Monday, December 30, 2019

Brian J. Daley on the Depiction of the Church Post-Ascension in the Ascension of Isaiah


Commenting on the pseudepigraphical Ascension of Isaiah, Brian J. Daley wrote the following about its depiction of the spiritual nature of the Church post-ascension which would resonate with many Latter-day Saints vis-à-vis the Apostasy:

After Jesus' ascension according to Isaiah's vision, the church will fall into disorder and corruption, "and many elders will be lawless and violent shepherds to their sheep" (AI 3.23 [this portrait of a Christian Church in discord may be alluding to the same disturbances that seem to have prompted Ignatius’s arrest and condemnation]). Prophets and their visions will be set aside (AI 3.31), and the world will be led by Beliar, the prince of darkness, and by the Antichrist, into its final apostasy (AI 4.2-13). At the end of a limited period, however, "the Lord will come with his angels and with the hosts of the saints from the seventh heaven," and will defeat the forces of Beliar; then "the saints will come with the Lord in their garments which are stored on high in the seventh heaven," and will descend to rule those will alive in the world (AI 4.14-16). After a time of peace for the just--the standard apocalyptic picture of a final millennium--the Beloved will rebuke Beliar and consume the wicked with fire (AI 4.18). (Brian E. Daley, God Visible: Patristic Christology Reconsidered [Changing Paradigms in Historical and Systematic Theology; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018], 46)