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The Circumference of the Apostleship

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The Circumference of the Apostleship Brigham Young University BYU ScholarsArchive Faculty Publications 2011-01-01 The Circumference of the Apostleship Richard Bennett [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/facpub Part of the Catholic Studies Commons, and the History of Christianity Commons BYU ScholarsArchive Citation Bennett, Richard, "The Circumference of the Apostleship" (2011). Faculty Publications. 819. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/facpub/819 This Peer-Reviewed Article is brought to you for free and open access by BYU ScholarsArchive. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of BYU ScholarsArchive. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. “The Circumference of the Apostleship” (Given at the Church History Symposium, Feb. 26, 2010, BYU) In Robert Bolt’s classic drama, “A Man for All Seasons,” when pressed by the Duke of Norfolk about the reasonability of the Roman Catholic claim to priesthood legitimacy, the ever principled and incomparable Thomas More and England’s most stout defender of the Holy Catholic faith, responded with unflinching conviction: “The Apostolic Succession of the Pope is — Why, it’s a theory yes; you can’t see it; can’t touch it; it’s a theory. But what matters to me is not whether it’s true or not but I believe it to be true, or rather not that I believe it, but that I believe it . I trust I make myself obscure?”1 My intention today is to talk of the restoration of the Melchizedek Priesthood. Of course, only Latter-day Saints believe in this modern-day miracle and one must realize that expecting others to believe in such a thing would first require a conversion to the Gospel of the Restoration as we see and understand it. For those unacquainted with the miraculous, or who are unprepared to accept angelic visitations, all these things are in the field of mere speculation and pure fantasy. Likewise, our friends in other Christian faiths, most notably those of the noble Roman Catholic persuasion, will consider such talk uncomfortable and certainly antithetical to a central tenet of their faith – the apostolic succession since St. Peter.. It takes time and preparation and faith to believe, as I do, that Christ as God called as his apostles Peter, James and John, let alone to accept the uniquely Mormon doctrine that they were instrumental in restoring lost priesthood authority and the attendant keys in these latter days.. The specific details of this event are admittedly difficult to ferret out. In Joseph Smith’s 1832 history he did mention “the reception of the Holy Priesthood by the ministering of angels” 1Robert Bolt, A Man for All Seasons. A Play of Sir Thomas More. (Toronto: Bellhaven House,1960), p. 53. but offered no other specifics. In his official history of 1838, he did say that John the Baptist “acted under the direction of Peter, James and John who held the keys of the Priesthood of Melchizedek, which Priesthood he said would in due time be conferred on us.” In this same account he did, however, offer a clue to his silence on the matter: “In the meantime we were forced to keep secret the circumstances of having received the Priesthood and our having been baptized, owing to spirit of persecution which had already been manifested in the neighborhood.” 2 Considering the intense persecution that followed his telling of the First Vision story, such reluctance may be understandable. Harder to comprehend is the fact the Lucy Mack Smith said little about it in her writings, nor did David Whitmer or arguably William E. McLellin. As Michael Quinn has argued, Whitmer said that he never heard “of such a thing as an angel ordaining them until I got into Ohio about the year 1834 – or later” and purportedly concluded that “I do not believe that John the Baptist ever ordained Joseph and Oliver as stated and believed by some.”3 William E. McLellin, who like David Whitmer, later left the Church, said “In 1831 I heard Joseph tell his experiences about angel visits many times, and about finding the plates, and their contents coming to light . But I never heard one word of John the Baptist, or of Peter, James and John’s visit and ordination till I was told some year afterward in Ohio.” 4 Quinn has even argued that Brigham Young later as president of the Church stated that Joseph Smith “received the Melchizedek Priesthood” after the Church was organized.5 2History of the Church, 1:40, 43-44. 3David Whitmer Interviews by Zenos H. Gurley, 14 January 1885. As cited in Quinn, Mormon Hierarchy, p. 19. 4William E. McLellin statement. As cited in Quinn, Mormon Hierarchy, p. 19. 5Journal of Discourses, 10:303. As cited in Quinn, Mormon Hierarchy, p. 26. It has also been argued, by Hiram Page and others, that Joseph Smith was merely “a prophet,” rather than “the prophet,” that at first “nearly everyone regarded Smith as a prophet among prophets, not as the prophet.”6 Certainly David Whitmer later seemed to arrive at such a conclusion, perhaps to justify his own awkward position of leaving the Church. Furthermore, he and others argued that the term “apostle” as used in the very early days of the Church, was not an administrative office but a term suggesting a charismatic calling and that it was used for those who had received special manifestations of the spirit – David Whitmer, John Whitmer, Ziba Peterson, etc., and that they felt comfortable in laying claim to the title of “apostle” (small “a”), independent of any ordination or Priesthood setting apart.7 Unless additional information is discovered, we simply do not know precisely when or where this Priesthood was restored. Until that time, reputable scholars of good intent will probably continue to defend alternative positions while those who harbor malice towards the Church will persist in arguing that such a manifestation never occurred, that it was a later contrived construct to justify the legitimacy of priesthood claim by later leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Be that as it may, my purpose today is to re-examine what we do know about this remarkable event in Church history and to present my persuasion that whatever the contrary positions may be, the second witness of the Restoration, Oliver Cowdery, and very many members of the original Quorum of the Twelve certainly believed a) that the vision of Peter, James and John was a reality; b) that the gift of the Holy Ghost could not have been conferred without prior Melchizedek Priesthood restoration; c) that such authority had to have been 6Quinn, Mormon Hierarchy, p. 8. 7Quinn, Mormon Hierarchy, pp. 10-12. restored before the Church was organized at Fayette, New York on 6 April 1830; and finally, and perhaps most importantly, d) that more then mere Priesthood, the visit of Peter, James and John included the restoration of priesthood keys, that Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery were ordained to the office of Apostle (capital “A”) before the Quorum of the Twelve had even been organized, and that by right of such ordination, Joseph Smith laid claim to the right of President of the Church, thereby establishing very early on the pattern of apostolic succession. “The Blindness That Had Happened” One cannot discuss the restoration of priesthood authority without first reviewing what early missionaries said about the apostasy. With the Church still in its infancy, many of its newest converts sought to spread the word while at the same time gather to Zion. Jonathan Crosby, for instance, prayed that, “the Lord would rend the heavens and come down, and remove the darkness which covers the earth, and gross darkness the minds of the people.”8 Among the doctrines these earliest converts preached, the apostasy was prominent, if not paramount.9 These included the loss of truth, resultant false religion, the absence of authority, and the scattering of Israel. The early missionaries spoke of the apostasy in very strident tones. They taught that it was a reality, long prophesied and now fulfilled, that the Christian world had lost its way, the 8 Evening and Morning Star, August 1834, 2:24:181. Letter from Jonathan Crosby , Jr. 9 Of 16 missionaries who served in the period from 1830 to 1834, according to their diaries 75% of them taught various elements of the apostasy. These included Calvin Beebe, Jonathan Crosby, Jr., Peter Dustin, William Draper, William Huntington, Joseph G. Hovey Orson Hyde, Joel Hills Johnson, Wandle Mace, William E. McLellin, John Murdock, W. W. Phelps, Parley P. Pratt, Samuel H. Smith, Sylvester Smith, and Brigham Young. results of which were spiritually and morally devastating. Wrote Samuel Smith, Joseph’s younger brother: I have written . to prove that the Gentiles have broken the everlasting covenant and that darkness has covered the earth since the days of the Apostles and to show the calamity that is coming upon them and to prove that while in this situation, the Lord was to lift up a standard to the people which should ... come forth to throw light into the minds of the people and to deliver them from the darkness that happened unto them and to show the way of deliverance from the judgments that are coming upon the Gentiles.10 Orson Hyde spoke in 1832 of “the blindness that had happened in consequence of the falling away from the faith that was delivered to the Saints.”11 And Sylvester Smith, writing in May 1833 from his missionary assignment in southern New York state, added the following: …I am sensible that the word will not grow and flourish upon the barren rocks of pride and unbelief, which is almost the only characteristic of the old churches.
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