David A. Desilva on Early Christian Use of the Apocrypha to Support the Salvific Efficacy of Almsgiving

  

The books of the Apocrypha would continue to be mined by the early church for the ethical value of the instructions included therein, perhaps in part because its leaders recognized the consonance of these instructions with the ethical teachings of Jesus, James, and other voices preserved in the emerging texts that would later be incorporated within the New Testament canon. Indeed, the New Testament texts could be seen to endorse a good deal of material found in the books of the Apocrypha but not explicitly present in the books of the Hebrew Bible. This might be help to account for the elevation of the value of the former alongside the latter in early Christian communities (who were clearly open to affirming the value and even authority of texts outside of the emerging Jewish canon, given the very fact of a New Testament).

 

The promotion of almsgiving, the rationale for the practice, and the specific advice found in Tobit and Ben Sira, for example, continue to appear in early Christian exhortations. Thus Polycarp in the early second century echoes Tobit’s promise that “charity delivers one from death” (Pol. Phil. 10.2; cf. Tob 4:10). The nearly contemporary church manual known as the Didache admonishes Christians not to be like “one who stretches out the hands, repeating Ben Sira to receive but withdraws them when it comes to giving” (Did. 4.5; see also Barn. 19.9), repeating Ben Sira’s instructions (Sir 4:31); Didache 1.6 also cites a proverb, “Let your gift sweat in your hands until you known to whom you give,” which recalls an admonition from Ben Sira: “If you do good, know to whom you do it, and you will be thanked for your good deeds” (Sir 12:1 NRSV). The older sage had advised showing charitable generosity only to the righteous poor; the compilers of the Didache utilize the proverb to urge being a good steward of charity, taking care to bestow it on the genuinely needy. Both Ben Sira and Tobit promote almsgiving as an atonement for sins (Sir 3:30; Tob 12:9), a motivation that also persists in Christian teaching (Did. 4.6). Gaudentius of Brescia (fl. 395 CE) shows how well the ethical teaching of Tobit and Jesus might be combined in the early church, as he affirms the atoning power of almsgiving and connects this with Jesus’s parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31):

 

Not out of malice but out of providence has God made you rich. He intended that through your works of mercy you would again find medicine to treat the wounds of your sins. “Certainly alms freely given preserve one from death and purify from every sin.” The rich man was not tormented because he was rich but because Lazarus suffered hunger while he feasted. (Sever Voicu, ed. The Apocrypha: Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture [Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2010], 27)

 

Examples of how Ben Sira and Tobit’s ethical precepts pervaded early Christian discourse could be multiplied exponentially. (David A. Desilva, “The Use of the Apocrypha in the Early Church,” in Apocrypha and the Septuagint, ed. Bruce W. Longenecker, Marieke Dhont, and James K. Aitken [Ancient Literature for New Testament Studies 1; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan Academic, 2026], 35)

 

Claude Barthe (RC Priest) on the Fate of the Unbaptized Infants and the New Funeral Ritual

 On the new funeral ritual, prepared in 1965 and published in 1969:

 

Was it appropriate to introduce a Mass “for a child not yet baptized”? Without giving any details about the “state” or “place” of children who die without being baptized, the Church clearly teaches the necessity of sacramental baptism or baptism of desire in order to obtain the beatific vision: “In the present order, there is no other means [other than baptism] of communicating this life to a child who has not yet reached the age of reason. And yet, the state of grace at the moment of death is absolutely necessary for salvation. Without it, it is not possible to attain supernatural bliss, the beatific vision of God.” (Pius XII, speech of October 29, 1951) The highly controversial contemporary document that contradicts this is merely a study proposed as an opinion by the International Theological Commission. The Mass proposed by the new missal, although clearly intended to console parents, nevertheless says: “May they [the parents] entrust him to your love”: “tuae sentient divinae pietati commissum [infantem ejus].” And in the farewell prayer (the absolution): “With confidence, we entrust him to God.” (Claude Barthe, The Seven Sacraments, Past & Present: A Short Critical Study of the New Rituals [trans. Karen Darantiè; Lincoln, Nebr.: Os Justi Press, 2026], 59-60)

 

An Example of Cope Concerning New World Horses From 1896

  

European horses must have been cooked and eaten in the caves of Sayab, Lara, and Chekt-a-leh since the fifteenth century, to account for the fragments of bone and teeth discovered there; for we find no reason for supposing that the people of Yucatan knew the American fossil horse, or scattered its remains in late portions of their culture-layers. (Henry C. Mercer, The Hill-Caves of Yucatan: A Search for Evidence of Man’s Antiqutiy in the Caverns of Central America Being an Account of the Corwith Expedition of the Department of Archaeology and Palaeontology of the University of Pennsylvania [Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1896], 172)

 

 

The horse molars and bones found by Mr. Mercer might, so far as their structural characters go, be referred to the Equus occidentalis, Leidy, which differs from the E. caballus in characters of the skull, while the molar teeth are closely similar. E. occidentalis is, however, found in association with a different fauna in the valley of Mexico and Western North America, and its bones are always fossilized, which is not the case with the specimens found by Mr. Mercer.—E. D. COPE. (Ibid., 172 n. 1)

 

Examples of J. Reuben Clark, Jr. Querying Scholars To Better Understand the Scriptures (June 24 and June 29, 1948)

  

Checked with Dr. Sperry that there were no salacious or erotic stories in Joseph Smith’s scriptures, the Book of Mormon. (J. Reuben Clark, Jr., Journal, June 24, 1948, in The Diaries of J. Reuben Clark, 1933-1961 Abridged, comp. D. Michael Quinn [Digital Edition; Salt Lake City, 2015])

 

 

Checked with Dr. Sperry about the Book of Mormon references to the Bible. (J. Reuben Clark, Jr., Journal, June 29, 1948, in The Diaries of J. Reuben Clark, 1933-1961 Abridged, comp. D. Michael Quinn [Digital Edition; Salt Lake City, 2015])

 

Excerpts from Andrzej Wiszowaty (1608-1678), “Rational Religion”

Andrzej Wiszowaty (Latinized Andreas Wissowatius) was a

 

grandson of Faustus Socinus and one of the most significant theologians of the Polish Brethren. After the banishment of the Antitrinitarians from Poland and he lived in exile, finally in Amsterdam. (Marcin Poholski, “Preface,” in Andrzej Wiszowaty, Rational Religion: On the Use of the Judgment of Reason in Theological and Religious Controversies [trans. Marcin Poholski; 2026], [i] n. 1)

 

His book Religio rationalis was published posthumously in Amsterdam in 1685.

On 1 Cor 2:14:

 

The apostle Paul did indeed write that the natural man perceiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, 1 Cor. 2:14. But first, not every man is a natural man. By “natural” is signified he who looks only to the sensual things of this earthly life, like a brute beast, following the guidance of the lower soul or of brutish appetite. See the like word at James 3:15 and Jude 19. But there are found among men, even among those not yet enlightened by the light of the gospel, some who are not of so abject and bestial a mind. Otherwise the gospel would be preached in vain to men before they became spiritual, if they were in no way capable of it.

 

Next, the apostle did not write that the natural man cannot in any way grasp, that is, apprehend with the mind or understand, the divine and spiritual things; rather he denies that he receives them, that is, acknowledges them with approval to be true and good. In the text stands the word dechetai, such as occurs also at Matt. 10:14, 40-42; 11:14; Luke 8:13; Acts 11:1; Gal 4:14 and elsewhere; in which places it certainly does not mean to perceive by understanding, but to receive. And although it is written immediately after in the same place, and he cannot know them, yet this can be taken not of a natural but of a moral inability, as it is often taken. And though he cannot know those things—that is, acknowledge them with approval as good—so long as he remains natural, yet it is not to be laid down that he cannot put off this natural disposition, and that even before he receives the gift of the Holy Spirit: for this even before he receives the gift of the Holy Spirit: for this is ordinarily wont to be given only to those who have received in faith as true the gospel of Christ preached and understood.

 

To the same effect is what the same apostle wrote at Rom. 8:7: The wisdom—rather, the inclination or striving—of the flesh is enmity against God. Here the use of sound reason is not censured, but that which savours of carnal desires and strives to satisfy them. It is said in like manner when the wisdom of this world, 1 Cor. 1:20 and 3:19, and carnal wisdom, 2 Cor. 1:19, are reproved. (Andrzej Wiszowaty, Rational Religion: On the Use of the Judgment of Reason in Theological and Religious Controversies [trans. Marcin Poholski; 2026], 65-67)

 

 

The Objection: Then Logic and Philosophy Would Rule over the Word of God

 

Here, finally, some object: In this way logic and philosophy and human reasoning would have to obtain the governance and the dominion over the theological mysteries and over the word of God itself. Answer: Far be it! Will anyone say that grammar obtains dominion not only over philosophical, medical, and juridical writings, but also over theological ones and over the very words of God—seeing that in these two the laws and rules of grammar are to be observed, lest anything unsuited to them be said perversely and ineptly? Prudent theologians too take care not to commit, in their discourses, a solecism against the rules of grammar. But an error against the truth of things, and above all of divine things, is far worse and more harmful than a solecism committed against the syntax of little words. (Andrzej Wiszowaty, Rational Religion: On the Use of the Judgment of Reason in Theological and Religious Controversies [trans. Marcin Poholski; 2026], 83)

 

Heber J. Grant Recording Debate Concerning Albert Carrington (August 12, 1887)

  

Brother Joseph F. Smith felt that the light and knowledge which Albert Carrington possessed was such that he had committed the unpardonable sin, and was guilty of the shedding of innocent blood. For a man to enter into plural marriage, and all the ordinances of the Gospel, in the House of God, and then willfully & viciously be guilty for years of the most heinous crimes, if he does not come as near to the shedding of innocent blood as a man possible can, then Brother Smith would like to know what he would have to do to be considered guilty of the shedding of innocent blood. For years he had daily associated with the Prophet of God. He had listened to his teachings, and he should have been an exemplar of truth and righteousness before the people. Carrington’s is an exceptional case. If he had not been an Apostle, and received so much light and knowledge, then it would be different. Brother Smith could not see why we should dignify this case because the man had once been an Apostle. He had abused his Apostleship, and lost, not only that, but his standing in the Church; and he felt that if any action was taken in the Albert Carrington case, that it should be taken by the Bishop of his ward, the same as action would be taken with any other individual, and that we should not dignify it by making any decision in the case. Brother felt that there was no comparison between him and a young man, filled with youthful passion, who had fallen in an unguarded moment, and then had sincerely and honestly repented. He felt that in such cases mercy should be extended. (Heber J. Grant, Journal, August 12, 1887, in The Diaries of Heber J. Grant, 1880-1845 Abridged, comp. D. Michael Quinn [Digital Edition; Salt Lake City, 2015])

 

Yvette Running Horse Collin and the Importance of Avoiding the "Genetic Fallacy"

  

With regard to scientific research on this subject, it is important to note that the Mormon Church has put some emphasis and financial backing toward deciphering the history of the horse in the Americas. As the Book of Mormon describes horses in the Americas before the arrival of Columbus, critics have long used the fact that "there were no horses in the Americas" as proof that their doctrine is not valid. However, just because a particular group has an interest in a topic and wishes to support research being done in the area does not mean that their scientific findings are necessarily biased, especially when independent laboratories are used. (Yvette Running Horse Collin, “The Relationship Between The Indigenous Peoples of the Americas and the Horse: Deconstructing a Eurocentric Myth” [PhD Thesis; University of Alaska Fairbanks, May 2017], 138 n. 371, emphasis in bold added)