Robert Sungenis on The Majority of Earliest Christians Holding to a Pre-Millennial Eschatology

  

The lack of room in Scripture to fit a mass conversion of Jews before Christ returns has always been a problem for its advocates and consequently it has always been the death knell for this particular brand of amillennial eschatology.

 

Interestingly enough, the very early Fathers, many of whom believed in premillennial eschatology, did not have this problem. They had plenty of room and plenty of time because their premillennialism held that the “one thousand years” of Apocalypse 20:1-6 is speaking of a future millennial kingdom in which Christ, at his Second coming, will descend to Jerusalem and reign over the world for one thousand literal years. After the one thousand years, the eternal state begins. Some of our most famous Fathers believed in premillennialism (e.g, Papias, Tertullian, Lactantius, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, possibly Polycarp).

 

In premillennial eschatology it was believed that the last generation of Jews would convert, en masse. Accordingly, the most accommodating part of their eschatology for these future converted Jews was that there would be an adequate time and place for them to be converted. The time was the “one thousand years” and the place was the millennial kingdom on earth. Everything fit like a glove. The only problem was that the scriptural exegesis behind premillennialism was full of false assumptions and loaded with out-of-context conclusions. For example, they misinterpreted Malachi 4:5 . . . failing to see that the refence to “Elijah” was pointing to John the Baptist, not the actual Elijah. . . . By the time of Chrysostom, Augustine and Jerome, the eschatology of the Catholic Church changed drastically. It made a dramatic shift from premillennialism to amillennialism. Whereas the Premils believed the 1000-year period of Apocalypse 20 was describing a future millennial period on earth in which Christ would rule from Jerusalem; the Amils believed the 1000-years was a symbolic time and place, encompassing the time from the First coming of Christ to the Second coming. Although there were seeds of amillennial eschatology in the early patristics (e.g., Hippolytus, Clement of Alexandria, Dionysius, Cyprian, Apollinarius, Athenagorus), it reached its flower with Augustine, Jerome, and Chrysostom since they discovered that the binding of Satan about which Jesus often remarked (cf., Jn 12:31; 16:11; Mt 12:29; Mk 3:27; Ep 4:8; Hb 2:14) was not something that was going to occur right before the Second coming of Christ but at the First coming; whereas the early Fathers who promoted a 1,000-year kingdom on earth for the Jews believed the binding of Satan would occur at the Second coming, after which the millennial kingdom on earth would begin. (Robert Sungenis, Why There Will Not Be a Mass Conversion of the Jews: A Critique of “If You Believed Moses” [State Lina, Pa.: Catholic Apologetics International Publishing, Inc., 2023], 11-12)

 

One only need look at the early Fathers of the Church (E.g., Papias [who claims to have received his interpretation of the Millennium from St. John the Apostle], Ignatius, Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Lactantius, et al) who were mostly devout premillennialists, that is, believers in a literal 1,000 year reign of Christ on earth after the Second coming, at which time Stan would be literally bound. They based this opinion on a scrupulously literal interpretation of Apocalypse 20:1-6 . . . The Church eventually abandoned this hyper-literal interpretation and adopted the eschatology popularized by Augustine, Jerome, and Chrysostom called “amillennialism,” that is, that there was no future millennium; only an indefinite period from the First to the Second coming of Christ wherein Satan was spiritually bound so that the Gospel could go forth to the nations. This view was given credence by a brief statement at the Council of Ephesus that the binding of Satan occurred at the cross. (Denzinger ¶140) The point here is that the early Fathers and Doctors of the Church had two diametrically opposed interpretations of the mysterious language of the Apocalypse, neither of which has been officially dogmatized. (Robert Sungenis, Supersessionism is Irrevocable: Facing the Ambiguities, Compromises, and Heresies in Recent Catholic Documents Regarding the “Old Covenant” [State Lina, Pa.: Catholic Apologetics International Publishing, Inc., 2024], 365, 266)

 

Amillennialism was held, partially or fully, by a number of early Fathers and a few apocryphal epistles form the second to fourth centuries but became the official position of the Catholic Church following a number [of] Fathers and medieval from the fifth century onward. (Ibid., 461)

  

Theodore Beza (1592) on 1 John 5:18 and 1 John 3:19

  

The Anonymous Man’s Second Argument from 1 John 5:18

 

We know that everyone who is born from God does not sin—that is, syllogistically.

 

The works of those who do not sin are pure and without any stain of sin.

 

The children of God do not sin.

 

Therefore, the works of the children of God are pure and without the stain of sin.

 

Beza’s Defense

 

This syllogism, if this kind of speaking “not to sin” is distinguished as it entirely must be, is marked by what they call four ends, constructed against all the rules of logic. But if “not to sin” is taken as being free from every sin, it is found to be most false from the same epistle of the same apostle. He thus writes, considering himself among their lot, saying that they deceive themselves and sin against the truth who say that they have no sin. Therefore, just as from the use of Scripture by patronymy (αντονομασιαν) they are called sinners—not everyone but only those in whom sin reigns—so they are said “not to sin” who keep themselves from sin for the measure of the Holy Spirit or regeneration, as the apostle immediately adds in that passage. The apostle is the best interpreter of this phrase of chapter 3, verse 9 of the same epistle, when he says, “Whoever is born from God does not do sin.” That is to say, he does not devote himself to sin, like those who make a practice of sin. Those people are usually peculiarly called workers of lawlessness (εργαζομενοι την ανομιαν), and for that reason the Greek poets also call them doers of evil (κακων πετηρας). It is true, nevertheless, that those who have been born from God are pure in a way, as the same prophet says in that very passage the anonymous man cites. That is to say, having been truly expiated for by His blood, justified by His freely imputed righteousness, they show their maturity in true fruits of sanctification through Him.

 

The Anonymous Man’s Third Argument from 1 John 3:19

 

“Little children, let us not love in word nor in speech, but in action and in truth. And by this we know that we are from the truth and render our hearts secure before Him.” That is, syllogistically:

 

What renders our hearts secure before God is pure and can endure the judgment of God.

 

The works of true love render our hearts secure before God.

 

Therefore, good works of true love are pure and can endure the judgment of God.

 

Beza’s Defense

 

The evangelist himself refuted this fallacy from non-cause to cause. Indeed, he does not say what sort of people we are made by this but what sort we are recognized as being. Just as good fruits do not make a tree good and sense and movement do not make life, nor do testimonies of uprightness itself make someone upright. Rather, a good tree is demonstrated by good fruits, life is demonstrated by sense and movement, and someone who is upright is demonstrated by testimonies of uprightness. In that way, for that woman, the sinner, her love demonstrated that her many sins has been forgiven, made evident in such a clear testimony. But that love was not in itself the cause of forgiveness of sins for the sinner, but the effect. In this way also the testimony of good works or the agreement of the Holy Spirit with our regenerate spirit does not make us children of God, just as faith itself does not do so except instrumentally. Rather, it testifies that we freely became children of God and therefore have been absolved from every sin and have been received unto the right of eternal life, the merit of Christ seized by faith having been freely imputed to us. And, therefore, does not causally render our hearts secure before the tribunal of God, as it is explained in 2 Peter 1:10. (Theodore Beza, “A Defense of Justification through the Righteousness of Christ Alone, Freely Imputed, Obtained by Living Faith” (1592), in Justification by Faith Alone: Selected Writings from Theodore Beza (1519-1605), Amandus Polanus (1561-1610), and Francis Turretin (1623-1687) [trans. Casey Carmichael; Classic Reformed Theology 6; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Reformation Heritage Press, 2023], 50-52)

 

Brigham Young's Reminiscence of Joseph's Prophecy that "the Kirtland notes would one day be as good as gold"

Writing on September 1, 1849, Brigham noted the economic status of the early Saints who arrived in the Salt Lake valley:

 

When I came into this valley, I brought $84 in small change, which I distributed, but which was not at this date in circulation, and the people were distressed, but which was not at this date in circulation, and the people were distressed for want of change. They had gold dust, but many refused to take it, as there was a waste in weighing it for exchange. To meet this want, we employed Brother John Kay to coin the dust, but upon trial he broke all the crucibles and could not proceed. I then offered the gold dust back to the people, but they did not want it. I then told them we could issue paper till the gold could be coined. The municipal council agreed to have such a currency, and appointed myself and President Heber C. Kimball and Bishop Newel W. Whitney to issue it. The first bill, for one dollar, was issued on the 1st of this month. The bills were signed by Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, and Thomas Bullock, clerk. (Brigham Young, January 1, 1849, in Manuscript History of Brigham Young, 1847-1850, comp. Fred C. Collier [Salt Lake City: Collier's Publishing Co., 1997], 140)

 

On January 6, 1849, Brigham then noted the following, and made reference to a fulfillment of a prophecy of Joseph:

 

On the 6th I attended council, when the following resolution were passed:--that the high council be relieved form exercising municipal duties; that Amasa Lyman, Orrin P. Rockwell, George D. Grant, Jedediah M. Grant, David Fullmer, John S. Fullmer, Lewis Robinson, Dimic B. Huntington, William Crosby, and George Boyd go to Utah valley, to learn its capabilities for a stock range, and that when the cattle go, forty or fifty men go with them; that the fort buildings be removed; that Isaac Higbee, John M. Higbee, and William Wadsworth be a committee to seek out suitable fishing places in the Utah lake, establish fisheries, and supply the market; at A[-] and Ira Eldredge engage in the business of tanning, and manufacturing leather, and that the council exert its influence to sustain them therein; that the council approbate Joel Johnson in his journey to the States to buy sheep; that Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball have the privilege of fencing in as much of the table lands and the spurs of the mountains east of the city, as they wish for pasturage; and that the Kirtland Bank bills be put into circulation for the accommodation of the people, thus fulfilling the prophecy of Joseph, that the Kirtland notes would one day be as good as gold. (Brigham Young, January 6, 1849, in ibid., 141, emphasis added)

 

There does not seem to be an extant record of such a prophecy of Joseph, so this is, at best, a second-hand account, so one should be wary about privileging this. Notwithstanding, it is rather interesting (and it relates to a topic I am currently doing research into for a work-related project).

Further Reading:

Resources on Joseph Smith's Prophecies

Lynne Wilson on Alexander Campbell's Theology of the Spirit Pre-Conversion

  

Alexander Campbell (1788-1866), like many American Protestants (including Joseph Smith), sought to return to the primitive church of the New Testament. Although possibly to separate himself from Smith, Campbell never called himself a “restorer” and opposed the claim that he “restored the gospel.” But he searched the Bible for details on the primitive church and applied them in his church. Campbell’s model did not tolerate any demonstrative gifts of the Spirit outside the biblical usage. In his mind, a God of reason would not encourage the spiritual chaos he saw around him during the Second Great Awakening. Driven by the rational influences of the Enlightenment and particularly the Scottish Common Sense Realism (SCSR), Campbell approached biblical pneumatology from his head rather than his heart. He believed that God created humanity with a rational mind capable of receiving truths from the Bible through common sense. From his perspective, it was illogical to think that the Holy Spirit worked in sinful people. Applying this view left Campbell no room for the Spirit’s intervention in conversion— belief became a logical choice. He denounced nineteenth century uncontrolled impressions (like the ones Cartwright fostered in revivals), categorizing them as satanic influences. He believed that only after people aligned their lives with the truths of the Bible and believed through their rational capacities could the Spirit peacefully commune with them. In this way he was not a pure rationalist but saw the Spirit working within an orderly realm to bring peace and joy to Christians.

 

. . .

 

4) A Rational Conversion through Accepting the Bible

 

In Campbell’s pneumatology, a conversion of one’s mind to the truth must precede the witness of the Spirit. He felt strongly that the Bible was sensible enough—that all believing and faithful minds could rationally see its truths. In his preface to the New Testament Commentary, Campbell admonished his audience to appreciate the Bible’s power to convert the rational mind:

 

Reader! This is . . . designed to accomplish an object superlatively grand, transcending—in degrees inexpressible—the most magnificent scheme that created intelligence ever conceived. To convert a race of polluted, miserable, and dying mortals, into pure, happy, and glorious immortals . . . Yes! this is the benevolent and glorious design of these Testimonies. Books, written with such a design, with a design to purify, elevate, and glorify the debased and degraded children of men. And the bare hypothesis, to say nothing of the moral certainty, that they came from God, with such a design, methinks, is quite enough to woo our whole rational nature, to constrain all our moral powers, to test their high pretensions to a character so philanthropic and divine . . . fired with God's own inspiration. (Campbell, Sacred Writings, xxiii.)

 

In Campbell’s flowery invitation to study the Bible, he empowered the Bible to “woo our whole rational nature” to convert mortals to believe in God. He explained the Bible’s sacred origin that called for “attention and examination” which in turn would work on the rational mind to convert them to their God. Once that rational step was taken, he believed that fallen man was elevated. For Campbell, conversion was a rational, step-by-step process, not a Spirit-filled leap. He taught that the Spirit functioned only in obedient, converted Christians—not in sinners who sought a spiritual witness as their conversion. (Lynne Wilson, “Joseph Smith’s Doctrine of the Holy Spirit Contrasted with Cartwright, Campbell, Hodge, and Finney” [PhD Thesis; Marquette University, 2010], 81-82, 105-6)

 

Theodore Beza (1592) on Romans 6 and Galatians 3 as a Reference to the Ordinance of Baptism

  

No less truly is it also necessary that humanity itself of Christ truly (yet spiritual, as we will soon see, by the acceptance through the instrument of faith) he be made ours, so that we may obtain all those benefits and eternal life in Him. In this way also, when baptism, another sacrament of the church, is discussed, we are not simply said to have been baptized into His death, burial, and resurrection (that is, so that from it we obtain fruit of remission and sins and of our renewal). Rather, we are expressly said to have been baptized into Him (Rom. 6:3) and to put Him on (Gal. 3:27). (Theodore Beza, “A Defense of Justification through the Righteousness of Christ Alone, Freely Imputed, Obtained by Living Faith” (1592), in Justification by Faith Alone: Selected Writings from Theodore Beza (1519-1605), Amandus Polanus (1561-1610), and Francis Turretin (1623-1687) [trans. Casey Carmichael; Classic Reformed Theology 6; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Reformation Heritage Press, 2023], 74)

 

Amandus Polanus (Reformed) on Romans 5:19

  

. . . it is not sought after between [Catholics and Protestants] whether Christ’s obedience removed our sins imputatively or truly. For we had asserted clearly and eloquently that Christ’s obedience truly—I say truly, but not imputatively—removed our sins. . . . the antecedent of the argument has a vicious exposition of the Pauline statement. For that antecedent of the argument, which Paul says that we are established sinners by the obedience of Adam, explains that the disobedience of Adam impressed sin on us not imputatively, but truly. But that is a very improper and obscure way of speaking. Our opinion is true and clear: by the disobedience of Adam, we were established sinners—that is, that the disobedience of Adam, the head and root of our race, in which, his will turned away from the will of God, he willed to eat from the forbidden fruit against the commandment of God and really ate it—is most justly imputed by God to us as his members. And therefore, that first disobedience did not indeed cross over to us in act so that we could truly be said to have sinned in him actually because we did not yet exist to act, but only in potentialty (δυναμει) and originally in his lions. But it crossed over to us in guilt and liability. (Amandus Polanus, “The Free Justification of Man the Sinner before God” (1615), in Justification by Faith Alone: Selected Writings from Theodore Beza (1519-1605), Amandus Polanus (1561-1610), and Francis Turretin (1623-1687) [trans. Casey Carmichael; Classic Reformed Theology 6; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Reformation Heritage Press, 2023], 143, comment in square brackets added for clarification)

 

Baptismal Regeneration in the Theology of Mark the Hermit (360-430)

  

De baptismo

 

The tract On Baptism has a strong anti-Messalian tendency and in a series of questions and answers, deals with the effects of the sacrament of initiation. The exact title Responsio ad eos qui de divino baptismate dubitant refers to those who doubt that sin is actually taken away by baptism, since the Messalians maintained that even after its reception sin remains in the soul and must be destroyed by our own moral efforts. Mark declares against all such false doctrines that baptism not only takes away all sin but confers the Holy Spirit. The words ‘I see another law in my members, fighting against the law of my mind’ (Rom. 7, 23) are spoken by the unbaptized, not by the baptized. Nevertheless, life after baptism remains a continuous warfare because of the unending temptations from within and without. But every sin is the result of our own free-will, not of our corrupted nature. (Johannes Quasten, Patrology, 4 vols. [Westminster, Md.: Christian Classics, Inc., 1992], 3:507)

 

W. Wesley Williams on the Glory of Yahweh (כבוד יהוה) denoting Yahweh's Radiant Human Form

  

The God of the biblical canon also has a dangerously luminous and fiery body, called in some sources his כבוד, kābôd. In the priestly material (P and Ezekiel) in particular, כבוד יהוה kābôd yhweh denotes Yahweh’s radiant human form, “with the strongest possible emphasis on God as light.” (TDNT 2:241) The fire that emanates from כבוד יהוה is dangerous: it consumes whatever it touches. Like the pulhu melammu of the Mesopotamian deities, the flames of the כבוד יהוה can be unleased on Yahweh’s enemies. To look upon כבוד יהוה was deadly: the brightness was too much for the mortal eye. To abide with Israel, but not consume her, Yahweh, like the Homeric and Hesiodic deities, cloaks his fiery כבוד with a black could (חשׁך/ ערפל). When Yahweh wants to visit wrath on an enemy or punish one of his own, he thrusts aside the cloud, exposing them to his undimmed radiance. (E.g. Num. 16:19, 20:16) (W. Wesley Williams, “Tajallī wa-Ru-ya: A Study of Anthropomorphic Theophany and the Visio Dei in the Hebrew Bible, the Qur’ān and Early Sunnī Islam” [PhD Thesis; The University of Michigan, 2008], 38-40)

 

. . . A number of scholars have sought to distance Ezekiel’s anthropomorphic kābôd from P’s ‘abstract” kābôd (e.g., Israel Knohl, The Sanctuary of Silence: the Priestly Torah and the Holiness School. [Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995], 128-137). Eichrodt, Theology, 2:32 understood P’s kābôd to be “a formless brightness of light” and Morgensttern, “Biblical Theophanies,” 1:154 assumed that the kābôd Jahwe of P, other than being ‘something like fire’ enveloped in the ‘cloud of Jahwe’, has no particular shape” (See also Schmid, “Gottesbild, 251”: Yahweh’s fire was amorph.) But these claims are based on the false assumption that P’s theology is ant-anthropomorphism, an assumption which is to be rejected (see above). Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School, 200f. is surely correct: “Corporeal representation of the Deity in the Priestly document found its clearest expression in the conception of the ‘Glory of God’, against which the book of the document found its clearest expression in the conception of the ‘Glory of God’, against which the book of Deuteronomy promulgated its doctrine of ‘God’s Name.’ The underlying imagery of the concept of God’s Glory (כבוד יהוה), ‘the kabod of Yahweh,’ embedded in Priestly tradition is drawn from corporeal and not abstract terms.” See also Wolfson, Through a Speculum (23 n. 55): “while it is fair enough to contrast Ezekiel’s depiction of the glory with that of the Priestly authorship it seems to me that the anthropomorphic understanding of the glory is not completely innovated by Ezekiel. Indeed, the narrative in Exod. 33:18ff. already suggests such a conception.” (Ibid., 38-39 n. 176)

 

W. Wesley Williams on Divine Corporeality and Invisibility

  

Excursus: Divine Corporeality and Invisibility

 

It is often taken for granted that invisibility implies incorporeality. Already Plato equated αορατος aorotos (invisible) and ασωματος asomatos (incorporeal) (cf. Tim. 46d, 36e). Hellenistic Judaism and Patristic Christianity inherited this Platonic conflation. For Philo of Alexandria (first century C.E.) the divine essence is both αορατος and ασωματος (Vita M. I, 158; Mut. Nom. 7) and Origen (d. 254 C.E.) cites John 4:24 (“God is spirit”) as evidence of God’s incorporeality and therefore invisibility. However, an older Greek (and, as we shall see, Hebrew) view made no such necessary connection. A being or object could be both ασωματος (corporeal) and αορατος (invisible) at the same time. In Classical Greek invisibility is normally affected by materially obstructing visibility. Thus, in the Homeric poems and in Hesiod invisibility is “(o)ften described in terms of a ‘covering’ or ‘clothing”, usually by a cloud, mist, or storm:

 

The early Greeks, in describing invisibility, attribute it to a visible, but tenuous, agency (cloud, mist, etc) . . . For that which renders unseen in Homer and Hesiod is a covering material, which is external to the concealed body (emph. orig.). (R. Renehan, “On the Greek Origin of the Concepts Incorporeality and Immateriality,” Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 21 [1980]: 108-9 [art.= 105-138])

 

Classical Greek notions of divine invisibility therefore affirmed rather than denied corporeality.

 

the gods have a body that they can at will make (or keep) totally invisible to mortal eyes—and it does not cease to be a body . . . In order to manifest his presence, the divinity chooses to make himself visible in the form of a body, rather than his body. From a divine perspective, the opposition visibility/invisibilty is no longer entirely pertinent. Even in the framework of an epiphany, the god’s body may appear to be perfectly visible and recognizable to one of the spectator’s while remaining, at the same time and in the same place, completely hidden to the eye of others (emph. orig.). (Vernant, “Dim Body,” 35. Cf. Balam in Num. 22)

 

The later development of the notion of incorporeal invisibility went hand-in-hand with the philosophic rejection of Homeric anthropomorphism. This rejection is especially associated with the Greek author Xenophanes (fifth century B.C.E.), whose “pioneering for a purer conception of God” (Jaeger, Theology of the Early Greek Philosophers, 45) laid the foundation for the development of the transcendent, incorporeal deity of theism. And as Th. Kortweg has shown, this rejection of anthropomorphism was catalytic to the emergence of the philosophic θεος αορατος, Deut aoratos. (Th. Korteweg, “The Reality of the Invisible: Some Remarks on St. John XIV 8 and Greek Philosophical Tradition,” in M.J Vermaseren [ed.], Studies in Hellenistic Religions [Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1979], 60-86 [art.= 50-102) This deity is best summed up in Maximus of Tyre’s Eleventh Discourse, Who is God according to Plato? Informing his audience of the nature (φυσις) of the invisible deity (θειον . . . αορατον αφθαλμοις XI 9b) Maximum wrote:

 

Here is the Mind which is Father and Maker of All . . . ‘The divine is invisible to the eyes, unspeakable with the voice, untouchable with the flesh, unknown to the hearing, only by the most beautiful, most pure, most intellectual . . . aspect of the soul is it seen through its likeness and heard through its kinship, the whole together being present to the whole understanding . . .’ God has no size, no color, no form, nor any other accident of matter, but he has a beauty unlike any other beauty (9 c-d; II e). (Quoted from Young, “God of the Greeks,” 49-50)

 

There is no Hebrew equivalent to the Greek aoratos. The latter appears in the LXX three times: it translates תהו in MT Gen 1:2, which describes the chaotic state of the pre-cosmic earth; it translates מסתרים in Isa 45:3, a description of riches divinely hidden in secret places; in II Macc. 9:5 it describes the ‘blow’ or sickness with which God struck Antiochus. But as Cécile Blanc observes: “Il n’y a pas d’example oú il (i.e. αορατος) se rapporte á Dieu.”

 

Arthur Stanley Pease, in his discussion, ‘Some Aspects of Invisibility,’ assumed that the prophet Isaiah, when he speaks of אל מסתתר, ‘ēl mistatēr, “God who hides himself” (Isa. 45:15), is speaking of the incorporeal θεος αορατος, Deus aoratos. But as Samuel E. Balentine has shown, Yahweh’s hastārāt or hiding in the HB refers not to any ontological invisibility, but inactivity as a consequence of Israel’s violation of the covenant. (The Hidden God: The Hiding of the Face of God in the Old Testament [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983]) According to Richard Friedman, this divine hiddenness also involves “the continuing diminishing apparent presence of Yahweh among humans.” (“The Hiding of the Face: An Essay on the Literary Unity of Biblical Narrative,” 215) Friedmann traces this diminution from Yahwe’s active and visible involvement with humanity in the Garden (Gen. 1-3), through the patriarchal theophanies (where specific individuals, rather than communities, encounter ‘a sort of emanation from the Godhead that is visible to human eyes’ [13]), through the post-Mosaic prophetic period of divine encounters in dreams and visions, to Elijah’s experience on Mt. Horeb and ‘the deity’s blatant refusal to appear as before’ (I Kgs 19;11, 12): ‘The period of visible, audible encounters with the divine gradually passes, not subtly, but expressly in the text.” (Friedmann, Hidden Face of God, 16). Friedmann’s schema may be more systematic than the texts actually support, but it is clear that the biblical Deus absconditus is not the same as the Deus philosophorum who is Deus aoratos. (W. Wesley Williams, “Tajallī wa-Ru-ya: A Study of Anthropomorphic Theophany and the Visio Dei in the Hebrew Bible, the Qur’ān and Early Sunnī Islam” [PhD Thesis; The University of Michigan, 2008], 30-34)

 

Arthur Stanley Pease, “Some Aspects of Invisibility,” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 53 (1942): 10-11 notes: “Man’s invisibility may occur . . . as a result of concealment in mist or dust, natural or artificial-like the modern smokescreen-, in a tempest of wind or rain, during a solar eclipse, into darkness, in fire, into water, in fissures in the earth, by putting to sleep or temporary blinding of ones enemies, by simply slipping away and evading ones companions, or by methods not clearly stated, and hence . . . mysterious.” (Ibid., 31 n. 136)

 

Stephen De Young (EO) on the Ontological Existence of the Gods of the Nation (and background to Psalm 137)

  

In order to properly assess a text and its teaching, it must be read in context. This context includes not only the date and place of its writing and the ancient language in which it is written, but also the understanding and worldview of its author(s). Regardless of a given reader’s beliefs, the authors of Scriptures believed that God, angels, demons, the spirits of the dead, and other spiritual realities were real. They held them to be as real as rocks, trees, and humans. It is in light of those beliefs that they formulate their writings and interpret events, words, and actions. When readers refuse to enter into the worldview of an author, they end up constructing a false “reality” as a backdrop for the text. They then praise or attack that reality, even if it is false, misguided, anachronistic, or pure fiction. Condemning such fictional reconstructions should not be confused with a legitimate critique of the text itself.

 

For all ancient peoples, the gods of neighboring nations were not fictional. From the perspective of the authors of the Hebrew Scriptures, the spiritual beings worshipped by other tribes, clans and nations surrounding them were real. Frequently in the Old Testament, the word gods is even used to describe them. They were not God in the sense that Yahweh is God, but rather spirits created by Yahweh, their God, along with everything else that exists, and who had since their creation fallen into rebellion against Him. These were spirits that sought the destruction of humanity.

 

Ancient Israel understood these “gods” of the nations to have been assigned to those nations by Yahweh, the Most High God, at one particular point. As part of the judgment against humanity at the Tower of Babel, described in Genesis 11, God distanced Himself from the nations of the world, assigning angelic beings to shepherd them (Deut. 32:8). The nations were not to worship these beings, not were these beings to seek to be worshipped (Deut. 4:19). They were not only to shepherd the nations in the sense of governance but to religiously shepherd them back to the Most High God. Other than St. Michael, who was assigned to the nations of Israel, these beings failed in this assignment. (Saint Dionysios the Areopagite described this in some detail in The Celestial Hierarchy)

 

Yahweh, the God of Israel, has promised to judge all of creation and restore to justice, its rightful order. This justification of the cosmos includes not only the visible, material world and human persons but also the invisible world of angels and demons. Several points in Scripture make this judgment explicit. Isaiah, for example, states, “In that day, Yahweh will punish the host of heaven above and the kings of the earth below” (24:21). The culmination of this final judgment is not only a new earth but also a new heaven (Rev. 21:1). The lake of fire as a description of eternal condemnation was created not for humans but for the devil and his angels (Matt. 25:41) This particular judgment of the powers and principalities both in the heavenly places and on the earth, is known as the death of the gods because of its descriptions in Psalm 82/81.

 

Just as in the case with humanity, the judgment of these principalities and powers, spiritual kings and rulers of nations, is not entirely put off to the end but intrudes at various points in history. The ten plagues that trigger nascent Israel’s Exodus from Egypt are described as Yahweh rendering judgment against the gods of Egypt (Ex. 12:12). It should go without saying that from the perspective of the author of Exodus, God is not judging or punishing a group of fictional characters. The gods of Egypt are seen as real spiritual beings who have led the Egyptian people into wickedness and evil. These principalities are the ones whom Yahweh, the God of Israel, holds most responsible for the evils of the Egyptian Empire and culture.

 

The humans who populated Egypt were moral agents responsible for their actions. They suffered the consequences when judgment came upon Egypt, and God levelled the scales, restoring justice. By directing the plagues of Egypt against the gods of Egypt, however, Yahweh not only judges those spirits but also conveys truth to the Egyptian people. The primary task of the pharaoh, in the Egyptian understanding, was to establish and maintain ma’at, justice. As king and priest, it was his task to make sure that relations between gods, humans, the river, and the land were maintained for continued prosperity. His inability to restore justice exposed him and the other Egyptian gods to be frauds, along with the illusion of their power, might, and worthiness to be worshiped.

 

Though the Israelites were enslaved, literally, to Pharoah and the Egyptian nobility, the common people of Egypt were not less enslaved in a spiritual sense. Yahweh not only redeemed Israel from Egypt; He also offered the truth of who He is to the Egyptians themselves, which had the potential to set them free. The condemnation in the Hebrew Scriptures of the gods and god-kings of the nations it not a condemnation of the humans who make up those tribes and clans. It is instead a condemnation of those who have oppressed, abused, and enslaved those people. An interpretation that delineates between the spiritual/political powers oppressing a nation and the people of that nation does not allegorize the text away or deny its historicity. It is simply a lense that validates the distinction that the authors of these texts establish and see as important. In other words, it is an example of reading biblical texts correctly and in context.

 

The Christian Old Testament is filled with texts calling for judgment and condemnation, and even the deaths, of kings and rulers and principalities over the nations. Psalm 149/148 speaks of the saints carrying two-edged swords in their hands “to execute vengeance on the nations and judgments on the tribes by binding their kings with chains and their nobles with iron chains, in order to execute on them the judgment of the Scriptures” (vv. 7-9). Isaiah speaks of the demonic powers of Sheol being punished and never rising again (26;14). In the Greek text, the translator adds the interjection, “being more evils upon them, O Lord, bring more evils upon them who are glorious upon the earth” (vv. 14-15). The “them” of this call for justice is quite clearly these aforementioned demonic powers of Hades.

 

Examples abound, but one passage in particular is of note for its prominence in discussions of imprecations within the Christian Old Testament. Psalm 137/136 is a psalm written in Babylonian exile. This exile in a foreign, pagan empire is the theme of the psalm itself, beginning with the question as to whether it is even possible to truly worship Yahweh in a foreign land (v. 4). The worship of Judah’s God was so closely associated with Zion, with the Jerusalem temple, that attempting to offer such worship, even through hymns, seemed difficult in light of its destruction (vv. 1-3). The memory of Jerusalem was key to the continuation of that worship (vv. 5-6). This is not merely nostalgia for a time and place now lost, but the memory of all that transpired in Judah’s wickedness and the subsequent judgment.

 

The psalm then takes what modern readers understand to be a sharp turn. It speaks of the nation of Edom and its actions at the fall of Jerusalem to Babylon (Ps. 137/136.7). It speaks of Edom as a daughter of Babylon, a loyal collaborator of Judah’s oppressor (v. 8). It states that the one who takes vengeance against Edom will be blessed, in particular the one who smashes Edom’s little ones against the rocks (v. 9). A literal reading of this psalm, the reading that has made it controversial, understands this to be an angry and bitter human in exile calling for the violent murder of Edomite babies as retribution.

 

The subtext here, however, is the long history between Edom and Judah, which includes and overarching spiritual dimension. Judah and Edom are descended from Jacob and Esau, Israel and Edom, respectively. These two brothers experienced conflict and ultimate reconciliation, as described in Genesis. Edom had received a portion of Abraham’s inheritance as his descendants, but this involved a vassal relationship with Israel and later Judah. Some of the Edomites, as described in the psalm and in the historical accounts of Jerusalem’s fall, took pleasure and rejoiced in that fall, seeing it as freedom despite their now being vassals of Babylon.

 

The author of Psalm 137/136 and other ancient Judahites understood there to be a spiritual cause behind Edom’s schadenfreude over Judah’s fate. Just as St. Michael the archangel was seen to be the guardian angel of Israel and later Judah as a nation (Dan. 12:1), Edom was guarded and governed by the fallen archangel Samael, who is often equated with Satan in Jewish writings of the period during and following the exile. Only such an evil spirit could have inspired Edom’s rejoicing in Judah’s devastation. The psalmist seeks the destruction of this demonic spirit at the hand of Yahweh, the Blessed One.

 

This understanding of this psalm led the Church Fathers, nearly uniformly, to understand the “little ones” here spoken of not as infant humans of Edomite ethnicity. Ethnicity, in fact, was not really a concept in its modern sense at the time of the psalm’s composition. Rather, these little ones are the progeny of the evil spirit who is here being condemned. They are the sins, evil thoughts, and temptations placed in the minds and hearts of humanity that lead humans to destruction. These thoughts and temptations lead, for example, one people group to rejoice at the suffering of her neighbor. They are the source of all resentment and wickedness and violence. Just as Yahweh, the God of Israel, is the Blessed One par excellence, so also is the person blessed who resists and defeats Satan, not falling prey to him as did the Edomites of the sixth century B.C. (Stephen De Young, God is a Man of War: The Problem of Violence in the Old Testament [Chesterton, Ind.: Ancient Faith Publishing, 2021], 64-69)

 

 

Richard Price and Pamela Price vs. Joseph Smith as Author of "The Peacemaker"

  

The points given below (and page numbers) provide additional evidence that Joseph did not conspire with Jacob to have the pamphlet written, and that the Prophet told the truth when he denounced the pamphlet and denied knowledge of it prior to its printing:

 

1. The Peace Maker Degraded Women. Even though Udney Jacob promoted polygamy in his pamphlet, most of it was a tirade insisting that wives must be completely subservient to their husbands, even being considered the husband’s property. In all of Joseph Smith’s extensive writings published during his lifetime, there are no examples of his believing or teaching such an evil system. His respect and treatment of his wife, adopted daughter, mother, and sisters show him to have been compassionate to women. His wife, Emma, and his mother, Lucy, exercised great freedom in testifying and in expounding Church doctrine. He, by revelation, confirmed upon Emma the title of the “elect Lady.” Joseph did not conspire with Udney to publish that pamphlet which advocated the abuse of women and the promotion of polygamy.

 

2. Udney Jacob as a Prophet. The pamphlet declared that Udney Jacob was the Prophet Elijah (2), the prophet who would stop the mouths of kings (22), and the man-child spoken of in Isaiah 66:7-8 (25) who was to precede Christ’s return. Elijah had already appeared as a heavenly messenger sent from the throne of Heaven to Joseph and Oliver Cowdery, in a vision in the Kirtland Temple in 1836 (see RLDS History of the Church 2:47; LDS History of the Church 2:436).

 

There is no way that Joseph, who had beheld Elijah in that glorious vision, could believe that Jacob was the reincarnation of that Old Testament prophet. Elijah had, among other things, committed the keys of this dispensation into Joseph’s hands, while Udney Jacob on the other hand claimed he, as the reincarnation of Elijah, was to change the world by bringing about a worldwide system of polygamy which would rob women of their agency to act and choose for themselves.

 

3. The Law of Moses Should Be Restored. The Peace Maker declared that the Law of Moses should be restored (35); advocated making sin offerings and forty stripes for some punishment (26); death as the only punishment for adultery (7); and death to a child who cursed father or mother (34). In view of the fact that Joseph had spent the previous twelve years restoring the New Testament law of grace, the Prophet would not have had any part in producing a book which called for a return to the Law of Moses.

 

4. Scriptural References. Had the pamphlet been written by Joseph, it would have had references to the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, the New Testament, and Latter Day Saint history. It is devoid of such, however. Yet it has numerous biblical references.

 

5. The Millennium Now. Jacob wrote, “For we now enter the Millennium” (19). Throughout Joseph’s writings, the Millennium is spoken of as not to begin until after the day of great judgments upon the earth, the binding of Satan, the gathering of the Saints, and the advent of the Lord (see RLDS DC 43:7; LDS DC 43:27-33).

 

6. Slavery. The Peace Maker advocated slavery for those of African descent, calling abolitionists fanatics and their beliefs “absurdities” (26). Joseph and the Latter Day Saints were anti-slavery in sentiment and were favorable to abolitionists. One of the main reasons the Saints were driven from Missouri was the fact that they were against slavery. There were African-American Church members both at Kirtland and Nauvoo. Elijah Abel, the first black elder, was ordained a seventy December 20, 1836 (see Richard S. Van Wagoner and Steven C. Walker, A Book of Mormons, 2).

 

7. Condemning U.S. Law. The pamphlet proclaimed that since the American Government had laws which upheld the rights of women, that it was “the most outrageous crime that a nation can be guilty of. Sodomy itself, is a trifle to this” (33). In contrast, Joseph declared that the Saints should uphold and obey the laws of the land (RLDS DC 58:5; LDS DC 58:21). The Doctrine and Covenants records that the Saints were to respect the marriages of those whose marriages had been performed by civil authority (1835 DC 101:1; RLDS DC 111:1c). The same section also declares that “one man should have one wife.”

 

8. Condemning New Englanders. In his pamphlet Jacob wrote, “O ye miserable fanatics of New England . . .” (26). Joseph was proud of his New England heritage, and appreciated the thousands of Sants from New England who had been baptized and were making worthwhile contributions as Church members.

 

9. Jacob’s testimony. As previously mentioned, Jacob plainly stated that he was the author of the work and was “not a Mormon” (2). Jacob was certain that he was “Elijah the Prophet” reincarnated and that his book, with its polygamous teachings, was destined to fulfill the prophecy in Malachi by turning the hearts of the children to their fathers. There is no way that Jacob would have had anything to do with Joseph. Jacob considered himself to be such a great prophet and he would not have teamed up with one such as Joseph, whom he, according to his letter to President Van Buren, considered to be a dangerous fanatic.

 

10. Joseph’s Quick Response. Another failing of the theory that Joseph had Jacob produce The Peace Maker is the matter of timing, for if Joseph had sponsored the publication of the pamphlet he would not have condemned it immediately. He would have quietly waited to see how the Saints in Nauvoo would have reacted to it. There was no time for The Peace Maker to be condemned or accepted by the Saints at Nauvoo before Joseph issued his statement: “There was a book printed at my office, a short time since.” It is not known just how much time elapsed between the pamphlet coming off the press, and Joseph’s statement being printed. However, it is known that the Times and Seasons was printed only every two weeks, which would have made it impossible for him to have his notice printed sooner. However, it is certain that Joseph was the first and only member of the Church at Nauvoo to denounce Jacob’s pamphlet in print.

 

11. Udney Hated Joseph and the Saints. In his letter to President Martin Van Buren, Jacob showed his hated of Joseph and the Saints by writing:

 

These Mormons know but very little of me; but Sir, I know them—and I know them to be a deluded and dangerous set of fanatics.

 

12. Udney and Joseph Did Not Know Each Other. Although The Peace Maker was published late in 1842, Joseph and Jacob still had not met by January 26, 1844, according to a statement made by Jacob in a personal letter which he penned to Joseph. Jacob wrote the Prophet:

 

I hope you will not consider this letter an intrusion—I have not to be sure the pleasure of a personal acquaintance with you nor do I know that I am worthy of that favor; yet I believe that I am worth saving. . . . (Brigham Young University Studies 9 [Autumn 1968]: 53)

 

This statement in the letter from Jacob to Joseph completely exonerates Joseph of having collaborated with Jacob in publishing The Peace Maker. Coauthoring the book would have meant the same kind of close working relationship with Jacob that Joseph had with Oliver Cowdery in producing the Book of Mormon, or Sidney Rigdon during the correcting of the Inspired Version. This never happened according to the testimonies of both men.

 

. . .

 

A Chronological Account of Joseph and Jacob’s Activities

 

Since incorrect beliefs seem to never die (such as believing that Joseph had Udney write The Peace Maker to test the Saints’ tolerance of polygamy), the following time line is provided. IT shows that Joseph and Udney could not have cooperated in producing that pamphlet, because they were never together while it was being written:

 

Early 1830s—Udney Jacob, his wife, adult children, and their families lived at Pilot Grove, Hancock County, Illinois.

 

February 1, 1831—Joseph and Emma Smith moved from Pennsylvania to Kirtland, Ohio, arriving there February 1, 1831.

 

March 14, 1838—Joseph and Emma moved from Kirtland in January 1838, and arrived at their new home in Far West, Missouri, on this date.

 

October 31, 1838—Joseph Smith and other Church men were arrested at Far West on false charges. Joseph was imprisoned for a period of five-and-a-half months—most of that time in the dungeon of the jail at Liberty, Missouri.

 

April 16, 1839—Joseph, Hyrum, and others, with the help of their guards, were allowed to escape.

 

April 22, 1839—Joseph arrived in Quincy, Illinois, where he found Emma and their children.

 

May 10, 1839—Joseph and his family moved into a two-room log cabin at Commerce, Illinois (Commerce later became Nauvoo).

 

August 1839—Udney Jacob’s daughter, Mary Jane, was married to Milton Hamilton at Pilot Grove in Hancock County (The Record of Norton Jacob, 2).

 

October 29, 1839—Joseph, Sidney Rigdon, Judge Elias Higbee, and Porter Rockwell left for Washington, D.C., to lay before Congress their grievances for the persecution of the Saints in Missouri.

 

March 4, 1840—Joseph arrived back home in Nauvoo.

 

March 19, 1840—Udney Jacob wrote a lengthy letter to President Martin Van Buren, requesting him to provide finances to publish his manuscript of The Peace Maker, which he had already written.

 

Summer 1840—Udney Jacob’s son, Norton Jacob, read a pamphlet written by Parley P. Pratt, which sparked his interest in the Church (The Record of Norton Jacob, 4).

 

Fall and Winter 1840—Norton Jacob attended preaching services held by Church elders in the vicinity of Pilot Grove, and “obtained” and “read with much interest” Parley P. Pratt’s Voice of Warning (ibid.).

 

March 15, 1841—Norton was baptized at La Harpe by Seventy Zenos Gurley, Sr. Udney said, according to Norton, that “he had rather heard I was dead than I was a Mormon” (ibid).

 

February 6, 1842—Ebenezer Robinson, owner, editor, and printer of the Times and Seasons sold the entire printing establishment to the Twelve. He wrote, “I gave possession of the establishment, to Willard Richards the purchaser on the behalf of the Twelve; at which time my responsibility ceased as editor” (Times and Seasons 3 [February 15, 1842]: 729).

 

February 15, 1842—It was announced that the Prophet Joseph Smith was the new editor of the Times and Seasons, with Apostle John Taylor assistant editor (see ibid., 695)—but Joseph had very little time for editorial work.

 

August 8, 1842—A deputy sheriff from Adams County and two assistants arrested Joseph based on an affidavit signed by ex-Governor Boggs of Missouri. Joseph escaped from his would-be captors and went into hiding until late December 1842, after the new Illinois governor had taken office.

 

Fall of 1842—Udney Jacob’s pamphlet, The Peace Maker, was published in the Times and Seasons press at Nauvoo.

 

November 1, 1842—Norton moved his family into Nauvoo (The Record of Norton Jacob, 4).

 

December 1, 1842—Joseph Smith issued his statements in which he announced that he did not want his name associated with Udney’s pamphlet.

 

1843—Udney was baptized into the Church. A problem arose in the Pilot Grove Branch, where he attended, and he had his name removed from the Church record (ibid. 12).

 

January 26, 1844—Udney wrote a letter to Joseph Smith in which he said, “I have not to be sure the pleasure of a personal acquaintance with you” (Brigham Young University Studies 9 [Autumn 1968]: 53).

 

June 27, 1844—Joseph and Hyrum Smith were murdered at Carthage Jail.

 

November 2, 1845—Udney Jacob was rebaptized by Norton Jacob and confirmed by Norton, assisted by Zenos Gurley (see The Record of Norton Jacob, 12).

 

March 15, 1850—Eli B. Kelsey’s letter was published in the Millennial Star in England. Kelsey defended Joseph against charges by Paul Harrison that the Prophet participated in the writings and publishing of The Peace Maker (see Millennial Star 12 [March 15, 1850]: 92-93).

 

March 1851—Udney Jacob wrote a letter to President Brigham Young, in which he stated that he wrote the Peace Maker and that he published it before he was a member of the Church (see Brigham Young University Studies 9 [Autumn 1968]: 52-53). (Richard Price and Pamela Price, Joseph Smith Fought Polygamy, 3 vols. [Independence, Miss.: Price Publishing Company, 2014], 2:130-34, 146-48)

 

Further Reading:

 

Kenneth W. Godfrey, "Little Known Discourse by Joseph Smith," BYU Studies (Autumn 1968): 49-53