was summoned before a council 
 or "Diet" at Worms in 1521. There he openly declared for indi- 
 vidual freedom of conscience. There is inspiration in his words: 
 "I cannot submit my faith either to the pope or to the council, 
 
 ^because it is as clear as the day that they have frequently erred 
 and contradicted each other. Unless, therefore, I am convinced 
 by the testimony of scripture, or by the clearest reasoning un- 
 less I am persuaded by means of the passages I have quoted, 
 and unless they thus render my conscience bound by the word of 
 God, I cannot and will not retract, for it is unsafe for a Christian 
 to speak against his conscience. Here I stand, I can do no other, 
 may God help me\ Amenl" 
 
 8. The religious controversy spread throughout Europe. 
 At the Second Diet of Spires (1529) an edict was issued against 
 the reformers; to this the representatives of seven German prin- 
 cipalities and other delegates entered a formal protest, in con- 
 sequence of which action the reformers were henceforth known 
 
THE REFORMATION. 113 
 
 as_Protestants. John, Elector of Saxony, supported Luther in his 
 opposition to papal authority, and undertook the establishment 
 of an independent church, the constitution and plan of which 
 were prepared at his instance by Luther and Melancthon. Luther 
 died in 1546, but the work of revolution, if not in truth reforma- 
 tion, continued to grow. The Protestants, however, soon became 
 divided among themselves, and broke up into many contending 
 sects. 
 
 9. In Switzerland, Ulrich Zwingle led in the movement to- 
 ward reform. He was accused of heresy, and when placed on 
 trial, he defended himself on the authority of the Bible as against 
 papal edict, and was for the time successful. The contest was 
 bitter, and in 1531 the Catholics and Protestants of the region 
 engaged in actual battle, in which Zwingle was slain, and his 
 body brutally mutilated. 
 
 10. John Calvin next appeared as the leader of the Swiss 
 reformers, though he was an opponent of many of Zwingle' s doc- 
 trines. He exerted great influence as a teacher, and is known as 
 an extremist in doctrine. He advocated and vehemently de- 
 fended the tenet of absolute predestination, thus denying the 
 free agency of man. In France, Sweden, Denmark, and Holland, 
 leaders arose and the Protestants became strong in their op- 
 position to the Roman Church, though the several divisions 
 were antagonistic to one another on many points of doctrine. 
 
 11. One effect of this Protestant uprising was the partial 
 awakening of the Roman Church to the need of internal reform, 
 and an authoritative re-statement of Catholic principles was 
 attempted. This movement was largely accomplished through 
 the famous Council of Trent (1545-1563), which body disa- 
 vowed for the~Church tne extreme claims made for 'indulgences' 
 and denied responsibility for many of the abuses with which the 
 Church had been charged. But in connection with the attempted 
 reform came a demand for more implicit obedience to the re- 
 quirements of the Church. oh^i 
 
 12. Near the end of the fifteenth century, in the reign 
 Ferdinand and Isabella, the court of the Inquisition, then known 
 as the Holy Utnce, had been establishecTTn Spain. The prime 
 purpose of this secret tribunal was the detection and punishment 
 of heresy. Of this infamous institution as operative in Spain, 
 Myers says: "The Holy Office, as the tribunal was styled, thus 
 
114 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 
 
 became the instrument of the most incredible cruelty. Thous- 
 ands were burned at the stake, and tens of thousands more con- 
 demned to endure penalties scarcely less terrible. Queen Isa- 
 bella, in giving her consent to the establishment of the tribunal 
 in her dominions, was doubtless actuated by the purest religious 
 zeal, and sincerely believed that in suppressing heresy she was 
 discharging a simple duty, and rendering God good service. 
 'In the love of Christ and His Maid-Mother,' she says, 'I have 
 caused great misery. I have depopulated towns and districts, 
 provinces and kingdoms.' (Myers, "Gen. Hist." p. 500.) 
 
 13. Now, in the sixteenth century, in connection with the 
 attempted reform in the doctrines of Catholicism, the terrible 
 Inquisition "assumed new vigor and activity, and heresy was 
 sternly dealt with." Consider the following as throwing light 
 on the condition of that time: "At this point, in connection with 
 the persecutions of the Inquisition, we should not fail to recall 
 that in the sixteenth century a refusal to conform to the estab- 
 lished worship was regarded by all, by Protestants as well as 
 Catholics, as a species of treason against society and was dealt 
 with accordingly. Thus we find Calvin at Geneva consenting 
 to the burning of Servetus (1553) because he published views 
 that the Calvinists thought heretical; and in England we see the 
 Anglican Protestants waging the most cruel, bitter, and persis- 
 tent persecutions, not only against the Catholics but also against 
 all Protestants that refused to conform to the Established 
 Church." (Myers, "Gen. Hist.," p. 527.) 
 
 14. What shall be said of a Church that seeks to propagate 
 its faith by such methods? Are fire and sword the weapons with 
 which truth fights her battles? Are torture and death the argu- 
 ments of the gospel? However terrible the persecutions to 
 which the early Church was subjected at the hands of heathen 
 enemies, the persecutions waged by the apostate church are far 
 more terrible. Can such a church by any possibility be the 
 Church of Christ? Heaven forbid! 
 
 15. In the revolts we have noted against the Church of 
 Rome, notably in the Reformation, the zeal of the reformers led 
 to many fallacies in the doctrines they advocated. Luther, him- 
 self, proclaimed the doctrine of absolute predestination and of 
 justification by faith alone, thus nullifying belief in the God- 
 given rights of free agency, and impairing the importance of 
 
THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 115 
 
 individual effort. (See the Author's "Articles of Faith," 
 Lecture 5. ) Calvin and others were no less extreme. Neverthe- 
 less their ministry contributed to the awakening of individual 
 conscience, and assisted in bringing about a measure of religious 
 freedom of which the world had long been deprived. (See note 
 2, end of chapter.) 
 
 ( Rise of the Church of England. ) 
 
 V <J 
 
 16. At ihe time of Martin Luther's revolt against the 
 Church of Rome, Henry VIII reigned in England. In common 
 with all other countries of western Europe, Britain was pro- 
 foundly stirred by the reformation movement. The king openly 
 defended the Catholic Church and published a book in opposition 
 to Luther's claims. This so pleased the pope, Leo X, that he con- 
 ferred upon ging Henry the distinguishing title, "Defender of 
 the Faith." This took place about 1522, and from that time to 
 
 ~the present, British sovereigns have proudly borne the title. 
 
 17. Within a few years after his accession to this title of 
 distinction, we find King Henry among the bitterest enemies of 
 the Roman Church, and the change came about in this wise. 
 Henry desired a divorce from his wife, Queen Catherine, to give 
 him freedom to marry Anne BoJeyrK l f rie pope nesitated in the 
 matter of granting the divT5r^e,"aribTHenry, becoming impatient, 
 disregarded the pope's authority and secretly married Anne 
 Boleyn. The pope thereupon excommunicated the king from 
 the Church. The English parliament, following the king's direc- 
 tions, passed the celebrated Act of Supremacy in 1534. This 
 statute declared an absolute termination 01 all allegiance to 
 papal authority, and proclaimed the king as supreme head of 
 the Church of Britain. Thus originated the Church of England, 
 without regard for or claim of divine authority, and without 
 even a semblance of priestly succession. 
 
 18. At first there was little innovation in doctrine or ritual 
 in the newly formed church. It originated in~revolt. Later a 
 form of creed and a plan of organization were adopted, giving 
 the Church of England some distinctive features. During the 
 reigns of Edward VI, Queen Mary, and Queen Elizabeth, per- 
 secutions between Catholics and Protestants were extensive 
 and violent. Several non-conformist sects arose, among them 
 the Puritans and the Separatists. These were so persecuted that 
 
116 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 
 
 many of them fled to Holland as exiles. From among these came 
 the notable colony of the Pilgrim Fathers, who crossed in the 
 Mayflower to the shores of the then recently-discovered con- 
 tinent, and established themselves in America. 
 
 19. The thoughtful student cannot fail to see in the prog- 
 ress of the great apostasy and its results the existence of an 
 overruling power, operating toward eventual good, however 
 mysterious its methods. The heart-rending persecutions to 
 which the saints were subjected in the early centuries of our era, 
 the anguish, the torture, the bloodshed, incurred in defense of 
 the testimony of Christ, the rise of an apostate church, blight- 
 ing the intellect and leading captive the souls of men all these 
 dread scenes were foreknown to the Lord. While we cannot say 
 or believe that such exhibitions of human depravity and blas- 
 phemy of heart were in accordance with the divine will, certainly 
 'God willed to permit full scope to the free agency of man, m the 
 exercise of which agency some^won the martyr's crowryand 
 others filled the measure of their*lniquity to overflowing. 
 
 20. Not less marked is the divine permission in the revolts 
 and rebellions, in the revolutions and reformations, that de- 
 veloped in opposition to the darkening influence of the apostate 
 church. Wycliffe- and Huss^Luther and Melancthon, Zwingle. 
 and Calvin, Henry VIII in his arrogant assumption of priestly 
 authority, John Knox in Scotland, Roger Williams in America 
 these and a host of others builded" better than they knew, in 
 that their efforts laid in part the foundation of the structure of 
 religious freedom and liberty of conscience, and this in prep- 
 aration for the restoration of the gospel as had been divinely 
 predicted. 
 
 21. From the sixteenth century down to the present time, 
 
 sects professedly founded on the tenets of Christianity have 
 
 multiplied apace. They are now to be numbered by hundreds. 
 
 / On every side the claim has been heard, "Lo, here is Christ," 
 
 / or "Lo, there." There are churches named after their place of 
 
 y origin as the Church of England; other sects are designated in 
 
 ( honor of their famous promoters as Lutherans, Calvinists, 
 
 ) Wesleyans; others are known from some peculiarity of creed or 
 
 \ doctrine as Methodists, Presbyterians, and Baptists; but down 
 
 (to the beginning of the nineteenth century there was no church 
 
 /even claiming name or title as the Church of Christ. The only 
 
 i 
 
ABSENCE OF PRIESTHOOD. 117 
 
 Church existing at that time venturing to assert authority by 
 succession was the Catholic Church, which as shown was wholly 
 without priesthood or divine commission. 
 
 22. If the "Mother Church" be without divine authority or 
 spiritual power, how can her children derive from her the right 
 to officiate in the things of God? Who dares affirm the absurdity 
 that man can originate for himself a priesthood which God shall 
 honor and respect. Granted that men may, can and do, create 
 among themselves societies, associations, sects, and churches if 
 they choose so to designate their religious organizations; granted 
 that they may formulate laws, prescribe rules, and construct 
 elaborate plans of organization and government, and that all 
 such laws, rules and schemes of administration are binding upon 
 those who voluntarily assume membership, granted all these 
 powers and rights whence can such human creations derive 
 the authority of the holy Priesthood, without which there can 
 be no Church of Christ? If the power and authority be, by any 
 possibility, of human origin, there never has been a Church of 
 Christ on earth, and the alleged saving ordinances of the gospel 
 have never been other than empty forms. 
 
 23. Our review of the Great Apostasy as presented in this 
 treatise, does not call for any detailed or critical study of the 
 Roman Catholic Church as it exists in modern times, nor of any 
 of the numerous Protestant denominations that have come into 
 existence as dissenting children of the so-called 'Mother Church.' 
 
 JThe apostasy was complete, as far as actual loss of priesthood 
 "ancfcessation of spiritual power ir^ the Church are concerned. 
 long prior to the sixteenth centurjTrevolt, known in history as 
 the Reformation. It is instructive to observe, however, that the 
 weakness of the Protestant sects as to any claim to divine ap- 
 pointment and authority, is recognized by those churches them- 
 selves. The Church of England, which, as shown, originated in 
 revolt against the Roman Catholic Church and its pope, is with- 
 out foundation of claim to divine authority in its priestly orders, 
 unless, indeed, it dare assert the absurdity that kings and parlia- 
 ments can create and take unto themselves heavenly authority 
 by enactment of earthly statutes. 
 
 24. The Roman Catholic Church is at least consistent in 
 its claim that a line of succession in the priesthood has been 
 maintained from the apostolic age to the present, though the 
 
118 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 
 
 claim is utterly untenable in the light of a rational interpreta- 
 tion of history. But the fact remains that the Catholic Church 
 is the only organization venturing to assert the present pos- 
 session of the holy priesthood by unbroken descent from the 
 apostles of our Lord. The Church of England, chief among the 
 Protestant sects, and all other dissenting churches, are by their 
 own admission and by the circumstances of their origin, man- 
 made institutions, without a semblance of claim to the powers 
 and authority of the holy priesthood. 
 
 25. As late as 1896 the question of the validity of the 
 priestly orders in the Church of England was officially and 
 openly discussed and considered, both in England and at Rome. 
 Lord Halifax, chairman of the English Church Union, conferred 
 with the Vatican authorities to ascertain the possibility of 
 bringing about closer union between the Roman Catholic 
 Church and the Church of England. This involved the question 
 of the recognition of the priestly orders of the Anglican Church 
 by the pope and Church of Rome. The movement was 
 favored in the interests of unity and peace by the English 
 premier, Mr. Gladstone. The pope, Leo XIII, finally issued a 
 decree refusing to recognize in any degree the authority of the 
 Anglican orders, and expressly declaring all claims to priestly 
 authority by the Church of England as absolutely invalid. 
 
 26. Assuredly the Church of Rome could take no other 
 action than this and maintain the consistency of its own claim 
 to exclusive possession of the priesthood by descent. Assuredly 
 the Church of England would have sought no official recogni- 
 tion of its priestly status by the Church of Rome had it any 
 independent claim to the power and authority of the priesthood. 
 The Roman Catholic Church declares that all Protestant de- 
 nominations are either apostate organizations, or institutions of 
 human creation that have never had even a remote connection 
 with the church that claims succession in the priesthood. In 
 short, the apostate "Mother Church" aggressively proclaims 
 the perfidy of her offspring. 
 
 The Apostasy Admitted. 
 
 27. The fact of the great apostasy is admitted. Many theo- 
 logians who profess a belief in Christianity have declared the 
 fact. Thus we read: "We must not expect to see the Church of 
 
THE APOSTASY ADMITTED. 119 
 
 Christ existing in its perfection on the earth. It is not to be 
 found thus perfect, either in the collected fragments of Christen- 
 dom or still less in any one of those fragments." (Smith's 
 "Dictionary of the Bible.") v_ 
 
 28. John Wesley, who lived from 1703 to 1791 A. D., and | 
 who ranks as chief among the founders of Methodism, comments 
 as follows on the apostasy of the Christian ChurclTas evidenced 
 by the early decline of spiritual power and the cessation of the 
 gifts and graces of the Spirit of God within the Church: "It 
 does not appear that these extraordinary gifts of the Holy 
 Spirit (See I Cor., ch. 12.) were common in the Church for 
 more than two or three centuries. We seldom hear of them after 
 that fatal period when the Emperor Constantine called himself 
 
 a Christian, and from a vain imagination of promoting the 
 Christian cause thereby heaped riches and power and honor 
 upon Christians in general, but in particular upon the Christian 
 clergy. From this time they almost totally ceased, very few 
 instances of the kind being found. The cause of this was not, as 
 has been supposed, because there was no more occasion for 
 them, because all the world was become Christians. This is a 
 miserable mistake; not a twentieth part of it was then nominally 
 Christians. The real cause of it was that the love of many, al- 
 most all Christians, so-called, was waxed cold. The Christians 
 had no more of the spirit of Christ than the other heathens. 
 The Son of Man, when He came to examine His Church, could 
 hardly find faith upon earth. This was the real cause why the 
 extraordinary gifts of the Holy Ghost were no longer to be 
 found in the Christian church because the Christians were 
 turned heathens again, and only had a dead form left." (John 
 Wesley's Works. Vol. VII, 89:26-27. See Note 3, end of I 
 chapter.) 
 
 29. The Church of England makes official declaration of 
 degeneracy and loss of divine authority in these words: "Laity 
 and clergy, learned and unlearned, all ages, sects, and degrees, 
 have been drowned in abominable idolatry most detested by 
 God and damnable to man for eight hundred years and more." 
 (Church of England "Homily on Perils of Idolatry," p. 3.) 
 The"Book of Jlomiliesr^ in which occurs this declaration by 
 tfie~~CKurch of England, dates from about the middle of the 
 sixteenth century. According to this official statement, there- 
 
120 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 
 
 fore, the religious world had been utterly apostate for eight cen- 
 turies prior to the establishment of the Church of England. The 
 fact of a universal apostasy was widely proclaimed, for the 
 / homilies from which the foregoing citation is taken were "ap- 
 pointed to be read in churches" in lieu of sermons under speci- 
 fied condition. 
 
 30. The great apostasy was divinely predicted; its accomplish- 
 ment is attested by both sacred and secular writ. 
 
 31. To the faithful Latter-day Saint, a concluding proof of 
 the universal apostasy and of the absolute need of a restoration 
 of Priesthood from the heavens will be found in the divine 
 reply to the inquiry of the boy prophet, Joseph Smith, as to 
 which of all the contending sects was right: "I was answered 
 that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong; and the 
 
 -3^ personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an 
 & abomination in His sight; that those professors were all corrupt; 
 that 'they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are 
 far from me; they teach for doctrines the commandments of 
 men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power there- 
 of.' ' -(Pearl of Great Price, p. 85, par. 19.) 
 
 The Sequel. 
 
 32. The sequel of the Great Apostasy is the Restoration of 
 the Gospel, marking the inauguration of the Dispensation of the 
 Fulness of Times. This epoch-making event occurred in the 
 early part of the nineteenth century, when the Father and the 
 Son manifested themselves to man, and when the Holy Priest- 
 hood with all its powers and authority was again brought to 
 earth. 
 
 33. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints pro- 
 " claims to the world this glorious restoration, at once the con- 
 summation of the work of God throughout the ages past, and 
 the final preparation for the second advent of Jesus, the Christ. 
 The Church affirms that after the long night of spiritual dark- 
 ness, the light of heaven has again come; and that the Church of 
 Christ is authoritatively established. The Church of Jesus 
 Christ of Latter-day Saints stands alone in the declaration that 
 the Holy Priesthood is operative upon earth, not as an inherit- 
 ance through earthly continuation from the apostolic age, but 
 as the endowment of a new dispensation, brought to earth by 
 
NOTES. 121 
 
 heavenly ministration. In this restoration, divinely predicted 
 and divinely achieved, has been witnessed a realization of the 
 Revelator's vision: 
 
 "And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having 
 the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, 
 and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, saying 
 with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour 
 of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, 
 and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters." (Rev. 
 14:6, 7. For treatment of the Restoration of the Gospel see the 
 Author's "Articles of Faith," Lecture 11. See Notes 4 and 5, 
 end of chapter.) 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 1. Papist Testimony to the Corruption of the Church. "The judicious student 
 of ecclesiastical history will observe that I constantly endeavor to draw my 
 proofs from the most unexceptionable sources. For example: To prove the 
 corrupt state of the clergy, and the abominable practices of the Roman See, 
 I would produce the evidence of George of Saxony, a most bigoted papist, 
 whom the Roman Catholics always reckon among the most sincere and most 
 active of the holy defenders of their religion. Now, as with them the asser- 
 tions of Luther and the other reformers go for nothing but exaggerations, mis- 
 representations, or direct falsehoods, let them listen at least to this duke, their 
 steady friend and advocate, who generally, in religious concerns, opposed his 
 relation, the elector of Saxony, and who also entirely approved of Luther's 
 condemnation at Worms. This George of Saxony exhibited to the Diet twelve 
 heads of the grievances which called loudly for reform. Two of these are 
 briefly as follows: 1. Indulgences, which ought to be obtained by prayers, 
 fastings, benevolence towards our neighbor, and other good works, are sold 
 for money. Their value is extolled beyond all decency. The sole object is to 
 gain a deal of money. Hence the preachers, who are bound to set forth truth, 
 teach men nothing but lies and frauds. They are not only suffered to go on 
 thus, but are well paid for their fraudulent harangues. The reason is the more 
 conviction they can produce among their hearers, the more money flows into 
 the chest. Rivers of scandalous proceedings arise from this corrupt fountain. 
 The officials of the bishops are equally attentive to scrape money together. 
 They vex the poor with their censures for great crimes, as whoredom, adultery, 
 blasphemy; but they spare the rich. The clergy commit the very same crimes, 
 and nobody censures them. Faults which ought to be expiated by prayers and 
 fastings are atoned for by money, in order that the officials may pay large sums 
 to their respective bishops, and retain a portion of the gain for themselves. 
 Neither when a mulct is inflicted, is it done in a way to stop the commission 
 of the same fault in future, but rather so that the delinquent understands he 
 may soon do that very thing again, provided he be but ready to pay. Hence, 
 all the sacraments are sold for money; and where that is not to be had, they are 
 absolutely neglected. 2. Another distinct head of the grievances produced 
 
122 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 
 
 by this zealous duke was expressed thus: "The scandalous conduct of the clergy 
 is a very fruitful source of the destruction of poor souls. There must be a 
 universal reformation; and this cannot be better effected than by a general 
 council. It is therefore, the most earnest wish of us all that such a measure be 
 adopted." (Milner, "Church History," Cent. XVI, ch. 6. Footnote.) 
 
 2. Extremes Incident to the Reformation. "What were the reproaches 
 constantly applied to the Reformation by its enemies? Which of its results 
 are thrown in its face, as it were, unanswerable? The two principal reproaches 
 are, first, the multiplicity of sects, the excessive license of thought, the destruc- 
 tion of all spiritual authority, and the entire dissolution of religious society; 
 secondly, tyranny and persecution. 'You provoke licentiousness,' it has been 
 said to the Reformers: 'you produce it; and, after being the cduse of it, you wish 
 to restrain and repress it. And how do you repress it? By the most harsh and 
 violent means. You take upon yourselves, too, to punish heresy, and that by 
 virtue of an illegitimate authority.' " Guizot. 
 
 "The Sectarian dogma of Justification by Faith alone has exercised an 
 influence for evil since the early days of Christianity. The idea upon which this 
 pernicious doctrine was founded, was at first associated with that of an ab- 
 solute predestination, by which man was foredoomed to destruction, or to an 
 utterly undeserved salvation. Thus, Luther taught as follows: 'The excellent, 
 infallible, and sole preparation for grace, is the eternal election and predestina- 
 tion of God.' 'Since the fall of man, free-will is but an idle word.' 'A man who 
 imagines to arrive at grace by doing all that he is able to do, adds sins to sin, 
 and is doubly guilty.' 'That man is not justified who performs many works; 
 but he who without works has much faith in Christ.' (For these and other 
 doctrines of the Reformation see D'Aubigne's 'History of the Reformation,' 
 Vol. I, pp. 82, 83, 119,J122.) In Milner's 'Church History' (Vol. IV, p. 514) 
 we read: 'The point wnich the reformer Luther had most at heart in all his 
 labors, contests and dangers, was the justification by faith alone.' Melancthon 
 voices the doctrine of Luther in these words: 'Man's justification before God 
 proceeds from faith alone. This faith enters man's heart by the grace of God 
 alone;' and further, 'As all things which happen, happen necessarily, according 
 to the divine predestination, there is no such thing as liberty in our wills.' 
 (D'Aubigne, Vol. Ill, p. 340.) It is true that Luther strongly denounced, and 
 vehemently disclaimed responsibility for, the excesses to which this teaching 
 gave rise, yet he was not less vigorous in proclaiming the doctrine. Note his 
 words: 'I, Doctor Martin Luther, unworthy herald of the doctrine of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ, confess this article, that faith alone without works justifies before 
 God; and I declare that it shall stand and remain forever in despite of the em- 
 peror of the Romans, the emperor of the Turks, the emperor of the Persians, 
 in spite of the pope and all the cardinals, with the bishops, priests, monks and 
 nuns, in spite of kings, princes and nobles, and in spite or all the world and 
 of the devils themselves; and that if they endeavor to fight against this truth 
 they will draw the fires of hell upon their heads. This is the true and holy gos- 
 pel, and the declaration of me, Doctor Luther, according to the teachings of the 
 Holy Ghost.' "(See the Author's "Articles of Faith," Lecture V, Note 2.) 
 
 3. Diverse Views Concerning Continuance or Decline of Spiritual Gifts. 
 "Protestant writers insist that the age of miracles closed with the fourth or 
 
NOTES. 123 
 
 fifth century, and that after that the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Ghost must 
 not be looked for. Catholic writers, on the other hand, insist that the power to 
 perform miracles has always continued in the Church; yet those spiritual mani- 
 festations which they describe after the fourth and fifth centuries savor of 
 invention on the part of the priests, and childish credulity on the part of the 
 people; or else, what is claimed to be miraculous falls short of the power and 
 dignity of those spiritual manifestations which the primitive Church was wont 
 to witness. The virtues and prodigies, ascribed to the bones and other relics 
 of the martyrs and saints, are puerile in comparison with the healings by the 
 anointing with oil and the laying on of hands, speaking in tongues, interpreta- 
 tions, prophecies, revelations, casting out of devils in the name of Jesus Christ; 
 to say nothing of the gifts of faith, wisdom, knowledge, discerning of spirits, 
 etc. common in the Church in the days of the apostles (I Cor. 12:8-10). 
 Nor is there anything in the scriptures or in reason that would lead one to be- 
 lieve that they were to be discontinued. Still this plea is made by modern 
 Christians explaining the absence of these spiritual powers among them that 
 the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Ghost were only intended to accompany the 
 proclamation of the gospel during the first few centuries, until the Church was 
 able to make its way without them, and they were to be done away. It is 
 sufficient to remark upon this that it is assumption pure and simple, and stands 
 without warrant either of scripture or right reason; and proves that men had 
 so far changed the religion of Jesus Christ that it became a form of godliness 
 without the power thereof." (B. H. Roberts, "Outlines of Ecclesiastical 
 History," Part II, Sec. 5:6-8.) 
 
 4. Commentary on the Revelators Vision of the Restoration. It is instructive 
 to inquire into the interpretation given by biblical students to the prophecy 
 voiced by John the Revelator predicting the advent of the angel "having the 
 everlasting gospel." Dr. Clarke offers the following reflections on the passage: 
 "And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospeh 
 Whether this angel means any more than a particular dispensation of provi- 
 dence and grace, by which the gospel shall be rapidly sent through the whole 
 world; or whether it means any especial messenger, order of preachers, people, 
 or society of Christians, whose professed object it is to send the gospel of the 
 kingdom throughout the earth, we know not. But the vision seems truly 
 descriptive of a late institution, entitled The British and Foreign Bible Society,' 
 whose object it is to print and circulate the scriptures of the Old and New Tes- 
 taments through all the habitable world, and in all the languages spoken on 
 the face of the earth." (Clarke, "Bible Commentary," Rev. 14:6.) 
 
 The learned commentator is to be commended for his frank avowal as 
 to uncertainty regarding the precise interpretation of this scripture, and for the 
 provisional and tentative manner in which he indicates a possible application 
 to the wide distribution of the Holy Bible through the efforts of a most worthy 
 and influential society. It is to be noted that Dr. Clarke wrote his famous com- 
 mentary on the Bible shortly before the actual restoration of the gospel through 
 angelic agency which resulted in the establishment of the Church of Jesus 
 Christ of Latter-day Saints. Of necessity his search for the fulfillment of the 
 prediction was unsatisfactory, and, indeed, unsuccessful, inasmuch as the ful- 
 fillment had not then occurred. The commendable work of the Bible Society 
 
124 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 
 
 was a preparation for the fulfillment of the momentous prophecy, but not the 
 fulfillment itself. 
 
 5. Restoration of the Church. "In the first ten centuries immediately fol- 
 lowing the ministry of Christ, the authority of the priesthood was lost from 
 among men, and no human power could restore it. But the Lord in His mercy 
 
 Erovided for the re-establishment of His Church in the last days, and for the 
 ist time, and prophets of olden time foresaw this era of renewed enlightenment, 
 and sang in joyous tones of its coming." (See Dan. 2:44, 45; 7:27; Matt. 24: 
 14; Rev. 14:6-8.) "This restoration was effected by the Lord through the 
 prophet, Joseph Smith, who, together with Oliver Cowdery, in 1829, received 
 the Aaronic Priesthood under the hands of John the Baptist, and later the 
 Melchizedek Priesthood under the hands of the former-day apostles, Peter, 
 James and John. By the authority thus bestowed, the Church has been again 
 organized with all its former completeness, and mankind once more rejoices 
 in the priceless privileges of the counsels of God. The Latter-day Saints de- 
 clare their high claim to the true Church organization, similar in all essentials 
 to the organization effected by Christ among the Jews; these people of the last 
 days profess to have the Priesthood of the Almighty, the power to act in the 
 name of God, which power commands respect both on earth and in heaven." 
 (The Author, "Articles of Faith," Lecture 11:12.)