A Treatise on the "Great Apostasy" (A Latter-Day Saints Teaching)

[Telstar]

This is what I found from Hatch and his reference to Martyr, I, don’t think JM said what Hatch said.

You can read Hatch’s The Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages Upon the Christian Church…Here
And all of Justin Martyr’s First Aplogy…Here

It’s amazing what “years of study needed to disprove the good professor” can produce, if you put your mind to it.

 

[RebeccaJ]

What is this supposed to mean? That I’ve been exposed as not having taken the bait before? I’m sure I’ll trot this quote out again in the future and won’t take the bait then either. Being challenged repeatedly to provide original sources used by the professor to come to his conclusions does not diminish his message. Nothing is preventing you and others from doing the years of study needed to disprove the good professor and reporting back to the good folks at CAF.

No, the quote shows the ignorance that Mormon apologetics has regarding Gnosticism. The gnostics considered their eucharist as the spiritual body and blood of Jesus, because the Gnostic heresy denies that Jesus has or ever had, a body of flesh and blood. It is a belief 180 degrees of transubstantiation.

It would do YOU well to study what you are quoting, rather than rely on what Mormon apologists pick and choose to use in their sophistry.

I recommend you start with “Against Heresies”, by Irenaeus, written between 175AD and 185AD.

 

[LivingWaters7]

What is this supposed to mean? That I’ve been exposed as not having taken the bait before? I’m sure I’ll trot this quote out again in the future and won’t take the bait then either. Being challenged repeatedly to provide original sources used by the professor to come to his conclusions does not diminish his message. Nothing is preventing you and others from doing the years of study needed to disprove the good professor and reporting back to the good folks at CAF.

There is no “bait”. The problem is, you repeatedly bring up this quote, but it seems as if you can find no support for it at all. It is only Edwin Hatch making the claim (and as already been demonstrated, he provides no citation to support it), so I fail to see why we should be convinced by his claim. Can you even come up with anyone else stating that transubstantiation originated with the Gnostics? This should be easy for you to find, since transubstantiation is a core teaching of Catholicism, the largest Christian Church in the world. Or is it only Hatch that knows this?

Further, his claim does not comport with what actually is known about the Gnostics, and it would be very odd for them to believe in transubstantiation with their disdain for matter. Hence why those that actually are aware of Gnostic teachings are amused when you keep bringing this quote up, since it demonstrates that you are just repeating it without any actual understanding of the ancient Gnostics (presumably because it is found in some LDS apologetic resource).

Also, no one is asking you or anyone else to do years of study, to understand ancient languages, etc. Ancient Christian writings are readily available in English. So, why don’t you provide some support for a point that you seem to believe since you keep bringing it up. Unless you aren’t familiar with the ancient Christian milieu, outside of what LDS apologetics tell you?

As has already been demonstrated here, a number of us are already familiar with what the Gnostics believed and taught, and it is because of that familiarity that we are amused when you bring up this quote. Do try to do your own research on the matter.

 

[JaminB123]

Isn’t there a proverb or something about not throwing gnostic stones when living in a gnostic glass house? Theologian Edwin Hatch said the following about the doctrine of transubstantiation:

“it is among the Gnostics that there appears for the first time an attempt to realize the change of the elements to the material body and blood of Christ.” Edwin Hatch, The Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages Upon the Christian Church, p. 308.

Mr. Hatch is entitled to his opinion. His opinion doesn’t surprise one bit since many scholars have made names for themselves by coming up with innovative theories to discredit historic Christianity (one of the latest being the absurd claim that Jesus didn’t exist at all!).

But from a Christian (Catholic, Orthodox, some Protestants, most of Christian history), the idea that the bread and wine becomes the body and blood of Christ is derived from a far more credible source–the holy Gospels and the words of Christ himself. I know that Mormons and many Protestants would claim that Christ was speaking symbolically, but I don’t find this logical given the reaction of his disciples and the subsequent reiteration from Christ. What he said about the eucharist was plain and simple… Hard to believe for some, yes–but plain and simple.

 

[Arandur]

This is what I found from Hatch and his reference to Martyr, I, don’t think JM said what Hatch said.

You can read Hatch’s The Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages Upon the Christian Church…Here
And all of Justin Martyr’s First Aplogy…Here

Thank you for doing the research . I think Hatch illustrates a common, anachronistic problem for Protestants and LDS alike in this quote:

in the procession of torch-bearers chanting
their sacred hymns there is the survival, and in some
cases the galvanized survival, of what I cannot find it in
my heart to call a pagan ceremonial

Communities who have so divorced themselves from Salvation History that they have no continuity, no connection with the true worship of God throughout the ages – including and especially the Hebrew and Jewish practices – tend to be very critical of liturgy, ritual, and sacramentalism.

Of course, hundreds of years of this leaving its imprint on our culture makes it even more difficult for people to understand the past, and what true worship involves and represents throughout human history.

Rather than “pagan ceremonials,” true worship has always involved sacred ritual, deep sacramental symbolism (where the sign breaks forth the reality that it symbolizes). Hebrew/Jewish worship laid out clearly in the Old Testament is filled with this–public, communal ritual act, sacred worship set apart, use of physical, incarnate signs and symbols. Any legitimate ecclesia of the One True God would continue to bear these marks.

After the Incarnation of the Son, we should only expect the physical aspects of worship to deepen in meaning. Now God not only declares His Creation to be “good,” and not only works through the physical repeatedly in miracles, but He also has entered into our physical reality Himself. The physical is now not only the instrument of the Creator, but made intensely more sacred by the Incarnation.

It is this Incarnational, sacramental reality that so clearly must condemn every Gnostic diminution of matter, for God did the very opposite in Christ Jesus. However, those Gnostic holdovers, that apparent human desire to elevate the spiritual to the detriment and rejection of the physical, still deeply infects most non-Catholic, non-Orthodox thought.

It certainly is a strong strain throughout Protestantism, Evangelicalism, and Restoration movements. And I think it’s one of the main impediments to understanding the importance of the Liturgy, the Eucharist, the Sacraments, the Saints – in sum, the fullness of Christian Communion and Worship in Spirit and Truth that Jesus instituted in His Holy Church.

So we get, via misplaced zeal, a characterization of liturgy, Sacraments and sacramentals, etc. as at least “man-made” if not “pagan ceremonialism” when in fact we are seeing (and should expect to see) a continuity of worship of the One True God with His people from all times–and well enshrined in Salvation History and Scripture.