Sarah Jane Rich Tobin Miller’s Reminiscence (dated April 13, 1920) of Martin Harris Affirming That He “handled all of the golden plates”

The following is from Sarah Jane Rich Tobin Miller (1839-1926) and was reproduced in Jeremiah Stokes, Modern Miracles (2d ed.; Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1945), 121-23

 

 

Knew the Prophet Joseph Smith as “Uncle Joseph” and Beheld the Mummies From Which the Manuscript of the Book of Abraham Was Translated

 

Author’s Note: Sister Sarah Jane Rich Miller, a sister of the late Mission President, Ben E. Rich, was the eldest child of Apostle Charles C. Rich, friend of the Prophet Joseph Smith and a member of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles under President Brigham Young. I became very well acquainted with Sister Miller during her stay at the Mission Home at Chattanooga, Tenn., during the years of 1905-6, and frequently visited her at her home in Salt Lake City after my release and until her death. Several times she related to me the incidents referred to in her statements below recorded, which I reduced to writing and preserved over her signature. These statements are recorded in this volume because of their historical and faith-building nature.—Author.

 

I am now 81 years old. I was born in Quincy, Ill., four weeks after my mother fled from the mobs in Missouri. My father, Charles C. Rich; Hosea Stout and Samule Smith, the Prophet’s brother, also had fled from the mob several months before mother fled. I was born on March 4, 1839, when she moved to Commerce, afterwards called Nauvoo. We lived in Nauvoo until February of 1846. Mother and father lived on Mulholland Street in Nauvoo. The Prophet Joseph and his brother Hyrum came to father’s house in Nauvoo, very often and we children were taught to call the Prophet “Uncle Joseph.” I remember the Prophet and his brother Hyrum very well as a child. One time mother took me down to visit the Prophet’s mother, and he, the Prophet, invited mother to go in and see the mummies from which the manuscript of the Book of Abraham was taken. We went down in the basement and there we saw the mummies in a box. There were three of them, and all three in one box. The sight of these mummies made an impression upon me which I have never forgotten.

 

The last time I remember seeing the Prophet Joseph Smith was a few days before his martyrdom. I was standing out in the yard in front of father’s house when I saw a number of men riding by on horseback. The Prophet and his brother Hyrum were with them. As the Prophet passed I called out “Uncle Joseph.” He reined up his horse with his left hand and motioned to me with his right hand to come to him. He took hold of my hand and told me to put my foot in his foot, which was in the stirrup, and pulled me up and kissed me and told me to go in the house and be a good girl. I lifted my brother Joseph up that he might too be kissed, and the Prophet and his brother rode away. Two or three days after his incident happened mother told me that the Prophet and his brother had been killed and that a company was going out to meet the bodies, which were being brought to Nauvoo. I stood watching at the window and saw the procession pass. The bodies were in a wagon box covered with green boughs. Father had gone to the Nauvoo mansion, the residence of the Prophet Joseph, to assist in receiving and carrying for the bodies.

 

Another incident of Church history to which I was a witness, was the confession of Martin Harris after he came to Salt Lake City, which I relate as follows:

 

Some time in the early fifties I attended a service in the old tabernacle which stood on the grounds now occupied by the Assembly Hall in the Temple Block. It was on a Sunday afternoon. The building was fairly well filled. President Brigham Young was in attendance. President Young announced that Martin Harris was present and desired to make a few remarks. I was able to hear all that Mr. Harris said. As nearly as I can remember the following is the substance of his remarks:

 

“I desire to make a confession of my mistakes in leaving the Church. I want to be forgiven and be reinstated in the Church. I never have denied by testimony in the Book of Mormon. That is true. I saw and handled all of the golden plates from which the Book of Mormon was transcribed by the Prophet Joseph Smith through the power of God. And I testified to the truth of the Book of Mormon as I was commanded to do by an angel of the Lord. I have never gone back on that testimony. My testimony as one of the three witnesses to the truth of the Book of Mormon is true. I want to return to the Church and be one among the Saints.”

 

Many times in my life, trials have come, but the thought of the testimony of Martin Harris has strengthened me in the Church more than anything else, and I am now eighty-one years of age.

 

Sarah Jane Rich Miller

 

Dated April 13, 1920

 

Witness, Jeremiah Stokes

 

 

Jeremiah Stokes (1877-1954) on Revelation 14:6-7

  

Coming directly to the point of the permanency of the restoration of the Gospel and Priesthood and the organization of the Church, let us now consult the record.

 

But let us preface our compilation of proof with the prophetic testimony of John the Revelator concerning the last days.

 

“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)

 

When it came time for the revelations, given to the Prophet Joseph, to be published, the Lord gave a special revelation on this matter. This divine counsel came to the prophet on November 1, 1831. In this revelation we find that all that the Lord said points unmistakably to the permanency of the restored Church organization and its mission. (Jeremiah Stokes, Modern Miracles [2d ed.; Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1945], 152-53)

 

The author then quotes texts such as D&C 90:1, 2, 4; 65:2; and Dan 2:34, 35, 44. This indicates that this author believed Rev 14:6-7 had a wider application than the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, such as the indefectibility of the Church in this dispensation.

 

Further Reading:

 

Defending the Latter-day Saint Interpretation of Revelation 14:6-7

Donato Ogliari on Augustine's Theology of Predestination and the Fate of Baptized and Unbaptized Infants

  

Two Examples of Gratuitous Predestination: The Baptized Infants and Jesus Christ

 

There are two examples, above all, which illustrate the mystery of predestination: one is the case of infants and the other Christ the Mediator. In both cases, merits play no part: they play no part in the case of baptized infants set apart through no merits of their own (nor in the case of unbaptized infants who are condemned at death, though obviously not because of demerit or actual sins). Neither does it play a part in the case of Christ who, being simultaneously God and man, could not be regarded as Mediator and Saviour of humanity simply on account of his possible merits.

 

The problem of infants is dealt with in accordance with the doctrine of original sin. If some infants die after baptismal regeneration, this should be attributed exclusively to the merciful grace of God. He it is who has saved them from the eternal damnation. On the other hand, if some infants die without baptismal regeneration and are not saved, this is not due, as the Massilians would hold, to the futura merita mala, which, of course, would never happen (futura quae non sunt futura), but to original sin, the birthright of every human being born into this world, and from which these children have not been delivered. For Augustine it was absolutely clear that the reason for God’s just judgement regarding those infants dying before baptism? rested on the reality of original sin and not on the futura merita mala. Moreover, Augustine could not accept, and found it absurdum, that the futura merita mala could only be the object of God’s punishment and not of his mercy. Thus, it would be really nonsensical to establish, between these two categories of infants (those who die with baptism and those who die without it) a discrimination based on a foreknowledge of future merits that would never happen. Augustine also uses the quotation of Wis 4,11 (Raptus est, ne malitia mutaret intellectum eius) to confirm through Scripture (and with the support of Cyprian’s interpretation of the same passage) that an early death removes the believer from the possibility of sin and that this is ultimately beneficial. In fact Augustine infers that early death would be of little advantage to the believer if God were to judge on the basis of how a life might have been lived, rather than on the performance of a life already lived. In the light of the futura merita mala, instead, an early death would be completely useless, because its “prevenient” goal would be lost. (Donato Ogliari, Gratia Et Certamen: The Relationship Between Grace and Free Will in the Discussion of Augustine with the So-Called Semipelagians [Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium 169; Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2003], 162-65)

 

Donato Ogliari on Augustine's Struggle to Reconcile His Theology of Predestination with 1 Timothy 2:4

  

Augustine is now faced with the problem of harmonizing his conclusions with the call to universal salvation, as expressed in the words of the Apostle: [Deus] uult omnes homines saluos fieri (1Tm 2,4). Having said that there are many ways of interpreting this passage, Augustine makes a shift from the general understanding of the principle concerning God’s desire for man’s salvation to a more restricted interpretation of it. He clearly states that the term omnes must not be understood as referring to “all men”, but to “all the predestined”. Augustine’s peculiar understanding of the word omnes acquires a different semantic meaning in this particular context: a context which only applies to those who have been mis-á-part by God’s mysterious and inscrutable design. In other words, Augustine bends the objective meaning of 1 Tm 2,4 to safeguard his personal theological view. A further confirmation of the change of perspective in the interpretation of this Pauline passage is the bishop of Hippo’s contention that God allows us to will what He himself wills, in the same way that He sends the Spirit which makes us cry: “Abba! Father” (cf Rom 8,15). Precisely as the Spirit cries in and through us, so God, in willing the salvation of all mankind, makes mankind desirous of it. (Donato Ogliari, Gratia Et Certamen: The Relationship Between Grace and Free Will in the Discussion of Augustine with the So-Called Semipelagians [Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium 169; Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2003], 87-88)

 

 

The Problem of Universal Salvation: The Interpretation of 1 Tim 2,4

 

Augustine’s belief that man’s merits and adhesion to God are themselves the result of God’s operative grace called for a new insight into the mode by which divine grace is dispensed to humanity, and about the actual extent of man’s commitment. The depiction of God’s sovereign and absolute grace, acting at the core of Christian faith and life, drove Augustine to a stern but (within his theological system) logical conclusion about a restricted dispensation of grace. In his eyes, this was supported by the undeniable fact that a portion of humanity was not reached by the benefits of divine grace; for instance, the heathens who have not heard the preaching of the Gospel, or have refused it, and the infants who die before receiving the baptismal regeneration. Besides, concepts such as massa damnata and certus numerus electorum makes it even more difficult to imagine how Augustine could still believe in a divine will oriented towards the salvation of all mankind. If God has sent his only Son into the world, so that the world might find salvation through him (cf. Jn 3,17), how is it that He allows so many to perish by withholding the means (the gift of faith and final perseverance) by which they would find salvation and glory? Does not such a restriction do away with the doctrine of universal salvation? Since the soteriological perspective is all-embracing, it is obvious that such questions are not peripheral to Christian faith and theology, and it is therefore important to see how the bishop of Hippo faced the resulting challenges, and what solutions he suggested.

 

To begin with, we may look at a biblical passage which Augustine used quite often, particularly during the Pelagian controversy: Si unus pro omnibus mortuus est, ergo omnes mortui sunt (2 Cor 5,14). As it appears from the context, this passage was not only quoted to support his theological argument about the physical and spiritual “death” caused by original sin (a death which all those who come into the world experience), but also to stress the universality of Christ’s redemption, intrinsically related to the universality of original sin. In harmony with this Pauline quotation, Augustine assumes that it is precisely on account of the universality of redemption that the universality of original sin must be posited. The Son of God came into the world and took up human flesh with no other goal than that of enlightening, delivering and saving all men who are under the shadow of death (cf. Lc 1,79). That is why he died on the cross for all, no one excluded. Yet, even though Augustine would have wished to dwell without reserve on the concept of universal salvation, his mind eventually took him elsewhere. It is no doubt true that Christ shed his blood for everybody but, would affirm Augustine, super alios perdendos, super alios mundandos: super perdendos iustus, super mundandos misericors. Overwhelmed by the task of defending his doctrine of sovereign and gratuitous grace, he failed to integrate the concept that, for God, there are no boundaries or limits to the salvation of humanity. This is evident from the different amount of consideration that the two issues of Christ’s Redemption and Adam’s fall receive respectively, and above all from Augustine’s peculiar interpretation of a classical scriptural locus in which the claim of God’s universal salvation is clearly stated: Deus omnes homines vult salvos fieri (1 Tim 2,4).

 

If we turn to the context of this affirmation, we shall realize that Paul is talking about the duty of Christians to pray for all men, since all men are the object of God’s salvific will. Proclaimed over against the Gnostic claim that salvation can only be reached through gnosis, this principle strongly indicates that salvation depends rather on God’s salvific will, that will which has become effective through the incarnation of Christ “who gave himself as a ransom for all” (1 Tim 2,6). Believers are called to proclaim this universal salvific will of God, and freely to co-operate with it, making salvation the motive of their life and actions. The Greek Fathers were of course in a position to understand Paul correctly. Reading 1 Tim 2,4 (Θεὸς ὅς πάντας ἀνθρώπους θέλει σωθῆναι) literally, they would interpret it instinctively in a nuanced way, made possible by the flexibility of the Greek language. There are in fact two Greek verbs to indicate the action of willing. The first, θέλω, points to a firm desire, whereas the second, βούλομαι, expresses the decision to bring to effect that which has been desired. The application of this nuance to God’s universal salvific will makes it possible to posit in God an “antecedent” will (viz. that all men be saved), as well as a “consequent” will, by which He brings into effect his decision, taking account of man’s own will, choices and actions. God wants all men to be saved, but this will of his shall not become effective if they refuse to respond positively and co-operate with him. The same interpretation, resting on the possibility for man to refuse salvation, can be found also in some Latin Christian writers.

 

Augustine, by contrast, interpreted the Latin verb uelle as referring exclusively to God’s absolute will (cf. Ps 113,11: Omnia quaecumque uoluit, fecit), and opted for a univocal solution. Rather than trying to understand the meaning of Paul’s statement about God’s universal salvific will, he was at pains to reconcile the Apostle’s words with his conviction that the salvation brought about by Jesus Christ does not reach all humanity, as is proved by infants and heathens/pagans who die without baptismal regeneration. This standpoint of the bishop of Hippo does not take us by surprise, of course, for it was the logical outcome of his doctrine of the absolute sovereignty and gratuity of divine grace. Once the extreme consequences were applied (viz. the concept of a restricted predestination and election) and regarded as decisive in order to save God’s justice and the gratuitousness of his gifts, Augustine found himself in the awkward predicament of being forced to modify the literal interpretation of 1 Tim 2,4 so that it could fit in with his predestinarian view. So he sacrificed the more traditional exegesis of 1 Tim 2,4 and chose to interpret it quite flexibly in order to accommodate it to his view of a restricted dispensation of grace.

 

Once again, the watershed in Augustine’s approach to the issue of universal salvation is the personal “revelation” experienced in dealing with God’s grace and election in his De diuersis quaestionibus ad Simplicianum, when he was enlightened over the meaning of 1 Cor 4,7. Before this work, 1 Tim 2,4 did not present any difficulty. As to its interpretation Augustine aligned himself with the traditional understanding. Thus, in his Expositio quarundam propositionum ex epistula ad Romanos, where he points to the necessity for Christians to be conscientiously subject to legal authority (cf. Rom 13,5) by referring to the words of 1 Tim 2,4, he states that God wants all men to be saved, even those who hold authority or are in a high position, and who may act against the interests of the Christians. What Augustine ultimately stresses is that God’s salvific will might not always be efficacious because of a deficit in man’s co-operation. God wishes, as it were, to save man through man. But the ill will or the bad conscience of the latter may jeopardize God’s wish to save everybody.

 

Augustine’s exegesis of 1 Tim 2,4 underwent a significant change in his works written after the De diuersis quaestionibus ad Simplicianum, namely after the bishop of Hippo had made up his mind about a de facto non-universal salvific will on the part of God. In the De spiritu et littera (412), for instance, the Pauline quotation is recalled against the background of the origin of the uoluntas credendi. If, argues Augustine, this originates from human nature (of which God is the creator), how is it that not everybody is endowed with it? And if it is a gift of God, why is it not offered to all, since He wants all men to be saved? Although the immediate aim of the bishop of Hippo is to counteract the Pelagian emphasis on liberum arbitrium, his reference to 1 Tim 2,4 is introduced to ask if God’s will to save all men does not eliminate human free will. The emphasis is on the efficacy of grace, on which God’s salvific will ultimately depends.

 

A letter to Paulinus of Nola (ca. 414) shows a further shift in the interpretation of 1 Tim 2,4. There Augustine was confronted with a precise question from his fellow bishop: if God wants to save all men, why – asks Paulinus – according to Rom 11,28, was the enmity of the Jews towards the gospel of Jesus responsible for the Gentiles’ coming to faith? Did not God have the power to bring to faith both Jews and Gentiles? In answering this question Augustine introduces an important distinction. By a rhetorical device he affirms that God’s call to become members of Christ is addressed to people ex omni genere hominum, viz. to people “representing” all human races. The fact that such call is not addressed to all men (omnibus hominibus) is indicative of his conviction that not all men are called to become members of Christ, and that not all are saved through him, although no one is excluded from this initial perspective. It is clear that, rather than the universality of salvation, it is the role of Christ’s mediation that he emphasizes, a mediation which reaches out to some people from all races, but not to all people from all races.

 

In the Contra Iulianum (420/421), 1 Tim 2,4 is referred to in the context of the initiative of salvation which, according to Julian, must be ascribed to man, whereas according to Augustine it belongs to God. In order to counter Julian’s viewpoint the bishop of Hippo emphasizes the expression Deus uult, rather than the word omnes. Since God’s will is absolute and does not depend on man’s initiative (which is in fact forestalled by divine grace), the word omnes must be understood as meaning multi, namely all those who are going to be actually saved by God’s mercy. The omnes of 1 Tim 2,4 as well as the omnes of Rom 5,18 (Per unius iustificationem in omnes homines ad iustificationem uitae) are thus understood in a restricted manner. The point at stake is that any initiative in the direction of salvation belongs to God’s absolute will, whose fulfilment, for Augustine, is certain, and cannot be frustrated by man’s free will. Once again, this change of exegesis was supported by Augustine’s conviction that not all men are saved, a conviction which was corroborated by the specific case of heathens/pagans who do not embrace Christian faith, and of infants who die before being baptized. It is evident, however, that, rather than trying to interpret 1 Tim 2,4 objectively, Augustine was preoccupied by opposing Julian’s view with his own staunch belief about the absolute gratuity of grace.

 

The explanation developed in the Enchiridion ad Laurentium (421/422) deserves special attention because it represents Augustine’s mature solution to the problem of God’s universal salvific will. Here too, rather than explaining 1 Tim 2,4 according to Paul’s intention, he is more preoccupied by saving the absolute transcendence and infallibility of God’s plans within the framework of sovereign grace. The fact that not all men are actually saved cannot simply be ascribed to the ill will of those who refuse to be saved. If it were so, it would mean that God’s will were deficient, and that it could be easily jeopardized by man’s free will. God’s will, on the contrary, is certa et immutabilis et efficacissima.

 

Thus, argues Augustine, salvation depends exclusively on God, both with regard to children (who, lacking the use of free will, could not possibly choose salvation) and to adults (whose will to be saved is prepared by God himself: Praeparatur uoluntas a Deo: Pr 8,35, LXX). Against the traditional understanding that God wants to save all men if they, in their turn, want to be saved, Augustine interprets 1 Tim 2,4 in two ways. Firstly, he emphasizes the verb uult, in connection with the necessity for prayer, in order to affirm that God saves those He wants to save. This does not mean, continues Augustine subtly, that there is nobody whom God does not want to save, but that there are no men who could possibly be saved other than those whom God wants to save. Secondly, he stresses the term omnes, interpreting it, once again, according to the restricted meaning of omne hominum genus, by which he meant that God chooses his elect among all races and from different conditions of life.

 

As in the above works, so also in the De correptione et gratia Augustine keeps himself at a distance from the natural and obvious sense of 1 Tim 2,4, and interprets the term omnes as all those who have been predestined, and who, as such, represent all mankind. The same idea is taken up in the De praedestinatione sanctorum where, once again, Augustine does not deny the principle of God’s universal salvific will, but restricts it in its actual realization. Remembering Jn 6,45 (Omnis qui audiuit a Patre et didicit, uenit ad me), he gives the following example: “Just as, then, we speak correctly when we say of some teacher of literature who is the only one in a city, ‘This person teaches literature to everyone here’, not because everyone learns, but because no one of those who learn literature learns it except from him, so we say correctly, ‘God teaches everyone to come to Christ’, not because everyone comes to him, but because no one comes to him in any other way (non quia omnes ueniunt, sed quia nemo aliter uenit)”. Finally, in the De dono perseverantiae the issue of God’s universal salvation is not tackled by an exegesis of 1 Tim 2,4, but it takes the form (sub contrario) of the following question: Cur non omnibus detur Dei gratia?

 

There is no doubt that this variety of restricted interpretations given to 1 Tim 2,4, which are unacceptable from an exegetical point of view, respond to the theologian’s (and not the exegete’s) preoccupation of safeguarding the omnipotence of God in the framework of the doctrine of absolute grace and predestination. Only from this perspective can we fully understand (but not justify) Augustine’s position. The lack of one definitive interpretation remains, in fact, an indication of his uneasiness to reconcile the traditional (literal) meaning of 1 Tim 2,4 with his own theological doctrine of sovereign grace and predestination. It was, above all, an attempt to lay the foundation of his belief that 1 Tim 2,4 could not possibly contain the affirmation that God wants all men to be saved by an absolute will. If that were the case, then all men would be certainly saved, but since in reality many find themselves otherwise (e.g., the unbaptized children and the heathens), Augustine concludes, it means that de facto God’s grace of salvation is not offered to all. The chief methodological fault in Augustine’s approach is that he moves from the level of a general, metaphysical principle, viz. God’s universal salvific will, to the pragmatic level of its realization in history, at least in the way he “imagines” that God’s salvific will happens concretely. For Augustine, in fact, it is a perspicua ueritas that only the predestined are saved. (Donato Ogliari, Gratia Et Certamen: The Relationship Between Grace and Free Will in the Discussion of Augustine with the So-Called Semipelagians [Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium 169; Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2003], 357-66)

 

Gary K. Waite on 16th-century Spiritualists and the Rejection of the Devil as an External Supernatural Being

  

Spiritualists and the Devil

 

After Münster, Dutch and German Anabaptists on the whole turned away from physical fulfillment of biblical prophecy to an emphasis on creating the godly community of faith based on the Gospels, as in the case of Menno Simons (1496–1561), or by turning to an interiorized faith wherein external confessions and rituals were of little import. This inner turn especially had a profound impact on beliefs about the Devil. Faced by severe persecution, some Anabaptists adopted an approach to religious identity known as spiritualism, which taught that only one’s inner beliefs mattered and that external religious forms and confessions were inconsequential. Some of them extended that internalization to the Devil.

 

The most controversial proponent of an entirely internalized Satan was the glass painter and Anabaptist David Joris (1501–56). Inspired in 1536 by visions convincing him that he would be revealed on Christmas Day 1538 as the next messianic king after Münster, Joris’s hopes were dashed when in late 1538 the authorities cracked down on his movement, forcing him to flee to Antwerp. Here he abandoned physical fulfillment of scriptural prophecy and began reshaping his propensity for mystical interpretation of Scripture into a full-blown spiritualism. Around 1540 he began publishing works arguing that neither demons nor angels had any independent existence outside of the individual person. His language at times could imply an external reality, but his central assertion was that demons “are nothing, without any ability of their own, outside of humanity.… People are an enemy and devil to themselves, they have to guard themselves from no one more than from themselves.”

 

No Latinist, it is unlikely that Joris had encountered Pompanazzi’s denial of demons. He may, however, have first come across the idea of restricting the Devil to the inner voice of evil from a fellow spiritualist, Clemens Ziegler of Strasbourg (1480–1535), for in 1538 Joris travelled there to meet with Hoffman’s followers. Among Ziegler’s surviving manuscripts predating Joris’s visit is one entitled “Of the Salvation of all Men’s Souls,” in which Ziegler argues that the Devil was “nothing more than the inclination to sin.” The internalizing motif of the drama of the Chambers of Rhetoric may have also shaped Joris’s unorthodox idea, for Joris composed songs and dialogues in their style. In their serious plays, rhetoricians transformed the character of the Devil into individual Vices, disposing Dutch viewers to imagine Satan as something other than a real external being. It was, however, Joris who first explicitly published the idea of an internalized Devil in a tract called Behold, the Book of Life is Opened to Me, printed about 1540. From that time, the idea was attached to him, so that some labelled Joris the “Devil of Delft” on the principle that only someone inspired by Satan would deny his existence. While many Dutch writers condemned such theology as a form of atheism, others found Joris’s idea attractive; one printer saw its value when he reissued Joris’s booklet during the height of the witch hunts as A Brief and Instructive Tract: wherein is treated what the word Devil means. Reformed and Catholic polemicists assumed that Joris’s demonology could be discredited simply by revealing that its author was a notoriously disgraced Anabaptist prophet with a reputation for sexual immorality. This, however, proved not to be the case. Instead, Joris’s idea sparked a major debate among Dutch writers that contributed to the relative skepticism toward diabolical witchcraft in the Northern Netherlands where spiritualism proved an immensely popular approach to religious identity and diversity. (Gary K. Waite, “The Devil in the Reformations,” in A Companion to the Devil and Demons, c. 1100-1750, ed. Kathryn A. Edwards [Brill’s Companions to the Christian Tradition 111; Leiden: Brill, 2025], 133-34)

 

Joshua D. Garroway on the Use of the term "Gospel" in Antiquity

  

GOSPEL BCE

 

In Greek sources prior to the rise of Christianity, the rare occurrences of εὐαγγελ- terminology describe activity related to a εὐαγγέλος, a messenger bearing news— sometimes “good” (εὐ- ) news, but not necessarily (Bultmann 2007; Dickson 2005; Friedrich 1964; Koester 1990). The verb εὐαγγελίζομαι describes the act of proclaiming the messenger’s tidings; the noun εὐαγγέλιον refers either to the news itself or to the reward the messenger receives. The message often has to do with military success. Plutarch (Sert.11.4), for example, speaks of Quintus Sertorius’s peculiar habit of parading a garlanded doe before his troops upon hearing the good news of a triumph, while elsewhere (Glor. Ath. 3 [347D]) he remarks on the Spartan custom of providing meat to the man who brings news of victory from the battlefield. The translators of the Septuagint deploy the term similarly when rendering the Hebrew root בשר in the Former Prophets. The Amalekite hopes for a reward ( בשרה / εὐαγγελία) when reporting the good news ( מבשר / εὐαγγελιζόμενης) of Saul’s death to David (2 Sam 4:10; 18:22), while Jonathan, son of Abiathar, ironically brings the good news ( מבשר / εὐαγγέλισαι) of Solomon’s anointing to Adonijah’s feast (1 Kgs 1:42).

 

The distribution of the εὐαγγελ- root in non- Christian Greek is noteworthy. Among the nouns, the plural εὐαγγέλια outnumbers the singular. The singular, neuter noun occurs but seven times in non- Christian Greek. Even more remarkably, all but one of those occurrences lack the definite article; the lone example of the singular, articular noun comes in Plutarch’s account of a messenger sent by Demetrius bearing news of a victory at Cyprus (Demetr. 17.5). Plutarch composed Parallel Lives in the first two decades of the second century, which means that the singular, articular, neuter noun may not even have existed when the earliest Christian author whose work survives today, Paul, used it a whopping forty- three times in his uncontested epistles. (Joshua D. Garroway, “Gospel,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Synoptic Gospels, ed. Stephen P. Ahearne-Kroll [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023], 452)

 

Ignacio Ramos-Gay on the Golden Calf in Exodus 32 being a Representation of Yahweh (not a pedestal)

  

The most obvious statement of Moses’ shift toward a feminized masculinity is the masculine symbol of the theomorphic idol. Bailey states that animals were often used in the ancient Middle East as substitutes for divinity: “they embody the attributes of the deity (his beauty, strength, bravery, speed), and as such, their image could be directly worshipped in connection with his cult” (1971, p. 101). In his diachronic/anthropological tracking of bull symbols in ancient cultures, Conrad demonstrates how the bull is inevitably, in all of them, a divine symbol of fertility and strength that crystalizes “the paramount of masculine values” (1959, p. 9). Whether it be Enlil in Mesopotamia, Indra in Hindu culture, Hap or Apis in Egypt, or Baal in Levant, among many other epiphanic divinities, the bull is the most primitive symbol of masculinity in antiquity, assumed as a religious and political referent. More specifically, biblical historiography (Janzen 1990; Perdue 1973; Sasson 1968) has detected the parallelism between the bull created by Aaron and the worship of Baal, along with the Mesopotamian god of the moon, Sin. De Laet and Walker note that bull cults in antiquity were “incarnations of the masculine principle.” Through its cult, the bull became “a divine animal, [a] personification of the great male principle which rules the universe,” incarnating “the supreme god, the sun-god, creator of all things and dispenser of all benefits” (1981, p. 110). Gurina uses Carrigan’s terminology in stating that bulls “are the symbolic representatives of hegemonic masculinity” (2016, p. 87). Despite the fact that due to the richness and widespread nature of bull deities, it is risky to limit the golden calf of Exodus to a single theriomorphic idol (Janzen 1990, p. 597), the bull is undeniably synonymous with procreation, generation, strength, and fear, and it is perceived as such in a referential manner by the people of Israel.

 

By virtue of its power as a masculine symbol, the physical presence of the bull displaces Moses, substituting and overshadowing him. The golden calf comes to visually materialize the process of emasculation and feminization of the prophet initiated during his direct interaction with divinity. The privilege of speaking intimately with Yahweh brings with it bodily marks—“congress with God changes you” (Koosed 2014, p. 416)—that precipitate the prophet’s loss of masculinity. Regardless of his linguistic decline (Exodus 4:10) or his skin disease (Exodus 4:6–7), the honor of being the direct interlocutor with God entails a series of bodily mutations in Moses that, beyond the physical, affect and mold his gender, excluding him from the traditional norms of hegemonic masculinity. After his second face-to-face dialog with Yahweh, Moses returns to the mountain graced with a radiant face that must be covered with a veil (Exodus 34:29–35). Although, as indicated by Britt (2004, p. 114–15), it would be simplistic to interpret the presence of the veil as an exclusively female accessory in ancient Middle Eastern cultures given that men—essentially priests or warriors—used it as much as women did, the feminizing connotations derived from it are no less significant. The veil feminizes Moses because it is the marker of his conversation with the sublime male. It is not my objective here to address the male conceptualization of God in the Hebrew Bible from his characterization as a powerful warrior, political patriarch, and persuasive orator. These notions have already been addressed through the lens of psychoanalytics (Eilberg- Schwartz 1994) and translation (Poythress and Grudem 2000) and refuted by critics such as DiPalma (2010) or Moore (1996), who see in Him signs of His androgyny or the impossibility of ascribing to Him a particular gender. Taking as a reference point a male god, His figure is yoked to a kind of supreme father whose presence undermines the masculine foundations of His interlocutors. As Eilberg-Schwartz puts it, “when a man confronts a male God, he is put into the female position so as to be intimate with God. . . . When Israelite men had to face God, their masculinity was made uncertain” (1994, p. 137–38). (Ignacio Ramos-Gay, “Animality and Biblical Masculinity in Conflict: Moses and the Golden Calf (Exodus 32),” Men and Masculinity 23, no. 5 [2020]: 820-21)