The Great Apostasy

ps. I added a lot more from stuff I found that fills in what Laurel taught

When Larry Lawrence was mission president in Russia, he asked her to teach a gospel doctrine class to the missionaries once a week. She loved doing that and decided to ask the missionaries if there was something they would really like to understand better. One thing requested was the Great Apostasy. She found from talking to them that it wasn’t really ever taught in Seminary or Sunday School or Mutual, and hadn’t ever been taught clearly to them in Family Home Evening. Now they had to teach it to their contacts but didn’t feel that they had a full understanding of it.

God established His gospel and commandments with Adam and Eve. Throughout the history of the world, people showed varying degrees of apostasy.

There have been many dispensations throughout the history of the world. The main ones were Adam, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and then Jesus and His Apostles. The last dispensation is called by Paul as the dispensation of the fulnessof times “ in which the Lord will “gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth” (Eph. 1:10). The fulness of times is the final dispensation and began with the revelation of the gospel to Joseph Smith.” (bible dictionary)

In between each dispensation, there was a period of apostasy. “When individuals or groups of people turn away from the principles of the gospel, they are in a state of apostasy.”  (Gospel dictionary)

The Great Apostasy, however, was the first time that key principles, and the authority to lead Christ’s Church were completely lost.

During that time, the organization of Christ’s original Church was changed, doctrines were reinterpreted, and certain truths recorded in the holy scriptures were altered or lost. As a result, many manmade factions of Christianity arose, each claiming its own leadership and doctrinal interpretations.

Death of apostles:

Peter – requested to be crucified upside down so that his death would not be the equal of Jesus.

Andrew – Roman proconsul Aegeates tried to convince him to forsake Christianity so that he would not have to torture and execute him. When that didn’t work he decided to give Andrew the full treatment. He was scourged and then tied rather than nailed to a cross so that he would suffer for a longer time before dying. He lived on the cross 2 days during which he preached to passersby.

James, sone of Zebedee, was killed with a sword. When he was arrested and led to placeof execution, his unnamed accuser was moved by his courage. He not only repented and converted on the spot, but asked to be executed alongside James. The Roman executioners obliged, and both men were beheaded simultaneously.

John: John was the only one of the original disciples not to die a violent death. Instead, he was granted to live forever to continue to teach and do the Lord’s work.

Philip was scourged, thrown into prison, and crucified in 54 AD.

Bartholomew  In one account, “impatient idolaters” beat Bartholomew and then crucified him, while in another, he was skinned alive and then beheaded 

Thomas was martyred him by running him through with a spear. 

Matthew: According to legend, the former tax collector turned missionary was martyred in Ethiopia, where he was supposedly stabbed in the back by an swordsman sent by King Hertacus, after he criticized the king’s morals. 

James (son of Alphaeus, AKA James the Less)  was one of the longest-lived apostles, perhaps exceeded only by John. At the age of 94, he was beaten and stoned by persecutors, and then killed him by hitting him in the head with a club. 

Thaddaeus, AKA Lebbaeus, Judas or Jude: According to several stories, he was crucified at Edessa.
Simon the Canaanite AKA the Zealot: was crucified in 74 AD.

Judas Iscariot hanged himself.   

Steven was stoned to death.

After the deaths of the Savior and His Apostles, men corrupted the principles of the gospel and made unauthorized changes in Church organization and priesthood ordinances. Because of this widespread apostasy, the Lord withdrew the authority of the priesthood from the earth.

In the Joseph Smith’s day, the word “great” was defined in the dictionary as meaning big, larg, or long.

After Christ’s death, Peter and his counselors – James and John, presided over the Church, headquartered in Jerusalem. 10 to 15 years later the Jewish leaders were persecuting them so much that they had to scatter to save their own lives. This scattering enabled taking the Gospel to all of the known world. Someone (I forgot who) said “The blood of martyrs is the seed of the Church.” Brigham Young said of persecution, “You can only kick us up.” All bad publicity turns to our good.

Before His death, Jesus commanded the apostles to go and teach all nations. The early apostles were successful in taking it to all the world, even without a printing press or airplanes! The population of the known world was about 300 million people.

Anyway it was the Jews who were persecuting the Christians. The Romans were very tolerant of them and did many things that aided the missionary effort. For example, they built 50,000 miles of highway – 29 major highways which went to Arabia, Persia, China, etc. The early apostles covered all of the known world. Another thing that helped was that Greek was the official language in the Roman Empire; all the apostles knew Greek, so teaching was much easier.

Much of what we know comes from the writer Eusebius. The church quotes him frequently as he has been found as the most correct and best substantiated information.

·         In Colossians Paul said, 23 If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled, and benot moved away from the hope of the gospel, which ye have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven; whereof I Paul am made a minister;

Paul felt he had truly fulfilled his assignment to take the Gospel to all.

So the Romans left the Christians alone until about 64AD while Nero was emperor. He had zero tolerance for the Christians. He was openly gay who lusted after wealth. Facts on Nero:

Nero’s father died when he was 2.

His mother, Agrippina the Younger, arranged the death of her 2^nd husband, then married Claudius, the emperor. Nero took his familiar name when he was adopted at age 13 (by his great-uncle) the emperor Claudius

Nero’s mother was the driving force behind her son’s adoption. She arranged for Nero to wed Claudius’ daughter Octavia in 53AD.

At 17 Nero ascended to the throne after Agrippina fed poisoned mushrooms to Claudius, causing his sudden death in 54AD

Trying to get out from his mother’s domineering shadow, he arranged her death. There was a failed attempt to drown her in a collapsible boat, so he had her stabbed to death.

Claudius’ son, Brittanicus soon died under dubious circumstances

Claudius’ daughter, the empress Octavia was exiled and executed, and in 62

Nero and Poppaea were married but three years later, in “a casual outburst of rage,” he killed her with a single kick to her belly.

He loved playing the lyre. But mostly he loved money. It was always suspected that Nero started a fire to clear land for an expanded palace complex on the Palatine. The fire quickly spread throughout the city, burning for nine days, Several classical sources place Nero on the roof of his palace during the fire, dressed in stage garb and singing from the Greek epic “The Sack of Ilium.”

Nero, Nero deflected rumors by blaming the Christian religion for the fire. He ordered all manner of creative and brutal persecutions: Some were condemned to be dressed in animal skins and torn apart by dogs, while others were burned to death in nighttime pyres that provided light for the emperor’s garden parties.

Nero exhausted the Roman treasury rebuilding the city around his 100-acre Domus Aurea (“Golden House”) palace complex. At its center he commissioned a 100-foot-tall bronze statue of himself, the Colossus Neronis.

In 65 a high-level conspiracy to assassinate the emperor emerged, leading Nero to order the deaths of a prefect and several senators and officers. The emperor’s old advisor Seneca was caught up in the affair and forced to commit suicide.

Eventually he committed suicide.

But the Romans got great sport from torturing Christians. During this time it was illegal to be Christian in the whole Roman Empire. Christians had to meet in secret. They would give each other a sign – the sign of the fish, to know who to trust.

The apostasy was not caused by persecution. It came about by problems of iniquity within; of false doctrine and sin.

There was also a great apostasy in the Americas. Because of pride the church fell and was taken from the earth.

The epistles that the apostles wrote were to try to combat the sins that were coming into the church. These are the ones that came into the church.

1.      Change of the name of the Church. Jesus called the church, the “Church of Christ”. When Constantine became emperor, he wanted to unite the Christians and Romans. One thing he did was to rename the church, “Catholic” which means “universal” – one church for the whole Roman Empire. When the Church was restored, it was originally called the Church of Christ but later Joseph Smith received a revelation that Jesus wanted it to be distinguished from His early Church.

2.      The Priesthood authority was taken from the earth. As leaders were killed, and others were too sinful, there was nobody left to confer the Priesthood to. John was left as the only Priesthood holder on the earth.

3.      Lay ministry was changed to paid ministry – Priestcraft

4.      As Isaiah fortold,the ordinances were changed.

a.       Baptism by emersion was changed to sprinkling, beginning with an old man who wanted to be baptized right before he died so all his sins would be forgiven and he could die clean. Then they realized how much simpler it was and it became popular.

b.      Blessing of babies was changed to Christening/baptism of babies.

c.       The Sacrament was taught as transubstantiation – that the bread and water actually turned to Christ’s body and blood as you took it.

d.      Eternal marriage – the Church began to teach the virtue of celibacy throughout life.

 Revelation stopped

6.      Only the clergy were allowed to read scriptures. Then they changed the scriptures to only Latin so no regular people could read them.

7.      Beautiful doctrines were lost, like the Plan of Salvation, doctrine of pre-mortality. The doctrine of Theosis, which means we can become like God. Now only the Russian Orthodox Church and LDS Church believe this.

8.      The cross became the symbol of Christianity about 306 AD when Constantine claimed to hae seen a vision with a lighted cross and a sign that said, “under this sign ye shall conquer”. Roman soldiers began to wear crosses. It became popular to be Christian when the Christians were given special advantages. Then people who didn’t really believe began to profess to be Christian so they could have those advantages.

9.      Teachings of the Godhead – 3 in one. They taught that 1 + 1 + 1 = 1.

10.  Constantine did not like that when he asked a religious question he got lots of different answers, so he decided to create the Nicene Council. He gathered leaders and spent months in council to create the Nicene Creed. That’s when people stopped believing in a loving, personal God and the Dark Ages began. 325 AD to the 1400s.

11.  The Gospel could not be restored until there was a place for religious freedom and a printing press.

God did not reinstate His authority for hundreds of years. This apostasy lasted until Heavenly Father and His Beloved Son appeared to Joseph Smith in 1820 and initiated the restoration of the fulness of the gospel. We can be sure that no matter what comes out in the church, we can believe because of the promise that God will not allow the prophet to lead us astray.