The following is a portion of John A. Tvedtnes, chapter 1: Apostasy
and Restoration, in Joseph Smith and the Ancient World (unpublished). See also
Evidence from Early Christian
Writers
Various Church Fathers
wrote of the apostasy that took place in the early days of the Christian Church.
Some might argue that these were examples of local apostasy rather than a
general apostasy throughout the Church, but that is exactly how one would
expect a general apostasy to come about, i.e., through smaller rebellions. The
widespread nature of apostasy, both in temporal and spatial terms, suggests
that it was a serious problem. Indeed, some of the Fathers clearly believed
that the apostasy prophesied in the New Testament was under way.
Ignatius (died A.D. 107)
wrote of those “who endeavor to corrupt the Church of Christ” (Epistle to the Ephesians 16).[i]
The fourth-century church historian Eusebius reported that Hegesippus (ca. A.D.
110-180), recounting events in the time of the emperor Trajan (A.D. 98-117),
records that the Church up to that time had remained a pure and
uncorrupted virgin, since, if there were any that attempted to corrupt the
sound norm of the preaching of salvation, they lay until then concealed in
obscure darkness. But when the sacred college of apostles had suffered death in
various forms, and the generation of those that had been deemed worthy to hear
the inspired wisdom with their own ears had passed away, then the league of
godless error took its rise as a result of the folly of heretical teachers,
who, because none of the apostles was still living, attempted henceforth, with
a bold face, to proclaim, in opposition to the preaching of the truth, “the
knowledge which is falsely so-called.” (Ecclesiastical
History 3.32.7-8, citing 1 Timothy 6:20)[ii]
Hegisippus described how
some of these problems had come about because of jealousy when Symeon, one of
Jesus’ cousins, had been selected as bishop in Jerusalem in place of the Lord’s
brother James, who had been slain:
Therefore they called the Church a virgin, for it was not yet
corrupted by vain discourses. But Thebuthis, because he was not made bishop,
began to corrupt it. He also was sprung from the seven sects among the people,
like Simon, from whom came the Simonians, and Cleobius, from whom came the
Cleobians, and Dositheus, from whom came the Dositheans, and Gorthaeus, from
whom came the Goratheni, and Masbotheus, from whom came the Masbothaeans. From
them sprang the Menandrianists, and Marcionists, and Carpocratians, and
Valentinians, and Basilidians, and Saturnilians. Each introduced privately and
separately his own peculiar opinion. From them came false Christs, false
prophets, false apostles, who divided the unity of the Church by corrupt
doctrines uttered against God and against his Christ. (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 4.22)[iii]
The late first century
bishop Ignatius warned the Trallians that “there are some vain talkers and deceivers,
not Christians, but Christ-betrayers, bearing about the name of Christ in
deceit, and ‘corrupting the word’ of the Gospel” (Epistle to the Trallians 6, alluding to Paul’s words in Titus 1:10
and 2 Corinthians 2:17).[iv]
In his Epistle to the Philadelphians
5, he mentions “the false prophets and the false apostles” who had already come
before his time.[v] To
the Ephesians he wrote that “the last times are come upon us” (Epistle to the Ephesians 11),[vi]
confirming that the time of apostasy predicted in the New Testament had
arrived. The Epistle to the Antiochians,
attributed to Ignatius but probably not written before the sixth century, warns
“against those heresies of the wicked one which have broken in upon us, to the
deceiving and destruction of those that accept of them; but that he give heed
to the doctrine of the apostles, and believe both the law and the prophets.”[vii]
The Didache or “Teaching” of the Twelve Apostles, thought to have been
written in the first century or early second century A.D., repeats some of the
New Testament warnings about apostasy, declaring that
in the last days false prophets and corrupters shall be multiplied,
and the sheep shall be turned into wolves, and love shall be turned into hate;
for when lawlessness increaseth, they shall hate and persecute and betray one
another, and then shall appear the world-deceiver as Son of God, and shall do
signs and wonders, and the earth shall be delivered into his hands, and he
shall do iniquitous things which have never yet come to pass since the
beginning. (Didache 16)[viii]
When the Didache
was written, there were still prophets in the Church, for the document
admonishes Christians to give aid to “every true prophet that willeth to abide
among you” (Didache 13:1-3).[ix]
Less than a century later, the office of prophet was no longer recognized in
Christianity, as evidenced by the fact that Tertullian wrote that there were no
more prophets after the coming of Christ (An
Answer to the Jews 8, 11).[x]
The loss of prophets made it necessary for Victorinus (died ca. A.D. 303) to
redefine the office of Christian prophets of which Paul wrote (1 Corinthians
14:29; cf. Acts 11:27; 13:1; 15:32) as not revealers of divine truth, but as
commentators on what had already been revealed in the scriptures (Commentary on the Apocalypse of the Blessed
John 10.9).[xi]
In
an early second century apocryphal document, the resurrected Jesus tells his
Apostles:
There shall come forth another
doctrine, and a confusion, and because they shall strive after their own advancement,
they shall bring forth an unprofitable doctrine. And therein shall be a deadly
corruption (of uncleanness), and they shall teach it, and shall turn away them
that believe on me from my commandments and cut them off from eternal life. But
woe unto them that falsify this my word and commandment, and draw away them
that hearken to them from the life of the doctrine and separate themselves from
the commandment of life: for together with them they shall come into
everlasting judgement. (Epistle of the Apostles
50)[xii]
One of the causes of the
apostasy was rebellion against early Church leaders. This rebellion was already
under way in the first century. Clement of Rome, who died ca. A.D. 90, wrote to
the Corinthians of “that shameful and detestable sedition” by which
the worthless rose up against the honoured, those of no reputation
against such as were renowned, the foolish against the wise, the young against
those advanced in years. For this reason righteousness and peace are now far
departed from you, inasmuch as every one abandons the fear of God, and is
become blind in his faith, neither walks in the ordinances of his appointment,
nor acts a part becoming Christian, but walks after his own wicked lusts. (1 Clement 1, 3)[xiii]
In the same epistle, he
declared, “It is right and holy therefore, men and brethren, rather to obey God
than to follow those who, through pride and sedition, have become the leaders
of a detestable emulation” (1 Clement
14). The term “emulation” suggests that these false leaders taught an imitation
form of Christianity. Clement further wrote that
Our apostles also knew, through our Lord Jesus Christ, that there would
be strife on account of the office of the episcopate [bishop] . . . We are of
opinion, therefore, that those appointed by them, or afterwards by other
eminent men, with the consent of the whole Church, and who have blamelessly
served the flock of Christ in a humble peaceable, and disinterested spirit, and
have for a long time possessed the good opinion of all, cannot be justly
dismissed from the ministry. For our sin will not be small, if we eject from
the episcopate those who have blamelessly and holily fulfilled its duties . . .
But we see that ye have removed some men of excellent behaviour from the
ministry, which they fulfilled blamelessly and with honour. (1 Clement 44).[xiv]
He noted that “Your
schism has subverted [the faith of] many, has discouraged many, has given rise
to doubt in many, and has caused grief to us all. And still your sedition
continueth” (1 Clement 46).[xv]
He added, “But now reflect who those are that have perverted you . . . It is
disgraceful, beloved, yea, highly disgraceful, and unworthy of your Christian
profession, that such a thing should be heard of as that the most stedfast and
ancient Church of the Corinthians should, on account of one or two persons,
engage in sedition against its presbyters [elders]” (1 Clement 47).[xvi]
The rejection of Church
leaders is also attested in other branches of the Church. Ignatius, bishop of
Smyrna, who died in A.D. 107, wrote that “some indeed give one the title of
bishop, but do all things without him. Now such persons seem to me to be not possessed
of a good conscience, seeing they are not stedfastly gathered together
according to the commandment” (Epistle to
the Magnesians 4).[xvii]
Cyprian wrote of those “who make a schism and, forsaking their bishop, appoint
another false bishop for themselves from outside” (Epistles 75.6).[xviii]
Clement of Alexandria (died ca. A.D. 215) wrote of
Those, then, that adhere to impious words, and
dictate them to others, inasmuch as they do not make a right but a perverse use
of the divine words, neither themselves enter into the kingdom of heaven, nor
permit those whom they have deluded to attain the truth. But not having the key
of entrance, but a false (and as the common phrase expresses it), a counterfeit
key (antiklei~), by which they do not enter in as we enter in,
through the tradition of the Lord, by drawing aside the curtain; but bursting
through the side-door, and digging clandestinely through the wall of the
Church, and stepping over the truth, they constitute themselves the Mystagogues
of the soul of the impious. (Stromata 7.17)[xix]
Justin Martyr, a
second-century Christian philosopher, seems to have acknowledged that apostasy
was already taking place in his days. He noted that Jesus “foretold that in the
interval between His [first and second] advent, as I previously said, priests
and false prophets would arise in His name, which things do actually appear” (Dialogue with Trypho 51).[xx]
Hippolytus (died ca. A.D. 236) wrote one of his books “because of that apostasy
or error which was recently invented out of ignorance” (Apostolic Tradition 1:4).[xxi]
Tertullian (ca. A.D.
145-220), citing the parable of the wheat and the tares (Matthew 13:24-30) as a
prophecy of what would happen in the Church, wrote, “For herein is figuratively
described the difference of doctrines, since in other passages also the word of
God is likened unto seed. From the actual order, therefore, it becomes clear,
that that which was first delivered is of the Lord and is true, whilst that is
strange and false which was afterwards introduced” (Prescription Against Heretics 31).[xxii]
Though Tertullian believed that he represented the “wheat” and Christian
break-off groups the “tares,” his comments are instructive about falsehood
being introduced after the death of the apostles.
The fourth-century
Christian historian Eusebius also drew upon the parable of the wheat and the
tares to describe events taking place in the time of Theophilus, bishop of
Antioch (d. A.D. 190): “And as the heretics, no less then than at other times,
were like tares, destroying the pure harvest of apostolic teaching, the pastors
of the churches everywhere hastened to restrain them as wild beasts from the
fold of Christ” (Ecclesiastical History
4.24.2).[xxiii]
Dionysus, bishop of
Corinth (ca. A.D. 170), wrote of apostates who were falsifying both his
writings and the scriptures. “For I wrote letters when the brethren requested
me to write. And these letters the apostles of the devil have filled with
tares, taking away some things and adding others, for whom a woe is in store.
It is not wonderful, then, if some have attempted to adulterate the Lord's
writings, when they have formed designs against those which are not such” (To the Roman Church 4).[xxiv]
Cyril, who served as
bishop of Jerusalem A.D. 349-387, cited Paul’s prophecy of the apostasy from 2
Thessalonians 2:3-10 and added
Thus wrote Paul and now is the falling away. For men have fallen away
from the right faith; and some preach the identity of the Son with the Father,
and others dare to say that Christ was brought into being out of nothing. And
formerly the heretics were manifest [openly]; but now the Church is filled with
heretics in disguise. For men have fallen away from the truth, and have itching
ears [2 Timothy 4:3-4] . . . Most have departed from right words, and rather
choose the evil, than desire the good. This, therefore, is the falling away,
and the enemy is soon to be looked for. (Catechetical
Lectures 15.9)[xxv]
Theodoret, bishop of
Cyrus (died ca. A.D. 457), wrote of “the storm tossing the churches” in his
day, writing, “And it intensifies our discouragement to think that these things
are the prelude of the general apostasy. May your piety pray that since we are
in this plight we may get the divine succor, that, as the divine Apostle
phrases it, we may ‘be able to withstand the evil day.’ But if any time remain
for this life’s business, pray that the tempest may pass away, and the churches
recover their former calm, that the enemies of the truth may no more exult at
our misfortunes” (Letter 63).[xxvi]
In a letter to John,
Bishop of Germanicia, Theodoret wrote, “About the present state of affairs, it
is impossible to entertain any good hope. I apprehend that this is the
beginning of the general apostasy. For when we see that those who lament what
was done as they say, by violence, at Ephesus, show no signs of repentance, but
abide by their unlawful deeds and are building up a superstructure at once of
injustice and of impiety; when we see that the rest take no concerted action to
deny their deeds and do not refuse to hold communion with men who abide by
their unlawful action, what hope of good is it possible for us to entertain?”
(Letter 147).[xxvii]
Another of the Church
Fathers who was concerned about the course of apostasy (heresy) in his time was
Gregory, bishop of Nyssa (died ca. A.D. 385), who wrote that “in speculative
enquiry fallacies readily find place. But where speculation is entirely at
rest, the necessity of error is precluded. And that this is a true account of
the case, may be seen if we consider how it is that heresies in the churches
have wandered off into many and various opinions in regard to God, men
deceiving themselves as they are swayed by one mental impulse or another; and
how these very men with whom our treatise is concerned have slipped into such a
pit of profanity.” (Answer to Eunomius’
Second Book).[xxviii]
St. Basil (ca. A.D.
329-379), writing to the people of Chalcis, expressed concern over the turmoil
that had overtaken the eastern churches and was now encroaching on other areas
(Letter 222).[xxix]
When Barses, bishop of Edessa (in Syria) had been exiled to Egypt by the
emperor Valens, the “shepherd” being replaced by “a wolf,”[xxx]
Basil wrote to Barses, expressing concern over the situation in the church,
hoping for the best “unless indeed the apostasy is now nigh at hand, and the
events that have lately happened are the beginnings of the approach of
Antichrist” (Letter 264).[xxxi]
In his Letter 243.3, addressed to the Bishops of Italy and Gaul, Basil wrote:
But at the
present time we are alarmed, lest the mischief growing day by days like a flame
spreading through some burning wood, when it has consumed what is close at hand,
may catch distant objects too. The plague of heresy is spreading, and there is
ground of apprehension lest, when it has devoured our Churches, it may
afterwards creep on even so far as to the sound portion of your district.
Peradventure it is because with us iniquity has abounded that we have been
first delivered to be devoured by the cruel teeth of the enemies of God. But
the gospel of the kingdom began in our regions, and then went forth over all
the world. So, peradventure — and this is most probable — the common enemy of
our souls, is striving to bring it about that the seeds of apostasy,
originating in the same quarter, should be distributed throughout the world.
For the darkness of impiety plots to come upon the very hearts whereon the
“light of the knowledge” of Christ has shone.[xxxii]
Basil’s contemporary, St.
Jerome (died A.D. 420), cited portions of the two epistles of Peter and noted,
“I . . . have merely shown that the Holy Spirit in prophecy foretold the
teachers of this time and their heresy. Lastly, he more clearly denotes them,
saying, ‘In the last days seducing mockers shall come, walking after their own
lusts’” (Against Jovinianus 1.39).[xxxiii]
Evidently, Jerome considered the “last days” of 2 Peter 3:3 to be in his own
day.
The Martyrdom and Ascension of Isaiah, a Jewish pseudepigraphic text
that was expanded by a Christian hand no later than the fourth century A.D.,
describes the condition of the church prior to the Savior’s second coming:
And afterwards, at his approach, his disciples will abandon the
teaching of the twelve apostles, and their faith, and their love, and their
purity. And there will be much contention at his coming and at his approach.
And in those days (there will be) many who will love office, although lacking
wisdom. And there will be many wicked elders and shepherds who wrong their
sheep [and they will be rapacious because they do not have holy shepherds]. And
many will exchange the glory of the robes of the saints for the robes of those
who love money; and there will be much respect of persons in those days, and
lovers of the glory of this world. And there will be many slanderers and [much]
vainglory at the approach of the Lord, and the Holy Spirit will withdraw from
many. And in those days there will not be many prophets, nor those who speak
reliable words, except one here and there in different places, because of the
spirit of error and of fornication, and of vainglory, and of the love of money,
which there will be among those who are said to be servants of that One, and among
those who receive that One. And among the shepherds and the elders there will
be great hatred towards one another. For there will be great jealousy in the
last days, for everyone will speak whatever pleases him in his own eyes. And
they will make ineffective the prophecy of the prophets who were before me, and
my visions also . . . they will make ineffective, in order that they may speak
what bursts out of their hearts. (Martyrdom
and Ascension of Isaiah 3:21-31)[xxxiv]
Another early Christian
text that provides evidence for an apostasy and restoration is the Testament of the Lord, which was
translated into Syriac in A.D. 687. According to this account, said to have
been taken “From the Book of Clement on the End,”[xxxv]
when Jesus appeared to the apostles after his resurrection he gave additional
signs of the perilous times to come. He declared that
In the nations and in the churches there shall be great tumults.
There shall arise among them wicked pastors, contemptuous, gluttonous, lovers
of pleasures, lovers of riches, impure, lovers of money, garrulous, audacious,
perverse, insolent, voluptuous, vainglorious, withstanding the ways of My
gospel and flying from the narrow gate and rejecting all mortification for
God’s sake, having no sympathy with My Passion, and despising all words of
truth and slandering every God-fearing way, not penitent over their sins . . .
their pastors have heard my precepts and have not kept them, neither have they
taught My laws to the people, but they have become an example of all wickedness
in their own persons . . . But they that shall hope on My name until they end,
they shall live. Then they shall lay down for men precepts not according to My
Will and traditions in which My Father is not well pleased. And my elect shall
be despised and My saints mocked by them, and as unclean they shall be called
in their midst, although they are pure and upright . . . And it shall come to
pass in those days My Father shall gather from the generation pure and faithful
souls, to whom I shall manifest Myself and shall take up My abode with them and
I shall send them a good understanding of knowledge and rectitude and truth,
and they shall not cease praising and confessing their God and My Father that
sent Me, and they shall ever speak the truth and teach those whom My Father has
tried and chosen, who are rightly directed in their hearts towards the kingdom,
and shall make known knowledge and fortitude and intelligence.[xxxvi]
An Ethiopic
text entitled Testament of Our Lord and
Our Savior Jesus Christ also has the resurrected Christ visiting his
apostles to instruct them. Most of the text comprises a discussion of the last
days and of what lies in store for the righteous and the wicked. The Savior
warns his apostles about the Antichrist, who is identified with “the Seducer”
(evidently referring to the devil), saying “the time has come, the harvest is
near, he shall harvest the ones he should . . . and before many he shall
present himself as the Christ, they shall worship him.”[xxxvii]
Christ warns the apostles to beware of the heresies of Simon [Magus] and
Cerinthus, who were leading many astray. At one point, he said, “my judgment
shall come on the bishops and the pastors (or the priests), for they have made
my people err,[xxxviii]
because of the desire for their own pleasure.”[xxxix]
A Syriac
text entitled Revelation of the Twelve
Apostles, has the apostles praying for knowledge about the difficult times
that lay ahead. Simon Kepha (Peter) received a vision of the future and
explained to his fellow apostles,
I received the Spirit in abundance; and I saw the time that is to be
after us, full of offenses and evils and sins and lying: and the man in that
[time] will be crafty, perverse and depraved, men that know not God, and
understand not the truth; but a few of them shall understand their God . . .
And after a time they will seek to perform miracles, in the name of our Lord
Jesus, and they will not be able, because of their little faith; and they call
and are not heard, because they do not call on him with all their hearts. But
those who are separated from them, few in number, ask and are heard because
their hearts speak the truth and know God, and understand his beloved Son, and
do not deny the Spirit. And in this way they perform signs and great works of
power; and these also in their wealth and in their faith are not suffered to
live . . . and for the name of our Lord they shall be judged and beaten . . .
and after these things shall have happened, the faith shall fail from the earth
and orthodoxy shall come to an end: and those who are named as being baptised
in our Lord and as confessing his name, shall be more miserable than all men;
and they shall trample on the faith and talk perversely and they shall divide
our Lord; and in that time there shall be reckoned many teachers, as the Spirit
of the Father does not speak in them, and they shall divide our Lord; and the
father of lies and the calumniator, that is, Satan, shall enter into them and
disturb their minds; and their faith shall fail and it will come to pass that
when they rise up and tear it, and when every man in his place will say that I
am superior in the fear of God, and I confess him more correctly, that they
shall seek our Lord and shall not find him, and they will call to him and he
will not answer them.[xl]
This passage is
reminiscent of Nephi’s vision of the results of the apostasy, in which he
wrote,
For it shall come to pass in that day that the churches which are
built up, and not unto the Lord, when the one shall say unto the other: Behold,
I, I am the Lord's; and the others shall say: I, I am the Lord's; and thus
shall every one say that hath built up churches, and not unto the Lord—And they
shall contend one with another; and their priests shall contend one with another,
and they shall teach with their learning, and deny the Holy Ghost, which giveth
utterance. (2 Nephi 28:3-4)
The revelation of Peter
continues by noting that in the end “the Lofty One talks with them; and from
before him judgment shall go forth, and they shall bring upon them all these
evils, and they will light upon them, until they shall return and become one
true flock and one holy church, and they shall confess our Lord according as we
received from him, and according as we believed in the Son the Life-Giver and
Saviour of the World; and after this will be a flock and a church and a
baptism, true and one.”[xli]
Nephi, too, foresaw the time when there would be “one fold and one shepherd” (1
Nephi 22:25), which he also called “the true fold of God” (1 Nephi 15:15) and
“the true church and fold of God” (2 Nephi 9:2).
The apostasy is also
described in the Nag Hammadi document known as the Apocalypse of Peter. According to this text, the resurrected Christ
appeared to the apostles and allowed Peter to see a vision, which Jesus
explained to him. Peter saw “the priests and the people running up to us with
stones, as if they would kill us; and I was afraid that we were going to die” (Apocalypse of Peter VII, 72.5-9). Jesus
explained that the people he saw were “blind ones who have no guide” (Apocalypse of Peter VII, 72.10-13).[xlii]
The Savior then told Peter to listen to what the people were saying and the
apostle realized that they were praising Christ (Apocalypse of Peter VII, 72.29-73.10). Jesus explained that “many
will accept our teaching in the beginning. And they will turn from them again
by the will of the Father of their error [i.e., the devil], because they have
done what he wanted” (Apocalypse of Peter
VII, 73.23-28).[xliii]
He added,
And the guileless, good, pure one they push to the worker of death,
and to the kingdom of those who praise Christ in a restoration. And they praise
the men of the propagation of falsehood, those who will come after you. And
they will cleave to the name of a dead man [Christ on the cross rather than the
living Christ, as he subsequently explains], thinking that they will become
pure. But they will become greatly defiled and they will fall into a name of
error, and into the hand of an evil, cunning man and a manifold dogma, and they
will be ruled heretically. For some of them will blaspheme the truth and
proclaim evil teaching. (Apocalypse of
Peter VII, 74.4-22)[xliv]
In the passages that
follow, Christ again alluded to the coming apostasy, saying that “many others,
who oppose the truth and are the messengers of error, will set up their error
and their law against these pure thoughts of mine . . . They do business in my
word” (Apocalypse of Peter VII,
77.22-78.1).[xlv]
“The kindred race of the sisterhood will appear as an imitation” (Apocalypse of Peter VII, 79.8-10).[xlvi]
“And there shall be others of those who are outside our number who name
themselves bishop and also deacons, as if they have received their authority
from God. They bend themselves under the judgment of the leaders. Those people
are dry canals” (Apocalypse of Peter
VII, 79.22-31).[xlvii]
Hearing this, Peter was concerned about the generations to come, whom he termed
“little ones”:
But I said, “I am afraid because of what you have told me, that
indeed little (ones) are, in our view, the counterfeit ones, indeed that there
are multitudes that will mislead other multitudes of living ones, and destroy
them among themselves. And when they speak your name they will be believed.”
The Savior said, “For a time determined for them in proportion to their error
they will rule over the little ones. And after the completion of the error, the
never-aging one of the immortal understanding shall become young, and they (the
little ones) shall rule over those who are their rulers. The root of their
error he shall pluck out, and he shall put it to shame so that it shall be
manifest in all the impudence which it has assumed to itself.” (Apocalypse of Peter VII, 79.32-80.21)[xlviii]
The rooting out of error
hints at a restoration of truth in later times.
[i] Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, eds., The Ante-Nicene Fathers, 1:56.
[ii] Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, eds., Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers Second Series, 1:164. The quote at
the end of the passage is from 1 Timothy 6:20.
[iii] Ibid., 1:199.
[iv] Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, eds., The Ante-Nicene Fathers, 1:68.
[v] Ibid., 1:82.
[vi] Ibid., 1:54.
[vii] Ibid., 1:110.
[viii] Ibid., 7:382.
[ix] Ibid., 7:381.
[x] Ibid., 3:160, 168.
[xi] Ibid., 7:353.
[xii] Montague Rhodes James, The
Apocryphal New Testament (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1955), 503.
[xiii] Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, eds., The Ante-Nicene Fathers, 1:5-6.
[xiv] Ibid., 1:17.
[xv] Ibid., 1:18.
[xvi] Ibid.
[xvii] Ibid., 1:61.
[xviii] Ibid., 5:399
[xix] Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, eds., The Ante-Nicene Fathers, 2:554.
[xx] Ibid., The Ante-Nicene
Fathers, 1:221.
[xxi] Gregory Dix and Henry Chadwick, eds., Hippolytus, The Apostolic Tradition (Ridgefield CT: Morehouse,
1991), 2.
[xxii] Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, eds., The Ante-Nicene Fathers, 3:258.
[xxiii] Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, eds., Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers Second Series, 1:202.
[xxiv] Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, eds., The Ante-Nicene Fathers,
8:765.
[xxv] Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, eds., Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers Second Series, 7:106-7. The “itching
ears” reference is from 2 Timothy 4:3-4.
[xxvi] Ibid., 3:268-9.
[xxvii] Ibid., 3:323.
[xxviii] Ibid., 5:260.
[xxix] Ibid., 8:261-2.
[xxx] Theodoret, Ecclesiastical
History 14-15; ibid., 3:79-80.
[xxxi] Ibid., 8:303.
[xxxii] Ibid., 8:284.
[xxxiii] Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, eds., Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, 6:378.
[xxxiv] James H. Charlesworth, ed., The
Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (Garden City: Doubleday, 1985), 2:161.
[xxxv] J. P. Arendzen, “A New Syriac Text of the Apocalyptic Part of the
‘Testament of the Lord’,” The Journal of
Theological Studies 2 (1900): 405.
[xxxvi] Ibid., 407-409.
[xxxvii] Louis Guerrier, “Le Testament en Galilée de Notre-Seugneur
Jesus-Christ,” in Patrologia Orientalis
(Paris: Firmin-Didot, 1913), 9/3: 183, English translation by John A. Tvedtnes.
The author of the text seems to have had in mind Paul’s prophecy in 2 Thessalonians
2, discussed above.
[xxxviii] Cf. Isaiah 3:12 and especially Jeremiah 23:13, 32; Micah 3:5.
[xxxix] Louis Guerrier, “Le Testament en Galilée de Notre-Seugneur
Jesus-Christ,” 185.
[xl] J. Rendel Harris, The Gospel
of the Twelve Apostles Together with The Apocalypses of Each One of Them
(Cambridge University, 1900), 31-32.
[xli] Ibid., 33.
[xlii] James M. Robinson, ed., The
Nag Hammadi Library, 3rd revised ed. (San Francisco: Harper,
1988), 373.
[xliii] Ibid., 374.
[xliv] Ibid., 374.
[xlv] Ibid., 375.
[xlvi] Ibid., 376.
[xlvii] Ibid., 376.
[xlviii] Ibid., 376.
Further Reading
Errol Amey, "On Origen’s Warning of a Potential Falling Away of the Corporate Church"