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From: jwindley@cheap.cs.utah.edu (Jay Windley)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Mormon temples
Message-ID: <May.9.05.40.06.1993.27468@athos.rutgers.edu>
Date: 9 May 93 09:40:06 GMT
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Organization: University of Utah CS Dept
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mserv@mozart.cc.iup.edu (Mail Server) writes:
| One thing I don't understand is why being sacred should make the
| temple rituals secret.

The "so sacred it's secret" explanation is a bit misleading.  While
there is a profound reverence for the temple endowment, there is no
injunction against discussing the ceremony itself in public.  But
since public discussion is often irreverent, most Mormons would rather
keep silent than have a cherished practice maligned.

But there are certain elements of the ceremony which participants
explicitly covenant not to reveal except in conjunction with the
ceremony itself.

| Granted, the Gnostic "Christians"
| had their secret rituals, but these seem to have been taken entirely
| from pagan pre-Christian mystery religions.

There are other interpretations to Christian history in this matter.
One must recall that most of what we know about the Gnostics was
written by their enemies.  Eusebius claims that Jesus imparted secret
information to Peter, James, and John after His resurrection, and that
those apostles transmitted that information to the rest of the Twelve
(Eusebius, _Historia Ecclesiastica_ II 1:3-4).

Irenaeus claims this information was passed on to the priests and
bishops (_Against Heresies_ IV 33:8), but Eusebius disagrees.  He
claims the secret ceremonies of the Christian church perished with the
apostles.  Interestingly enough, Eusebius refers to the groups which
we today call Gnostics as promulgators of a false gnosis (Eusebius,
op. cit., III, 32:7-8).  His gripe was not that thay professed *a*
gnosis, but that they had the *wrong* one.

Writings dealing with Jesus' post-resurrection teachings emphasize
secrecy -- not so much a concealment as a policy of not teaching
certain things indiscriminately.  In one story, Simon Magus opens a
dialog with Peter on the nature of God.  Peter's response is "You seem
to me not to know what a father and a God is: But I could tell you
both whence souls are, and when and how they were made; but it is not
permitted to me now to disclose these things to you" (_Clementine
Recognitions_ II, 60).  If any one theme underlies the _Recognitions_
it is the idea that certain doctrines are not to be idly taught, but
can be had after a certain level of spiritual maturity is reached.

Now one can approach this and other such evidence in many ways.  I
don't intend that everyone interpret Christian history as I do, but I
believe that evidence exists (favorably interpreted, of course) of
early Christian rites analogous to those practiced by Mormons today.

| Neither New Testament
| Christianity nor Biblical Judaism made a secret of their practices.

But if Judaism and Christianity had such ceremonies, would you expect
to read about them in public documents?  One can search the Book of
Mormon and other Mormon scripture and find almost no information on
temple worship.  Yes, you could establish that Mormons worship in
temples, but you would probably be hard pressed to characterize that
worship.  On that basis, can we conclude that the Bible explains *all*
practices which might have taken place, and that absence of such
descriptions proves they did not exist?

Mormon scholar Dr. Hugh Nibley offers us a list of scriptures from
which I have taken a few:

1. "It is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of
heaven, but to them it is not given" (Matt. 13:11).

2. "All men cannot receive this saying, save they to whom it is given"
(Matt. 19:11).

3. "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them
now" (John 16:12).

4. "The time cometh, when I shall no more speak unto you in proverbs,
but I shall shew you plainly of the Father" (John 16:25).

5. "... unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter"
(1 Cor. 3:1-2).

6. "Many things ... I would not write with paper and ink; but I ...
come unto you and speak face to face" (2 Jn. 1:12).

(Nibley, _Since Cumorah_, pp. 92-94)

Again, these can also be interpreted many different ways.  I believe
they serve to show that not all doctrines which could have been taught
were actually taught openly.

| I have heard that Joseph Smith took the entire
| practice (i.e. both the ritual and the secrecy surrounding the ritual)
| from the Freemasons.  Anybody in the know have any authoritative
| information on whether or not this claim is true?

Historically, Joseph Smith had been adiministering the temple
endowment ceremony for nearly a year before joining the Freemasons.
There is diary evidence which supports a claim that the rite did not
change after Smith became a Mason.  It can be argued that Smith had
ample exposure to Masonic proceedings through the burlesque of his
time and through his brother Hyrum (a Mason), though no specific
connection has yet been established.

My conversations with Masons (with respect to temple rite
transcriptions which have appeared on the net) have led me to believe
that the connection from Masonry to Mormonism is fairly tenuous.  As
our moderator notes, most of what was similar was removed in the
recent revisions to the temple ceremony.  I believe that critics who
charge that Mormon rites were lifted from Freemasonry do not have
adequate knowledge of the rites in question.
-- 
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         Jay Windley  *  University of Utah  *  Salt Lake City
                    jwindley@asylum.cs.utah.edu
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