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)
