Posted on 04/06/2002 12:22:31 AM PST by P-Marlowe
Joseph Smith's Sermon On Plurality of Gods
(as printed in History of the Church, Vol. 6, p. 473-479)
SERMON BY THE PROPHET—THE CHRISTIAN GODHEAD—PLURALITY OF GODS. Meeting in the Grove, east of the Temple, June 16, 1844.
Prayer by Bishop Newel K. Whitney.
Choir sang, "Mortals Awake."
President Joseph Smith read the 3rd chapter of Revelation, and took for his text 1st chapter, 6th verse—"And hath made us kings and priests unto God and His Father: to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
It is altogether correct in the translation. Now, you know that of late some malicious and corrupt men have sprung up and apostatized from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and they declare that the Prophet believes in a plurality of Gods, and, lo and behold! we have discovered a very great secret, they cry—"The Prophet says there are many Gods, and this proves that he has fallen."
It has been my intention for a long time to take up this subject and lay it clearly before the people, and show what my faith is in relation to this interesting matter. I have contemplated the saying of Jesus (Luke 17th chapter, 26th verse)—"And as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of Man." And if it does rain, I'll preach this doctrine, for the truth shall be preached.
I will preach on the plurality of Gods. I have selected this text for that express purpose. I wish to declare I have always and in all congregations when I have preached on the subject of the Deity, it has been the plurality of Gods. It has been preached by the Elders for fifteen years.
I have always declared God to be a distinct personage, Jesus Christ a separate and distinct personage from God the Father, and that the Holy Ghost was a distinct personage and a Spirit: and these three constitute three distinct personages and three Gods. If this is in accordance with the New Testament, lo and behold! we have three Gods anyhow, and they are plural: and who can contradict it!
Our text says "And hath made us kings and priests unto God and His Father." The Apostles have discovered that there were Gods above, for Paul says God was the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. My object was to preach the scriptures, and preach the doctrine they contain, there being a God above, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. I am bold to declare I have taught all the strong doctrines publicly. and always teach stronger doctrines in public than in private.
John was one of the men, and apostles declare they were made kings and priests unto God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It reads just so in the Revelation. Hence, the doctrine of a plurality of Gods is as prominent in the Bible as any other doctrine. It is all over the face of the Bible. It stands beyond the power of controversy. A wayfaring man, though a fool, need not err therein.
Paul says there are Gods many and Lords many. I want to set it forth in a plain and simple manner; but to us there is but one God—that is pertaining to us; and he is in all and through all. But if Joseph Smith says there are Gods many and Lords many, they cry, "Away with him! Crucify him! crucify him!"
Mankind verily say that the scriptures are with them. Search the scriptures, for they testify of things that these apostates would gravely pronounce blasphemy. Paul, if Joseph Smith is a blasphemer. you are. I say there are Gods many and Lords many, but to us only one, and we are to be in subjection to that one, and no man can limit the bounds or the eternal existence of eternal time. Hath he beheld the eternal world, and is he authorized to say that there is only one God? He makes himself a fool if he thinks or says so, and there is an end of his career or progress in knowledge. He cannot obtain all knowledge, for he has sealed up the gate to it.
Some say I do not interpret the scripture the same as they do. They say it means the heathen's gods. Paul says there are Gods many and Lords many; and that makes a plurality of Gods. in spite of the whims of all men. Without a revelation, I am not going to give them the knowledge of the God of heaven. You know and I testify that Paul had no allusion to the heathen gods. I have it from God, and get over it if you can. I have a witness of the Holy Ghost, and a testimony that Paul had no allusion to the heathen gods in the text. I will show from the Hebrew Bible that I am correct, and the first word shows a plurality of Gods; and I want the apostates and learned men to come here and prove to the contrary, if they can. An unlearned boy must give you a little Hebrew. Berosheit baurau Eloheim ait aushamayeen vehau auraits, rendered by King James' translators, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." I want to analyze the word Berosheit. Rosh, the head; Sheit, a grammatical termination, The Baith was not originally put there when the inspired man wrote it, but it has been since added by an old Jew. Baurau signifies to bring forth; Eloheim is from the word Eloi, God, in the singular number; and by adding the word heim, it renders it Gods. It read first, "In the beginning the head of the Gods brought forth the Gods," or, as others have translated it, "The head of the Gods called the Gods together." I want to show a little learning as well as other fools—
A little learning is a dangerous thing.
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring,
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us up again.
All this confusion among professed translators is for want of drinking another draught.
The head God organized the heavens and the earth. I defy all the world to refute me. In the beginning the heads of the Gods organized the heavens and the earth. Now the learned priests and the people rage, and the heathen imagine a vain thing. If we pursue the Hebrew text further, it reads, "Berosheit baurau Eloheim ait aashamayeen vehau auraits"—"The head one of the Gods said. Let us make a man in our own image." I once asked a learned Jew, "If the Hebrew language compels us to render all words ending in heim in the plural, why not render the first Eloheim plural?" He replied, "That is the rule with few exceptions; but in this case it would ruin the Bible." He acknowledged I was right. I came here to investigate these things precisely as I believe them. Hear and judge for yourselves; and if you go away satisfied, well and good.
In the very beginning the Bible shows there is a plurality of Gods beyond the power of refutation. It is a great subject I am dwelling on. The word Eloheim ought to be in the plural all the way through—Gods. The heads of the Gods appointed one God for us; and when you take [that] view of the subject, it sets one free to see all the beauty, holiness and perfection of the Gods. All I want is to get the simple, naked truth, and the whole truth.
Many men say there is one God; the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost are only one God! I say that is a strange God anyhow—three in one, and one in three! It is a curious organization. "Father, I pray not for the world, but I pray for them which thou hast given me." "Holy Father, keep through Thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one as we are." All are to be crammed into one God, according to sectarianism. It would make the biggest God in all the world. He would be a wonderfully big God—he would be a giant or a monster. I want to read the text to you myself—"I am agreed with the Father and the Father is agreed with me, and we are agreed as one." The Greek shows that it should be agreed. "Father, I pray for them which Thou hast given me out of the world, and not for those alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word, that they all may be agreed, as Thou, Father, art with me, and I with Thee, that they also may be agreed with us," and all come to dwell in unity, and in all the glory and everlasting burnings of the Gods; and then we shall see as we are seen, and be as our God and He as His Father. I want to reason a little on this subject. I learned it by translating the papyrus which is now in my house. I learned a testimony concerning Abraham, and he reasoned concerning the God of heaven. "In order to do that," said he, "suppose we have two facts: that supposes another fact may exist—two men on the earth, one wiser than the other, would logically show that another who is wiser than the wisest may exist. Intelligences exist one above another, so that there is no end to them."
If Abraham reasoned thus—If Jesus Christ was the Son of God, and John discovered that God the Father of Jesus Christ had a Father, you may suppose that He had a Father also. Where was there ever a son without a father? And where was there ever a father without first being a son? Whenever did a tree or anything spring into existence without a progenitor? And everything comes in this way. Paul says that which is earthly is in the likeness of that which is heavenly, Hence if Jesus had a Father, can we not believe that He had a Father also? I despise the idea of being scared to death at such a doctrine, for the Bible is full of it.
I want you to pay particular attention to what I am saying. Jesus said that the Father wrought precisely in the same way as His Father had done before Him. As the Father had done before. He laid down His life, and took it up the same as His Father had done before. He did as He was sent, to lay down His life and take it up again; and then was committed unto Him the keys, &c. I know it is good reasoning.
I have reason to think that the Church is being purged. I saw Satan fall from heaven, and the way they ran was a caution. All these are wonders and marvels in our eyes in these last days. So long as men are under the law of God, they have no fears—they do not scare themselves.
I want to stick to my text, to show that when men open their lips against these truths they do not injure me, but injure themselves. To the law and to the testimony, for these principles are poured out all over the scriptures. When things that are of the greatest importance are passed over by weak-minded men without even a thought, I want to see truth in all its bearings and hug it to my bosom. I believe all that God ever revealed, and I never hear of a man being damned for believing too much; but they are damned for unbelief.
They found fault with Jesus Christ because He said He was the Son of God, and made Himself equal with God. They say of me, like they did of the apostles of old, that I must be put down. What did Jesus say? "Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are Gods? If He called them Gods unto whom the word of God came, and the scriptures cannot be broken, say ye of Him whom the Father had sanctified and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest, because I said I am the Son of God?" It was through Him that they drank of the spiritual rock. Of course He would take the honor to Himself. Jesus, if they were called Gods unto whom the word of God came, why should it be thought blasphemy that I should say I am the son of God?
Oh, poor, blind apostates! did you never think of this before? These are the quotations that the apostates take from the scriptures. They swear that they believe the Bible, the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants and then you will get from them filth, slander, and bogus-makers plenty. One of the apostate Church official members prophesied that Joseph would never preach any more, and yet I am now preaching.
Go and read the vision in the Book of Covenants. There is clearly illustrated glory upon glory—one glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, and a glory of the stars; and as one star differeth from another star in glory, even so do they of the telestial world differ in glory, and every man who reigns in celestial glory is a God to his dominions. By the apostates admitting the testimony of the Doctrine and Covenants, they damn themselves. Paul, what do you say? They impeached Paul [p.478] and all went and left him. Paul had seven churches, and they drove him off from among them; and yet they cannot do it by me. I rejoice in that. My testimony is good.
Paul says, "There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for one star differeth from another star in glory. So is also the resurrection of the dead." They who obtain a glorious resurrection from the dead, are exalted far above principalities, powers, thrones, dominions and angels, and are expressly declared to be heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ, all having eternal power.
The scriptures are a mixture of very strange doctrines to the Christian world, who are blindly led by the blind. I will refer to another scripture. "Now," says God, when He visited Moses in the bush, (Moses was a stammering sort of a boy like me) God said, "Thou shalt be a God unto the children of Israel." God said, "Thou shalt be a God unto Aaron, and he shall be thy spokesman." I believe those Gods that God reveals as Gods to be sons of God, and all can cry, "Abba, Father!" Sons of God who exalt themselves to be Gods, even from before the foundation of the world, and are the only Gods I have a reverence for.
John said he was a king. "And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the Prince of the kings of the earth. Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God, and His Father; to him be glory and dominion forever and ever Amen." Oh, Thou God who art King of kings and Lord of lords, the sectarian world, by their actions, declare, "We cannot believe Thee."
The old Catholic church traditions are worth more than all you have said. Here is a principle of logic that most men have no more sense than to adopt. I will illustrate it by an old apple tree. Here jumps off a branch and says, I am the true tree, and you are corrupt. If the whole tree is corrupt, are not its branches corrupt? If the Catholic religion is a false religion, how can any true religion come out of it? If the Catholic church is bad, how can any good thing come out of it! The character of the old churches have always been slandered by all apostates since the world began.
I testify again, as the Lord lives, God never will acknowledge any traitors or apostates. Any man who will betray the Catholics will betray you; and if he will betray me, he will betray you. All men are liars who say they are of the true Church without the revelations of Jesus Christ and the Priesthood of Melchisedek, which is after the order of the Son of God.
It is in the order of heavenly things that God should always send a new dispensation into the world when men have apostatized from the truth and lost the priesthood; but when men come out and build upon other men's foundations, they do it on their own responsibility, without: authority from God; and when the floods come and the winds blow, their foundations will be found to be sand, and their whole fabric will crumble to dust.
Did I build on any other man's foundation? I have got all the truth which the Christian world possessed, and an independent revelation in the bargain, and God will bear me off triumphant. I will drop this subject. I wish I could speak for three or four hours; but it is not expedient on account of the rain: I would still go on, and show you proof upon proofs; all the Bible is equal in support of this doctrine, one part as another.
Here we deal with flesh and blood,
A resurrected body is of Flesh and Bone.
No one well dwell in the Celestrial kingdom
that do not keep the commandments.
1 Tim. 3: 16
16 And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, freceived up into glory.
JST 1 Tim. 3: 15-16 (Appendix)
16 The pillar and ground of the truth is (and without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness,) God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.
1 Cor. 15
50 Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.
51 Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all asleep, but we shall all be changed
Luke 24
39 Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye dsee me have.
40 And when he had thus spoken, he shewed them his hands and his feet.
41 And while they yet believed not for joy, and wondered, he said unto them, Have ye here any meat?
42 And they gave him a piece of a broiled fish, and of an honeycomb.
43 And he took it, and did eat before them.
44 And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, *which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me.
45 Then opened he their understanding, *that they might understand the scriptures,
46 And said unto them, *Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day:
47 And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.
48 And ye are witnesses of these things.
49 ¶ And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high.
50 ¶ And he led them out as far as to Bethany, and he lifted up his hands, and blessed them.
51 And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven.
52 And they worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy:
53 And were continually in the temple, praising and blessing God. Amen.
*Where are these writting that the Lord is speaking about in the Bible? Matthew, Mark Luke,John did not write about this until many years after Jesus left the earth!
WHERE ARE THOSE SCRIPTURES THAT SHOULD BE CANONIZED THAT JESUS SPOKE ABOUT?
There is a mistaken idea out there often that if a man is a prophet, then God is somehow his servant. The truth is the other way around, the prophet is God's servant. As such, if God has something he wants his servant the prophet to teach or do or whatever, he tells him and it gets done. Outside of that, the man is only acting for himself and is as prone to error as any other man.
In more specific terms, what the General Authorities say at a General Conference or some other time when they are acting as an representative of the Church is taken as doctrine, but outside of that (when they speak at someone's funeral as a friend, when the write a book on their own etc.) they speak only for themselves, not for God.
So, to answer your question, nothing that has come from any of the prophets to the Chruch as doctrine has been backtracked on. Anti's love to try and make it look otherwise, but the priesthood going to the blacks was something that was predicted at least as far back as Brigham Young, likewise with plural marriage, it is still a true doctrine even though we are commanded not practice it at this time.
By our doctrine a plural marriage can only be entered into at God's command, and must be sealed by His authority. When God commanded the practice be suspended, the authority to seal a plural marriage was withdrawn as well, so currently even in nations that allow plural marriage, Mormons must have at most one wife.
The Old Testement is very clear about God having given many wives to David (and other godly men), so yes, there is a scriptural basis for it.
Didn't I already tell you in another thread that there is no such doctrine as 'celstial sex'? There is no revelation on how spirits are created, only that God was the creator of them.
Oh brother. The Danites were a creation of total fiction by a 18th century novelist.
As for mountain medows, it's true that some members did terrible things that day, but they did it on their own initiative and the chruch is not responsible for what they did. Interesting that you should bring it up however, a lead plate was recently found with writing engraved on it that claimed to be proof that the church did have a hand in it, but it was quickly proved to be a fake.
Depends just what you mean by that. Adam was a spirit child of Heavenly Father, as we all were, but he did not have the power and the glory of the Father. In Eden, he had no memory of his former life (same as us). In all, he was as much of a god as we were then. We do belive however that Adam repented, was forgiven and lived a faithfull life after Eden and has since entered into the Celstial kingdom, and perhaps that is what was reffered to.
Before he took the fruit, he couldn't tell good from evil either, so we don't call what he did a sin, but a transgretion. Much like when you tell a toddler to not do something and they do it anyway. They just aren't at the point where they can be held accountable for their choices yet.
When you think of it, Adam was put in a tough spot. Eve ate, and if he kept the commandment to not eat, he would break the commandment to have children since Eve was going to get the boot and he would be left alone. He had to pick to keep one commandment or the other.
I think that what Joseph says himself covers what the Bible says about it quite well in his sermon.
Kind of pointless. The Adam/God theory was never Church doctrine. At best you could argue that some Chruch leaders held it as an opinion, but that is meaningless when it comes to trying to determine the truth of their calling (see my post #162)
Guess what, your parents had SEX! Do you think that is a shamefull thing? Do you feel it somehow taints you? Are saying there is something inherently bad about an intimate relationship between a husband and wife? Marriage is ordained of God, and sex within the bounds of marriage is nothing to be ashamed of, and there is nothing ungodly about it. Why does the idea of continuing the close relationship of husband and wife in heaven offend you? To demean what is ordained of God as 'fleshy delights' is more from ancient Greek philosphy and Victorian repression than from scripture.
I've deliberatly set aside the doctrinal problems of what you said because I just don't understand this attidude you display.
The God I worship does not promise that if I follow his rules that someday I will be his equal and that I will be a God like him.
I notice that you and everyone else have conveniently ignored my post #158 demonstrating the fact that the early church fathers taught exactly that. That was merely a sample. Would you like to see more?
Can you deny they taught it?
Can you deny that modern non-LDS scholars have confirmed they taught it?
If you reject it you are only rejecting original Christianity.
I am certain that if you read those documents IN CONTEXT that any such doctrine was ever taught. Show me the original quotes with the paragraph before and after each of those statements and we can all judge for ourselves. don't just quote sentences out of context.
Thanks.
Bingo! Read D&C 132. The revelation basically tells Emma to 'like it or lump it'... either accept the other wives or suffer destruction. Yet she is to be faithful to Joseph alone. As the church lady would say... "How conveeenient!"
Modern scholars also confirm that it was taught. I'll share just a couple references with you that can be found at http://jefflindsay.com/LDSFAQ/FQ_theosis.shtml.
For example, there is Father Jordan Vajda, a Dominican Catholic Priest who completed his master's thesis in 1998 at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. His thesis, "'Partakers of the Divine Nature': A Comparative Analysis of Patristic and Mormon Doctrines of Divinization," argues that LDS theology is surprisingly consistent with early Christian thought. Here are two excerpts cited by Daniel C. Petersen. The first is from the beginning of the thesis:
Members of the LDS Church will discover that their fundamental belief about human salvation and potential is not unique of a Mormon invention. Latin Catholics and Protestants will learn of a doctrine that, while relatively foreign to their ears, is nevertheless part of the heritage of the undivided Catholic Church of the first millennium. Members of Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches will discover on the American continent an amazing parallel to their own belief that salvation in Christ involves our becoming "partakers of the divine nature." (p. 14)Then, referring to the anti-Mormon propaganda of Ed Decker in the "God Makers," Father Vajda states:
T]he Mormons are truly "godmakers": as the [LDS] doctrine of exaltation explains, the fullness of human salvation means "becoming a god." Yet what was meant to be a term of ridicule has turned out to be a term of approbation, for the witness of the Greek Fathers of the Church . . . is that they also believed that salvation meant "becoming a god."The German Protestant church historian, Ernst Benz, speaks of this doctrine as a Christian doctrine, and says:It seems that if one's soteriology cannot accommodate a doctrine of human divinization, then it has at least implicitly, if not explicitly, rejected the heritage of the early Christian church and departed from the faith of first millennium Christianity.
(pp. 94-95)
"One can think what one wants of this doctrine of progressive deification, but one thing is certain: with this anthropology Joseph Smith is closer to the view of man held by the Ancient Church than the precursors of the Augustinian doctrine of original sin were, who considered the thought of such a substantial connection between God and man as the heresy, par excellence."Westminster Dictionary of Christian Theology from the article titled "Deification":
(Ernst W. Benz, "Imago Dei: Man in the Image of God)
Deification (Greek theosis) is for Orthodoxy the goal of every Christian. Man, according to the Bible, is 'made in the image and likeness of God'.... It is possible for man to become like God, to become deified, to become god by grace. This doctrine is based on many passages of both OT and NT (e.g., Ps. 82 (81).6; II Peter 1.4) and it is essentially the teaching both of St. Paul, though he tends to use the language of filial adoption (cf. Rom. 8:9-17; Gal. 4:5-7) and the Fourth Gospel (cf. 17.21-23).The language of II Peter is taken up by St Irenaeus, in his famous phrase, 'if the Word has been made man, it is so men may be made gods' (Adv. Haer V, Pref.), and become the standard in Greek theology. In the fourth century St Athanasius repeats Irenaeus almost word for word, and in the fifth century St Cyril of Alexandria says that we shall become sons 'by participation' (Greek methexis). Deification is the central idea in the spirituality of St Maximus the Confessor, for whom the doctrine is the corollary of the Incarnation: 'Deification, briefly, is the encompassing and fulfillment of all times and ages',... and St Symeon the New Theologian at the end of the tenth century writes, 'He who is God by nature converses with those whom he has made gods by grace, as a friend converses with his friends, face to face.'...
Finally, it should be noted that deification does not mean absorption into God, since the deified creature remains itself and distinct. It is the whole human being, body and soul, who is transfigured in the Spirit into the likeness of the divine nature, and deification is the goal of every Christian."
(Symeon Lash, "Deification," The Westminster Dictionary of Christian Theology, ed. Alan Richardson and John Bowden, Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1983, pp. 147-148.)
Correct.
There is a heavenly mother-- with polygamy perhaps thousands. Is that not correct?
There is a Heavenly Mother, but nothing is known except that she exists.
We must assume that the heavenly mother is a personage of flesh and bone, correct?
It seems a reasonable assumption, but it's still an assumption, not a doctrine.
In the "spirit world" they procreate and have spirit children, is that not correct?
No, the spirit world is the place where the spirits of those who have died go to await judgement. Those who never had a chance to accept the gosple on earth will have a chance there. I think you mean the pre-existance, which is a state of being, not a location.
Anyway, we teach God is the creator (Father) of our spirits, but there is no doctrine or revelation on how this is accomplished and it is not justified to assume it is sexual. We also belive in becoming spiritualy reborn of Christ, and that certainly isn't something sexual.
The ultimate reward of a good mormon is to achieve the chance to procreate spirit children in the afterlife. Is that not correct?
And also fulfill the duty to love them and raise them and as God and done for us. Could there be a greater miracle than this, to take such a flawed mortal and save them and shape them into something like Himself? Do you doubt his power to do it? Do you think that following in His steps somehow diminishes Him? My father was very happy when I progressed to the point of being a good father, he did not feel threatened or diminished by becomeing a grandfather. Do you think God is so petty that he would feel differently?
Now if I recall correctly Brigham Young taught that this procreation process was the same in heaven as it is on earth. Is this not correct?
Refference please. I don't think that is doctrine. Even if it is I don't have a problem with that. I don't see having and raising a family as a lust-driven dirty deed.
then the implication of aspiration to "fleshly" delights, as opposed to "spiritual" delights is there.
The fact that I had sex with my wife and produced children from it in no way prevents me from recieving the spiritual delights of fatherhood.
So, disagreeing with you is proof of heresy? Just how do you know for certain that you are not unintentionaly a heretic?
I am certain that if you read those documents IN CONTEXT that any such doctrine was ever taught. Show me the original quotes with the paragraph before and after each of those statements and we can all judge for ourselves. don't just quote sentences out of context.
Why not go check it yourself. If they are taken out of context then you will have something to crow about.
Note that you may have a little trouble finding the one from Clement of Alexandria if you use my reference. There are different translations and different organizations of some of these texts. The version at ccel.org/fathers2/... is found under the title "Exhortation to the Heathens" in Chapter 1, about the 12 paragraph down (search for "learn from").
Just thought I'd save you some trouble since I know you're anxious to look them up.
Did you just get those quotes out of some book, or did you really take a look at them and read them in context?
BTW I don't really care what the early church fathers taught. If their teachings conflict with the clear statments of the bible, then their teachings are heretical. Period.
BTW will you admit that at least one of us is worshiping a false god?
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