Great Apostasy

(Redirected from Great Apostasy (Latter Day Saints)) Concept in some Christian churches For the book by James E. Talmage, see The Great Apostasy (book).

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*Antichristus*, a woodcut by Lucas Cranach the Elder: the pope depicted as the Antichrist, using his temporal power to grant authority to a generously contributing ruler.

The Great Apostasy is a concept within Christianity to describe a perception that mainstream Christian Churches have fallen away from the original faith founded by Jesus and promulgated through his Twelve Apostles.

A belief in a Great Apostasy has been characteristic of the Restorationist tradition of Christianity, which includes unrelated groups emerging after the Second Great Awakening, such as the Christadelphians, Swedenborgians, Latter Day Saints, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Iglesia ni Cristo. These Restorationist groups hold that traditional Christianity, represented by Catholicism, Protestantism and Orthodoxy, has fallen into error and thus, the true faith needs to be restored.

The term has been used to describe the perceived fallen state of traditional Christianity, especially the Catholic Church, sometimes claiming that it changed the doctrines of the early church and allowed traditional Greco-Roman culture (i.e., Greco-Roman mysteries, deities of solar monism such as Mithras and Sol Invictus, pagan festivals and Mithraic sun worship and idol worship) into the Church on its own perception of authority. Because it made these changes using claims of tradition and not from scripture, the Church – in the opinion of those adhering to this concept – has fallen into apostasy. A major thread of this perception is the suggestion that, to attract and convert people to Christianity, the Church in Rome incorporated pagan beliefs and practices within the Christian religion, mostly Graeco-Roman rituals, mysteries, and festivals.

The term is derived from the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians, in which the Apostle Paul informs the Christians of Thessalonica that a great apostasy must occur before the return of Christ, when "the man of sin is revealed, the son of destruction" (chapter 2:1–12). The Catholic Church, Lutheran Church, Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Churches have interpreted this chapter as referring to a future falling-away, during the reign of the Antichrist at the end of time.

Overview

Some modern scholars believe that the Christian Church in the early stages picked up pagan oral teachings from Jewish and Hellenistic sources, which formed the basis of a secret oral tradition, which in the 4th century came to be called the disciplina arcani. Mainstream theologians believe it contained liturgical details and certain other pagan traditions which remain a part of some branches of mainstream Christianity (for example, some Catholic theologians thought that the doctrine of transubstantiation was a part of this). Important esoteric influences on the church were the Christian theologians Clement of Alexandria and Origen, the main figures of the Catechetical School of Alexandria.

Restorationists teach that the Papacy slowly became corrupted as it strove to attain great dominion and authority, both civil and ecclesiastical. For example, they say, it reinstated the pagan ceremonies and obligations of the Collegium Pontificum and the position of Pontifex Maximus and created Christian religious orders to replace the ancient Roman ones such as the Vestal Virgins and the flamines. It brought into the church the ancient pagan festivals and made them 'Holy Days'. Catholics as well as the Reformers pointed to the office of the Papacy as responsible for the fallen state of the church as they considered the conduct of those in power had grown so spiritually or morally corrupt that it was called the Antichrist power by those within as well as outside of the church.

Protestant views

Main article: Constantine the Great and Christianity

Reformers like Martin Luther, John Calvin and others disagreed with the papacy's claim of temporal power over all secular governments and the autocratic character of the papal office, and challenged papal authority as a corruption from the early church and questioned the Catholic Church's ability to define Christian practice.

Reformed perspective

Main article: Protestant Reformation

The defenses of the right belief and worship of the church resided in the bishops, and Protestants theorize that the process of unifying the doctrine of the church also concentrated power into their own hands (see also Ignatius of Antioch, who advocated a powerful bishop), and made their office an instrument of power coveted by ambitious men. They charge that, through ambition and jealousy, the church has been at times, and not very subtly, subverted from carrying out its sacred aim. For the Reformers, the culmination of this gradual corruption was typified, in a concentrated way, in the office of the pope who took on ancient titles such as Pontifex Maximus and supreme power in the church.

Calvin, Luther, and many later churches and preachers have held that Scripture points out the Catholic Church as the fallen church of biblical prophecy.

Martin Luther believed and taught that the church had strayed and fallen away from the true teachings of the scripture. He challenged the authority of the pope of the Roman Catholic Church by teaching that the Bible is the only source of divinely revealed knowledge, and opposed sacerdotalism by considering all baptized Christians to be a holy priesthood.

Although Lutherans and Calvinists hold that the Ecumenical Councils of the early and medieval church are true expressions of the Christian faith, many assert the councils are at times inconsistent with one another, and err on particular points. The true church, they argue, will be mixed with alien influences and false beliefs, which is necessary in order for these impurities ultimately to be overcome and the truth to be vindicated.

The Westminster Confession of Faith (Calvinist), states:

The purest churches under heaven are subject both to mixture and error; and some have so degenerated as to become no churches of Christ, but synagogues of Satan. Nevertheless, there shall be always a church on earth, to worship God according to his will.

Dispensationalist perspective

The Historicist biblical interpretation was the viewpoint of most major Protestant Reformers, beginning with the accusations of Martin Luther. Refuting these claims was accordingly a major objective of the Counter-Reformation, both in the Catholic Church's initial response to Luther and especially in the aftermath of the Council of Trent. This required a renewed effort to interpret the relevant scriptural passages in light of the arguments put forth by the early Protestants. Two particularly noteworthy theories were proposed during the Counter-Reformation to address the historicist claim that the Antichrist was actually the Roman Catholic church.

Francisco Ribera and Luis de Alcazar, both 16th-century Spanish Jesuits, rose to meet the challenge by introducing counter-interpretations of the prophecies in Daniel and Revelation. Their approaches became known as the Preterist and Futurist schools, and both theologies quickly gained traction throughout Catholic Europe.

Gradually, Preterism and Futurism gained currency even in Protestant thought. Few mainstream Protestant leaders today still employ the vocabulary of "apostasy" and "anti-Christ" when discussing the papacy, although some conservative Evangelical and fundamentalist churches still accept these teachings to varying degrees.

The spread of dispensationalist doctrine has led many conservative Protestants to drop the traditional interpretation of the Book of Revelation as prediction of events that have taken place throughout history (historicism) and shifted it to future events (futurism), eliminating any relation between the prophecies and the Catholic Church. This has resulted in a re-interpretation of the end times. Although Protestant fundamentalists still largely object to Catholic doctrine concerning the papacy, most have dropped the harsher Reformation view and no longer identify the pope as the Antichrist.

Restorationist perspective

Main article: Restorationism (Christian primitivism)

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

According to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), the Great Apostasy started not long after the ascension of Jesus and continued until Joseph Smith's First Vision in 1820. To LDS Church members, or Latter-day Saints, the Great Apostasy is marked by:

the difficulty of the Apostles to keep early Christians from distorting the teachings of Jesus and to prevent the followers from dividing into different ideological groups;
the persecution and martyrdom of the church's Apostles;
the loss of leaders with priesthood authority to administer the church and its ordinances;
the lack of continuous revelation to instruct the leaders and guide the church; and
the corruption of Christian doctrine by Greek or other allegedly pagan philosophies such as Neo-Platonism, Platonic realism, Aristotelianism and Asceticism.

Beginning in the 1st century and continuing up to the 4th century AD, some emperors of the Roman Empire carried out violent persecutions against early Christians.

The LDS Church believes that all priesthood leaders with authority to conduct and perpetuate church affairs were either martyred, taken from the earth, or began to teach impure doctrines, causing a break in the necessary apostolic succession. It is a belief that what survived was a portion of the light and truth that Jesus had established: the Church of Jesus Christ, as established by him, was no longer to be found on the earth. Survivors of the persecutions were overly-influenced by various pagan philosophies either because they were not well indoctrinated in Jesus' teachings or they corrupted their Christian beliefs (willingly, by compulsion, or with good intentions but without direct revelation from God to help them interpret said beliefs) by accepting non-Christian doctrines into their faith. LDS Church doctrine is that many plain and simple truths of the gospel of Christ were, therefore, lost.

The LDS Church and its members understand various writings in the New Testament to be an indication that even soon after the ascension of Jesus the Apostles struggled to keep early Christians from distorting the teachings of Jesus and to prevent the followers from dividing into different ideological groups. The doctrine highlights statements from the Scriptures that various Old Testament and New Testament scriptures, like 2 Thessalonians 2:3, that Jesus Christ prophesied this "falling away" or "apostasy." The Christian believers who survived the persecutions took it upon themselves to speak for God, interpret, amend or add to his doctrines and ordinances, and carry out his work without proper authority and divine direction from God. During this time, important doctrines and rites were lost or corrupted. The doctrine of the Trinity adopted at the Council of Nicaea is an example shown of how pagan philosophy corrupted the teachings of Jesus. The LDS Church believes that Joseph Smith's visions and revelations taught an important and sacrosanct doctrine that God, the Eternal Father, His Son, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost are not one substance, but three separate and distinct beings forming one Godhead. Latter-day Saints reject the early ecumenical councils for what they see as misguided human attempts without divine assistance to decide matters of doctrine, substituting debate or politics for divine revelation. The LDS Church teaches that the often heated proceedings of such councils were evidence that the church was no longer led by revelation and divine authority. Indeed, the normative Christian view is that public revelation, or revelation that is binding on all Christians, concluded with the death of the last Apostle.

As a result, LDS Church members refer to the "restitution of all things" mentioned in Acts 3:20–21 and believe that a restoration of all the original and primary doctrines and rites of Christianity was necessary. Church members believe that God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, appeared to Smith, then a 14-year-old boy, and called him to be a prophet. Later Peter, James, and John, three of Christ's apostles in the New Testament, appeared from heaven to Smith and ordained him an apostle. Through Christ's priesthood authority and divine direction, church members believe that Smith was called and ordained to re-establish Christ's church. Hence, members of the faith refer to their church as "The Church of Jesus Christ," a name which they believe to have been revealed to Smith after the church's founding on 6 April 1830, originally called the Church of Christ. Latter-day Saints is a term members believe refers to members of Christ's church who were originally called "saints" and that the LDS Church is Christ's restored church in these days, believed by many Christian denominations to be the last days prior to the prophesied second coming of Jesus.

Adventists

Ellen White wrote

His word has given warning of the impending danger; let this be unheeded, and the Protestant world will learn what the purposes of Rome really are, only when it is too late to escape the snare. She is silently growing into power. Her doctrines are exerting their influence in legislative halls, in the churches, and in the hearts of men. She is piling up her lofty and massive structures in the secret recesses of which her former persecutions will be repeated. Stealthily and unsuspectedly she is strengthening her forces to further her own ends when the time shall come for her to strike. All that she desires is vantage ground, and this is already being given her. We shall soon see and shall feel what the purpose of the Roman element is. Whoever shall believe and obey the word of God will thereby incur reproach and persecution.
— Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy: Between Christ and Satan, page 581

Seventh-day Adventists believe that the mark of the Beast refers to the apostate church which in the end times will legally enforce Sunday-worship. "Those who reject God's memorial of creatorship – the Bible Sabbath – choosing to worship and honor Sunday in the full knowledge that it is not God's appointed day of worship, will receive the 'mark of the beast.'" "Sunday Sabbath is purely a child of the Papacy. It is the mark of the beast." They see an apostate church that changed God's law, preferred pagan traditions, allowed pagan beliefs and ceremonies into the church, and brought oppression against and persecuted the true believers throughout the Dark Ages for 1260 years as prophesied in Revelation 12:6, 14–16.

Hyperdispensationalism

Main article: Hyperdispensationalism

Hyperdispensationalism is a niche view in Protestantism which views Pauline Christianity or the beliefs and doctrines espoused by the apostle Paul through his writings as the purest form of Christian faith and worship from which the church fell away. E. W. Bullinger framed the position for early apostasy thus:

We are told, on every hand, today, that we must go back to the first three centuries to find the purity of faith and worship of the primitive church! But it is clear from this comparison of Acts xix.10 and 2 Tim.i.15, that we cannot go back ... even to the apostle's own life-time! ... It was Pauline truth and teaching from which all had "turned away".
— Juanita Carey, E. W. Bullinger: A Biography, page 148, quoting from Bullinger's "The Church Epistles"

Responses of Catholicism, Lutheranism

Further information: Eucharist in the Catholic Church, Clerical celibacy (Catholic Church), and Lent

Regarding "forbidding to marry" and the "commanding to abstain from meats" in 1 Timothy 4 (Paul might have spoken in general in regard to any new sects or doctrines which could arise), the Catholic Church responds:

Regarding the Church's discipline of celibacy, men and women freely abstain from the high and holy good of marriage so that they can more fully give themselves to God and His work. Marriage is not "forbidden". Neither is it considered evil. See the Catechism of the Catholic Church (Catechism), numbers 1618–20, especially the quote from St. John Chrysostom. 1 Timothy 4:1–5 needs to be read in context. There were those in Paul's time that forbade marriage on heretical presuppositions that marriage was intrinsically evil, a teaching based in turn on the false belief that the body or all matter was evil, and only the Spirit was good. This Gnostic heresy became prevalent again in the second century. The heresy became manifest in later centuries as well, with groups like the Albigensians, who also fell away from the Catholic Faith. ... With regard to foods, none are forbidden to Catholics. Unlike vegetarians, we may eat meat; unlike Jews and Muslims, we may eat pork, shellfish, and other non-kosher foods. Fasting – a practice actively promoted in Scripture – and abstinence from certain foods at particular times are good spiritual disciplines, but there is no food from which Catholics must abstain at all times. ... So who is Paul condemning regarding abstinence? He is referring to Gnostics and their spiritual descendants. In ascetic Gnosticism, we find both practices Paul condemned in his First Letter to Timothy. Ascetic Gnostics categorically forbade marriage (which libertine Gnostics also did) and abstained from sexual intercourse and meat all the time.
— Doesn't St. Paul Condemn Celibacy, Fasting, and Abstaining From Meat?

Martin Luther, who spearheaded the Reformation, sought to reform the Catholic Church, as opposed to restoring it. The Lutheran Church traditionally sees itself as the "main trunk of the historical Christian Tree" founded by Christ and the Apostles, holding that during the Reformation, the Church of Rome fell away. As such, the Augsburg Confession, the Lutheran confession of faith, teaches that "the faith as confessed by Luther and his followers is nothing new, but the true catholic faith, and that their churches represent the true catholic or universal church". When the Lutherans presented the Augsburg Confession to Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, they explained "that each article of faith and practice was true first of all to Holy Scripture, and then also to the teaching of the church fathers and the councils".

References

^ Foster, Douglas A.; Blowers, Paul M.; Dunnavant, Anthony L.; Williams, D. Newell (2004). The Encyclopedia of the Stone-Campbell Movement. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. p. 561. ISBN 978-0-8028-3898-8. ...to distinguish the goal of their restorationist efforts from other forms of Christianity, whether Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, denomination, or sectarian. They viewed modern Christianity as corrupt, apostate, or spurious, while New Testament Christianity was, in the words of Alexander Campbell, 'the gospel of our Lord as proclaimed originally by the apostles.'
Molloy, Michael (2017). The Christian Experience: An Introduction to Christianity. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 366. ISBN 978-1-4725-8284-3. Like other Restorationists, Russell held the theory of the Great Apostasy, the belief that Christianity had fallen away from its original purity. To the simple early message of Christianity, he believed, later teachers and political leaders had added unwarranted beliefs and practices.
Buck, Christopher (2009). Religious Myths and Visions of America: How Minority Faiths Redefined America's World Role. ABC-CLIO. p. 88. ISBN 978-0-313-35959-0.
Lewis, Paul W.; Mittelstadt, Martin William (2016). What's So Liberal about the Liberal Arts?: Integrated Approaches to Christian Formation. Wipf and Stock Publishers. ISBN 978-1-4982-3145-9. The Second Great Awakening (1790–1840) spurred a renewed interest in primitive Christianity. What is known as the Restoration Movement of the nineteenth century gave birth to an array of groups: Mormons (The Latter Day Saint Movement), the Churches of Christ, Adventists, and Jehovah's Witnesses. Though these groups demonstrate a breathtaking diversity on the continuum of Christianity they share an intense restorationist impulse. Picasso and Stravinsky reflect a primitivism that came to the fore around the turn of the twentieth century that more broadly has been characterized as a "retreat from the industrialized world.
Discoveries, Amazing. "Sun Worship | Paganism and Catholicism | Buddhism, Hinduism and Catholicism". amazingdiscoveries.org. Archived from the original on 2023-06-04. Retrieved 2020-08-25.
Newcomb, Harvey (2003). Great Apostasy: Being an Account of the Origin, Rise and Progress of Corruption and Tryanny in the Church of Rome. Kessinger Publishing. pp. ix. ISBN 978-0766178847.
Talmage, James E. (1973). Jesus the Christ (40th ed.). LDS Church. pp. 745–757. OCLC 2012826.
Socrates, Church History, 5.22, in Schaff, Philip (July 13, 2005). "The Author's Views respecting the Celebration of Easter, Baptism, Fasting, Marriage, the Eucharist, and Other Ecclesiastical Rites". Socrates and Sozomenus Ecclesiastical Histories. Calvin College Christian Classics Ethereal Library. Retrieved 20 July 2018.
DeGarmo, Braxton (15 September 2019). Still Here!: Surviving the End Times. Christen Haus Publishing. p. 23. ISBN 978-1-943509-35-5. Amillennialism has been the primary perspective of the church though most of history and still outside of the U.S., as well as in the orthodox (Catholic and Eastern Orthodox) and reform (Presbyterian and Lutheran) groups within the U.S.
See Alister E. McGrath, Iustitia Dei: A History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification, 2nd edition (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, reprinted 1998), pp. 17, 19–20; Erich S. Gruen, Heritage and Hellenism: The Reinvention of Jewish Tradition, U California Press, Berkeley, 1998.
G. G. Stroumsa, Hidden Wisdom: Esoteric Traditions and the Roots of Christian Mysticism, 2005.
Frommann, De Disciplina Arcani in vetere Ecclesia christiana obticuisse fertur, Jena 1833.
E. Hatch, The Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages upon the Christian Church, London, 1890, Chapter 10.
Jean Danielou, Origen, translated by Walter Mitchell, 1955.
"The Council of Chalcedon (415 AD) made the following declaration in Canon 28: 'The Bishop of New Rome (Constantinople) shall enjoy the same honor as the Bishop of Old Rome, for the former possesses the same privileges.'" (Disciplinary Decrees of the General Councils, Schroeder, p. 125).
"He (Theodore I, bishop of Rome, 642–649 DJR) was the first Pope officially styled 'Sovereign Pontiff,' and the last whom the bishops called 'brother.' The preeminence of the first See and the extension of the Pontifical authority were becoming more necessary in proportion as the Church spread further her conquests." (Darras, Vol. II, p. 232).
"The church took the pagan philosophy and made it the buckler of faith against the heathen. She took the pagan, Roman Pantheon, temple of all the gods, and made it sacred to all the martyrs; so it stands to this day. She took the pagan Sunday and made it the Christian Sunday. She took the pagan Easter and made it the feast we celebrate during this season. Sunday and Easter day are, if we consider their derivation, much the same. In truth, all Sundays are Sundays only because they are a weekly, partial recurrence of Easter day. The pagan Sunday was, in a manner, an unconscious preparation for Easter day. The Sun was a foremost god with heathendom. Balder the beautiful, the White God, the old Scandinavians called him. The sun has worshippers at this hour in Persia and other lands. ...Hence the church in these countries would seem to have said, "Keep that old pagan name. It shall remain consecrated, sanctified." And thus the pagan Sunday, dedicated to Balder, became the Christian Sunday, sacred to Jesus. The sun is a fitting emblem of Jesus. The Fathers often compared Jesus to the sun; as they compared Mary to the moon, the beautiful moon, the beautiful Mary, shedding her mild, beneficent light on the darkness and the night of this world – not light of her own; no Catholic says this; but – light reflected from the sun, Jesus." Source: PASCHALE GAUDIUM, by William L. Gildea, D.D., in The Catholic World, Vol. LVIII., No. 348., March, 1894., published in New York by The Office of the Catholic World., pp. 808–809.
Every Reformer, without exception, spoke of the papacy as Antichrist" – R. Allen Anderson, Unfolding the Revelation, p. 137
Arnulf Bishop of Orleans (Roman Catholic) "deplored the roman popes as 'monsters of guilt' and declared in a council called by the King of France in 991 AD that the pontiff, clad in purple and gold, was, 'Antichrist, sitting in the temple of God, and showing himself as God'" – Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, 8 vols., reprint of the 3d (1910) ed. (Grand Rapids Mich.: Wm. B Eerdmans Publishing Co., n.d.).
Martin Luther states, "We here are of the conviction that the papacy is the seat of the true and real Antichrist ...Personally I declare that I owe the Pope no other obedience than that to Antichrist." (Aug. 18, 1520) Taken from The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, Vol. 2., p. 121 by Froom. (In response to a papal bull ): "I despise and attack it, as impious, false. ...It is Christ Himself who is condemned therein. ...I rejoice in having to bear such ills for the best of causes. Already I feel greater liberty in my heart; for at last I know that the pope is antichrist, and that his throne is that of Satan himself." – D'Aubigné, b. 6, ch. 9.
See Luther, Smalcald Articles, Article four Archived 2008-10-10 at the Wayback Machine
John Wesley speaking of the office of the Papacy he said, "He is in an emphatical sense, the Man of Sin, as he increases all manner of sin above measure. And he is, too, properly styled the Son of Perdition, as he has caused the death of numberless multitudes, both of his opposers and followers... He it is...that exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped...claiming the highest power, and highest honour...claiming the prerogatives which belong to God alone." Taken from Antichrist and His Ten Kingdoms by John Wesley, p. 110.
"Chapter 24. Babylon the Great – Dispensational Truth – Study Resources". Blue Letter Bible. Retrieved 2020-08-25.
1689 London Baptist Confession – Chapter 26: Of the Church. The Lord Jesus Christ is the Head of the church, in whom, by the appointment of the Father, all power for the calling, institution, order or government of the church, is invested in a supreme and sovereign manner; neither can the Pope of Rome in any sense be head thereof, but is that antichrist, that man of sin, and son of perdition, that exalteth himself in the church against Christ, and all that is called God; whom the Lord shall destroy with the brightness of his coming.
Clarke, Adam. Commentary on the Old Testament Vol IV p. 596.
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White, Ellen G. (1999) . "Enmity Between Man and Satan". The Great Controversy: Between Christ and Satan. The Ellen G. White Estate. p. 581. ISBN 0-8163-1923-5. Retrieved 2006-06-06.
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Carey, Juanita, E. W. Bullinger: A Biography, p. 148, quoting from Bullinger's The Church Epistles.
"Doesn't St. Paul Condemn Celibacy, Fasting and Abstaining From Meat?". Catholic Exchange. 2003-03-04. Retrieved 2012-08-17.
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^ Ludwig, Alan (12 September 2016). "Luther's Catholic Reformation". The Lutheran Witness. When the Lutherans presented the Augsburg Confession before Emperor Charles V in 1530, they carefully showed that each article of faith and practice was true first of all to Holy Scripture, and then also to the teaching of the church fathers and the councils and even the canon law of the Church of Rome. They boldly claim, 'This is about the Sum of our Doctrine, in which, as can be seen, there is nothing that varies from the Scriptures, or from the Church Catholic, or from the Church of Rome as known from its writers' (AC XXI Conclusion 1). The underlying thesis of the Augsburg Confession is that the faith as confessed by Luther and his followers is nothing new, but the true catholic faith, and that their churches represent the true catholic or universal church. In fact, it is actually the Church of Rome that has departed from the ancient faith and practice of the catholic church (see AC XXIII 13, XXVIII 72 and other places).

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