In an attempt to claim that Latter-day Saints abuse sources, Matthew A. Paulson
wrote the following about some LDS appealing to the work of Johannes Mosheim:
LDS First Counselor
in the First Presidency Harold B. Lee states: “As did Truly, as has been
written by the noted historian Dr. Johann Mosheim, an authority on early
Christian church history: ‘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’” (“Plain
and Precious Things,” Ensign, Aug.
1972, p. 2). Lee endorsed this famous historian with an interesting axiom: any
perfect church will be corrupted. Ironically, I must wonder—has it occurred to
Lee to apply Mosheim’s statement to his own “restored” church? Ironically, this
statement serves as an indictment that corruption by a “foreign nature” has
already entered into the LDS Church! To this one fact, we can agree. If Lee
would acknowledge their imperfection of his church, then we stand on common
ground, because I, also, can acknowledge imperfections within the Christian
church.
It is good that Lee
sees the value of Johann Mosheim. He was a 18th century German
Lutheran (1694-1755) called “the father of modern ecclesiastical history.” This
scholar has written about the success of the early Church. Mosheim states, “We
give credence to the many and grave testimonies of the writers of those time,
who cannot be suspected of either fraud of levity, that the successful progress
of Christianity in this [2nd] century was, in a great measure,
attributable to divine interpositions . .. “ (Johann Mosheim, Historical Commentaries on the State of
Christianity During the First Three Hundred and Twenty Five Years From the
Christian Era, [New York, NY: Converse, 1854], pp. 3-4). Mosheim’s view of
the success of the early Christian church is contrary to Mormonism’s supposed
early Christian apostasy. Also, Mosheim also tells how some heretical groups
have tried to deceive the church. He records that “pious frauds found a place among
the causes of the prorogation of Christianity in this [2nd] century,
yet, they unquestionably held a very inferior position, and were employed by
only a few, and with very little, if any success” (Ibid.) (Matthew A. Paulson, Breaking the Mormon Code: A Critique of
Mormon Scholarship Regarding Classic Christian Theology and the Book of Mormon [Livermore,
Calif.: WingSpan Press, 2006, 2009], 130-31)
This only shows the importance of checking sources. Firstly, Lee is not,
as Paulson likes to think, shooting himself in the foot with the Mosheim
quotation. How so? If one reads the article Plain
and Precious Things, one will see Lee explicitly teach the importance of
modern revelation to authenticate the inspiration of the Bible and key
doctrines, something that the second-century church did not have.
Secondly, if one reads Mosheim’s works, at times, he will admit that
various core doctrines of mainstream Christianity were later developments and/or
“inexplicable” (imagine if a Latter-day Saint said something like that about our doctrines!). For instance,
commenting on third century Christianity, Mosheim wrote in another of his
works:
The controversies
relating to the divine Trinity, which took their rise in the former century,
from the introduction of the Grecian philosophy into the christian church, were
now spreading with considerable vigour, and producing various methods of explaining
that inexplicable doctrine. One of the first who engaged in this idle and
perilous attempt of explaining what every mortal must acknowledge to be
incomprehensible, was Noetus of Smyrna, an obscure man, and of mean abilities.
(Ecclesiastical History, Ancient and
Modern [trans. Archibald MacLaine; New York: Evert Duyckinck, 1823] 1:237)
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