The Secret Tradition, Part 10: Joseph Smith

In 1843, Joseph Smith taught, ?If a man gets the fulness of God, he has to get [it] in the same way that Jesus Christ obtain[ed] it & that was by keeping all the ordinances of the house of the Lord.?[1]  Here Smith suggested that Jesus had undergone the same rites that would be performed in the Nauvoo Temple.  Again, Morton Smith and others have argued that Jesus did perform some kind of higher rite and that such continued to be performed, particularly in late second-century Alexandria.  Such a rite likely had elements in common with rites described in Judeo-Christian apocalypses, mysteries (particularly Eleusis), and Platonism, and pieces of the rite may have had echoes in parts of the Catholic liturgy (particularly baptism) and theurgy.  So if Joseph Smith attempted to piece together this lost rite based on all these elements (apocalypses, mysteries, Plato, Catholic rites, and theurgy),[2] he would have been on the right track.

[1] June 11, 1843, Words of Joseph Smith, 212.

[2] A forthcoming dissertation claims that the endowment had these elements.

The Secret Tradition, Part 9: Theurgy

Here I continue this series that discusses the possibility of a higher rite of initiation in early Christianity that may have had similarities to the apocalypses, the mysteries, and perhaps some Plato.  Clement of Alexandria gave a number of hints in these directions.  Alexandria also gave rise to Neoplatonism and Christian Platonists and Neoplatonists were often in the same circles.  For instance, Plotinus, considered the founder of Neoplatonism, had the same tutor as Origen, a man named Ammonius Saccas.  Furthermore, the Neoplatonists would begin to practice their own secret deifying rite: theurgy.  Dominic O?Meara defines theurgy as ?a process for making man god.?[1]

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What Did You Read on Your Mission?

Ben S.’s post at Times and Seasons about expanding the missionary library and the subsequent discussion made me wonder what other missions were like in terms of what kinds of texts were available.  I ask because there wasn’t a whole lot available in my mission beyond the mission library.  The Work and the Glory  was somewhat popular but even that was eventually discouraged by the mission president.  I heard about Nibley but I wasn’t aware of any missionaries reading him.  Some Skousen made the rounds (tapes and books).  Extra reading material seemed to consist of Mormon Doctrine and Lectures on Faith and a few pamphlets.  Those who wanted to do extra study would study that stuff.  To make it through Talmage was considered a bit of a feat.  Truman Madsen’s Joseph Smith lectures didn’t even circulate on my mission.

I did like to study but focussed on the scripture and Talmage.  I wasn’t too impressed with the Skousen that I got ahold of and I developed the opinion that a lot of the “extra” stuff was problematic (I viewed McConkie in the same light).  My favorite area in terms of reading was my last.  The missionaries had converted a Jehovah’s Witness and he gave them his library of stuff, about 10 books.  I really liked learning about other religions, so that was fun.  Also in that area, we tracked into a Muslim who gave us a book explaining Islam.  I really liked that.  Other than some books my folks sent me for refuting anti-Mormon augments, not much else.

So what did you read on your mission and what was the culture like for passing around texts?  What kinds of texts circulated?  If you read a lot of extra stuff, how did you get a hold of it?

Depression and Missionary Work: Confessions of a Suicidal Would Be Missionary

My apologies to my blogger mates for a post that has nothing to do with Mormon history, but all the talk about missionaries coming home for psychological stuff and mission stories sort of made me want to share this.

My depression problem kicked in at the beginning of my junior year of high school.  I first started noticing it at church (though I didn’t think of it as depression at the time).  I would get very sad and I didn’t know why.  So as I would walk home from church I would try to figure out why I was sad and examine my life to see what was wrong with it.  Doing so I figured that various trivial things were really very important which made me more and more sad.  Over the months I went into a downward spiral.  After school every day I would hide in the bathroom and cry for about an hour (I tried my best to keep all this hidden, boys crying? shameful!).  It got worse and worse and I became more and more fixated on suicide.

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The Secret Tradition, Part 8: The Loss of the Tradition and the Disciplina Arcani

The secret ritual that Jesus used to initiate his followers, argues Morton Smith, may have been ?limited to a few, shut away from the rest by special requirements, and at last quietly forgotten.?[1]  Both Morton Smith and Scott Brown argue that Clement of Alexandria may have taken Secret Mark with him when he fled Alexandria during the Severus persecution of 200 CE.[2]  Origen who was a teenager at the time of the persecution and who may have been Clement?s pupil, says nothing of Secret Mark and had a very different notion of the secret tradition than did Clement.  For Origen, the secret teachings were found hidden in the scriptures?one just had to know how to find them?rather then being a secret initiation.[3]  Since Origen was a teenager when Clement left, he likely would have been too young to be initiated before Clement left, and if Clement took the letter with him, perhaps the higher initiation was no longer performed in Alexandria after Clement left.[4]

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The Secret Tradition, Part 7: Plato

The apostles, said Origen ?saw better than Plato ? what things were to be committed to writing, and how this was to be done, and what was by no means to be written to the multitude, and what was to be expressed in words, and what was not to be so conveyed.?[1] With this statement, Origen seemed to suggest that Christ?s secret teachings had things in common with Platonism.  Platonism was linked to both the apocalypses and the mysteries.  Martha Himmelfarb describes 2 Enoch?s creation description as ?a blend of biblical creation and popular Platonism.?[2]  Of the apocalypses, John Turner says, ?One can scarcely think of a more apt Jewish equivalent to Plato?s description of the intense light of the ultimate Goodness and Beauty awaiting anyone who would risk the ascent out of the cave of illusion.?[3]

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The Secret Tradition, Part 6: The Greek Mysteries

The secret tradition may have been connected to Judeo-Christian apocalypses and the rites described in those texts, but Clement?s Letter to Theodore made numerous allusions to Greek mystery rites, the Eleusinian mysteries in particular.  There were a number of Greek mystery cults that allowed individual to be initiated in the hopes of attaining a better afterlife, the most famous of which was at Eleusis a few miles from Athens.  In the fall, Greeks could perform rites at Eleusis that, according to Cicero, taught people ?how to live in joy, and how to die with better hopes.?[1]

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The Secret Tradition, Part 5: Judeo-Christian Apocalypses

Morton Smith argued that secret Mark suggested an initiation ritual that was an ascent to heaven and that Jesus had undergone the same process.  Knowing exactly what secret things Jesus might have done is highly speculative, but there is evidence for some kind of secret teaching or ritual in early Christianity. Smith argued that the context for the ascent were the Enochian apocalypses particularly 1 and 2 Enoch in which Enoch ascends to heaven and in 2 Enoch he becomes an angel.[1]  1 and 2 Enoch also described Enoch undergoing a heavenly temple liturgy.  Says 2 Enoch,

And the Lord said to Michael: Go and take Enoch from out of his earthly garments, and anoint him with my sweet ointment, and put him into the garments of My glory. And Michael did thus, as the Lord told him. He anointed me, and dressed me, and the appearance of that ointment is more than the great light, and his ointment is like sweet dew, and its smell mild, shining like the sun?s ray, and I looked at myself, and I was like one of his glorious ones.

After this transformation, God then tells Enoch, ?Hear, Enoch, and take in these my words, for not to My angels have I told my secret, and I have not told them their rise, nor my endless realm, nor have they understood my creating, which I tell you today.? God then proceeds to show Enoch the creation.[2]

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The Secret Tradition, Part 4: Evidence of a Ritual

Both Clement?s language in his letter to Theodore and the text of secret Mark that he cites suggest some kind of ritual. Secret Mark?s reference to waiting six days, coming at night, being naked under a linen cloth, and being taught ?the mystery of the Kingdom of God? all suggests a ritual initiation. Clement?s language also suggests a ritual including statement that secret Mark ?would, as a mystagogue, lead the hearers into the innermost sanctuary of that truth hidden by seven veils.? A mystagogue was a person who oversaw Greek mystery rites, a point I?ll discuss in a later post. Clement?s declaration that secret Mark is ?most carefully guarded? in Alexandria ?being read only to those who are being initiated into the great mysteries,? is a pretty explicit reference to ritual language. Clement?s statement about how Mark ?did not divulge the things not to be uttered, nor did he write down the hierophantic teaching of the Lord? also has ritual language: a hierophant was like a mystagogue.

Morton Smith, who found the document and wrote the first book about it, argued that secret Mark suggested that Jesus ?developed his spiritual gift into a technique by which he was able to ascend to the heavens and also to give others the same experience and similar spiritual powers.?

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The Secret Tradition, Part 3: The Debate over the Validity of Clement’s Letter to Theodore

As mentioned in my previous post, Clement’s letter to Theodore has been very controversial and its authenticity has been heavily debated.  Again, I’m not an expert on the topic, but the controversy seems to be over a few particular issues.  The claim that Mark wrote “a more spiritual gospel,” or that Mark had additional information that he intentionally left out is an anathema to the Protestant doctrine of sola scriptura, or the idea that the biblical canon is the complete and total word of God.  Mark’s secret gospel also suggested that Jesus had esoteric teachings, or teachings that were kept hidden from regular believers and reserved for the more spiritually advanced, another idea that Protestants don?t like.  The reference to the young man coming to Jesus by night who was naked underneath a linen cloth suggests some kind of secret ritual (a claim that Morton Smith, the document?s finder, stressed; see my next post); esoteric rituals are another concept that Protestants reject.  As Scott Brown argues, ?Bear in mind that when scholars form opinions on non-canonical gospels they rarely stray from their religious commitments.  Nowhere is this more obvious than in the assessments of longer Mark.?[1]  Finally, Smith made rather wild claims about what the secret ritual might have been like (see my next post), which made the document even more controversial.

What follows is essentially a review of Scott G. Brown, Mark?s Other Gospel: Rethinking Morton Smith?s Controversial Discovery. 

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