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From: psyrobtw@ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu (Robert Weiss)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Mormon temples
Message-ID: <May.11.02.36.48.1993.28093@athos.rutgers.edu>
Date: 11 May 93 06:36:49 GMT
Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu
Organization: University at Buffalo
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Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu

In article <May.9.05.40.06.1993.27468@athos.rutgers.edu>, 
jwindley@cheap.cs.utah.edu (Jay Windley) writes...

[...]

>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).

This is curious. I read in _EH_...

"The Lord imparted the gift of knowledge to James the Just, to John 
and Peter after his resurrection, these delivered it to the rest of 
the apostles, and they to the seventy, of whom Barnabas was one."
			 
			--- Eusebius, _Ecclesiastical History_

It seems that the Lord imparted the gift of knowledge, not that the
Lord imparted secret information.

[...]

>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.

I'm afraid that I cannot find this portrayal in _EH_. 
I don't see anywhere in 3:32:7-8 where Eusebius mentions that certain 
gnostics had the wrong gnosis.

The closest is when Eusebius summarizes Hegesippus' statements, 
"...whilst if there were any at all, that attempted to pervert 
the sound doctrine of the saving gospel, they were yet skulking 
in dark retreats..."

>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.

"Favorably interpreted?" Just in looking at two of the four 
references that you gave (I have the _EH_ handy, Irenaeus and the 
_Clemetine Recognitions_ I will have to look for) I see no room for 
such 'interpretations.'

And any such 'interpretation' still falls short of an equivalence to 
the Temple Ceremonies. 

The links for Jay's using _EH_ for support are: "imparting the gift 
of knowledge" = "imparted secret information" = "being given secret 
signs and tokens to gain entrance to heaven."  But there is not
enough equivalence between the the ideas for us to be able to call 
this "favorable interpretation."  It appears to be closer to 
"fabrication."

=============================
Robert Weiss
psyrobtw@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu
