Justin Martyr teaching Man having the Free-Will to Choose to be Regenerated and Baptismal Regeneration

The following comes from Justin’s First Apology:

 

Chapter LXI.--Christian baptism.

 

I will also relate the manner in which we dedicated ourselves to God when we had been made new through Christ; lest, if we omit this, we seem to be unfair in the explanation we are making. As many as are persuaded and believe that what we teach and say is true, and undertake to be able to live accordingly, are instructed to pray and to entreat God with fasting, for the remission of their sins that are past, we praying and fasting with them. Then they are brought by us where there is water, and are regenerated in the same manner in which we were ourselves regenerated. For, in the name of God, the Father and Lord of the universe, and of our Saviour Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit, they then receive the washing with water. For Christ also said, "Except ye be born again, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." Now, that it is impossible for those who have once been born to enter into their mothers' wombs, is manifest to all. And how those who have sinned and repent shall escape their sins, is declared by Esaias the prophet, as I wrote above; he thus speaks: "Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from your souls; learn to do well; judge the fatherless, and plead for the widow: and come and let us reason together, saith the Lord. And though your sins be as scarlet, I will make them white like wool; and though they be as crimson, I will make them white as snow. But if ye refuse and rebel, the sword shall devour you: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it."

 

And for this [rite] we have learned from the apostles this reason. Since at our birth we were born without our own knowledge or choice, by our parents coming together, and were brought up in bad habits and wicked training; in order that we may not remain the children of necessity and of ignorance, but may become the children of choice and knowledge, and may obtain in the water the remission of sins formerly committed, there is pronounced over him who chooses to be born again (τῷ ἑλομένῳ ἀναγεννηθῆναι καὶ μετανοήσαντι ἐπὶ τοῖς ἡμαρτημένοις), and has repented of his sins, the name of God the Father and Lord of the universe; he who leads to the laver the person that is to be washed calling him by this name alone. For no one can utter the name of the ineffable God; and if any one dare to say that there is a name, he raves with a hopeless madness. And this washing is called illumination, because they who learn these things are illuminated in their understandings. And in the name of Jesus Christ, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and in the name of the Holy Ghost, who through the prophets foretold all things about Jesus, he who is illuminated is washed. (ANF 1:183)

 

Chapter LXVI.--Of the Eucharist.

 

And this food is called among us Εὐχαριστία [the Eucharist], of which no one is allowed to partake but the man who believes that the things which we teach are true, and who has been washed with the washing that is for the remission of sins, and unto regeneration, and who is so living as Christ has enjoined. For not as common bread and common drink do we receive these; but in like manner as Jesus Christ our Saviour, having been made flesh by the Word of God, had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so likewise have we been taught that the food which is blessed by the prayer of His word, and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation are nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh.6 For the apostles, in the memoirs composed by them, which are called Gospels, have thus delivered unto us what was enjoined upon them; that Jesus took bread, and when He had given thanks, said, "This do ye in remembrance of Me, this is My body;" and that, after the same manner, having taken the cup and given thanks, He said, "This is My blood;" and gave it to them alone. Which the wicked devils have imitated in the mysteries of Mithras, commanding the same thing to be done. For, that bread and a cup of water are placed with certain incantations in the mystic rites of one who is being initiated, you either know or can learn. (ANF 1:185)

 

Notice how Justin teaches man has a genuine free will, one that chooses to be regenerated, and that the instrument thereof is water baptism.

 

I just re-read the First and Second Apologies and Dialogue with Trypho. I hope to do a few blog posts later this month on Justin and his theology.

Live Tweeting General Conference October 2nd-3rd!

As you know (or should know!) next weekend (October 2-3) is General Conference weekend, which means I will be "live-tweeting" most of the sessions with serious and not so serious comments. My twitter feed can be found here.

The Valley of Baca (Psalm 84:6) is Not Mecca (contra some Muslim apologists)

Near East & Bible Scholar Analyzes the Bible, Kaaba & Mecca | Joshua Bowen, PhD

Reviews of Will Bagley's "Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows"

Will Bagley passed away yesterday. While it is always sad when anyone dies, even someone like Bagley (cf. Ezek 33:11), I do fear a lot of people will be puffing up Bagley's abilities as a historian. To help counter this, here are some reviews of perhaps his most well-known (and controversial) book, Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows:

Robert D. Crockett, A Trial Lawyer Reviews Will Bagley's Blood of the Prophets

Lawrence Coates, "Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows" Will Bagley

W. Paul Reeve, Book Reviews: Will Bagley, Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows

Paul H. Peterson, Will Bagley, Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows

Ubi Petrus, "Orthodox vs. RC Papacy Debate Review | Erick Ybarra vs Fr. Ramsey on Matt Fradd's Pints With Aquinas"

 

Orthodox vs. RC Papacy Debate Review | Erick Ybarra vs Fr. Ramsey on Matt Fradd's Pints With Aquinas

Further Reading

Bibliography on the Papacy and Papal Infallibility

Martin Berkeley Hickman on David Matthew Kennedy's Attitude Pre- and Post-1978 Missionary Efforts in Sub-Saharan Africa

  

No issue has demanded more of Kennedy's time than the task of expanding missionary work in new areas. That expansion became the highest priority for him precisely because it was President Kimball’s first priority. When Kennedy and the President first began to consider which countries might be likely targets for expanding the missionary effort, President Kimball did not have a fixed list of countries to which he wanted to send Kennedy. His process was to examine the countries one by one, exploring with Kennedy the possibilities each offered.

 

In those early discussions in 1974, as they studied together the large atlas that the President kept in his office, Kennedy placed his hand over sub-Saharan Africa. That gesture eliminated most of the African continent from consideration because, he argued, the Church could not operate without local leadership, and exclusion of blacks from the priesthood precluded the development of that essential leadership. Kennedy took his hand away from the map of sub-Saharan African on June 8, 1978, when President Kimball announced to the world that he had received a revelation confirming “that the long-promised day has come when every faithful, worthy man in the Church may receive the holy priesthood . . . without regard to race or color.” On returning from the temple where he shared that revelation with the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, President Kimball met with Kennedy and told him he knew Kennedy would be pleased with the announcement. (Martin Berkeley Hickman, David Matthew Kennedy: Banker, Statesman, Churchman [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1985], 343-44—this was at the time when Kennedy was a special ambassador for the Church, meeting with government and ecclesiastical leaders in various countries)

 

Edward Stevenson's Reminiscences of Joseph Smith's Positive Approach to the Apocrypha (cf. D&C 91)

 

Opening the Bible to the Apocrypha, he said, "There are many precious truths in these books,—just as true as any of the Bible—but it requires much of the Spirit of God to divide the truths from the errors which have crept into them." (Edward Stevenson, "In Early Days—Incidents of My Early Life," in The Juvenile Instructor 29, no. 18 [September 15, 1894]: 570

 

Ben Spackman, "Reading and Teaching the Bible as Latter-day Saints"

The following video was posted recently:

Ben Spackman, "Reading and Teaching the Bible as Latter-day Saints"

Survey of the Interpretation of the Key Figures/Themes in 2 Thessalonians 2

The following, taken from Jonathan Burke, The Words of the Prophets, pp. 12-15, is a survey of the various interpretations of the key themes in 2 Thess 2 (the "man of Sin," the nature of the falling away, the identity of the Temple of God and who/what restrains) from the 2nd century until the 13th:

 

2 Thessalonians 2 – The Falling Away and the Man of Sin

 

 

The earliest expositions on this passage are totally clear.  Although unable to predict the papacy as such, commentators from the 2^nd to the 5^th century understood only too well that a great Christian apostasy would arise, coming to power after the fall of the Roman empire, that it would be led by an apostate Christian who would seek to make himself the head of

all the churches, and that the system he led would persecute the true believers. 

 

Date (AD)	Name	Man Of Sin	Falling Away	Temple Of God	That Which Restrains
180	Irenaeus	Apostate Christian	Christian apostasy	Jewish Temple	Roman Empire
185	Tertullian	Apostate Christian	Christian apostasy	Christian Church	Roman Empire
200	Hippolytus	Apostate Christian	Christian apostasy	Jewish Temple	Roman Empire
300	Victorinus	Apostate Christian	Christian apostasy	Christian Church	Roman Empire
306-373	Ephraem	Apostate Christian	Christian apostasy	Christian Church	Roman Empire
315-386	Cyril	Apostate Christian	Christian apostasy	Jewish Temple	Roman Empire
389	Chrysotom	Apostate Christian	Christian apostasy	Christian Church	Roman Empire
340-397	Ambrose	Apostate Christian	Christian apostasy	Christian Church	Roman Empire
340-420	Jerome	Professedly a Jew	Christian apostasy	Christian Church	Roman Empire
354-430	Augustine	Apostate Christian	Christian apostasy	Christian Church	Roman Empire
393-457	Theodoretus	Apostate Christian	Christian apostasy	Christian Church	Roman Empire
500’s	Primasius	Apostate Christian	Christian apostasy	Christian Church	Roman Empire
520	Andreas	Apostate Christian	Christian apostasy	Christian Church	Roman Empire
604	Gregory I	Apostate Christian	Christian apostasy	Christian Church	Not available
606-10:  The Bishop Of Rome Declared Universal Pontiff – Head Of All Christian Churches
c. 950	Adso	Apostate Christian	Christian apostasy	Undecided	Roman Empire
1070	Theophylact	Apostate Christian	Christian apostasy	Christian Church	Roman Empire
991	Arnulf	Papacy	Christian apostasy	Christian Church	Roman Empire
1033-1109	Anselm	Apostate Christian	Christian apostasy	Jewish Temple	Roman Empire
1240	Eberhard II	Papacy	Christian apostasy	Christian Church	Roman Empire

Little did some of these expositors realise that it was to be their own Church which would fulfil this dreadful prophecy.

It is noteworthy that all of the expositors in the following table are Roman Catholics – and that the earliest application of this prophecy to the papacy is to be found in 991 AD, by a Roman Catholic Archbishop.

To the table below could be added at least another 58 expositors writing after 1800, all the way up to the late 20^th century.  This understanding of the passage was almost universal.

 

 

 

185:  Irenaeus:

 

‘…let them await, in the first place, the division of the kingdom into ten; then, in the next place, when these kings are reigning, and beginning to set their affairs in order, and advance their kingdom, to acknowledge that he who shall come claiming the kingdom for himself…‘

Irenaeus, 'Against Heresies' Book III, Chapter 30, Sections 2-3,
185 AD  

 

 

 

‘And again, in the Second to the Thessalonians, speaking of Antichrist, he says, "And then shall that wicked be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus Christ shall slay with the Spirit of His mouth…”’

 

              

Irenaeus, 'Against Heresies' Book III, chapter 7, section 2, 185 AD

 

 

 

190:  Tertullian:

 

’”For that day shall not come, unless indeed there first come a falling away," he means indeed of this present empire, "and that man of sin be revealed," that is to say, Antichrist, "the son of perdition, who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God or religion; so that he sitteth in the temple of God, affirming that he is God…”

[…]

Only let him hold fast who now rules, until he is out of the way, who can only be the Roman State, whose breaking apart and dispersal among ten kings will produce the Antichrist, and then will the evil one be revealed…’

              

Tertullian, ‘On the Resurrection of the Flesh’, chapter 34, 190 AD

 

 

200:  Hippolytus:

 

‘…the other little horn that grows up among them meant the Antichrist in their midst; the stone that smites the earth and brings judgment upon the world was Christ.’

Hippolytus, ‘Treatise on Christ and Antichrist’, paragraph 28, 200 AD
 

 

 

315-386:  Cyril:

 

’Moreover, the Antichrist was prophesied to come when the times of the Roman empire have been completed…

 

But this aforesaid Antichrist is to come when the times of the Roman empire shall have been fulfilled, and the end of the world is now drawing near. 

 

              

There shall rise up together ten kings of the Romans, reigning in different parts perhaps, but all about the same time; and after these an eleventh, the Antichrist, who by his magical craft shall seize upon the Roman power...’

              

Cyril, ‘Catechetical Lecture 15’, paragraphs 9,12, 315-386 AD

 

 

 

389:  Chrysotom:

 

‘One may first naturally inquire what is that which withholdeth, and after that would know why Paul expresses this so obscurely…  ‘he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way.’

That is, when the Roman empire is taken out of the way, then he shall come; and naturally, for as long as the fear of this empire lasts, no one will readily exalt himself; but when that is dissolved, he will attack the anarchy, and endeavor to seize upon the government both of men and of God.’

              

John Chrysotom, ‘Homilies on Second Thessalonians II 6-9’, 389 AD

 

340-20:  Jerome:

 

’But what am I doing? Whilst I talk about the cargo, the vessel itself founders. He that letteth is taken out of the way, and yet we do not realize that Antichrist is near.

Yes, Antichrist is near whom the Lord Jesus Christ 'shall consume with the spirit of his mouth'.’

Jerome, ‘Letter to Ageruchia’, paragraphs 16, 17, 340-420 AD

 

 

‘My mind is refreshed, and for the present forgets the woeful calamities that this last age labours with, groaning and travailing in pain, till he who hinders, be taken out of the way, and the feet of the iron statue be broken to pieces by reason of the brittleness of the clayey toes.’

Jerome, ‘Commentary on Ezekiel’, book 8, preface, 320 - 420 AD

 

‘Let us therefore affirm, agreeably to the concurrent judgment of all ecclesiastical writers, that in the consummation of the world, when the Roman Empire is to be destroyed, there shall arise ten kings, who shall share the Roman world among themselves, and that an eleventh king (the little horn in Dan. vii.) shall arise, who shall subdue three of those ten kings…’

Jerome, ‘Commentary on Daniel’, chapter 7 section 20, 320 - 420 AD

 

              

‘”that which restrains” - is the Roman empire.  For unless it shall have been destroyed and taken out of the midst - according to the Prophet Daniel, Anti-Christ will not come before that.’

Jerome, ‘Commentary on Jeremiah’, chapter 5 section 25, 320 - 420 AD

 

 

393-457:  Thedoretus:

 

‘What the Apostle calls the Temple of God are the churches in which this impious wretch will occupy the first rank, the first place, striving to get himself accepted as God.’

 

Theodoretus, note on 2 Thessalonians 2, chapter 2, 393-457

 

604:  Gregory I (Bishop of Rome):

’The king of pride is near, and (awful to be said!) there is an army of priests in course of preparation for him, inasmuch as they who had been appointed to be leaders in humility enlist themselves under the neck of pride.‘

What then, dearest brother, wilt thou say in that terrible scrutiny of the coming judgment, if thou covetest to be called in the world not only father, but even general father?‘

For to assent to that atrocious title is nothing else than to lose the faith.'

Gregory I, Epistle XVIII, to John, Bishop of Constantinople, 540-604

‘Is it not the case that, when Antichrist comes and calls himself God, it will be very frivolous, and yet exceedingly pernicious?

If we regard the quantity of the language used, there are but a few syllables; but if the weight of the wrong, there is universal disaster.

Now I confidently say that whosoever calls himself, or desires to be called, Universal Priest, is in his elation the precursor of Antichrist, because he proudly puts himself above all others.’

Gregory I, Epistle XXXIII, to Mauricius Augustus, 540-604

‘But in this pride of his [John, the Bishop of Constantinople] what else is denoted than that the times of Antichrist are already near at hand?’

Gregory I, Epistle XXI, to Constantina Augusta, 540-604

 

 

 

991:  Arnulf:

 

‘Yet how would it fare with us, if it should happen that the man the most deficient in all these virtues, one so abject as not to be worthy of the lowest place among the priesthood, should be chosen to fill the highest place of all?

What would you say of such a one, when you behold him sitting upon the throne glittering in purple and gold?

Must he not be the “Antichrist, sitting in the temple of God, and showing himself as God?’’

Verily such a one lacketh both wisdom and charity; he standeth in the temple as an image, as an idol, from which as from dead marble you would seek counsel.’

Arnulf, Bishop of Orleans, speech at the Council of Rheims, 991

 

 

 

 

1240:  Eberhard II:

 

‘With the greatest effort, Jesus also admonished that we avoid false Christs, false prophets who, clothed in sheep skin with the name of Christian and a Pontifical title, desire to rule and deceive us.

It is fitting they be recognized by their thorny works, especially avarice, debauchery, strife, hatred, envy, wars, the desire to have dominion, and blind ambition.

Can there be a more obvious meaning to these words which our heavenly Emperor prophesies?  He can only be pointing to the Pharisees and Scribes of Babylon who, under the title of Supreme Pontiff, we discern, unless we are blind, a most savage wolf whose skin feels as the skin of a Shepherd.’

Eberhard II, Archbishop of Salzburg, speech at Council of Ratisbon, 1240

 

‘One hundred and seventy years earlier, Hildebrand [Pope from 1073-1086] first laid the foundations of the rule of Antichrist, under the peaceful appearance of religion, but, in reality, was the first to inaugurate this nefarious war which has been faithfully continued by his successors…

He who is the servant of servants desires to be Lord of Lords, as if he were God; he despises holy assemblies and the councils of the brethren, nay, rather of his own Lords…’

Eberhard II, Archbishop of Salzburg, speech at Council of Ratisbon, 1240

 

‘….He speaks great things as if he were God and is ever scheming and plotting in his heart how to strengthen his rule.

To this end he changes laws, he enacts his own, he corrupts, he plunders, he defrauds, he kills; that morally depraved man whom they are accustomed to call the Antichrist, upon whose forehead is written the name of contempt, I am God, I cannot err; he sits in the temple of God and his domain is far and wide.’

Eberhard II, Archbishop of Salzburg, speech at Council of Ratisbon, 1240