On a facebook page,
Dave Bartosiewicz, who, seemingly, is on the precipice of becoming a full-fledged member of the
Eastern Orthodox faith, wrote the following:
On point number 1, Dave is wrong as, firstly, the term "angel" can denote
function and not necessarily
ontology. Indeed, the Hebrew and Greek words translated as "angel" (מַלְאָךְ; αγγελος) denote "messenger" too. Furthermore, it is generally accepted by many, including early Christian authors (Justin Martyr) that the Angel of YHWH in the Old Testament was the premortal Jesus, and yet, in Heb 1, one of the theological points the author makes is that Jesus is said to be superior to the angels.
Nothing in Joseph Smith's account of the various visitations of Moroni does he ever say that
ontologically Moroni became an angel.
This can be seen in D&C 128:20:
And again, what do we hear? Glad tidings from Cumorah! Moroni, an angel from heaven, declaring the fulfilment of the prophets-- the book to be revealed. A voice of the Lord in the wilderness of Fayette, Seneca county, declaring the three witnesses to bear record of the book! The voice of Michael on the banks of the Susquehanna, detecting the devil when he appeared as an angel of light! The voice of Peter, James, and John in the wilderness between Harmony, Susquehanna county, and Colesville, Broome county, on the Susquehanna river, declaring themselves as possessing the keys of the kingdom, and of the dispensation of the fulness of times!
Secondly, with respect to angels and their relationship to this earth, I am sure some may appeal to the following text:
There are no angels who minister to this earth but those who do belong or have belonged to it. (D&C 130:5)
Such a concept, while unusual to many outside the LDS tradition, finds support in ancient Jewish and Christian texts, such as the following:
Many pseudepigraphic texts (e.g., 3 Enoch) holds that the Old Testament patriarch Enoch became the angel Metatron
The Medieval Jewish text, Zohar Exodus 197a speaks of the translated Elijah as an angel among angels.
Zohar Exodus 231a says that "Gabriel is the messenger for this world, hence he had to put on the garments of this world."
Zohar Leviticus 68a-b states that “at the time when God breathed spirit into all the hosts of the heavens, they all came into being and existence, but some were held back until the Holy One, blessed be He, sent them below, and these have sway both above and below. Hence Elijah said: “As the Lord liveth before whom I have stood” (I Kings XVII, 1), not “before whom I am standing." Afterwards he returned to his place and ascended to his chamber, but the others do not ascend until they die, because they did not stand before God previously. Therefore Elijah and all those who cleave to the King were made messengers [angels] of the heavenly King, as we find in the book of Adam that all holy spirits above perform God’s messages and all come from one place, whereas the souls of the righteous are of two degrees combined higher, and therefore they ascend to a great height. This applies to Enoch and Elijah."
2 Enoch (J) 30:10-14, speaking of Adam, God is recorded as saying,
And on the earth I assigned him to be a second angel, honored and great and glorious. And I assigned him to be a king, to reign on the earth and to have my wisdom. And there was nothing comparable to him on the earth, even among my creatures that exist And I assigned to him a name from the four components:
from East - (A)
from West - (D)
from North - (A)
from South - (M)
And I assigned to him for special stars, and called his name Adam.
Other examples could be given, but it is clear that such a concept has strong ancient support.
With respect to the second point Dave makes in favour of Eastern Orthodoxy, here is a teaching that Eastern Orthodoxy holds as a doctrine but is in conflict with the Bible and early Christianity: the perpetual virginity of Mary.
With respect to the earliest strata of patristic writings, a plausible case can be made that I
renaeus of Lyons (130-202) did not hold to the perpetual virginity of Mary as a doctrine (let alone a dogma) but seems to have rejected the postpartum virginity of Mary. In Against Heresies 3.21.10 we read (emphasis added):
For as by one man's disobedience sin entered, and death obtained [a place] through sin; so also by the obedience of one man, righteousness having been introduced, shall cause life to fructify in those persons who in times past were dead. And as the protoplast himself Adam, had his substance from untilled and as yet virgin soil ("for God had not yet sent rain, and man had not tilled the ground"), and was formed by the hand of God, that is, by the Word of God, for "all things were made by Him," and the Lord took dust from the earth and formed man; so did He who is the Word, recapitulating Adam in Himself, rightly receive a birth, enabling Him to gather up Adam [into Himself], from Mary, who was as yet a virgin.
The phrases italicised (“as yet [a] virgin”) are clearly intended by Irenaeus to be taken as parallel to one another. Just as the soil of the earth was as yet a virgin (but only until shortly after when it was tilled), so also Mary was as yet a virgin before giving birth to Jesus. The direct implication is that she did not remain a virgin thereafter. While not explicit, it does show, at the very least, that the perpetual virginity of Mary was a doctrine unknown to Irenaeus.
With respect to Hegesippus (110-180), Eri Svendsen noted:
The notion that the brothers of Jesus were in fact something other than true siblings developed over time in the post-apostolic church . . . The second-century writer, Hegesippus [mentioned] James “the brother [αδελφος] of the Lord,” (Ecclesiastical History, 2.23) and Jude “who is said to have been the Lord’s brother [αδελφος] according to the flesh,”(Ibid., 3.22) as well as Simeon the son of Clopas whom Hegesippus calls “the cousin [ανεψιος] of the Lord.”(Ibid., 4.22) The fact that Hegesippus knows a distinction between these two relationships indicates that when he uses αδελφος he does with biological siblings in mind. (Eric D. Svendsen, Who is My Mother? The Role and Status of the Mother of Jesus in the New Testament and Roman Catholicism [Amityville, N.Y.: Calvary Press, 2001], 99)
On the topic of the perpetual virginity of Mary, I have written a great deal on the topic of Mariology, including this issue, albeit while interacting with Roman Catholicism which tends to take a different view on the “brothers” and sisters” of Jesus—Catholicism tends to take the position that they were near relatives of Jesus while Eastern Orthodox tend to argue they were children from a previous marriage of Joseph’s and so were adopted brothers and sisters of Jesus. Notwithstanding, the following articles should be of interest to those seeing how this belief, a dogma in Catholicism and a doctrine in Eastern Orthodoxy, is inconsistent with the biblical witness:
